324 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 176. 



be for sprouts, as the previous labor of sowing and handling 

 is avoided, and, besides this, the seedlings take up valuable 

 room while growing. 



Notes. 



The double Potentillas, which are now profusely blooming 

 in all shades of orange and red, are showy plants. The 

 flowers last a long time after they are cut as well as on the 

 plants. 



Four factories have filed applications in California for boun- 

 ties on sugar production from beets. One of these, known as 

 the China beet factory, has 4,000 acres planted in beets, and it 

 is expected that the sugar yield will be 5,000,000 pounds. 



Mr. Edwin Lonsdale writes to the American Florist of a new 

 Rose, a sport from American Beauty, which differs in color 

 from its parent, being a much lighter and more lively pink. 

 The flower becomes lighter with age, but does not show a 

 tendency to the purple shade so often assumed by an off- 

 colored American Beauty. The sport originated with Mr. 

 John Burton, of Philadelphia, and he has just planted a house 

 with the stock for winter-flowering. 



One of the most beautiful of climbers is the so-called Prairie 

 Rose {Rosa setigera), which is now covered with flowers after 

 the general Rose display is over. This plant is much more 

 beautiful than the double varieties. It is a free grower, and 

 will cover easily a hundred square feet of trellis with its bold, 

 healthy foliage, which is as clean and free from fungi and in- 

 sects as that of Rosa ricgosa. The large rose-colored flowers, 

 with conspicuous clusters of yellow stamens, come in 

 corymbs and keep opening one after another for several days. 



Monsieur Pasteur long ago expressed the opinion that the 

 bouquet and special qualities of certain wines are due to their 

 particular ferment. This view is supported by Monsieur 

 Jacquemin, who reports some experiments in which he en- 

 deavored to impart flavor to barley wine by making it from 

 wort leavened with special ferments of wines of delicate 

 flavor, and found that the sugar- water, in which the ferment was 

 kept, obtained the exact flavor of the various wines used, such 

 as Champagne or Burgundy. He also imparted the flavor of 

 apples and pears by using their ferment in barley wort. 

 The cultivation of particular microbes to furnish any given 

 bouquet to fermented liquors is now in order. It may be, in 

 the future of wine-making, that the quality of the ferment will be 

 considered of more consequence than the quality of the grape. 



Agricultural Science contains an account of some European 

 experiments which seem to show that the copper salts so gen- 

 erally used against fungal diseases of the Grape and other 

 plants may be hurtful to vegetation. Certain cereal Grains and 

 Grasses planted in pots were watered with pure water and 

 with water containing copper salts in different proportions, 

 and the dry matter in the harvested plants decreased regu- 

 larly as the copper salts increased. It was found that the lime 

 and potash in the soil, where copper sulphate was used, formed 

 soluble sulphates, which were washed into the subsoil, while 

 the copper oxide remained at the surface to poison the roots 

 of the plants. The addition of lime to the Bordeaux mixture, 

 of course, lessens the danger of such deterioration. If it is 

 true, as now stated, that weaker solutions of copper salts than 

 those now used are effective as fungicides, the strength should 

 be reduced for other reasons than that of economy. 



At the Convention of Nurserymen recently held at Minneapo- 

 lis, Mr. J. V. Cotta said that the breeding of a race of Apple-trees 

 from seeds gathered from the hardiest known varieties to the 

 manner born was possible, but it would require a generation 

 before these hardy trees, which yielded late-keeping fruit of 

 good quality, could be produced. He had practiced another 

 method. Under this system varieties too tender for the north- 

 west, when grown by root-grafting or budding, could be pro- 

 duced so that they would endure climatic adversities two or 

 three hundred miles farther north than their profitable range 

 under the old method. This way is to top-graft them, standard- 

 high, on perfectly hardy, free-growing, congenial stocks which 

 have been previously grown by root-grafting ; or, in other 

 words, the plan is to double-work the trees. He has practiced 

 this for nine years with entire satisfaction. Of course, double- 

 working means double expense, and often more, but with his 

 present experience he would no more think of planting an 

 orchard of root-grafted or of budded trees of a less hardy 

 strain than the Duchess, even in northern Illinois, than he 

 would of attempting to grow Figs or Oranges there as a com- 

 mercial venture. In the spring of 1883 he found his root- 

 grafted trees, with a few exceptions, such as the Duchess and 



some Crab-apples, almost ruined, while top-grafted and double- 

 worked trees of the same sort came out sound to the tip. 



A private letter from our correspondent, Monsieur Charles 

 Naudin, written at Antibes, informs us that the beautiful So- 

 phora secundiflcra, a small tree of western Texas and northern 

 Mexico, introduced into Europe a few years ago through the 

 Arnold Arboretum, has flowered this year for the first time 

 (probably in Europe) in the gardens of the Villa Thuret, and 

 is now ripening its fruit. Among other recent introductions 

 from North America now flourishing in these gardens are 

 Isoineris arborea, introduced in 1881, and now flowering and 

 producing fruit abundantly every year ; Pinus cembroides, Hi- 

 coria myristiciformis, Juglans Califomica, Prosopis juliflora, 

 P. pubescens, Buuiclia lycioides, introduced in 1880, and now 

 flowering and fruiting every year, Dasylirion quadrangular e, 

 Lupinus arboreus, Leuccena pulverulenta. This last, if it suc- 

 ceeds as well as it does on the banks of the lower Rio 

 Grande, promises to be one of the best shade and ornamental 

 trees that have been planted in southern Europe. Curiously 

 enough, as we learn from our correspondent, Olneya Tseota, 

 the beautiful leguminous tree from Arizona and Sonora, can- 

 not be induced to grow, although the seeds germinate freely 

 enough at Antibes ; the seedlings soon become sickly and 

 perish. The same is true, of Pinckneya pubens, which has 

 been tried on several different occasions af Antibes without 

 success. Three large plants of Yucca filifera (see Garden 

 and Forest, vol. i., pp. 78 and 79) were flowering at Antibes on 

 the 20th of June, and had produced panicles more than forty 

 inches long. This, Monsieur Naudin writes, is certainly one 

 of the most important ornamental plants which have been in- 

 troduced into Europe during the present century. 



The Formosa camphor of commerce is obtained from 

 Laurus Camphora, of which immense forests cover many of 

 the lower ranges of hills in the island, extending up the lower 

 slopes of the mountains. Many of these forests have not been 

 invaded, and the statement that the camphor supplies in the 

 southern part of the island are becoming exhausted applies 

 only to those districts which are purely Chinese. The supply 

 from other parts of the island is said to be practically inex- 

 haustible ; and, even in the districts inhabited by the Chinese, 

 it is only in certain places that the supply is falling off in con- 

 sequence of the reckless manner in which the trees have been 

 destroyed, partly for the sake of their timber and for camphor, 

 and partly, probably, to clear the ground for cultivation. It 

 has been stated that the method of obtaining crude camphor 

 in Formosa was by steeping the chopped branches in water 

 and then by boiling them until the camphor begins to adhere 

 to the stick used in stirring, when the liquor is strained and 

 the camphor is allowed to harden. By this method it is not 

 necessary to destroy the tree. It may have prevailed formerly, 

 although it certainly does not at present, the yield of camphor 

 from the branches being too small to repay the cost of extrac- 

 tion. A recent British consular report gives some details of 

 the method now in general use. A tree is selected by an ex- 

 pert, who scrapes into the trunk in different places with an 

 instrument resembling a rake, for the purpose of ascertaining 

 if it contains sufficient camphor to repay the cost of extraction. 

 Trees less than fifty years old do not produce camphor in pay- 

 ing quantities, and the yield varies considerably in individual 

 trees. Sometimes one side only of a tree contains sufficient 

 camphor to make extraction profitable, and, in this case, that 

 side alone is attacked. The trunk is scraped as high as the 

 workman can conveniently reach, and the scrapings are 

 pounded and boiled with water in an iron vessel, over which 

 an earthenware jar, made especially for the purpose, is in- 

 verted. The camphor condenses on the inner surface of the 

 jar, and is removed from time to time. The root of the tree 

 and the trunk, for some eight feet up, contain the greatest 

 quantity of camphor. If the scrapings obtained from the 

 trunk yield well, the chipping is continued until the tree falls. 

 The roots are then grubbed up and the camphor from them 

 extracted. If the scrapings are not sufficiently productive, the 

 tree is abandoned and work is commenced on another. 

 No effort is made to extract the camphor from the fallen trunk 

 or from the branches. In some cases the trunk, however, is 

 sawed into lumber, but this depends on the locality where the 

 tree is growing. In many districts, owing to the want of roads, 

 the timber would not pay the cost of its transport. It is impos- 

 sible to imagine a more wasteful method, and it is fortunate 

 that these camphor forests extend over a large part of the 

 islands. Ten of the iron pots in their accompanying jars make 

 up what is called a " set," and are worked by four men. One 

 set will produce about sixty-five pounds in ten days, but this 

 yield is reached only under the most favorable conditions. 



