July 15, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



333 



white currants. Those who eat currants will soon learn to 

 prefer the whites. 



Black currants I have mostly discarded as unprofitable for 

 market. One grower, with an acre, can supply the demand 

 of a whole county. Lee's Prolific was heralded as a great 

 advance on Black Naples ; it is but little better. Crandall, 

 a native fruit, is a sprawling grower. It is possible that we 

 shall yet get from this stock, or by crossing, an improvement, 

 but the Crandall, as I know it, can make no claim to superi- 

 ority. 



The currant- worm this year came in constant succession 

 from May 12th to July 1st. Its feeding capacity is enormous. 

 It is possible to kill vast numbers by examining the leaves for 

 eggs before they hatch. The after-remedy is the well-known 

 hellebore, sprayed or sprinkled on as soon as the worms begin. 

 As many as four applications are often needed to keep down 

 the pests. Guinea-hens eat the worms, and the currants too. 

 If the bushes are defoliated one year the buds for the next 

 year are debilitated, and a short crop will be produced. 



The demand for currants has steadily increased with the 

 demand for all other small fruits. After the cherry it is the 

 most wholesome fruit for dyspeptics. It ships well, and it 

 may remain long on the bushes. Unlike the strawberry, and 

 especially the raspberry, it never hurries us. The opening 

 price in market is from eight to ten cents a pound, wholesale. 

 It seldom drops below five. I have this year given up 

 baskets and sent all my currants out in crates. It will become 

 the only method shortly. In the small boxes they are not 

 crushed, and if picked wet they get dry, while in large baskets 

 they mold. 



Clinton, N. Y. 



E. P. Powell. 



Notes from the Harvard Botanic Garden. 



Utricularia Montana. — This charming little " Bladder- 

 wort," first introduced to British gardens through a Mr. Ortgies 

 in 1871, occurs freely in South America and the West Indian 

 islands, being epiphytic on the mossy trunks of trees in the 

 mountainous regions. In cultivation it is usually associated 

 with Orchids, and this fact, with the peculiar structure of the 

 flowers, leads many of the uninitiated to consider it a member 

 of that family. It belongs, however, to quite a different order, 

 Lentibulacece, and, although lacking the brilliant colors found 

 in many Orchids, it is still pretty and interesting. The roots 

 consist of numerous greenish tubers, with fine thread-like 

 white rootlets. The pale green, petiolate, oblong-lanceolate 

 leaves proceed from a cluster of these tubers, and are about 

 six inches long. The scape, almost twice their length, is slen- 

 der, erect, bearing from three to five flowers two inches in 

 diameter, with a calyx of two triangular, cordate lobes, pale 

 green, and corolla two-lipped, the upper one white and semi- 

 circular, the lower white in front and of oval outline, raised 

 and blotched with yellow at the base, with an incurved spur, 

 tapering to a fine point, beneath. The plant blooms at various 

 periods of the year, but most freely during the early summer 

 months. It thrives luxuriantly when suspended from the roof 

 of a stove, close to the glass, in a basket containing crocks, 

 peat and sphagnum in equal mixture, a quantity of the latter 

 being added by way of surface-dressing. Water should be 

 given freely at all seasons, and propagation is readily effected 

 by division of the roots. 



Hymenocallis speciosa and H. ovata. — When seen apart 

 it is rather difficult to state in what particulars one of these 

 plants differs from the other. Both bloomed together at this 

 place recently, giving the opportunity of comparing their char- 

 acters and merits. The latter plant may always be distin- 

 guished from H. speciosa by its leaves ; these are from twelve 

 to eighteen inches in length, oblong, broadly lanceolate, taper- 

 ing to a petiole-like base one-third of their entire length, 

 somewhat leathery, and of a pale, glaucous-green color. 

 Those of the former, on the other hand, are fully six inches 

 longer, oblong, obtuse, the stalk-like base one-half their length, 

 dark green and succulent. The flowers, however, afford the 

 safest means of identification. Those of H. ovata are pedicil- 

 late, while those of H. speciosa are as distinctly sessile. H. 

 ovata flowers the most freely, and should be given the prefer- 

 ence on this account. These plants require stove-treatment, 

 but they should not be dried off as severely as most other 

 bulbous rooted plants. They like rich soil, and, in summer, 

 abundance of water, which may be varied occasionally with 

 advantage by the application of liquid manure. 



Cambridge, Mass. M. Barker. 



Cucumbers. — Whether for pickles or slicing, if triangular in 

 general shape of cross-section, as most of them are, the sides 



should be concave outward, instead of convex, the latter 

 shape always indicating a hard and often bitter strip along the 

 centre of each side where the seeds are attached. The fruit 

 should also be nearly the same size throughout its entire 

 length, any depression or seedless neck being indicative of 

 hardness and bitterness of flesh at that point. In pickling 

 cucumbers, the color is a very important point. It should be 

 as deep, and extend as uniformly over the fruit, as possible. 

 Contrary to the usual opinion, we do not think that coarse 

 spines or prickles indicate crispness of flesh, as the most crisp 

 and brittle sort we know of is the Parisian Pickling, in which 

 the spines are exceedingly small. 



Lettuces should be divided into two classes, according to 

 the method of use. If to be served with oil or similar dress- 

 ing, the leaf should be thick, brittle and crisp rather than ten- 

 der, and should have a decided flavor — may even have, when 

 first picked, a decided bitter taste, this disappearing when served. 

 Most lettuces of this class form distinct heads. In the second 

 class, the lettuce is cut up with vinegar, sugar, etc., and here 

 tenderness is the great consideration and outweighs all 

 others. No bitterness is admissible, and, as a rule, there is 

 but little flavor. It is a disadvantage for lettuces of this class 

 to form a distinct cabbage-like head, as the thin tender leaves 

 lose all their crispness and beauty of color when crowded 

 into a dense head. A cluster of large leaves is much more 

 desirable. — Professor W. W. Tracy, before the Michigan Horti- 

 cultural Society. 



Correspondence. 



The Red-flowered Dogwood. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — A correspondent says (page 308) : "There is a variety 

 (of Cornus florida) in cultivation with pink, instead of white, 

 flower-bracts, which is really a handsome plant, although con- 

 siderable prejudice has been created against it by the absurd 

 overcoloring of the bracts, as they appear in illustrations in 

 the sale-lists of nurserymen who are seeking to make a market 

 for it." 



As our firm is responsible for these colored plates, permit 

 us to say that when we received the proofs from Rochester, 

 after our strict caution that nothing should be overwrought, 

 we ourselves imagined they were overcolored. We cut some 

 of the drawings, so that only the colored portions of the flow- 

 ers should remain, and put them on the plants beside the real 

 flowers, and no one could tell which was the painted flower 

 and which was the genuine. This test will hold good to this 

 time. 



In justice to your correspondent, however, it may be said 

 that the tint on transplanted plants, or plants not in vigorous 

 health, is lighter than that on vigorous established specimens, 

 and that, after a flower has been opened a few days, the bracts 

 lose color. We are satisfied that he has seen them much 

 paler than the colored plates represent, but if he will call on 

 us when the plants are in blossom we shall be glad to have 

 him test the pictures with the colors on our plants, and are 

 sure he will acquit us of "absurd overcoloring" afterward. 



Gerrnantown, Pa. Thomas Meehail <&-» SQ1IS. 



The Destruction of the Pines. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — As one reared under the shadow of the eternal Pines, 

 and loving them as only the objects familiar to our childhood 

 are ever loved, as well as one of the great American people 

 who are being defrauded of their birthright, I desire to protest 

 against the wholesale destruction of the Pine-forests now go- 

 ing on all over the country, and particularly in my own state of 

 Georgia. In traveling the other day from Macon to Brunswick 

 I passed through the heart of what was 'once the great Pine 

 region of the state, and, notwithstanding a long and sad expe- 

 rience of the ways of that most destructive of animals, "the 

 great American developer," I was amazed and appalled at the 

 work, not of destruction merely, but of utter annihilation and 

 extinction that has been accomplished within the last twenty 

 years. During the whole distance traversed of nearly 200 

 miles there is not left standing on either side of the railroad, 

 as far as the eye can reach, a single stick of Pine fit for tim- 

 ber; and not only this, but Nature's generous and patient 

 efforts to repair the waste are thwarted by the greed of the 

 turpentine distiller, who comes along and destroys what the 

 axe of the lumberman has left. I saw thousands of acres of 

 saplings, some of them less than five inches in diameter, 



