November 4, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



527 



body has a right to go there. The town owns the ground 

 around several of the old landings, in one case two acres or 

 more. Two of these places are now rented to ship-builders. 

 The streams are said to be carefully guarded from defilement. 

 The town has some interesting places connected with the his- 

 tory of a distinguished family, the Choates. 



Gloucester, with 25,000 people, has no park or common or 

 public holding of any kind that can be used as a place of re- 

 sort. A fragment of beach near the Pavilion Hotel belongs 

 to the city, but it is too small to be of much use. I asked 

 some of the leading men where their people go for band-con- 

 certs or any out-of-door entertainment, and they said, " the 

 band takes the sidewalk, and the people stand in the street." 

 Next year Gloucester will celebrate her 250th anniversary, and 

 her people have already begun their preparations for the event. 

 They wish to establish an appropriate memorial at that time, 

 and somebody has proposed that they endow a factory, so as 

 to furnish work for laborers now unemployed. I urged the 

 need of a park, common, or open space of some kind for pub- 

 lic resort. The effort to establish a memorial of this nature 

 would awaken widespread interest, and would attract the moral 

 support of the Trustees of Public Reservations, of the press 

 of the state, and of all public-spirited citizens. If anybody born 

 in Gloucester has gone away somewhere and got rich, 1 hope 

 he will rememberhisnativecitynow, and help her people estab- 

 lish a Memorial Park. There can be no doubt that the higher 

 interests of the city have suffered loss and injury from the 

 want of any place of public resort. The local journalists are 

 earnestly in favor of the park idea, and the farm adjoining the 

 city, on the shore on the lower side, is admirably adapted to 

 the purpose. It is the site of " The Old Stage Fort." 



I walked entirely around Eastern Point, and found that the 

 Eastern Point Associates have built a lodge at the entrance to 

 their domain, and swung a gate across the carriage-road, with 

 a notice requiring visitors to obtain permission in the lodge. I 

 went on and was not recalled. The gate is intended chiefly, I 

 suppose, to assert the right of exclusive occupancy, and people 

 enter and pass freely, but a picnic party of country-folk would 

 probably be turned back.. There is no public holding along 

 this very attractive shore, and the public has no right whatever 

 even to walk by the sea here. I spent a summer at East 

 Gloucester twenty-five years ago, and where I then passed 

 weeks in solitude on the shore there are now long streets of 

 costly houses. Thus far my quest shows leagues and leagues 

 of shore lands all private holdings, a great population inland 

 hedged away from the beach, and all conditions pointing to a 

 time, not remote, when nobody can walk by the ocean with- 

 out payment of a fee, as formerly we had to pay for a 1 glimpse 

 of Niagara. 



Boston, Mass. /. -o. Harrison. 



Exhibitions. 



United States Nurseries, Short Hills, New Jersey. 



THE fall exhibition of plants and flowers, held at the United 

 States Nurseries by Messrs. Pitcher & Manda, has become 

 an interesting annual feature, much enjoyed by an increasing 

 number of visitors. Extensions are still going on at this nur- 

 sery, and north of the range of which the large Palm-house is 

 the centre the sloping ground has been covered with six 

 ranges of greenhouses some 200 feet long. These houses 

 cover a rising slope with a southern exposure, and they form 

 a striking picture ; and in them, for the first time, Messrs. 

 Pitcher & Manda are able to exhibit Chrysanthemums with 

 justice to themselves, the former show-house being rather 

 small when such free-growing plants as Chrysanthemums are 

 to be shown. 



During the exhibition week, October 26th to October 31st, 

 the upper new range was filled with the new Chrysanthemums 

 which have been selected from the thousands of seedlings of 

 the establishment. Messrs. Pitcher & Manda have adopted 

 the plan of growing their promising seedlings two seasons be- 

 fore offering them to the public for sale, and in the collection 

 shown their best gains were seen, showing probably their fixed 

 character. Their seedlings as thus shown were strikingly ro- 

 bust and well furnished with fine foliage, and mostly of the 

 medium height so much desired by growers. Some single- 

 stem plants were shown which, while taller, were not abnor- 

 mally high. 



Probably the most striking plant shown was W. A. Manda, a 

 yellow hairy kind, well incurved and of a deep rich color. It 

 is a very vigorous grower, but not more so than another seed- 

 ling, the improved Mrs. Hardy, which in this respect is a con- 

 trast to the original. The flower of this variety is of the same 



character as Mrs. Alpheus Hardy, but is much deeper. Mrs 

 E. D. Adams, a large white flower, with an outer swirl of 

 petals somewhat in style of Madame C. Audiguier, was exhib- 

 ited last year in poor form, but it has improved, and is a dis- 

 tinct desirable kind. Of other white kinds, George Savage is a 

 grand incurved of the purest white and of fine form. Miss M. 

 Colgate is a white incurved flower with broader petals and of 

 a creamy tint. Other first-rate white flowers were Mrs. W. S. 

 Kimball, reflexed and of fine form, and two as yet unnamed 

 kinds, 169 and 278, differing, but with very broad petals. Of 

 the colored flowers, Harry May, a massive deep incurved 

 flower of bronze, will charm the lover of single blooms. Of a 

 less massive character is Mr. Hicks Arnold, an incurved yel- 

 low, flecked with red, of fine form. Mr. D. S. Brown is a 

 pleasing flower, lemon-yellow, with broad petals. Dr. Mande- 

 ville is a yellow counterpart to Mrs. E. D. Adams. 



Of the less popular, though attractive, colors were Mrs. Mer- 

 cer, incurved pink, with yellow centre, and an unnamed, No. 

 343, a bright cherry, Japanese, with gold reflex. Numerous 

 striking varieties yet unnamed were to be seen in the house 

 containing this show of remarkable productions. A lower 

 house was filled with a collection of older varieties, many of 

 which were the former offerings of this house. Still another 

 house was filled with the year's seedlings in countless num- 

 bers, and all the varied shapes to be found by the seedling 

 grower. Still another house, closed to the public, was seen to 

 be filled with Chrysanthemums, and probably contained some 

 of Mr. Manda's future surprises. The progress shown here in 

 the successful cultivation of the Chrysanthemum is remarkable. 



In the lower house was a glorious bench, some two hundred 

 feet long and three feet wide, of a fine strain of hybrid-tuber- 

 ous Begonias, both single and double. Few things make a 

 more dazzling display or brighten up a house more than these 

 wonderful flowers, with their pure, clear colors. Here I noted 

 a new Anemone J aponica-elegans , darker than the pink type 

 and with narrower, more frequent petals. The large Palm- 

 house at Pitcher & Manda's is always an attractive sight, ar- 

 ranged as it is somewhat on the plan followed in private places. 

 From this house branch off numerous smaller houses filled 

 with small Palms, Anthuriums, Dracaenas, Marantas, Billber- 

 gias, Nidulariums, and all the various fine greenhouse plants, 

 among which it is a pleasure to loiter. 



The famous Cypripediums have overflowed the large house 

 always devoted to them, and now nearly fill the next range. 

 The rage for these attractive flowers is unabated, and the col- 

 lectors seem destined to have an unending succession of new 

 forms as the new seedlings come into flower. These plants 

 are systematically hybridized here, and a large collection of 

 seedlings in a quiet nook gives promise of some surprises. 

 Among the countless plants in bloom I noted C. insigne 

 Amesiana, the rare variety with a broad white margin to the dor- 

 sal petal and without spots ; C. Schrcederce splendens, C. Micro- 

 chilum, C. tesselatum porphyreum and C. cenanthum su- 

 per bum. I noticed some very fine specimens of C. Spiceri- 

 anum superbum in great masses, one containing sixty flowers. 

 A mass of Orchids in flower greeted one in the next house, 

 Vandas, Cattleyas, Odontoglossums, Oncidiums, Phalaenopsis. 

 A specimen of Vanda Sanderiana shown was said to be unique 

 for size of plant, and could not probably be matched anywhere. 

 This specimen had twenty-five flowers on four spikes. A large 

 specimen of Ltzlia anceps was showing fifteen spikes, and a 

 little later will be a grand sight. 



A unique plant was Ly caste Skinneri, var., with flowers tinted 

 light chocolate. But among so many beautiful and unique 

 things it is vain to particularize. The old show-house contains 

 no flowers, but is packed full on benches and under the roof 

 with some thousands of Cattleya Triance plants. These have 

 probably interested some visitors more than the bountiful 

 flowers in the other houses, for here is a new lot of unbloomed 

 plants lately sent in by the firm's collector, and there is the 

 pleasure to the plant-lover of looking in anticipation on some 

 novelties. I had a look at the hardy plantation to see if pos- 

 sibly any plants still survived the recent hard weather. There 

 were a few small things in good form, Stenactis speciosa, 

 and some new Delphiniums ; but the most striking show 

 was made by the white, large daisy-like flowers of Leucanthe- 

 mum lacustre, though Helianthus Maximiliani was still in 

 good form in another part of the grounds. 



Space will not suffice to dwell further on special plants, but 

 I noticed one exhibit aside from these which will interest ex- 

 hibitors at flower-shows. This was a complete apparatus for 

 staging single blooms for exhibition and known as Bunyard's 

 Standard Exhibitor; in this flowers are perfectly displayed and 

 held at any height with a very ingenious device for labeling 

 varieties. In the former absence of such a contrivance our 



