546 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 195. 



colors being so exquisite and varied, and their forms ele- 

 gant, a few words with regard to their origin may be inter- 

 esting to bulb-growers in America. I have seen these 

 Tulips in Messrs. Krelages' nurseries, and have heard 

 from the venerable chief of the firm himself the history of 

 what he considers to be the most beautiful of all races of 

 Tulips. The name of the race has been given by Messrs. 

 Krelage to commemorate the work of Charles Darwin in 

 the elucidation of the subject of variation and cross-breed- 

 ing in the vegetable kingdom. 



It appears that about thirty years ago a Dutch bulb- 

 grower set to work to produce from a selection of the best 

 breeders of Tulips a fixed race which should differ from 

 those then known. The plants he had to operate upon had 

 been in the possession of his family over a century. About 

 six years ago the Messrs. Krelage purchased the whole of 

 this ancient collection and transferred it to their nursery at 

 Haarlem, where the process of selection and propagation 

 of the best varieties was pushed on in earnest. The result 

 is now a magnificent collection of bulbs ready for distribu- 

 tion by the Haarlem firm. There are hundreds of kinds, be- 

 sides many which have not been named. The cheapest 

 mixed bulbs will be sold at about thirty shillings per hun- 

 dred, while the choicest named sorts are priced at from five 

 to forty shillings each. At Kew there was a small collec- 

 tion of Darwin Tulips in one of the flower-beds last spring. 

 They flowered well, showed great variety in color, and 

 were much admired. They appear to be strong in consti- 

 tution and to grow vigorously in ordinary garden-soil. 



Autumn Leaves. — An exhibition of the most conspicuous 

 among those deciduous trees and shrubs whose leaves as- 

 sume bright colors before falling in autumn was a special 

 feature of the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural So- 

 ciety. The plants exhibited, as well as the excellent lec- 

 ture delivered by Mr. H. Veitch, only emphasized what I 

 said in a letter about this time last year, namely, that 

 beautiful leaf-pictures might be produced by means of 

 autumn tints which would equal in effect the best of 

 pictures produced by flowers. The weather in autumn 

 has considerable influence upon the coloration of leaves, 

 and owing to the absence of frost and prevalence of 

 heavy rains this autumn the leaves are not as bright as 

 usual. Still there are plenty of beautiful leaf-pictures in 

 the garden now. Oaks, Rhus, Vitis, Crataegus, Ribes, 

 Liquidambar Nyssa, Acers and many others are aflame 

 with color. Mr. Veitch drew attention to the beauty of all 

 these, and also pointed out that garden-makers, as a rule, 

 failed almost entirely to take these plants into account. The 

 best of the autumn-colored trees and shrubs in cultivation 

 in England are either of Japanese or North American ori- 

 gin. The rich colors of the leaves of these plants as ex- 

 hibited invested them with a new interest for those who 

 had previously paid no attention to the subject of autumn- 

 colored foliage available for outdoor effects. 



New Chrysanthemums. — The following have received cer- 

 tificates, this week from the Royal Horticultural Society: M. 

 R. Bahaunt — a large incurved variety, broad in petal, full, 

 and of a rich red-brown color; Louis Boehmer — already 

 well" known in America. So far as English experience with 

 it goes, this variety is much superior to its older rival, 

 Mrs. A. Hardy, which has proved one of the very worst 

 growers in England; R. Smith — a bright-colored .sport 

 from Dr. -Sharp, distinct in its larger flowers and bright 

 brown -crimson shade; Mrs. Nisbet — a dwarf reflexed 

 variety scarcely three feet high, with rich claret-crimson 

 flowers, broad petaled and suggesting the flowers of 

 Madame C. Audiguier; William Wells — a bright primrose- 

 colored sport from Madame B. Pigmy. 



Aristolochia gigas. — This is the correct name for the 

 plant figured last year in Garden and Forest as A. grandi- 

 flora and noted this year in almost all the English garden 

 periodicals under the same name. The Kew plant was 

 obtained from Mr. Sturtevant, of Bordentown, New Jersey, 

 last year, and it has been a great attraction here since the 

 beginning of August, having produced altogether about 



fifty flowers, and there are more to come. The largest 

 measured eighteen inches by twenty-two inches, with a 

 tail three feet long. It appears that Lindley figured and 

 described A. gigas in the Botanical Register in 1842 from a 

 plant introduced from Guatemala to Chiswick, where it 

 flowered in 1841. In 1848 a second figure of it was pub- 

 lished in the Botanical Magazine (t. 4368-9) under the name 

 of A. grandiflora. made from a plant supposed to have come 

 from Jamaica. Herein lay the mistake. So far as can be 

 made out at Kew now Lindley's A. gigas has not been 

 found wild in Jamaica or anywhere in the West Indies, 

 and if Purdie found the plant figured in the Botanical Mag- 

 azine in Jamaica it must have been either cultivated or 

 introduced. The species common, in Jamaica and the 

 West Indies is A. grandifloralxwe. This is very similar to if 

 not the same as A. /celens, and has comparatively small 

 flowers, certainly less than a quarter the size of Mr. Sturte- 

 vant's plant ; it also differs in the length and form of the 

 tube, as well as in other structural characters. A. gigas, 

 then, must stand for the Guatemalan plant. But this form 

 of it, for which we are indebted to Mr. Sturtevant, is so very 

 much larger than that figured in the places above referred 

 to, that, for horticultural purposes at any rate, it ought to 

 have a distinctive name. We propose, therefore, to call it 



A. gigas, var. Slurtevanti. Trr TTT , 



Ke* W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 



About Apples. 



A .NATURAL fault in most men of limited experience is 

 to dogmatize by assuming that their experience covers 

 the whole ground. But in any art having to do with plant- 

 growth and culture the variation of a few degrees of latitude, 

 or even of longitude, on the American continent at least, will 

 expose facts as hard and unyielding as rocks, and over which a 

 cart-load of theory can easily be upset. I have been a fruit- 

 grower and observer in the south and west, and in the north 

 and east, long enough to learn that an even moderate change 

 of conditions will modify fundamentally the whole situation 

 and demand, often, a complete reversal of practice. 



As an illustration of this truth it may be stated that while 

 there is no better locality on this continent for the propagation 

 of the Apple-tree than^north-western New York, and while 

 there are no more experienced nurserymen than those of that 

 region in matters of which they have full cognizance, yet 

 there is nothing which excites more bitter scorn among prac- 

 tical orchardists in northern New England and the Canadian 

 provinces than the mention of New York trees. On the other 

 hand, I have never yet met more than one New York nurs- 

 eryman who did not stand ready to overwhelm the very men- 

 tion of the iron-clad varieties with impatient ridicule. I have 

 myself, at least temporarily, lost credit at pomological meet- 

 ings in northern New England by saying that I am as willing 

 to plant New York trees as any, if they are of the right variety. 

 But when I went on to ask exclaiming doubters whether they 

 thought a New York grown Oldenburgh would not stand the 

 winters of northern New England, they were compelled to re- 

 flect a little. Some would say that New York trees are grown 

 too fast by high manuring, and the wood is tender and pithy ; 

 but when it came to close questions they "did not know but 

 Russians and Crabs grown in New York might do well 

 enough." 



Now, in my own experience I have never found that strong- 

 growing trees, well cultivated and attended to on well-enriched 

 land, were any more likely to fail, when properly set out and 

 cultivated, than the gnarled and scrubby trees of local origin. 

 With me, strong, vigorous trees (of the right kinds) reaching 

 the height of four or five feet at three years, and then set out 

 in rich soil and well cared for, have continued to grow on and, 

 contrary to much prophesying, come soon and profusely to 

 bearing, and remain healthy after many years. My orchards 

 have been visited by many experts who can testify to these 

 facts. 



There is, at present, a controversy on the subject of grafting 

 the Apple upon what are called "piece-roots"; and a western 

 nursery which claims to make a specialty of whole-root grafts 

 sends me a circular in which very eminent pomologists— in 

 fact I may say the most eminent, since President Berckmans 

 and Vice-President Lyon of our Continental Pomological Soci- 

 ety are among them — give unqualified assent to the practice. 



