December 16, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



593 



partly embedded in it, gave the whole once more the appear- 

 ance of a natural ledge. The spaces between the stones were 

 thickly planted with hardy Cacti, that have flourished for four 

 years with no care, and have annually shown a crop of blos- 

 soms that vie in beauty with any on the grounds. The place 

 is always interesting and never looks bare. 



Again, at one of the finest country places on the north shore 

 of Long Island Sound there is a most attractive summer-house 

 built on a rocky bluff overlooking the water. Before it be- 

 came part of the pleasure-grounds the top of the bluff had 

 been blown off with dynamite, leaving the surface in a raw 

 and shivered condition, which was depressing to the artistic 

 sense. Covered with soil it yielded a little grass in spring, but 

 this soon died, as did every plant and shrub set there. Vines 

 could not reach it, and contrasted with surrounding beauty it 

 seemed more mournful than ever. This almost hopeless spot 

 was at last planted with native Opuntia, which found the situ- 

 ation congenial, and they now cover the entire surface, hang- 

 ing over the edge of the bluff in the most effective manner. 

 Starred with brilliant yellow and orange flowers, the effect is 

 particularly fine when seen against the blue water. A hard 

 gravel path leads to the summer-house, and the whole is so 

 uncommonly attractive that visitors always admire it. 



At another place hardy Cacti and Stone-crop in variety are 

 used to fill some vases of stone and terra cotta on a terrace 

 overlooking an extensive prospect. The situation is such 

 that other plants could not receive proper attention, but these 

 enduring things hold their own, summer and winter, and the 

 weather-beaten old plants have an attraction all their own. 



Cacti are not good playthings for small children, but plants 

 that are often left lying about a greenhouse or garden in sum- 

 mer, objects of no beauty in themselves and a nuisance to 

 everybody who comes in contact with them, could often be 

 grouped about a rock or some barren spot, and thus be made 

 one of the admired features of a place. Like Orchids, Cacti 

 must be studied to be appreciated. If we attempt to grow and 

 arrange them like Roses we shall fail. They are not strictly 

 greenhouse-plants, and forcing often fails. They are the de- 

 light of people with moderate appliances and little time to 

 spare for the garden. A light, warm, dry cellar or room, 

 where an even temperature can be maintained through the 

 winter, and all the exposure we can give them in summer, will 

 enable us to keep almost all tropical kinds, while those native 

 to the northern states want but one planting and a chance to 

 grow. They can be moved at any season when the ground 

 can be broken. The monstrosities produced by grafting and 

 mutilation are fit only for people fond of freaks, and not to be 

 considered in serious landscape-work. _ 



New York. John De Wolf. 



New or Little-known Plants. 

 Viburnum tomentosum. 



THE Japanese Snow Ball, Viburnum plicatum, as it is 

 called in gardens, is now one of the best known 

 and most highly prized of the Japanese shrubs com- 

 monly cultivated in this country. It is one of the garden 

 forms of Viburnum tomentosum, a species widely distrib- 

 uted through China and Japan, whose portrait is published 

 on page 594 of this issue. Viburnum tomentosum is a 

 handsome plant, with foliage very similar to that of Vi- 

 burnum plicatum, but the flowers, instead of being all 

 sterile, are mostly perfect, with a few large pure white 

 sterile flowers on the margin of the broad flat cymes 

 which resemble in general appearance those of the famil- 

 iar Viburnum Opulus. 



Viburnum tomentosum, although botanists have known it 

 for more than a century, appears not to have been much 

 cultivated outside of its native country, and I do not remem- 

 ber to have seen it in any European collection, although 

 the name appears in the catalogue of the plants in the 

 Arboretum Segrezianum. It seems, however, that it has 

 been in this country for a number of years, and I received 

 last spring specimens from Mr. E. Williams Hervey, of New 

 Bedford, Massachusetts, from a plant which had been 

 growing for many years in Mrs. Edward Haskell's garden 

 in that city, and also from Mr. John Robinson, of Salem, 

 whose plant, originally purchased from Ellwanger& Barry, 

 the Rochester nurserymen, is now twelve feet high and 

 eight feet through the branches. An illustration of this 

 plant in bloom appears on page 595, and shows how com- 



pletely the flower-clusters cover the branches and render 

 it an object of singular beauty. Viburnum tomentosum may 

 be seen, too, in at least two other Salem gardens, and, no 

 doubt, now that attention has been called to it, it will be 

 found to be not uncommon. It is probable that the Jap- 

 anese use the single form as a stock on which to graft 

 the sterile Viburnum plicatum, and that the plants in this 

 country are stocks which have grown at the expense of 

 imported plants of Viburnum plicatum. But in whatever 

 manner it may have first reached the United States the 

 normal form of Viburnum tomentosum is a handsomer 

 plant in every way than its garden variety, just as Vibur- 

 num Opulus is a more beautiful and desirable plant than 

 the Snow Ball, a variety derived from it. 



Our figure is from a drawing made by Mr. Faxon of a 

 specimen for which we are indebted to Mr. Hervey. 



C. S. S. 



Cultural Department. 

 Deterioration of Varieties. 



T S there any such thing as a real deterioration of the varieties 

 *■ of our cultivated fruits ? By this I mean to ask whether, 

 when a new and valuable seedling of any of our cultivated 

 fruits (or even of our wild ones) is produced, we must expect 

 to see it, with the passage of time, lose its desirable qualities, 

 and fall out of cultivation, necessarily, for that reason ? I know 

 that with many growers this view of the subject finds more or 

 less acceptance, and I have held the matter in mind for a long 

 time, subject to the tests of observation and inquiry. 



It is not altogether a bad thing perhaps to live in a hard place 

 to grow something that one ardently desires to grow. On this 

 one point I was rather trapped in coming into north-eastern 

 Vermont from eastern Massachusetts. A kind friend cau- 

 tioned me to look out in regard to schools, and I settled in an 

 academy town ; but nobody hinted to me that there were 

 places in New England where the common tree-fruits of the 

 country could not be made to endure the winter's cold. For a 

 while, buying the hardy varieties of the nurserymen's lists, I 

 paid careful heed to the advice of our best books in regard to 

 more or less tender kinds. These were, chiefly, not to grow 

 them on too rapidly, and to cut back severely. Well, I fol- 

 lowed the advice, and a few of the many sorts I was trying 

 lived along "at a poor dying rate," bore a little poor fruit, and 

 succumbed to the first test winter. I supposed this to be all 

 in the order of nature and circumstance, until my kind friends, 

 Mr. Goodale, of Maine, and Mr. Manning, of Massachusetts, 

 respectively, sent me trees of Oldenburgh and Tetof sky. When 

 these got fairly under way I found no need whatever to starve 

 or to cut back. They grew according to their own sweet will, 

 barring a little gentle guidance, and soon were loaded with 

 abundant fruitage. Even the extra-hardy Talman Sweet, 

 Fameuse, Yellow Bellfiower and Red Astrachan of the cata- 

 logues had shown their inability to stand our highland tem- 

 peratures ; and this experience with the last-named had pre- 

 vented me from having much faith in the alleged superior 

 hardiness of the Russian Apples. But since then I have 

 learned that, though Astrachan is a part of Russia, it is the 

 extreme southern part, with winters little, if any, more cold 

 than those of southern New England. It is only in central 

 Russia, or about the latitude of Voronesh and Riga, that the 

 true iron-clad tree-fruits of Russia are found. 



Now, further observation has instructed me that there are 

 other causes, besides extreme cold, which affect some varie- 

 ties severely and others in the same place not at all. " Yel- 

 lows " is not known, or is very little known, as a disease of 

 the Peach in our southern states. The blight of the Apple- 

 tree on the black prairie soils of Illinois and Iowa is a most 

 destructive disease — as prohibitory in its effects as the severe 

 cold of our northern mountains in regard to many varieties. 

 Black-spotting of valuable apples, like Fameuse and its 

 seedlings, is not remarked to a great extent in suitable locali- 

 ties. Fameuse Sucree, for instance, or Mcintosh Red, I can 

 get from ninety miles away, near the St. Lawrence River, quite 

 free from spotting, but I cannot grow them so. The weaken- 

 ing of the vitality of these trees by our greater cold, though it 

 does not kill them, so affects them that they do not resist their 

 fungous foe. I hear from many places in middle and south- 

 ern Maine, where I have distributed cions of these excellent 

 dessert apples, that they grow quite fair, and are likely to 

 prove valuable acquisitions, worthy of extensive planting. 



Now, reflecting on all these facts and taking full account of 



