624 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 201. 



ceded the whites with their own rude arts of fruit-growing is 

 interesting. The first orchard planted by the Six Nations, 

 probably by the Sixth Nation, or Tuscaroras, anticipated the 

 work of missionary Kirkland by about seventy-five years. 

 The chief matter of lament is that we have not more minute 

 records of the trees, the apples and the uses made of them. 

 But we have at least one sort, and it should be kept as a his- 

 toric landmark. If others have data either to corroborate or 

 add to controvert my opinion, I shall be glad to know it. I 

 believe no tree of the original Indian orchard remains. I hope 

 to sustain in life one or more of the trees planted by Kirkland 

 until the close of this century. That will make them one hun- 

 dred and nine or ten years old. 



Those who know the abundance of rich berries in all wild 

 sections will not wonder that the Indians never saw any ad- 

 vantage in growing them in gardens. The Plum was their 

 best large fruit, and was enormously abundant on all the river- 

 banks and forest-edges. 



Clinton, N. Y. E. P. Powell. 



Notes. 



Dandelions are blooming to-day on many of the lawns in 

 this city and its suburbs. 



In his Plantes Potageres, M. Vilmorin figures sixty-six va- 

 rieties of wheat with clearly distinguishable charcteristics ; 

 but in the Agricultural Museum at Poppelsdorf, in Germany, 

 no less than six hundred varieties are exhibited. 



Mr. A. H. Church, in his " Food-grains of India," says that 

 the millets constitute a more important crop in India than 

 either rice or wheat and are grown more extensively, being 

 raised from Madras, in the south, to Rajputana, in the north, 

 occupying, in all, about 30,000,000 acres. 



California during the year just closing has produced a more 

 valuable crop of fruits and vegetables than in any previous one. 

 Some of the statistics of shipments are 30,000,000 pounds of 

 oranges and 78,000,000 pounds of other green fruits, 72,000,000 

 pounds of dried fruits, 47,000,000 pounds of raisins and 78,000,- 

 000 pounds of canned goods. 



Fruit-culture, which is now a very important industry in 

 Bohemia, is said to have been first practiced there on a very 

 large scale at the beginning of the present cenfury by French 

 immigrants who had been driven from their homes by the Rev- 

 olution. The results of their industry and their love of natural 

 beauty are also to be traced in many of the parks which adorn 

 Bohemian towns. 



Colonel Pearson has expressed a fear, in an article prepared 

 for this paper, that the copper mixtures used as fungicides 

 may have a deleterious influence on the soil. Mr. Frank T. 

 Shutt, chemist of the Dominion Experimental Farm, writes to 

 the Canadian Horticulticrist that the copper which reaches the 

 ground from properly conducted spraying is so minute in 

 quantity and insoluble in nature that no fear need be enter- 

 tained that it will poison vegetation. 



At a recent exhibition of the Royal Horticultural Society 

 Baron Schrceder showed a two-flowered plant of the beautiful 

 Cypripediitm insigne, var. Sanderce, which was unanimously 

 awarded a first-class certificate. It differs from all other varie- 

 ties of C. insigne (of which we have about twenty named) in 

 having flowers of a uniform shining, soft yellow color, without 

 spots anywhere, while the upper part of the dorsal sepal is 

 pure white. We may look upon this as the nearest approach 

 to an albino Cypripedium yet discovered. 



One of the most famous and fatal poisons used in Japan, 

 according to the Inland Printer, is obtained from the Bamboo. 

 The young shoots of the cane, when they first push through 

 the ground, are covered with fine, brownish hairs, which, 

 under the microscope, appear to be bayonet-like spikes of 

 crystals of silex, infinitely sharp and hollow. Small quantities 

 of these hairs, administered daily in the food, bring on ulcera- 

 tion of the whole alimentary canal, simulating malignant dys- 

 entery, which eventually causes death. 



In a paper prepared for the American Pomological Society, 

 Professor Massey says that throughout all the coast region and 

 the lower part of the Oak belt of North Carolina, the Fig pro- 

 duces good crops with literally no cultivation. Some attempts 

 are now being made to raise figs for commercial purposes. 

 In Halifax County one grower last year marketed his crop, 

 from five acres of Figs, in a fresh state in strawberry-boxes, 

 and realized a very profitable return. With modern facjiities 



for canning and evaporating, there is no reason why Fig-cul- 

 ture cannot be made profitable in all the coast region of North 

 Carolina. 



The San Francisco correspondent of the New York Tribune 

 recently wrote : *' Allen Kelly, who has just returned from an 

 inspection of the forests of the Sierra Nevada, declares that 

 the only way for the Government to save the timber-lands 

 from destruction is to withhold all mountain timber-lands now 

 unsold and make a series of reservations from Shasta to the 

 new Sequoia Park. All the high Sierras about the Yosemite 

 must be reserved soon or the timber will be ruined. As it is, 

 the timber is becoming so thin on these high plateaus about 

 the Yosemite that the snow melts rapidly, and most of the 

 water-falls in the famous valley are dry by midsummer." 



As an illustration of the general law under which nature 

 seems to avoid hybridizing, Professor Bailey cites the instance 

 of the great genus Carex or Sedge, which occurs in great 

 numbers and many species in almost every locality in New 

 England, and in which the species are particularly adapted to 

 intercrossing by the character of their inflorescence. Even 

 between species of this genus but few undoubted hybrids 

 occur. Among 167 species and prominent varieties inhabit- 

 ing the north-eastern states, there are only nine hybrids re- 

 corded, and all of them are rare or local, some of them having 

 been collected but once. Species of remarkable similarity 

 may grow side by side for years, even intertangled in the 

 same clump, and yet produce no hybrid. 



Writing of Haidarabad, the capital of the Nizam's dominions 

 in the Dekhan, in southern India, Bishop Hurst says, in his 

 recently published "Indika": "The garden of the Nizam is 

 public. ... I never tired of wandering through its labyrinths 

 enjoying its delightful fragrance, and examining die endless 

 variety of its plants. Every art which these cultivators of 

 flowers in India have arrived at by the experience of centuries 

 is here employed, by rich designs in colors, by succession of 

 flowering shrubs, and by a happy combination of large shrubs 

 and the smaller plants. All the more delicate plants are in 

 pots, and need to be watered every day. There are six mil- 

 lions of potted plants alone, to say nothing of the multitude of 

 larger ones." 



According to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Mr. Arras, an engi- 

 neer in the Government service, states " that the beginning of 

 the end has come, so far as the White Oak in Pennsylvania is 

 concerned. The Government lately gave a contract in this city 

 for some square White Oak timber, of a size that a dozen years 

 ago could have been found in the hard-lumber yards hereabout 

 in an hour's time. After a persistent search the contractor 

 threw up his contract, stating that he could not fill it. It was 

 then given to another and, at the end of a fortnight, he re- 

 ported that he had secured all but two pieces, and that they 

 were not to be had. Mr. Arras then got the order modified, 

 and, as changed, it was filled, after all the log-rafts lying in the 

 river had been inspected." 



To a correspondent who inquires which are the best varie- 

 ties of the Carnation to use as house-plants, we would say that 

 there are no varieties which can be classed among good win- 

 dow-plants. The Carnation is nearly hardy, and it loves pure 

 air and a cool temperature too well to be a successful window- 

 plant in the ordinary sense of the term. A temperature no 

 higher than fifty-five degrees is best suited to it at night, and 

 this is cooler than most living-rooms in American houses. 

 The atmosphere is too dry for the healthy development of 

 many plants, and as the Carnation especially rebels against 

 such surroundings, other plants had better be selected. Of 

 course, where there is a sunny window in a cool, well-aired 

 room, some Chrysanthemums will do fairly well. 



Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant sends some interesting extracts 

 from a translation from an Arabic treatise on agriculture and 

 horticulture, which was published in the twelfth century in 

 Seville. From these extracts it appears that in Moorish Spain 

 as early as the twelfth century, of cucurbitous plants alone there 

 were cultivated Cucumbers, Melons, Water Melons, Gourds 

 and Benincasa for food, and the Colocynth was grown for 

 medical purposes. The Pumpkin had not yet appeared. 

 They show also that many varieties of each of these plants 

 were in ordinary use, and these varieties are carefully de- 

 scribed. In the cultural direction it is said that if the seeds of 

 the Melon and Cucumber are soaked in honey the fruit will be 

 of a sweet and pure savor ; if in vinegar, in a certain way they 

 become acid. If Cucumber-seed is soaked in fresh milk the 

 fruit will become sweet. It may be added that this opinion is 

 found also in Latin authors. 



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