52 



the new plants mentioned in this list and the supplementary lists which are to 

 follow will have to be judged by the great discriminating public, and will 

 infallibly stand or fall by its verdict, without regard to what the orignator or 

 introducer may see fit to say. 



Photograph Showing Burbaxk Potatoes grown on "Ponderosa " Tomato Plant. 

 (See cut page i, showing result of vice-versa grafting.) 



Botanic Gardens for California. 



" The Pacific Rural Press states that J. B. Armstrong, of Santa Rosa, has donated, in 

 trust, 640 acres for the preservation of the redwood timber land in Sonoma County, and 

 the construction of a botanic garden. The trustees are his daughter, Miss Kate Arm- 

 strong ; E. J. Wickson, of the Rural Press ; Charles Howard vShinn, the bright and intelli- 

 j^ent horticultural writer ; Luther Kurbank, the great experimenter, in hybridization ; and 

 Robert Underwood Johnson, of the Century Magazine. They have accepted the trust. The 

 tract is on the north bank of the Russian River. 



Col. Armstrong, now far advanced in years, has carefully preserved this forest ; not a 

 log of redwood timber has been cut from it since it came into his possession. All that will 

 be done, at present, is to look after the preservation of the redwoods, but the work of the 

 garden will be gone on gradually. It is believed that the garden can be made self-support- 

 ing. Although it has no endowment at present, it is said to be worth $150,000. Col. 

 Armstrong is an Ohio man. He has been for several years the owner and editor of the 

 Santa Rosa Republican. — Meehan' s Monthly. 



What Science Has Done in Agriculture. 



Not only has intensive cultivation taught us how to draw a larger return than formerly 

 from a particular soil and a given surface, but by the selection of seeds we have doubled and 

 tripled the formation of sugar in beet roots ; by like selections, the production of the Potato 

 has been augmented, and we are seeking, with certainty of success, yet more considerable 

 increase in the production of Wheat. No less progress is reached in the production of 

 fruits and vegetables and of cattle, to the daily amelioration of the general condition of the 

 human race. 



This advance has been promoted partly by close acquaintance with the general laws of 

 living nature as revealed by disinterested science — laws which are the essential foundation 

 of every application, and equally and in a way no less worthy of admiration by the efforts 

 of inventors, those men of practical ingenuity, who labor at the same time for the increase 

 of their own fortunes and for the good and profit of mankind. 



P. E. M. Berthelot, in Popular Science Monthly. 



