BUDS, BLOSSOMS. FRUITS. 



367 



they are hard and brittle, not absorbing moisture, as the 

 true large limas do when green or dry. The beans and 

 pods of Willow Leaf are larger than those of Henderson 

 Bush Lima, and being held up by wires, they suffer less 

 from rain when left upon the vines too long. The Wil- 

 low Leaf is the most productive bean I have ever known. 

 Twenty ounces of seed on 210 yards of row yielded 300 

 pounds of perfect seed and 25 pounds of beans nipped 

 by frost. Planted on the 



same day with Henderson f «.» ^ 



Bush lima, the Willow Leaf 

 will give beans for the table 

 quite as early. In this sec- 

 tion, pickers will work cheer- ! 

 fully and continuously upon 

 rows of Willow Leaf, but 

 after cotton-picking begins 



will not pick the Henderson ; 

 bean at any price. I do not 

 use poles, except as supports 

 for strong overhead and bot- 

 tom wires, which again hold 1 

 the small wires or strings on -f 

 which the vines climb. The [ a 



flavor of the Willow Leaf is ■ 

 quite equal to that of Hen- 

 der son's bean. — A. W. 

 Smith, Ccoi-,(;ia. \ • 



That Elm that Refused 

 to Die. — (Page 209.) I have 1 

 learned, by practical obser- f Ji^ 

 vation and experience, thai L V 'k, 



the death of a girdled tree 'j 

 does not necessarily imme- 

 diately follow the operation 

 of girdling ; though it must 

 after a time, if the work was 

 thoroughly done. The oper- 

 ation may appear to 

 be thorough when it 

 is not, as when by 

 reason of previous 

 injuries there may 

 exist folds of liber v 

 that have been pro- 

 duced by overgrown i 

 scars, thus forming internal ': 

 connections that may indefi- 

 nitely support life. Often j:; 

 small fibers of bark are not > 

 severed by girdling, in which 

 case an external layer, ridge /• 

 or bridge will soon form and - - 

 greatly extend the life of the 

 tree. The bark may be en- 

 tirely stripped off for a space of many inches or even of 

 feet, during the period of exuberant early summer growth, 

 but if the cambium be not thoroughly removed, nature 

 will completely rebark the tree, especially if it be of cer- 



GiRDLED Pink. 



tain species, like the Uhniis . I mer/cana (white elm), that 

 are known to have great vital force and tenacity of life. 

 The girdling of a tree, if the bark is removed and ths 

 cambium not allowed to bridge over the wound dur- 

 ing a seasen of exuberant growth, will result in its 

 death. The tree does not die immediately, because life 

 is sustained through the pores of the alburnum or white 

 wood. It does not enlarge below the girdle, while above, 

 the cambium layer is arrested like water above a dam, 

 thus enlarging the tree with an additional layer of albur- 

 num for each consecutive season that the tree survives. 

 Trees like the basswood (tilia), white elm and gam 

 (nyssa), with a large amount of alburnum, will survive 

 the effects of girdling longer than such as have a smaller 

 p.'oportion. This is owing to the fact that the circulat- 

 ing pores are closed by the drying process, and until this 

 arrests the upward flow of sap, life though enfeebled, is 

 s'ill apparent. If, however, we cut through the albur- 

 num in girdling a tree it dies almost immediately, prov- 

 ing again that the upward flow of sap is through the 

 pores of the whitewood. Now here is the explanation of 

 the prolonged life of the elms referred to. They had 

 either interior folds of bark, or they had rebarked them- 

 selves, as noted in the second instance above, else they 

 must inevitably have died, life slowly yielding to the 

 drying and closing of the pores of the alburnum. The 

 time required for this was exactly in proportion to the 

 thickness of the layer of white wood and the exposure to 

 drying influences, whether rapid or slow. Certainly the 

 same influences must ultimately have killed the Scotch 

 pine tree (referred to on page 758, 1891, and of which I 

 now have the pleasure of sending you a correct photo- 

 graph), but in which case at least two circumstances 

 conspired together to produce the greatly extended pro- 

 longation of life ; the first, being the resinous and slowly- 

 drying character of the pine sap ; and the second, the 

 fact that the roots of the tree were sustained and kept 

 alive by a whorl of live branches below the point of 

 girdling. The latter condition »ii/s/ t^x/s/ in order to 

 produce a duplicate of this singular specimen, for other- 

 wise the roots would fail and the tree would surely die. — 

 W. H. Rag.^n, Scc\v Ind. Hort. Socicly. 



Collecting Plants for a Wild Garden. — (Page 139.) 

 In a shady portion of our yard we have cultivated, under 

 the limbs of a huge elm, a wild garden that has flourished 

 for nearly 20 years. We find it necessary to keep watch, 

 lest the coarse-growing plants crowd out finer and more 

 delicate ones. Our first expedition is made when the 

 ground is carpeted with the spring beauty( C7ar,i'/'o;na ]'ir^ 

 ha), and from this time until the blossoming of gen- 

 tians in October, the woods are full of spoils. It is not 

 so pleasant to " tramp" amid summer heat and dust, but 

 the woodlands are then full of flowery rewards. Wild 

 roses, corn-flowers, asclepias and bouncing-bets are but 

 a prelude to pond-lilies and cardinal-flowers. Lobelia 

 cardinalis is indeed rich and glowing in color. The 

 owner of a woods-garden will find one of its greatest 

 charms to be the associations connected with the collec- 

 tion of its flowers. — L. G. Patterson. 



