WINDFALLS. 



437 



sort of paradise some day for the horticulturist. He 

 says, of the 65,000,000 acres in the state of Colorado, 

 the largest area of continuous fruit lands is found in the 

 Arkansas Valley, having all the conditions of successful 

 fruit growing to an eminent degree. He told us that the 

 Arkansas River was the largest river in the state, and 

 drains seven of the principal counties ; viz. Lake, Chaf- 

 fee, Fremont, Pueblo, Otero, Bent and Prowers. Alti- 

 tude from source to state line ranges from 800 to 3,000 

 feet above sea level. The soil, he says, is rich with 

 plant food, varying from sandy to clay loam, and occa- 

 sionally adobe prevails. Length of valley from source 

 to state line, about 300 miles. Acreage of the valley in 

 arable lands, greater than any other valley of the state. 

 All the way from the . 

 mouth of the canon to the 

 state line is lower in alti- 

 tude than any other valley 

 in the state, being 1,000 

 feet lower than any other 

 point where fruit is pro- 

 duced ; hence, less ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold. 

 Zero weather is known but 

 a few days in winter, and 

 frequently not known dur- 

 ing the year. The doctor 

 says that, in a dollar and 

 cents point of view, or- 

 chard culture must be 

 adopted as the coming in- 

 dustry of the Arkansas 

 Valley. 



January 21 the Pueblo 

 District Horticultural So- 

 ciety held another of their 

 successful monthly meet- 

 ings, with fair attendance. 

 This was their annual 

 meeting, and the following 

 offiicers were elected for 

 1891 ; viz. L. M. Sperry, 

 pres.; E. Brayton, sect'y. 

 The greater pait of the 

 time was spent in the dis- 

 cussion of the feasibility of 

 establishing a canning factory at Pueblo. The sense of 

 the meeting appeared to be that it was just what is 

 needed and must be had, and that it would be worth more 

 to Pueblo county than the large smelters now located 

 here, or at least, this was the opinion of a certain mem- 

 ber. Red cedar is the most common wood used for fuel, 

 or more properly, for kindling coal fires (coal being the 

 principal fuel here). The pinon, or nut pine (I'linis 

 edtt/is), comes next to cedar, and is claimed by many to 

 be the best wood for fuel on earth ; being very resinous, 

 it produces intense heat. These two trees constitute 

 perhaps nine-tenths of all the wood used for fuel in 

 Pueblo. $3-50 per cord is about the usual price for 



M. V. Lemoine, 



either sort. This native wocd is fast disappearing, and 

 nothing is done to preserve it, or to replace it when gone. 

 Of the many charming conifers indigenous to Colorado, 

 my favorite is the Douglas spruce {Abies Doiig/asii), 

 "the noblest Roman of them all," with bark in some 

 instances twelve inches thick ; is it any wonder that i* is 

 perfectly adapted to this sunny clime ? It is the giant 

 of the Rockies. ' ' A tree is known by its coat, " the same 

 as "any other man." 



March 18, I attended another meeting of the Society. 

 The sense of the meeting was, that if low-headed trees 

 were better for the great steppes of central Russia, and 

 the prairies of Dakota and Minnesota, then they must be 

 preferable for the plains of Colorado. The bush form 

 was supposed to be the 

 cheapest and best way of 

 i guarding against sun scald. 



The extreme heat at Denver 

 — from a monthly meteoro- 

 logical record of 19 years — 

 shows only one instance 

 where the thermometer was 

 105° in the shade; but 

 this is hot enough to serious- 

 ly injure almost any bearing 

 apple tree that has been 

 pruned up four or five feet, 

 and allowed to lean slightly 

 to the northeast. Ever- 

 greens have been seriously 

 and contemptuously let 

 alone in Colorado, with no 

 plausible reason for such 

 neglect. There are some 14 

 species of the pine family 

 indigenous to Colorado, 

 which, for beauty, are not 

 excelled in the United 

 States. — Sam Bucus. 



M. V. Lemoine. — There 

 is scarcely a garden in the 

 civilized world that does not 

 contain a witness of the work 

 of Lemoine. Mr. Lemoine 

 was borne at Delme in 1823. 

 In 1851 he settled in Nancy, 

 after having studied at Vic, with Bauman in Bollwiller, 

 Van Houtte in Ghent and with Mueller in Lille. In 

 1852 he obtained double portulacas. In 1854 he ob- 

 tained double potentillas, and introduced the Gloire de 

 Nancy. In 1859 he succeeded in intercrossing the genus 

 streptocarpus and obtained a series of plants, among 

 which was .S". Injiorus, var. polyanllius, which is still 

 grown. In 1862 he crossed the monochcetum, a genus 

 somewhat neglected, and also introduced Spiraa callosa 

 var. a Ilia. In 1864 he introduced Clematis lanuginosa 

 var. nivea. In 1865 he sent ou\. Hydratigea panictilata 

 var. gyandijlora, and the double scarlet zonal pelargon- 

 ium Gloire de Nancy, jjln 1867 he exhibited in Paris the 



