FOREST AND STREAM 
l7o 
this lopdity, there being no less (linn three captured ones in 
my neighborhood. Notwithstanding the .high rates in Pa. I 
should quote the genuine while weasel with black tipped tails 
in our market at one dollar each. Thus it can readily be seen 
that at a reasonable rate for freight between the two points 
there can he a handsome living margin in the white weasel 
enterprise. _ C. L. 
Trig Linnban Society ok New York. — A meeting of the 
society was held on the evening of Saturday, March 30, at 
the residence of Air. N. T. Lawrence. In the absence of Mr. 
C II. Alcrriam, the President's chair was occupied by Air. Her- 
rick. and the Secretary failing to appear, Air. Benner was ap- 
pointed Secy, pro tern. Papers were presented by Air Her- 
rick on "Falcons and Falconry," and by Air. Benner “ On 
the Breeding of Certain Birds about Astoria. L I " while 
Air II. B. Bailey read copious extracts from Robert Collett's 
Catalogue of the Birds of Norway," commenting thereon. 
The literary exercises were of much interest, and were fol- 
lowed by the usual verbal communications and miscellaneous 
business after which the meeting adjourned, several papers 
being left over for next week. 1 
English Pheasants in California.— J. P. Whitney of 
C lW C r°' ]y iui P orted 4 °0 eggs of the English 
pheasant, from which he has succeeded in hatching out some 
60 birds. They are now some four weeks old. He keens 
them in an enclosure 40xG0 feet in area, with a shed at one 
end to which they can retire for seclusion. 
Deformed Teeth. -It. L. N., of Salem. Mass , says • “ No- 
hemg cut as to woodchucks’ teeth, I would remark that in the 
county collection of the Peabody Academy of Science in our 
city, is a woodchuck with upper teeth grown through the lip 
close to its nose. 1 think the specimen is also albino. 
Camels in the Southwest.— The Arizona Miner says : 
"For nearly a year past four camels have been running at 
large in the vicinity of Mineral Park— three old ones and a 
young one. One of the old ones looks to be quite ancient 
and it may he that it is one of the original stock imported from 
Asia many years aso These animals are very gentle A 
few days ago Mr. Knobman was out hunting stock and he 
came across these camels, but his mule objected to an inti- 
mate acquaintance, and commenced bucking. Horses and 
SioK® flre W , . < ! n . ei ? R L ,hc 8i £ ht of ^em. In Nevada and 
Idaho, and I think Alontana, there is a law against using 
these animals in towns or traveling on the roads, as they 
fnehten stock. There seem to be no owners for these camels 
and in time they may increase and become numerous.” ’ 
Apropos of this item is one that recently appeared in the 
Louisville Courier-Journal to the effect that camels are very 
easily raised, and require hut very little care. The females 
are said to produce one young one each year, the colt at first 
being somewhat delicate, but after a day or two it is well able 
to look out for itself. Their food consists almost entirely of 
sage brush and cactus, and they are said to thrive where a 
government mu\e would starve. 
and were much admired. Mr. Maync, gardener to Airs. Alorgan, 
Twenty-sixth street, brought two fine plants of the rare and 
beautiful yellow orchid Cattle y a citrina. Alr.Thoa. Ascot*., Flat- 
bush, Pelargoniums and large Azaleas ; Mr. J. Roehrs, Jersey 
City, a collection of Tulips ; Air. John Henderson, Flushing, 
Lady Blanche Pin/a and Boses, and Air. Jas. Riddle Inwood a 
well grown plant of the beautiful blue Broioallia clata. In cut 
flowers Air. George Such, South Amboy, N. J., as usual took 
the lead with a rich collection including fine sprays of Den- 
drobium nobile, D. thyreijlorum, D. macrophyllum giganteum, 
Anthurium sclurtzerianum , A’ngreecum sesquipedale, some 
splendid sprays of the newer sorts of Azaleas, and Rhododen- 
drons formosum, limbatum, Princess Helene and Vcitchianurn. 
He was closely followed by Air. S. Heushaw, Staten Island, 
who, in adilion to a splendid display of cut flowers, including 
the exceedingly curious Bryophyllum calycinum or life-plant, 
exhibited cucumbers 20 inches in length and mushrooms 
large as saucers. Air. John Jones, Madison, N. J., who in 
well and favorably known as arose grower, showed a speci- 
men of his skill in a group of over twenty sorts that would be 
hard to match by the most extensive growers of this most 
lovely flower, his Cornelia Coo/cs, La Sylphides, Sprunts and 
Bon Silenez being particularly admired. Many other florists 
brought their quota of what they had rare or desirable and 
mnde (he meeting a most enjoyable one. At the close of the 
business part of it Air. Peter Henderson read an essay which 
was listened to with marked interest and attention on 
ARRIVALS AT THB PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN. FAIRMOUNT 
Pare, AraiLS. ISIS.— Two spotted salamanders, S. maculosa. present- 
ed; one Bactraclan camel, C. baetHonus, bom In garden; two alliga- 
tors, A. missmipplcnsU, presented ; one ruffed grouse,- Bonasa umbel. 
lut ‘ Arthub E. Bhbwn, Gen’J Supt. 
Arrivals at tub Zoologioal Gardun Cincinnati, to April 1 
One prairie dog. Cynsmys ludovicianus, born In garden ; one tiger Felis 
tign., deposited by Dells Bros.; one aondad. .1 mmotragus tragel'aphus 
born in garden ; forty Virginian qnall, Ortyx virgin, anus, purchased : 
one ruffed grouse. Tetrao umbcllus, deposited ; three flying squirrels’ 
Scmropterw, rotucclla, presented by J. &J.M. Pfau ; one red-tatled 
hawk-, Buteo borealis, presented by C. A. Gillette; one bald eagle llali- 
aetus leucoeephalus, presented by P. O. Sharplcss; one pony J 
eabiUus. purchased; eight pea-fowl, Paco eristatus, presented by Miss 
Slettlnms ; ene Cashmere goat, Capra hireus, born In garden ; one alli- 
gator, A. m isslssippiensis, presented by steamer "Golden Crown •" six 
teen undulated gru-a parrakeet-, Melopsituicus uniulatus, hatched in 
garden ; throe spitz pups, Cants domcsticus, born In garden. 
H. P. IK8AI.LS, Superintendent. 
Woodland, <ffjarm and (garden. 
THU DEPARTMENT 18 EDITED BY W. J. DAVIDSON, 8EO. N. Y. 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
THE NEW YORK HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 
T T gives us much pleasure to state that the monthly meeL 
ings of this growing society show that the love for the 
beautiful in nature in the people of New York has ODly been 
lying dormant, for at the last meeting not only was tho at- 
tendance large, and the interest oxhihited in all the beautiful 
plants and flowera unflagging, but the display brought for- 
ward by our principal nurserymen and florists was really 
surprising, more especially as it is gratuitous and the meeting 
or exhibitions entirely free to the public. Air. William Ben- 
nett, Flatbush, L. I., filled a large table with a most gorgeous 
display of orchids and other flowering plants, tho most nota- 
ble of which were a finely grown plant of Dendrobium nobile 
with magnificent spikes of bloom Cypripedium harrisianum, 
C. Lowii, C. barbatum majus, C. villosum, Cattleya Skinneri'i, 
Anthuranum Schertzerianum, a magnificent variety with very 
large spathes ; some well grown Azaleas, the most beautiful 
of which were Madame Van der Cruysen, Marquis of Loi-ne, 
A. Borsig, Souvenir de Prince Albert, Flay of Truce and 
Neptune. Mr. Isaac Buchanan, Astoria, L. I., had o beauti- 
ful lot of seedling Azaleas, and R. B. Parsons & Co. had also 
a nice group of the newer sorts of Azaleas, well grown and 
bloomed. Mr F. Roenbeck, Bayonne, N. J., exhibited a 
collection ef 23 of his new seedling Begonias of the B. rex 
wction and six Ferns, which received a special commendation 
CITY AND SUBURBAN GABDENS. 
If a horticultural society conduces to the improvement of 
our city and suburban gardens, there is probably nowhere 
in the civilized world where the necessity for one exists more 
than for the city of New York. Take the European cities. 
London. I ans, Berlin, Edinburgh or Dublin, or our own 
cities of Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore or Cincinnati and 
the gardens of their suburb show that we are yet far behind 
them in the taste in which our suburban gardeus artvlaid out 
and planted. It is a most common thiDg to see with us a 
building erected at a cost of $20,000, furnished, perhaps at a 
cost of $10,000 more, while the grounds surrounding the 
house are left to be "laid out” end planted by some ignorant 
pretender, who manages to make the owner believe by a few 
high sounding phrases that he has got by rote, that 'he is a 
veritable landscape gardener. We have, necessarily, all phases 
of intelligence among gardeners in the various grades of the 
business, but it is quite as unreasonable to expect good taste 
in a landscape gardener destitute of intelligence, as it would 
be to expect good taste or good judgment in an ignorant archi- 
tect. We know that no house architect can prosecute his 
business without being educated to it, while it is a deplorable 
fact that the “architects of the garden” (if we may so term 
them) often undertake the business while utterly iguoraut of 
the first principles of the art. 
One of the most ridiculous cases of this kind came to my 
n °!. ice ,. a v 7 year3 a S°- A ’gentleman owned a plot in the 
suburbs about the size of an ordinary city block in extent 
After buildiDg a most expensive house in the rear of the plot 
he engaged a gentleman who dubbed himself a " landscaper " 
to lay out the grounds. The plot was some 200 feet wide by 
400 deep Teddy s first operation was to start a walk from 
the street to the house, which, had it been a straight line 
would nave been about 300 feet, but Teddy, the "landscaper ’’’ 
had a true artist’s horror of straight lines, and had the walk 
curved like a corkscrew, so that to reach the house from the 
street nearly 000 feet had to be traveled instead of 300. This 
walk was laid through the centre of an uuplanled law D and 
was allowed to remain some years before the shoddy owner 
realized its absurdity. There is not the time here, nor have I 
the ability if there was, to say much about the proper manner 
of laying out the suburban garden, but there is one common- 
sense rule in laying out walks or roads that should never be 
lost 6ight of. This rple, first laid down by Loudon, I believe 
is that there never should be any deviation from a straight 
line, unless there was some real or apparent cause This is 
common sense. Presuming this room was enlirely empty and 
I wanted to get to that window, I would undoubtedly use the 
shortest distance between the twopoints-a straight line; but 
if it was, as it is now, filled with seats in the centre, I would 
naturally go around without hardly thinking of the obstacles 
in the way. It is just so in the walks in the garden or 
grounds. Unless there is some reason for deviating from a 
straight line rocks, trees, flower beds, or some such obstacle 
we must make one, that is, when curved lines are wanted 
n.„nt e n a r- n °, , l lb ? ° r fi™ er ‘ bcd8 to Set around, we must 
plant them m the angles of the curve, else the uselessness of 
gomg a roundabout way, without a cause for so doin.L will 
be apparent, and grate on the senses. h 
en2ll P n laBl u“.i the 8uburbaQ Sardcn is an all-important 
ui ll n An lbC . r ? ls . exten . t enough, say an acre in area, 
f b t fl plete ’ hav , e ,ts due complement of space 
nf S fl?WerS aud vt 'Setables. What the varieties 
of these should be is so much a matter of detail that no 
allusion can properly he made to them here. 
v*LY n hw m i Ply f y . tba ? S°. od taste requires that the fruits and 
vegetables be planted id the rear of the plot, and the flower- 
ng or ornamental part in the front. In any case, at least 
11. pm 8 h°uld be no mixing up when .here is room to separate 
them, for it is just in ns bad taste to plant vegetables and 
, ?T.n r i°n hC ,a r ,U fr °, Dt of your dobing, as it would be 
* bave tbe cooklD g and washing done in the parlor when 
there are separate rooms for 6uch work. Some may think 
that such absurdities are never practiced, but tbey certainly 
a . G " ir* pa83 f d ev . ery day ' ast summer in front of a *15 000 
dwelling, where the coarse-grained owner had mixed up the 
useful with the ornamental in such a way that it would^mve 
been bard to determine wheiher it was a flower-plot or a cab- 
bage garden. This licterogcDious planting nmy be perfectly 
proper in lie owner of a shanty who may indulge hises bet c 
taste by planting a few flowers where it is necessajrfor h n 
to grow h,8 corn or potatoes ; but iu iny opinion it is utterly 
ban X g?mind8. 6 18 pretensilJQ to well kept subur 
,t i^r.!i‘^c7 nC M ,ip0f tbe suburban garden has its pleasures 
S , not only has t lie occupant to submit 
^ ti e onslaught of the usual crop of book peddlers, sewing 
thMr the thousand and one venders of patent 
fnpS '? this city friend has to submit to, but he is tbe 
Sll?^ ° f lhC , irrc fP 0 . ,,8,blc ,rt 'c and bulb peddler, who 
generally manages to sell him a mass of rubbish and often 
uEnown tifafnr by , ldli ? g J ,im how '« plant it ; for be 
it known that not one in a hundred of these tree agents arc 
practical gardeners, and hence are utterly unfit to instruct. 
One stereotyped piece of knowledge that many of them seem 
to possess, is to advise the placing of a quantity of stones in 
the hole where a tree or shrub is to be planted, and which 
advice the owner often religiously follows at great expense. 
I need notsaythat this practice isconsummate nonsense, and if 
it has any effect at all it would he injurious, as, of course, the 
stones displace just so much good soil. These remarks do 
not apply to accredited agents from responsible firms, but there 
are hundreds plying their vocation who are uot such, aud it 
is against such we would warn you. 
There is yet another class in whose attractive nets tho 
amateur horticulturist, gets often entangled. These gentle- 
men are now distinguished by the name of tho "Blue Rose 
men." For the past ten years tbey have never failed to plant 
themselves in some promiueut location in this city— usually 
in Broadway; they are in all probability there now, for this 
is ftieir season of harvest, and their victims are the owners of 
our suburban villas and city gardens. The blue rose men 
have usually just arrived from Paris, at least they say they 
have, such wonders could come from nowhere else. Unfor- 
tunately, their goods being all imported, they caunot well 
show them in flower or iu fruit, so they have to resort to 
pictures ; by these you can have ocular evidence that they 
have to sell cherry trees bearing fruit as large ns apples, 
strawberries growing on trees as large ns cocoa-nuts, gigantic 
asparagus, of -which they will sell you the se*ls that iu ninety 
days from time of sowing will produce a full crop! 
But fruits and vegetables are thrown entirely in the shade 
by their flowers. Here you can have blue moss roses, blue 
lea roses, blue dahlias, blue and coal black gladiolus, and a 
wonderfully rainbow-spangled, nondescript flower that tho 
blasphemous wretches call the " Hand of .God.” This last is 
very expensive, and ranges according to variety from $3 to 
$10 each. To my untutored mind this "Hand of God" 
flower looked suspiciously like the common columbine or 
Aguelegia. The wonderful strawberry tree was the caly- 
canthus, while the blue moss roses were very good specimens 
of the red Prairie rose, which no doubt had been imported 
from some Long Island or Jersey nurseryman at $12 per 
100, which by the time they had got to New York became, in 
the bauds of the gentlemen from Paris, blue moss roses ready 
to be sold at $5 apiece ! 
I will not insult the intelligence of the members of the New 
York Horticultural Society by supposing that any of them 
were ever at auy time the victims of these vandals. But if 
others become victims by failing to become members of our 
society, aDd thereby losing the knowledge that such mem- 
berslnp gives, I feel like saying that if any such should pay 
$5 for a blue rose or a strawberry tree— rather than to give 
the same amount yearly to the society— served him right ! 
But little can be said about “city gardens" proper. The 
area is so limited that there is less scope for display either of 
good taste or bad taste, and to even suggest what would be 
most satisfactory to plant would be nearly qseless. 
The most available space is usually the fences. An excel- 
lent effect may be had by training against these roses, honey- 
suckles, or other climbing plants, intermingling the colors, 
these trained close to the fences will interfere but little with 
the borders, which can be planted with whatever flowers the 
inclination may suggest, only they should be such bs are close 
growing. In fruits, about the only satisfactory things are 
grape vines. These, also, may be trained on trellis work 
against the fence or on a separate trellis. In half a dozen of 
varieties of grape vines for the city garden, I would suggest 
Concord. Iowa and Roger's Nos. 4, 15. 23 and 44. These 
would embrace about all the varieties of color, and succeed 
each other in ripening during tbe season. If the owner of a city 
gnrdeu has any proclivity for vegetables, he should try and 
confine it to half a dozen tomato plants, which should be 
trained against the fences. But it must be borne in mind that 
whether fruits, flowers or vegetables are planted, to do well 
they must have at least three or four hours’ sunshine. If the 
garden is entirely shaded, it is useless to expect much satisfac- 
tion from anything that can be planted. We are asked hun- 
dreds of times every season tho question of “ What plants will 
grow in the shade? ’ and the answer is ever meagre and un- 
satisfactory. It is I rue that such plants as pansies, forget-me- 
nots, lobelias, lily of the valley, and such herbaceous plants as 
are natives of shady woods, will do with partial sunlight, but 
their flowers are never so bright or so well developed ns in the 
open sunshine. Therefore, for shady city gardens, flowerm-r 
plants should not be attempted, as a far more satisfactory re- 
sult cau be produced by the use of wbat, for want of a better 
term, we call " foliage plants." such as the variegated leaved 
geramums, colenRcs, fancy caladiums, cannas, etc., and marked 
c< 1 ;rcd foliage may be used for ribbon lines or for massing iu 
distinct colors, such ns achyranthus, centaureas alterman- 
tlieras, golden tererfew, etc., but in any case do uot get your ' 
sma 1 city garden overcrowded. Plants should not be planted 
so close as to run into each other aud form a tangled muss 
tins 19 one of the commonest errors, and one, too, that the 
unsophisticated owner is oRea apt to fall into, from his his de- 
sire to have an immediate effect produced. Sometimes how- 
ever. he overcrowds from accident that no previous knowledge 
could guard against. ° 
I recollect some years ago among other European novelties 
that ’we imported, was a plant called salvia gigantea, which 
came lo us with the usual array of magnificent adjectives We 
modestly followed suit in describing it, and our descript ion hap- 
pened to arrest the attention of the owner of a 7x9 city plot. I 
sold him n plant, and remember ho complained bitterly of the 
small quantity he got for his money, llo planted it, however, 
and he soon got more than he bargained for. He wanted to 
see the magnificeut flower, and dared not cut a branch of it. 
So it kept on increasing in breadth and stature, until it not 
ODly took possession of his whole plot, but bid fair to take 
possesion of his house also. But, luckily. Jack Frost camn 
to the rescue, aud one October night slopped its progress. 
That mau uever forgave me for what he considered a mean 
iractical joke; but it was not, fori did not know when I sold 
iim the plant whether lie was going to plant it iu a city gar- 
den or a ten-acre lot. Had he planted it in a tcn-acrc lot, aud 
had Jack Frost not interfered, I have no doubt that Salvia, gi- 
gantea would have done all that we claimed for it. 
Ioe to the Northward.— The northeast is still ice-bound, 
and the Strait of Northumberland, separating Prince Edward’s 
Island from Nova Scotiu, is full of ice as fur rs the eye can 
reach. Last Saturday the ruaiis and passengers from the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence steamer were landed at Cariboo and 
brought to Picton, N. S., by teams, having crossed over tho 
ice to the land, the Bteamer lying three miles off shore. 
T rack loyiug ou the Canadian Pacific Railway is pro- 
gressing three-quarters of a mile daily. 
