224 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 4, 1884. 
be a good one, ought to have as much ventilation as a place 
intended for public meetings—as, in fact, a church or chapel. 
It may perhaps ho urged that these latter are not in all 
cases furnished with openings, but then their loftiness is 
such as is capable of containing a lai'ge volume of heated 
or impure air, which, as those meetings are not always con¬ 
tinuous, get emptied of their improper contents, and refilled 
with fresh, pure atmospheric air before the building is again 
wanted; but such is not the case with the fruit room—there 
the evil is often a continuous one, so that the fruit, or other 
object inside, gets tainted, either more or less, unless, as above, 
a stream of cold fresh air is always pouring in, so as to dis¬ 
place the bad ere it assumes a too vitiated character. 
The best keeping fruit room ever 1 had stood behind a high 
garden wall—its north side being furnished with the two 
windows and a door, while its ends abutted into other buildings 
—it was not lofty, but, having a lean-to roof, it was plastered 
and ceiled inside, the same as the roof, and a ventilation was 
formed at the highest part by an opening in the aforesaid garden 
wall, not leading through to the south, but going upward, like a 
chimney, in fact. Small openings were also made at the 
bottom of the opposite wall, whereby a large current of cold air 
was sucked in, which, circulating through the room, finally 
ascended at the back and out at the top, followed by another 
current the same way: in this room fruit of all kinds kept 
well; the fittings were the ordinary shelves all around, and a 
large table inside, which was also often loaded with things for 
immediate use. The fittings are of less moment, as everyone can 
arrange them to suit his or her own convenience; the leading 
principle of how to act seems moi’e especially called for here. 
Much as has been said about the fruit room, &c., it must also 
be borne in mind that the seasons are not always alike for 
rendering the fruit capable of enduring the changes by which 
it is surrounded; but, in a usual way, it is best to let Pears 
and Apples remain pretty long on the tree, unless they fall very 
much, or are, in some other way, in a dangerous condition, for 
after the first few weeks are over, the packed-away fruit keeps 
much better than it does at first. Colder weather setting in, 
and other matters tending to check perspiration, the fruit does 
not so quickly attain that period of maturity which is identical 
with a speedy decay; in fact, it is only one form of the same, 
and that tendency must, if possible, be arrested. 
It is well known that certain fruits give off exhalations 
different from others, and from each other. Williams’s Bon 
Chretien Pear is, perhaps, the most offensive of any, where any 
considerable quantity of them get mellow together, and assuredly 
the strong odour from it cannot do otherwise than hasten ail 
that it is in contact with down the road to destruction; at all 
events, it would be highly improper to allow it to remain in the 
same place. Other things that are equally strong ought also to 
be guarded against, and, of course, all decaying fruit, or other 
matters of that kind, ought to be removed as soon as discovered, 
and all dirt, &.C., cleared away, so that the fruit room, when 
furnished with its winter store, may be rendered as clean and 
bealthy as its crowded state will allow; and with a judicious 
ventilation, and other means, combined with good, well-grown 
fruit to begin with, a fair share of success may be expected, and 
the various kinds will no doubt keep as long as their specified 
term of existence is allotted them, and all premature decay and 
other destructive tendencies arrested, so that good Apples and 
Pears, 1 do not mean those hard, wooden ones which some late 
kinds deserve to be called, but if good mellow fruit, said to be 
in season in January, can be kept until March, it will be much 
better than the kinds reported as being in season then, while a 
premature ripening has a contrary injurious effect.—J. B. 
TOE VEGETATION OF THE SISTER ISLANDS. 
FLORIDA. 
The scenery of the lower St. John’s River for ten miles from its 
mouth, is interesting in itself and by contrast with the upper portions of 
the river. At Dame’s Point the river turns abruptly to the left, becomes 
obstructed by shoals and islands, and two additicmil channels are formed 
—not available, however, for navigation. A mile below the point on the 
left stands the village of New Berlin, on a yellow bluff whose base is 
washed by the ship channel. At Dame’s Point a great change comes 
oyer the appearance of the river. Extensive grassy marshes arise in mid 
river, and on either shore (below New Berlin) similar marshes take the 
place of dry land, widening out as we approach the coast. At high tide 
the river overflows both islands and shores, and but for the tall grass 
which covers tnem the lower bt. John’s would at such time become part 
of a wide-spread lagoon. Half way from the point to the bar a strip of 
dry shore appears on the right, ending in the bold headland called St. 
John’s Bluff, and a mile beyond on the northern side we perceive what 
seems to be a group of wooded hills rising out of the prairic-fike marsh. 
These are the Sister Islands. Their shaggy outlines are prominent objects 
in the landscape, and their singular location excites the curiosity of 
passing tourists ; but, on account of their apparent inaccessibility, but few 
visit them, and fewer still understand their origin. 
In the fall of 1877 some plants from the Sisters were brought to me 
by a fisherman. The specimens indicated what I afterwards found to be 
true, that these islands support a vegetation characteristic of a much more 
southern latitude. During the following year I made several visits to 
them, the botanical result of which was to extend the geographical limits 
of numerous plants and to add three species to the North American 
flora—namely, the Fern Cheilanthes microphylla, a Vetch (Vicia flori- 
dana), and our first representative of the black Pepper family (Peperomia 
leptostachya). In inviting the reader to accompany me on a tour of 
inspection of these islands, it is understood that he is to see them with 
my eyes. His own might testify that the islands are rough, tangled, 
insect-infested, detestable spots, and I fhink he may be content to visit 
them by proxy ; but if he were to see the Sisters as they showed them¬ 
selves to me he would receive the same impressions that I now commit 
to paper. 
Crossing the river from St. John’s Bluff to the northern shore, we find 
the latter overflowed; it is flood time, and a favourable time for 
penetrating the marshes. At intervals we pass the mouths of creeks, one 
of which the boatman says is the “ mouth of Hanimile,” which leads to 
the “ Pepper Islands.” Through the mouth and down the throat of the 
passage we go, and soon reach the retreat of the fiery Capsicum. It is a 
small island with steep banks composed of bleached oyster shells, which 
reflect the intense heat of the sun and slip under our feet, throwing us 
against the points of the Spanish Bayonet, which almost covers the 
island. Bleeding from its punctures, we scale the parapet and look 
around. Intermingled with the bayonets are Prickly Pears and various 
shrubs and low trees of rigid spiny growth, and amidst these is inter¬ 
woven a singular vine of the Milkweed family (Vincetoxicum scoparium). 
Its tough, twine-like, green and almost leafless stems, after weaving 
together the branches of a shrub, twist themselves ,together into a rope, to 
uncoil again in the top of a neighbouring tree. It has a milky juice and 
a profusion of minute yellow flowers. In the Palm Hammock I saw this 
Vine in tree tops 40 feet above the ground. The slender half-shrubby 
Capsicum frutescens grows here in abundance, finding support for its 
straggling branches among stouter shrubs and bayonets. Its fruit, the 
Bird-pepper of druggists, ripens throughout the year, and is harvested by 
birds. A noticeable shrub or small tree is the Forestiera porulosa. It 
appears to be laden with white seeds, but these, on examination, prove 
to have been blue berries, which the intense heat has excoriated. 
Leaving this inhospitable isle, we soon reach another called ’Possum 
Island, which is similar to the first except in vegetation. The character¬ 
istic plants of this island are not boldly repellant as on the other, but of 
a deceptive treacherous nature, armed with worse but partially concealed 
weapons. Creeping among the grass is the Crowfoot Cactus (Opuntia 
Pes-Corvi), whose spines adheres to the fingers so tenaciously by their 
barbed points that joints of the Cactus are pulled off with them. It is a 
plant not to be handled with impunity, much less to be sat upon. Our 
hands are stung with Nettles and with the minute spines of the Opuntia 
vulgaris. Our clothes bristle with the seeds of the Spanish Needle 
(Bidens bipinnata), and are spotted with the adhesive leaves of the 
“ Poor Man’s Plaster ” (Mentzelia floridana). This plant is as handsome 
as a Primrose, and as incapable of giving pain, yet one learns to dread it 
more than any other. It is a weak diffusely branching plant with bright 
yellow flowers and handsome foliage, which, with age, assumes various 
shades of brown and yellow. A weary unwary tourist is tempted to 
recline upon the soft mats spread invitingly by the Mentzelia, but woe to 
him if he yields to the temptation, for on rising he will find himself as 
fantastically decorated as a harlequin, with patches of yellow, orange, 
russet, and various shades of green. The leaves stick like adhesive 
plasters, and cannot be removed by pulling or scraping. The whole 
plant is covered with minute, white, barbed, silicious hairs, and as the 
leaves are very tender it is almost impossible to remove them from a 
woven fabric. The heat from above and below is intense, there is no 
shade, and the resources of the islet being soon exhausted we return to the 
boat and glide between walls of living green back to the river. 
The groves of Pine Island rise invitingly half a mile to the left, but 
there intervenes a wide expanse of marsh through which our boatman 
knows but one channel, and that is impassable at low water. A white 
shell-bank and a low Cedar indicate the entrance to a little creek, which 
is so narrow that we have to propel the boat through it by pushing and 
paddling. The steep shelly bank is surmounted by Bayonets and Prickly 
Pears, which present a forbidding front, and, rising from among these, 
some dead and weather-beaten Cedars stretch forward their gaunt white 
branches as if to forbid our approach. Scaling the bank and passing 
these grim sentinels, we enter a verdant, shady avenue composed of live 
Oak, Palmettos, and Cedars, the branches overhead being garlanded with 
Vines and fringed with the Spanish Moss. Here are those sub-tropical 
shrubs and Vines of which specimens were brought me, whose elegant 
foliage would ornament any conservatory. Among these are two members 
of the Coffee family, the Snowberry (Chiococca racemosa), and the 
scarlet-berried Psychotria rufescens. Here is the Vincetoxicum weaving 
itself among the Yucca’s dagger-like leaves, and the curious little 
Peperomia under the shade of drooping Sageretia and Sapindus. The 
Cocculus carolinus and Passiflora suberosa form banks of richest verdure, 
and carpet with their Ivy-like leaves the pavement of white shells. 
As we reach the border-land of shadow and sunshine we meet a 
number of plants of quite a different character, plants which, beside the 
