S30 
L I3EW- YORKER. 
AUG. 43 
importance, addin# besides several new spe¬ 
cies totheeylva of the United States. Wood 
specimens of every tree of the Pacific from 
the northern to the southern boundary 
were procured, often only with great labor 
and difficulty, and sent home, to furnish 
material for a Bcries of experiments under¬ 
taken by Professor Sargent, for the pur¬ 
pose of determining the exact value of all North 
American woods as fuel and for various pur¬ 
poses of construction. Tne result of the 
tests, and the scientific and economic results 
obtained in the course of this expedition by 
Professor Sargent's numerous assistants in 
various parts of the country, will appear in his 
final report, now iu course of preparation. 
In 1872 Professor Sargent succeeded Dr. Asa 
Gray as D rector of the Botanic Garden at 
Harvard College. In 1874 he visited the im¬ 
portant botanic gardens and institutions of a 
kindred nature in Europe, and on his return 
* to America with the view of remodeling that 
under hie own charge, he made a general clear¬ 
ance of all movable shrubs and herbaceous 
plants to a reserve garden and cut down the 
many duplicate treeB. The garden was then 
re-surveyed, and laid out afresh according to a 
definite and convenient, plan, the plants being 
disposed as far as practicable in the sequence 
of geuera given in Bentham aud Hooker’s 
Genera Plantarum. In 1870 he secured the 
able assistance of Mr. William Falconer uuder 
whose superintendence all these changes and 
plans were executed. When Prof. Sargent as¬ 
sumed control of the garden iu 1872 it <-‘OU- 
tained 2.400 species of plants, aud when he re¬ 
signed its charge in 1870 5,901 species were 
represented in it. 
In 1872 he was likewise appointed Director 
of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard College. 
The Arboretum contains 125 acres of wood¬ 
land near Forest Hills Station a few miles 
from the center of Boston. It is intended to 
convert the Arboretum into a heautitul park 
aud include it in the general park system of 
Boston, and with this end in view a plan of it 
has recently been prepared by Mr. Fred Law 
Olmsted the eniment landscape gardener of New 
York. It is intended that it shall contain 
every tree, shrub and herbaceous plant, native 
or exotic, that will be found hardy there, and 
from the great variety of soils aud situations 
upland and lowland, rock and pond, contained 
in it, we may expect soon to find therein rep¬ 
resented such an extensive collection of hardy 
plants—treee, shrubs and herbs, as are no¬ 
where else represented ou an equal given 
space ou this continent. Propagating houses 
and nurseiy grounds are contiguous, and 
thousands of plants are ready for planting. 
This is supplemented by a herbarium and 
museum, illustrative of trees, tbeir products 
aud uses, and which is now temporarily con¬ 
tained in the Dwight House—a spacious resi¬ 
dence-building on Mr. Sargent’s private estate 
at Brookline, and which is entirely given up 
to this use. 
In addition to his directorship of the Arbor¬ 
etum, in 1879 he was appointed Professor of 
Arboriculture. Prof. Sargent is a strong man 
a man of talent, perseverance and will, pro¬ 
gressive, and with a passionate fondness for 
the branch of science he haB assumed. 
ortaltaral, 
BAYS. 
I don’t care how pretty the Ox-eye Daisies 
are, or how much " Horlicola” (p. 482) blesses 
them, they are vile weeds at the best, a curse 
upon our land, and it is our duty, man and 
child, t> root out what is bad. The Ox-eye 
Daisy is rot fit for winter-forcing, the Paris 
Daisy is. My neighbors have got to calling the 
common Rudbeckia (Cone-flower) that grows 
in our hay fields by the name of “Yellow Ox- 
eye Daisy." Now if the American system of 
naming plants—which is, giving precedence 
to priority—is to be adhered to, my neigh¬ 
bors are Wrong. The Yellow Ox-Eye Daisy, 
or Com Marigold, as it is likewise often called, 
is a European plant, next of kin to ihe White 
Ox-eye Daisy, and, too, as villainous a weed. 
* * 
And then comes Professor Budd with a good 
word for Bocconia Japonica! Yes, Professor, 
it may be handsome and the bees may love it, 
but once It gets a foothold it intends to stay 
there. The roots reach down into the subsoil, 
stretch out beyond the parent-Btool, and every 
broken pieoe will grow. In this way it resem¬ 
bles the giant K notweeds. also handsome 
plants, but, al&6! a miserable nuisance, too. 
* # 
“ Clinton” you tell us “ Plant Trees;” now 
please tell us what trees to plant and where to 
plant them. We don’t cam whether they are 
native or foreign trees, we wish something 
cheap, quick-growing and suited to our wants. 
Don’t Jump them and call them pines or oaks, 
but tell us what kind of pines, what kind of 
oaks. Robert Douglas, in Hlinoin, grows 
forest trees by the million ; that is the sort of 
stuff we want,—White Ashes, European Lar- 
chee and the like, bnt we do not wish to incur ; 
the danger of planting bog trees ou hill tops or i 
those that only thrive in gravelly land upon 1 
our hog-wallow prairies. And when it comes 
to timber trees, we don't want beeches, balsam 
firs or poplars, but something of sterling value. 
Please help us, “Clinton." 
♦ * 
In addition to what is 6aid in a late isBue 
abODt raising clematises from seed, let me 
add: On the 14th of February last, I sowed a 
pan of mixed clematiB eeed and kept it in the 
greenhouse; a few plants appeared in May and 
to day, July 20, I have potted off from the 
same pan over two dozen plants about two 
inches high. There are lots more of smaller 
ones—some just bursting the seeds, others 
peeping above ground, etc. Last Fall a neigh¬ 
bor of mine sowed seeds of the Scarlet Clema¬ 
tis in a pan and put a slate over it. It was 
wintered in a cold-frame and no notice taken 
of it till last May, when the shoots began to 
creep out from under the slate. 
* * 
G. 8- H., Austin, Texas, asks, p. 487, about 
ornamental hedge plants for that part of the 
country. As so many shrubs are applicable 
for the purpose, it is more a question of 
expense, choice and care to be giveD, than of 
the sorts that would answer. All shrubs cost 
money and the finer they are the more co&tly 
they are. Among deciduous shrubs the Bridal- 
wreath Spine a is exceedingly handsome; crape 
myrtles, chaste shrubs, double deulzia6, 
altbfcae, mock-orange6, are all applicable. 
Of sub-evergreens, that is, plants that are 
evergreen far South but deciduous farther 
North, are Yaupon, Japan Qiince, pomegra¬ 
nate, privets, and white and red-berried pyra- 
canthas. Of true evergreeus there are many, 
for instance, Japanese euocyinus, oleanders, 
Chinese and Golden Arbor-viue * (ffie American 
Arbor-vita 1 is useless in Texas), and the like, 
The tea plant grows well iu Texas and would 
make a pretty garden hedge, and what cao be 
better for the same end than the green or 
variegated Pittoeporum Toblra? [We saw this 
fine shrub iu South Carolina and Georgia last 
year. It is beautiful as grown alone or in 
hedges—always beautiful and must sooner or 
later be highly prized throughout the South.— 
Eds ] At Whittaker’s Nursery, at Houston, 
Texas, I lemember seeing a fine hedge of Cape 
Jessamine; and then there is the Cherokee 
Rose. Ou the Island of Galveston, where 
shelter from wind is of vast importance, the 
farmers use oleander, tamarlx (they call it 
Sea Cedar) and Chickasaw Plum hedges. Iu 
the case of a garden hedge, please do not use 
shears in clipping, but, instead, a knife. The 
shears cut leaveB aud shoots alike, leave snags, 
and make no discrimination between weakly 
aud strong growths, contorted or misplaced 
ones; with the knife you can cut what and 
how you choose. For fence-hedges the Red- 
berried Pyracantba is good, but the Oeagj 
OraDge is the quickest grower and most Impen¬ 
etrable barrier. The alkali soils—poison 
patches—are detrimental to the pyracantha as 
well as to many other trees and shrubs, and 
the “cut-leaf” ants love its foliage dearly. 
* * 
Last Fall I lifted and potted a lot of Mourn 
ing Bride (Scabiosa) and wintered them in a 
cool greenhouse. They bloomed a little all 
Winter long, but not enough to compensate for 
their room and care. Iu the Spring I cut them 
back aud planted them out in the garden; 
they are not growing as rankly as this year’s 
seedlings, but they are blooming extravagantly. 
The same rule holds good with pelargoniums, 
fuchsias and other plants,—old plants bloom 
more copiously than young ones. 
* * 
We can prolong the blooming period of 
many of our plants by cutting off the flower 
stems as soon as the blooms have past; in fact, 
the more we cut the blooms off heliotropes and 
ageratums the more they will branch out and 
bear a further supply. So will verbenas, Eve¬ 
ning Primroses, red valerians, snapdragons, 
and the like. 
which is only three years old. showing flower 
just now. Its scape is already 11 feet high 
and still growing. When the Century Plant 
blooms, the crown from which the flower stem 
proceeded dies, as is the case with the banana, 
or, in fact, with any herbaceous plant; but a 
multitude of 6ids growths, or suckers, remain 
to perpetuate the plant. The blooms of the 
ordinary Century Plant are not unlike those of 
our common yucca, and are arranged in can¬ 
delabrum-fashion cn stems some 20 to 40 feet 
high, according to the strength of the plant. 
* * 
Just about thi6 time of year we often have 
damp, muggy weather suddenly succeeded by 
hot sunshine, and we find our plants “scald” 
badly and often rot off. Shade is the only pre¬ 
ventive of " scald " and in most cases shading 
is impracticable; but we can lessen the rot- 
evil to a great extent by keeping our plants 
free of decaying leaves, thinning out over¬ 
crowded leaves or growths, and keeping the 
surface 60 il so loose and well stirred that the 
least “air” will dry the top. Dry sand or 
dust charcoal strewn around the neckB of 
plants, is also good. When by hoeing or other¬ 
wise the earth is worked up around the necks 
of the plants in basin-fashion rot is worse than 
in the ase of level earth ; indeed, where the 
plant crowns are elevated a little above the 
ground level, the rot is the least. 
■* * 
The other day, when scrambling over rugged 
Mount Munroe and peering down into Oakes’s 
Gulf, a precipitous i byes a thousand feet 
below, we beheld a vast wreath of snow, and 
in ecstacy I remembered that at the head of 
that snow-filled gnlch a year ago, I found that 
little beauty cassiope, the phyllodoce, the 
glaucous kalmia, violets, veronicas, pale cas- 
tilleias, white orchids and many other alpine 
gems, and I straightway proposed to my 
companion that, forthwith we descend thither 
and see nature’s mountain garden. But in 
earnest, prosy innocence he answered me, “I 
have sent to London for Anthuriutu Andrea- 
num and I want to see it bloom before I kill 
myself!" LB0N ' 
(i syskjr, 
/V 
This Editor, I understand, intends to pub¬ 
lish this month the annual Fair Number of 
the Rural, with an unusual number for free 
distribution. While this denotes great enter¬ 
prise aud wise forethought on the part of the 
publisher, it presents a rare opportunity for 
advertisers of all classes to make thrlr wares 
known, and the shrewd business-man is not 
slow to avail himself of It. In this connection 
I wish to make a remark or two iu regard to a 
deficiency quite too common among advertis¬ 
ers ; 1 allude to the emission of prices, espe¬ 
cially in the easis of novelties, new imple¬ 
ments, etc. It is altogether unsatisfactory and 
little to the purpose to request tb .t a ptice list 
be sent for. It is not necessary, of course, to 
insert a long list of prices (though some do it), 
and it is not needed in things commonly well 
known, or in advertising a busiuess; but in 
the case of specialties and novelties, especially 
in implements aud machinery, it seems to be 
quite necessary, and the omission, I am con¬ 
vinced, is generally a loss to the advertiser. 
Some understand thiB, but others do not. The 
small additional cost is nothing compared with 
the gain. I am inclined to look b ispiciously 
at a new thing advertised without a price, 
and I know many otherB are, aud never think 
of it again. 
Everybody knows the Century Plant; it is 
Agave Americana. There are a great many 
varieties of it, and as many other species pro¬ 
bably as ranch entitled to the name “Century 
Plant ” as it is. The notion that the Century 
Plant blooms once in a hundred years Is all 
nousense; so is the idea that it dies when it 
blooms. The grosser you feed it and the 
thriftier it grows, the less likelihood there is of 
its blooming; on the other hand, starvation 
may cause it to bloom. When at maturity It 
is very large, often too big for our hospitality, 
hence we seldom have plants big enough to 
flower. But iu greenhouse gardens, also in 
Florida, we sometimes see them In bloom. 
Many of the other and smaller species are seen 
in bloom more frequently. The evergreen 
species, like the true Century Plant, live the 
longest and bloom the seldomest, but the hei- 
baceous kinds, like the Virginian and Spotted¬ 
leaved (Maculosa) usually bloom every year. 
I; havu a plant of the Yucca-leaved species, 
About July 18 the wistarias bejan coming 
into bloom again. This, iu a small way, is not 
a thing of very unfrequent occurrence, and is 
commonly attributed to the weather, which 
doubtless has something to do with it. I had 
some plants then blooming profusely, however, 
which I think the sparrows had more to do 
with tha i the weather. Last Spring the little 
pests picked off nearly all the buds (of which 
they are very fond), and only a solitary flower 
here and there made its appearance. This dis¬ 
budding seemB to have had the usual effects 
of this operation. Speaking familiarly, I 
might say that the wistarias, kuowing there 
are no sparrows about now, hswe resolved not 
to be altogether deprived of their usual Spring 
festival of flowers, and are having a good time 
of it, aud we enjoy it. If the flowers had any 
special value at this season, the disbudding 
might be imitated. The sparrows were got 
rid of by persistently destroying their nests as 
fast aB they made them. They finally got mad 
and went off I might have shot them, only I 
could not find it in my heart to do it. 
While speaking of the wistaria, I will add, 
having tried it, that the double-flowering, 
sweet-scented Japan variety is a good subject 
for forcing, and could be made valuable for 
cut flowers for use by the florist. It Is almost, 
if not quite, as fragrant as the best of the vio¬ 
lets, and might be made to supplement this 
deliciously fragrant flower. It would, of 
course, be necessary to wire the individual 
flowers; bnt this is done with almost every¬ 
thing the florist uses. How far it could be 
made profitable to force it I do not know, but 
it is worth the attention of the florist for this 
purpose,and deserves to be grown out-of-doors, 
at least whei'ever a place can be found for it. 
But what au act of sacrilege to tear to pieces 
the noble clusters of the wistaria! 
The orange crop in California has already 
become so abundant, and the prices, in conse¬ 
quence, so low, that attention has been direct¬ 
ed to its preservation in some other than its 
natural form. It would seem, from recent ex¬ 
periments. that its conversion into wine has 
been fixed upon as the moBt profitable. It is 
said to make a very palatable drink, aud to 
sell at a good profit. The best oranges will be 
marketed and the smaller ones converted into 
so-called wine. Wine of this kind has been 
made in Florida, in a small way, and is well 
spoken of ; but what I should like to kuow is, 
whether it makes a refreshing drink that is 
conducive to health. Of the other kind we 
have more than enough already. 
In a former number I spoke of Burr’s New 
Pine as being the second strawberry to color 
with me. When I wrote I supposed the plants 
to be the Burr; but subsequently my suspi¬ 
cions became aroused, and on critically exam¬ 
ining the foliage and the fruit, I found, much 
to my regret, that the plants were not tiue. 1 
mention this that others may not be misled by 
my former remark. I gave a few plants to the 
Editor last Fall, aud must now request him to 
remove the name to prevent further error. J 
have for years been trying to get the true 
Burr, and 1 do not mean to give it up yet. The 
above plants came to me In a way that led me 
to suppose I had the true kind. 
An article is “going the rounds ” in which it 
is said that an Italian gardener has succeeded 
in raising fragrant camellias, and it is added 
that the colored kinds are more fragrant than 
the white. ThiB may be 60 ; but Italian gar¬ 
deners have a reputation for doing queer 
things with plants, and the newspaper article 
does not come to us in a way to entitle it to 
unlimited confidence, to say the least of it. I 
would advise the readers of the Rural to wait 
a while before investing much capital In fra¬ 
grant camellias. When such really do come, 
I shall rejoice in common with all lovers of 
that noble flower. 
Our large cities are full of idlers and the 
country is overrun with tramps, yet farmers in 
mauy places have been uuable to Becure suffi¬ 
cient help at almost any price to get in their 
crops. During the past week (July 23) I have 
seen acres and acreB of wheat lying just as the 
machine left it, for want of help at least to 
bind and stack it; and one enterprising farmer 
told me he had ridden over into an adjoining 
State and secured men at from $2 to $2 50 a 
| day, rather than run the risk of loss by leaving 
” his wheat in the field. His crop was an unus- 
* nally fine one, and this probably had some- 
, thing to do with his willingness to pay well to 
get it uuder cover. Painstaking in growing a 
1 fine crop naturally leads to painstaking in se- 
7 curing it. Others had put the few men they 
5 had into the “ harvest,” and left their coru to 
chance and the weeds, and the latter were 
having a “ tall ” time of it. Those with whom 
3 I have talked do not seem to have been uuwil- 
1 ling to pay the prices asked; the difficulty has 
* been to get men at any price. It 6eems strange 
’ that this should be so when we consider the 
C idlers, the tramps, and the immense number of 
immigrants that have poured into the country 
? during the past year. 
1 It should be borne in mind that turnip seed 
3 of some kind or other may be sown during the 
3 whole month of August, the bast for a late 
sowing being the Rud-top Strap-leaved- There 
’ are always vacant places about the garden aud 
° field that may be profitably used in this way, 
f and which are too commonly left to waste aud 
r weeds from simply not knowing what to put iu 
j. them. _ 
,s The two most attractive climbers juBtnow 
I are the honeysuckle aud the clematis, the lat- 
e ter not by any means as common aB it should 
>t be; indeed, it may still be called a rare plant 
g in its best forms. It may now be bought at a 
e reasonable price, and the different classes or 
y types afford varieties that will furnish an 
g abundance of lovely flowers from Spring till 
>t Fall. It may he rows either as a climber or 
is a trailer almost anywhere without being out 
d of place, and is surpassed by few plants for 
I bedding purposes. The colors are varied and 
beautiful, and the whole plant graceful to a 
degree. In regard to the honeysuckle, I repeat 
1, what I have said before, that L. Halliana is 
?> the best of them all. 
>r A well-known horticulturist 6ays In a letter 
t that “ people are beginning to find out that 
