THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
59 
HYBRID PLUMS. 
A bulletin of much interest has been issued by Professor 
F. A. Waugh, horticulturist at the Vermont Experiment 
Station, on the subject of hybrid plums. This factor, says the 
author, is of immediate interest to the science of horticulture 
and promises to be of very great consequence to the practical 
business of plum growing. Descriptive and historical notes 
are given of fifty varieties of plums supposed to be of hybrid 
origin. Doubtless a few of these are not hybrids. Among 
cultivated plums intermediateness of character is the best 
test of hybridity. The pedigree record, while not to be 
ignored, is seldom reliable. All species of plums may be 
crossed. The Japanese plums cross with the Chickasaws and 
the Hortulanas with especial ease. The Domesticas and 
Americanas cross with other groups with greater difficulty. 
Plums also cross with various cherries, peaches and apricots. 
Each species has a peculiar value in plum breeding and certain 
combinations are more promising than others. 
The hybrid plums are likely to be eventually of great im¬ 
portance in fruit growing. Their introduction promises to 
make an epoch in plum culture. Many of the varieties already 
produced are very promising, but none has yet been tested 
widely enough to warrant its general recommendation. Pro¬ 
fessor Waugh solicits the aid of all horticulturists, as this is 
only the beginning of the history of hybrid plums. 
HORTICULTURE IN THE SCHOOLS. 
Professor Hansen of South Dakota says : “About horti¬ 
culture in the public schools, I will say that while the United 
States is ahead of the world in almost all things, there is one 
thing in which we are fifty years behind Europe. Four years 
ago I visited some of the leading horticultural schools in 
Germany, and in some of those I happened to be present over 
a week where a class of school-masters were taking a course 
in horticulture. They had attended a two weeks’ course in 
the spring and had now come back for a two weeks course to 
finish up. They told me all about the German system. Con¬ 
nected with every German school-house is a small orchard, 
nursery and garden. School children from seven to eight 
years old are taught how to graft and how to take care of 
trees, and all the details of horticulture are taught along with 
the A, B, C. It has been the work of Dr. Stoll of Silesia, and 
it has been carried on for the past fifty years, and to a large 
extent it has been broadened each year. It is now found in 
all the schools of Germany and other countries of Europe. 
If we should adopt European methods in this line, we might 
find many problems worked out for us. In this matter of 
teaching horticulture in the schools, we are far behind the 
nations of Europe.’’ 
At the annual banquet of gardeners, florists and agricul¬ 
turists at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, 
G. B. Lamm, a prominent horticulturist of Missouri, detail¬ 
ing what had been done toward an introduction of the study 
of horticulture in the schools, said : 
I am convinced that the science and art of horticulture will charm 
the practical minds of our boys and girls and hold them to their studies 
instead of driving them away from school. When a beautifully illus¬ 
trated hand book of horticultural knowledge for Missouri schools is 
once placed in the hands of our youth, we will have met one of the 
greatest needs of our age. 
No one man can write such a book. It is the product of the amateur, 
the florist, the botanist, the gardener, the naturalist, the scientist, fruit¬ 
grower, nurseryman, farmer and teacher. The Missouri State Horti¬ 
cultural Society lias undertaken the task of collecting and embodying 
this desired information. It commits to type annually the results 
reached by its educational committee. It invites every lover of child, 
hood, home and country to become interested in this, the most helpful 
aud far-reaching of all the society’s past undertakings. A copy of the 
last list of one hundred questions relative to this matter is here to be 
distributed to every gentleman present at this banquet. It is the fifth 
list of questions and outlines the seventh year’s work. 
IRecent (Publications. 
Among publications recently received are : Experiment Station 
Record, Vol. X., No. 9; Massachusetts Horticultural Society transac¬ 
tions for 1998, part I. ; Kansas Station Bulletin on cold storage of 
fruit. 
The forty-first annual report of the Missouri State Horticultural 
Society has been compiled and issued by the secretary, L. A. Good¬ 
man, Westport, Mo. It is one of the most valuable of the reports 
that come to our desk. A volume of 420 pages, substantially bound 
and well indexed, it contains a great amount of information for the 
horticulturist and nurseryman. 
Those of our readers who are interested in orchids and who have 
not procured the lists of hybrids prepared by George Hansen, land- 
ccape architest, Scenic Tract, Berkeley, Cal., have missed a valuable 
fund of information. The list published November 15, 1895, gives 
enumeratiou and classification of all hybrids of orchids published up 
to October 15, 1895. The volume gives a review of the work accom¬ 
plished and inferences for future work ; the character of the flowers of 
orchids; list of people concerned in the raising of orchid hybrids; ref¬ 
erences and abbreviations made use of; orchids raised from seed of 
their own kind ; remarks respecting the genera and species employed 
in raising hybrids ; synonomy, key and list of hybrids, Pp. 245. First 
Supplement, Pp. 12 Second Supplement, issued May, 1897, and 
bringing list down to April 1, 1897, Pp. 77. Mr. Hansen is in connec¬ 
tion by yearly circulars with 750 orchid growers and in correspondence 
with all the leading orchidologists. He is the author also of “ Where 
the Big Trees Grow,” and the distributor of exsiccalte of the flora of 
the Sequoia Gigantea region, 1.500 numbers represented in the herbaria 
in 16 foreign cities and in Boston, Washington, St. Louis, Stanford and 
San Francisco 
“ How to Know the Ferns.” is the title of a most interesting and 
valuable book by Frances 1 heodora Parsons. Six yeais ago this lady, 
then Mrs. William Starr Dana, published a guide to the names, haunts 
and habits of the common wild flowers under the title “How to Know 
the Wild Flowers.” The two books are companion volumes. “ How 
to Know the Ferns” has been appropriately and accurately illustrated 
by Marion Satterlee and Alice Josephine Smith. “ It seems strange ” 
says the author “that the abundance of ferns everywhere has not 
aroused more curiosity as to names, haunts and habit. Add to this 
abundance the incentive to their study afforded by the fact that owing 
to the comparatively small number of species, we can familiaiize oui- 
selves with a large proportion of our native ferns during a single sum. 
mer, and it is still more suprising tbat so few efforts have been made 
to bring them within easy reach of the public.” With the exception 
of a single volume there was no book with sufficient text and illustra¬ 
tions within the reach of the brains and purse of the average fern-lover, 
until this book of Mrs. Parsons appeared. In view of the singular 
grace and charm of the fern tribe, this lack of fern literature is sur¬ 
prising. In a preface and a chapter on ferns as a hobby, the author 
arouses a deep interest in her subject and then passes into the con¬ 
sideration of the following topics in succeeding chapters : When and 
where to find ferns, explanation of terms, fertilization development 
and fructification of ferns, notable fern families, how to use the book, 
guide, fern descriptions, index to Latin and English names and techni¬ 
cal terms. Pp. X1V-215 ; 12 mo., $1.50. New York: Charles 
Scribner’s Sons. 
