STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 139 



I shall never forget my own disappointment in the PerUlw Nankinensrs, which is 

 described as a beautiful variegated foliaged plant — very fragrant. Nor that of a triend 

 who purchased from the catalogue descriptive, a new and expensive plan! with a very 

 imposing name. Aitertwo years of careful training it, produced a flower ahoul the 

 color of a turkey's egg, and fully laden with the odor of sulphurretted hydrogen. 



As soon as possible, after commencing the garden, learn to bud, to graft, and to propa- 

 gate by layers and •cuttings. There Le a simple method of rooting cuttings, which may 

 not be known to all, and therefore may be of interest. Cuttings of almost everything 

 will rool v tv readily during the warm weather, it' inserted in a shallow dish nearly filled 

 with well washed sand. The only *' directions " are — "set in the sun and keep wet." 

 This method is particularly adapted to the use of beginners who are too impatient to 

 wait a reasonable length of time to see whether they have rooted or not ; as von have 

 only to make the sand very wet ; when the cuttings can be taken out and examined, and 

 then reinserted, without injury. If the dish be porous, and the wood only partially 

 hardened, so much the letter. 



What plants you can't make, buy. But I think you will find more pleasure, in a plant 

 whose entire growth has been made under your care, than in those suspicious looking, 

 puny things so often sent out by professional florists and seedsmen ; not only because you 

 have labored for it, but because you can rely upon it. 



In any garden, however small, care should be taken to ln\ e a succession of flowers all 

 through the season; if not, the garden is apt to be neglected ; as the pleasure is then 

 prospective. The hardy bulbs are the first to greet us, and ere they are gone, the flow- 

 ering shrubs come on. These are followed by roses, hardy herbaceous plants — summer 

 bulbs, greenhouse bedding plants— annuals, and lillies, through the summer, while dah- 

 lias, tube roses and chrysanthemums prolong the season till it is time to go sleighing. 

 Again I say plant flowers. They will always do their besl to repay you for your care. 

 Tend them well ; they will not disappoint yon by ingratitude. Don't be afraid of spoil- 

 ing your complexion, and be sure the friend to whom you tr'ive flowers, will never think 

 with less fondness of the hand which gives them, because it may be a little browned in 

 their service. 



' AN ESSAY ON CLIMATOLOGY, 



By Prof. Win. M. Baker, of the Industrial University, was read 

 by Mr. Pearson. 



Ladies and Gentlemen of flu Horticultural Society: — The Bubjecl which has been as. 

 ted me, on which to presenl an essay, is so wide in its extent, and so various in its 

 bearing, thai a per. -on more a specialist than myself, may well be in doubt as to what 

 one, of its manifold relations he shall present, in the brief space allotted to Buch an et 

 From man's earliest existence upon the e;n-tli, nietcrology — the aspeel of the risible 

 heavens, the cloud.-, the rain and the dew — the winds that blow where they lisl —the 

 changes of seasons and all the various phenomena accompanying these — has attracted 

 his attention, e\ citej his wonder and awe, and incited him to the Btudyofthe laws 

 governing the constant changes and evolutions going on before him. Although great 

 progress has been made in the comprehension of phenomena, and of many of the laws 

 governing them, yel they are dependent on so many cause-, primary or incident. Th< 

 causes are many of them so withdrawn from human observation, they interact so fre- 



