THE FLORAL WORLD AND aARDEN GUIDE. 



the centre. The roof of tiffany should be 

 fastened to the rafters with shreds three 

 or four times double, so as to make a 

 thick pad, and either nailed on with short 

 naUs, or fastened with screws, so that it 

 may be easily taken to pieces annually the 

 first week in June, for till then we are 

 not safe from spring fi-osts. 



The tiffany-house should be placed orer 

 the trees the first week in March, unless 

 the season be unusually early, when the 

 middle of February would be better. The 

 sides should be loose, and be turned up 

 night and day in mild weather, while the 

 trees are in bloom ; but in cold, sharp, 

 windy weather in the blossoming season, 

 they should be kept down, and fastened 

 to the upright stakes, by tying or other- 

 wise. A tiffany-house, twenty-four feet 

 long and eight feet wide, will thus shelter 

 twenty-four trees, either bushes or pyra- 

 mids ; if for the latter, the sides of the 

 house should be four feet, and its centre 

 seren to eight feet in height. 



If it be thought desirable to keep the 

 trees in a comparatively small space, they 

 may be removed biennially in October. 

 If larger trees are desired, the house may 

 be enlarged as the trees grow. A tiffany- 

 house may be from one to five hundred 

 feet in length, and twenty in width, if 

 desirable, for there are no particular limits 

 to its extent, only the effects of a " March 

 wind" must be thought about, when lofty 

 and extensive houses are put up. As 

 measures of economy, the timber and tif- 

 fany should be placed in a dry place when 

 removed, and the rafters fastened to the 

 plate and ridge board with screws. A 

 tiffany-house thus treated, " kindly and 

 gently," wUl last for several years, and in 

 places where the climate is sufficiently 

 warm to ripen apricots, plums, pears, 

 cherries, and even early peaches in the 

 open air, they will, I have no doubt, be 

 extensively employed — Descriptive Cata- 

 logue of Fruits, 1860. 



THE PAMPAS GRASS. 



No more valuable addition than this to 

 our ornamental garden plants has been 

 introduced for very many years ; yet so 

 many among my own friends and ncigh- 

 bom-s have procured it and have been dis- 

 appointed, that, for their benefit, as well, 

 doubtless, as lor that of hundreds of others 

 who have been equally unsuccessful, I 

 submit the result of my own personal 

 observations. Of the pampas grass there 

 are two forms — not, be it observed, two 

 varieties, but iwoforms, or, moro correctly, 

 sexes. The one, which I will call ih.e fruit- 

 fu.1 form (though I am not aware that fruit 

 has been perfected in this country), when 

 it has arrived at maturity, displays, in the 

 summer, a large circular tuft of leaves se- 

 veral feet long, bending gracefully outwards 

 and reaching to the ground, presenting a 

 not too fanciful resemblance to a fountain. 

 Prom the midst of this tuft, there begins 

 to rise, in September, a less or greater num- 

 ber of stalks sheathed with leaves like 

 those which constitute the ti.ift. The stalks 

 grow quite erect, and very rapidly, often 

 completing more than an inch in the 

 twenty-four hours. Towards the end of 

 October, each of these has perfected a 

 dense, shghtly-spreading panicle of flowers 

 (that is, such flowers as the true gi-asses 

 bear) about a foot long, so feathery as to 

 wave in the hghtest wind, and glistening 

 like silver filagree-work. An early frost, 



auch as that which gardeners moUrned 

 over in the October of 1859, is likely to 

 injure the stalk materially, and deprive it 

 of the power of resisting the storms of 

 November ; but in ordinary seasons it will 

 stand, with little impaii-ed beauty, until 

 late in the winter. This is the kind which 

 everyone who has a grass-plot twenty feet 

 square should grow in its centre, and no 

 more stately object can be desired. The 

 other form of the plant, wliich I will call 

 the barren, resembles the first during the 

 whole of summer, only it is somewhat 

 more robust, and not so graceful in the 

 droop of the leaves. About a month after 

 the other, it, too, begins to send up flower- 

 stalks, but not quite perpendicularly, nearly 

 all of them diverge more or less to the 

 sides. Unlike those of the fertile plant, 

 they grow slowly, and do not show the 

 top of their panicle through the sheathing 

 base of the leaves, until the second or 

 third week in October. This year no 

 flower appeared until the second week in 

 November, though the panicles of the 

 fertile plant were in full perfection before 

 the close of the preceding month. By 

 this time the temperatiu-e has diminished 

 to such an extent that their growth is 

 suspended, and the stalks, being full of 

 juices, are nipped by the first severe frost ; 

 they turn brown and wither away. This 

 is the form of the plant which several of 



