DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



145 



many famishing wretches could be fed and clothed 

 with the bread given to those " splendid" horses, 

 and the meat cut up for those worthless hounds; 

 and how many thousands could be employed in the 

 cultivation of those stately pleasure "rounds, so 

 ostentatiously extended! Would not those " parks" 

 waving in broad tields of grata, and dotted with 

 beautiful herds, and vocal with the mirth of 

 jocund Laborers be equally pleasant to the eye of 

 a true philanthropist as now? Yes, and abun- 

 dantly more. There is something in England 

 rotten, as well as in Denmark — and so they will 

 ere Ions find out. God fend Americans from all 

 such calamity. 



The Swan. — Very pretty to read about, but let 

 that end it. A swan is a perfect fool out of 

 water, and in a country like ours, where the 

 streams and ponds are frozen for half the year, a 

 China goose is infinitely better ; and they are a 

 nuisance in any well ordered grounds. If you 

 must keep a swan, let it be in a pond inside a 

 conservatory, and then it is in keeping with the 

 other exotics. But if you don't believe it, first 

 invest the money, and the time that I have done 

 in " fancy " water fowl, and you will be wiser in 

 a few years. Most people have " swans " enough 

 in their own geese, and I am quite content that 

 they shall live on such " poetry" alone. 



To prevent Potatoe Rot. — I doubt it I have 

 read near a wheel-barrow load of essays and 

 pamphlets on the potatoe disease, and tried all 

 sorts of preventives, and know no more about it 

 than ever. Side by side they grow — some will 

 rot and some will keep. The same neighborhood 

 produces bad, good, and indifferent, with equal 

 cultivation, on the same soils and from the same 

 seed. May not the disease, like the cholera, be 

 partially atmospheric? At all events we know 

 little about it as yet, and I fear that all investiga- 

 tion will be alike unsatisfactory. Plant sound 

 seed, in soil of moderate fertility, dig early, and 

 keep dry, is the best plan I have yet known. 

 Jeffreys. New York, Aug. 1849. 



[We recognize in " Jeffreys," the pen of a well 

 known writer, and shall be glad to hear from him 

 again. Ed.] .... 



Summer Blooming Exotics — Sir : The facility 

 with which the plants of tropical climates are 

 cultivated in this country during the summer 

 months, not unfrequently renders our stoves and 

 greenhouses receptacles for tools and lumber, 

 during this season of floral beauty, instead of 

 beinir embellished with the choicest productions of 

 the vegetable kingdom. In some establishments, 

 where an attempt has been made to fulfil the 

 design lor which these edifices were intended, 'tis 

 not unusual to see plants of discordant habits, and 

 natives often of the very opposite sides of the 

 globe conirresated within the limits of a small 

 bouse, in which the temperature, atmosphere, and 

 mode, of treatment are always the same to one 

 plant as to another ; hence it is, that if certain 

 tribes of plants are to be cultivated on an exten- 



sive scale, and to their greatest perfection, the 

 house must, be as much as possible adapted to 

 their nature, and that no plants be introduced 

 amongsl them whose general treatment does not 

 correspond with those lor which the house is 

 principally set apart. My object, therefore, is to 

 submit to your readers a notice of such plants 

 whose easy culture and unrivaled beauty, with a 

 little care, will give a succession of bloom from 

 May till October, and whose moderate prices at 

 the public nurseries place them within the reach 

 of every amateur. 



For this purpose I would merely select the 

 Genera Fuchsia and Geranium, with their numer- 

 ous varieties of all hues. To keep a succession 

 of flowering plants, it is necessary to strike cut- 

 tings as early in the spring and summer as possi- 

 ble; when rooted they will grow rapidly in a cold 

 frame, kept rather close, and shaded occasionally 

 in hot weather. By this simple and easy means, 

 they will be ready to put on the stage when the 

 earlier plants are getting unsightly and out of 

 bloom. Achimenes, Gloxinias, and Gcsneras, if 

 grown in a (dose frame till flowering, and then 

 removed to the green-house, will make a magnifi- 

 cent display, intermixed with the other plants. 

 The graceful and free-flowering Manet ia bicolor. 

 and nearly all the species of Begonias, if flow- 

 ered in a stove, are equally well adapted for a 

 mixed grecn-housc during the summer months. 



The foregoing plants when flowered and remov- 

 ed to their summer quarters, will all thrive under 

 the same treatment, (except that Achimenes and 

 Gloxinias do best when the pots are placed under 

 a saucer of water.) Heat and light are the two 

 great agents of nature which call organic life in- 

 to existence, and without which those beautiful 

 colors and striking forms that surround us on ev- 

 ery side would have remained inorganic substan- 

 ces. These agents require to be differently ad- 

 justed to different tribes of plants when exposed 

 to bright sun, particularly under glass, for the loss 

 of water by plants depends mainly upon the inten- 

 sity of light to which they are exposed, as the fol- 

 lowing propositions affirm: 1st. Plants perspire 

 most in bright sun: 2d. They perspire least in 

 weak, diffused light: 3d. In darkness they per- 

 spire none at all. 



Upon the first axiom is founded the practice of 

 shading; but if this is carried to too great an ex- 

 tent, according to the third proposition the plants 

 become etiolated and die. The second proposition 

 shows the medium in which all plants, which like 

 Fuchsias. Achimenes, etc., naturally grow in the 

 shade, flourish ; hence it is that close muslin, strong 

 canvass, or bass mats, so frequently used, are ob- 

 jectionable, as excluding too much light, the plants 

 thereby becoming etiolated, that is, blanched, as 

 already suggested. Canvass of the slightest ma- 

 terial is preferable, not only because it preserves 

 the plants from the burning sun, but that it will 

 also admit sufficient of its vivifying rays and light 

 to enable the plants to assimilate their juices. I 



