180 



THE QARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[^Jitne, 



formerly. It— the weed — appears to be from 

 its geiiorul chiinicteristies (I hiive not studied it) 

 one of the Chonopoiliaocne, probably Cycloloma 

 platypliyihuu. It atlocta rich, clean soil, especi- 

 ally early broken prairie sod. In growth it is very 

 branching, and in Autumn it becomes the whole 

 plant, completely globular, when it,s root rots 

 off, and the Autumn wind set.s it to "tunibling" 

 and away it goes across the prairie, scattering 

 its seeds as it goes. It travels onward, literally, 

 with the speed of the wind, until it lodges 

 against some obstruction, where it frettingly re- 

 mains until the wind changes, when away it 

 goes where the winds listeth. It is a very curi- 

 ous sight to see a high fence on the prairies with 

 tens of thousands of these weeds banked up on 

 the south side of it, struck by a sudden gust of 

 wind from the north, when away they go over 

 the level field like a drove of deer or wolves, as 

 they are often two and a half feet in diameter, 

 they can be seen a long distance. As a weed, 

 we never considered them troublesome, but they 

 are exceedingly objectionable to skittish horses, 

 when they are in motion, and many a bad run- 

 away hiis been caused by the industrious " tum- 

 ble weed." 



But here, I have been writing about what I 

 know as the tumble weed ; how do I know that 

 your other Illinois correspondent means the 

 same thing or not? He may have tumbled to 

 this name for an entirely different weed. Some 

 years ago, while riding with five intelligent gen- 

 tlemen from different parts of this State, we 

 were talking of this common name business. 

 Some of them thought that there was no need of 

 technical names. We halted, and each was re- 

 quested to give the name of one of our most 

 common weeds, as known in his neighborhood, 

 and every one gave different names, while it is 

 known here under three difierent names. 



Another thing in this connection. Not one in 

 fifty, and probably not one in a hundred, of 

 our plants in the West have any common Eng- 

 lish name at all ; but the few that have been 

 loosely named have been, as a rule, given very 

 good descriptive names. With many thanks for 

 the good, old-fiishioned laugh, I am yours truly. 

 [We are very much obliged to Mr. Wier for 

 the information, all new to us. We did not 

 know the Cycloloma was so abundant in Illinois, 

 or that it had such rolling habits. The name is 

 characteristic, and whether there are others 

 with the name or not, it will be well to retain it 

 for this.— Ed. G. M.l 



FERflLIZATION OF CLOVER BLOSSOMS. 



I!V llOniCRT DOUr.L.VS, WAi:KK(iAN, ILL. 



■' In the Monthly for March, page 94, is an 

 article entitled ' Bees and Clover,' which is likely 

 to give a wrong impression. The writer quotes 

 Mr. Darwin as saying, that the failure of red 

 clover in England the past season is owing to the 

 scarcity of bees. Had the writer signed the arti- 

 cle ' Bumble Bee ' instead of ' Busy Bee,' it would 

 explain itself. Mr. Darwin must have meant the 

 humble bee, for the honey bee does not feed 

 on red clover, and for the same reason that the 

 fox in the fable did not feed on the grapes — he 

 could not reach them — neither can the honey 

 bee reach the sweets in the red clover ; while the 

 bumble bee feeds freely on that plant. There 

 are so few of them either in England or in 

 this country, that it does not seem probable that 

 tliey would have much effect on large fields of 

 red clover. The partial failure of the seed crop 

 is no doubt very often caused by cold drenching 

 rains at the time the plants are in blossom." 



[Mr. Douglas is no doubt correct that when 

 failure to jDroduce seed in the red clover occurs, 

 it is from some defect in the plant's nutritive 

 powers, as influenced by climatal or other cir- 

 cumstances. The first crop of clover rarely seeds 

 in these parts, but last year being warmer and 

 dryer than usual, the first crop had seeds in as 

 great abundance as any second crop ever had. 



The trouble in all these questions is that peo- 

 ple do not always stop to weigh the value of lan- 

 guage. For instance, there is some discussion 

 just now, in regard to the value of blue glass. 

 General Pleasanton believes that blue glass gives 

 great vital power, and to prove, gives in the lan- 

 guage of a contemporary, the following experi- 

 ment :—" On the 3d of November, A.D., 1869, 

 he imprisoned three sows and a barrow pig, all 

 weighing 203 lbs., in a common sty ; and on the 

 same day, three other sows and a barrow pig, all 

 weighing liSll lbs., in a blue glass sty. On the 

 4th day of March, 1870, the animals were 

 weighed, and it was found that the common sty 

 pigs weighed 537 lbs., the blue glass pigs 522} lbs. 

 Allowing for the original difference in weight, 

 thisshowed a gain for the blue glass pigs of 21 lbs., 

 or 5| lbs. each pig, in four months' time. From 

 these and other comparisons, the General infers 

 that ' it seems obvious that the influence of the 

 violet-colored glass was much marked.' He, 

 however, states that the barrow pig in the com- 

 mon pen increa.sed 151 lbs., while the barrow pig 



