cause it is said that the Ivy, if planted in vineyards, will destroy the vines, and 

 that it was thus doing an accejotable service to that plant to tear it up, and wreath 

 it into chaplets and garlands. The most probable, however, seems to be, that tlie 

 Ivy is found at Nyssa, the reputed birth-place of Bacchus, and in no other part 

 of India. The ancient Greek priests presented a wreath of Ivy to newly-married 

 persons, as a symbol of the closeness of the tie which ought to bind them together ; 

 and Ptolemy Philopater, King of Egypt, ordered all the Jews, who would abjure 

 their religion, and attach themselves to the superstitions of his country, to be 

 branded with an Ivy leaf. The Ivy is symbolical of friendship from the closeness 

 of its adherence to the tree on which it has once fixed itself; hence, also, it has 

 become a favorite device for seals, some of the best of which are, a sprig of Ivy 

 with the motto : ' I die where I attach myself;' and a fallen tree still covered 

 with Ivy, with the words : 'Even ruin cannot separate us.' 



" The Jasmine is no less celebrated for the delicacy of its odor and flowers, 

 than for the pretty love legend connected with its European history. The custom 

 which prevails in some countries, of brides wearing Jasmine flowers in their hair, 

 is said to have arisen from the following circumstance : A grand-duke of Tuscany 

 had, in 1699, a plant of the deliciously-scented jasmine of Goa, which he was so 

 careful of that he would not suffer it to be propagated. His gardener, however, 

 being in love with a peasant girl in the neighborhood, gave her a sprig of this 

 choice plant on her birth day ; and he having taught her how to make cuttings, 

 she planted the sprig as a memorial of his affection. It grew rapidly, and every 

 one who saw it, admiring its beauty and sweetness, wished to have a plant of it. 

 These the girl supplied from cuttings, and sold them so well, as to obtain enough 

 money to enable her to marry her lover. The young girls of Tuscany, in re- 

 membrance of this adventure, always deck themselves on their wedding-day with 

 a nosegay of Jasmine ; and they have a proverb, that ' she who is worthy to 

 wear a nosegay of Jasmine, is as good as a fortune to her husband.' " 



« • • > » 



THE CRACKING OF THE PEAR. 



BY TERRA. NORRISTOWN, PA. 



Dear Sir : — I am a great admirer of your excellent journal, and though but 

 the possessor of what you, perhaps, would call a very small garden, I reap a rich 

 harvest from the field of your pomological and floricultural labors. I am chiefly 

 interested in fruits. Though I have not the great collections I read of in the re- 

 ports of the chief societies and conventions, I have endeavored to command a 

 select list of good varieties, and derive a great deal of pleasure from their culti- 

 vation. My chief interest, however, is for my Pears, on which I have bestowed 

 really a great deal of attention. I think there was nothing induced me to go into 

 Pear culture so enthusiastically as some supremely delicious Butter Pears I once 

 bought in the Philadelphia market, and one of my first purchases consisted of six 

 specimens of that variety. When they commenced to bear, now six years ago, I 

 was surprised to find the fruit all cracked and knotty, and unfit for a hog to eat. 

 I was not then aware how extensively this disease prevailed, but soon learned from 

 some friends, better posted than I was then, and also found that every one had 

 his own special way of accounting for it. Every year since, as they increase in 

 useless and virtue trying productiveness, I have half resolved to dig up and dis- 

 card them, but have so far continued to hold on in the hope that I might by ol 

 servation discover a remedy ; or learn of some other person's success th 



