DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



Domrstir )h\m. 



Caltstegiapubescens.— Thisplant,arfo«6/e, 

 climbing rose convolvulus, continuing to flower 

 through a large portion of summer, a perennial, 

 and perfectly hardy, had much to reconuuend 

 it, and may yet be contintied in cultivation by 

 those wlio admire varietj'. But, like the Cam- 

 panula trachelium. introduced for ornament, 

 it is likely to prove a very troublesome weed. 

 We last year planted two or three fragments 

 of the root of the Calystegia, an inch long, and 

 as large as goose quills, which grew, and pro- 

 duced a profusion of flowers. But this spring 

 we found them coming up over the whole sur- 

 face within a circle of ten fed, whither, like 

 the Canada thistle, their roots had extended. 

 They were destroyed with the hoe; but in a 

 short time they sprang up again, nearly cover- 

 ing the whole surface, with some extension of 

 the circle. The soil is light; and tliey may not 

 extend quite so rapidly in heavy soil. 



The Milam Apple. — This apple has obtained 

 some celebiity at the west, and has been widely, 

 though not abundantly cultivated. Its quality 

 as given in the following extract from a letter 

 of Dr. Kennioott, of Northern Illinois, agrees 

 with specimens we have received from Cincin- 

 nati. " Perhaps I did not name a celebrated 

 Indiana and Illinois apple, called "Milam" — 

 my brother and several neighbi^rs have many 

 trees of this common western variety — we have 

 only one, and do not propagate it. This apple 

 is barely ^^ good," and is no great bearer here, 

 whatever it may be elsewhere. I know a dozen 

 trees 20 years old, which do not produce as 

 much as one tree of the size ought to bear. And 

 then we have certainly two, and perhaps more 

 varieties under this name. All that can be said 

 in favor of the Milam is that it is not a bad 

 apple — is pretty, though small, — pleasant, but 

 rather insipid — and where it produces well, as 

 it is said to do at the south, and no better can 

 be had, it should be cultivated." 



Apeicots at the East — Climate of Pales- 

 tine. — Extract from a letter of Dr. J. Thomas, 

 Smyrna, June 17, 1852 — " "When I was 

 o on the Gth of May, they had on the 



table at the hotel, ripe apricots ; and we have 

 found them at almost every important town 

 that we have stopped at since. We found veiy 

 fine ones in Palestine, but not finer, perhaps not 

 so fine, as I have seen in western Is'ew-York." 

 The letter adds, " The climate on the hills of 

 Palestine seemed to me more delightful than 



anything I have ever experienced. is 



quite American in his prejudices, but he said 

 he had never breathed any air so pure, sweet, 

 and exhilarating as that of the hills and val- 

 leys around Jerusalem. His health is so 

 much improved that his friends would hardly 

 know him." 



Cucumbers. — We have often seen cucumbers 

 in England, that measured twenty.three or 

 four inches, and the flower on them, which is a 

 sine qua non for exhibition with English ama- 

 teurs. There are " Cucumber Societies" around 

 London, the special object being the early pro- 

 duction of this fruit . But recent improvements 

 in the heating of forcing houses in that country, 

 renders it easy to have them in plenty all through 

 the winter, in every place where attention is 

 given to a hot-house, and consequently the so- 

 cieties are now only the remains of times gone 

 by, when the fight for a good cucumber in April, 

 was winter's frost on one side, against plenty of 

 good stable manure and careful gardening on 

 the other. Market gardeners around London, 

 grow cucumbers early in the year, on an ex- 

 tensive scale, in frames of many hundred feet 

 in length, heated by hot water pipes running 

 through them, upon which some faggots of 

 wood are first laid, and the compost upon the 

 latter. The faggots serve to distribute the heat 

 equally beneath the soil in which the plants 

 grow, and thus yards and yards of frames are 

 heated by a pipe 3 or 4 inches in diameter, 

 through which one small boiler and a moderate 

 fire keeps up a circulation of the hot water. 



A Monument to Mr. Downing. — I have 

 thought it would be fitting, could a suitable space 

 of ground be had near where he has passed so 

 many of his useful hours, midst his family 

 garden, looking down upon the noble H 



