ISIQJ 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



283 



The delicate passion flower adorns the old 

 fences and waste fields, and is a great pest as a 

 weed, being hard to exterminate. Perhaps I 

 have found a novelty; if not, I will expose my 

 ignorance (which is real) by saying that 

 near an old fence I found growing wild the 

 passion flower of the purest white and much 

 larger than the common purple species. Old 

 citizens said they had never seen another of like 

 character. Another beautiful flower that grows 

 wild in abundance on the black land only, is the 

 Ipomopsis elegans or standing cypress of common 

 fame. Its brilliant scarlet spikes glow in many 

 a grassy, weedy nook, where the sun finds ready 

 access. Taking it all in all the people of north. 

 ern Texas have a glorious country in which to 

 grow fruit and flowers. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The Postal Laws as Affecting Horticulture. 

 — Many of our friends were hurt that we should 

 say the Express companies would hold their own. 

 They now see that it is so. It was never the 

 intention to double the rates on printed matter. 

 It makes no difference to the Express companies 

 what these rates are. It is the transmission of 

 merchandise which hurts them. It was a bad 

 blunder of Mr. Hamlin's to include printed 

 matter. It raised the whole newspaper press, 

 and so they have been only too glad to 

 have it repealed. Merchandise, seeds, cuttings, 

 and things of that class, are now just as the 

 express companies desired, and we suppose it 

 will thus remain ; and we must submit to the 

 rule of these corporations with as much grace as 

 we can. 



We are not of those who think governments 

 should carry on a postal service wholly irrespect- 

 ive of profit or loss. It seems to us that a wise 

 statesmanshiiD should manage the post-office so 

 that on the whole it should be self-supporting, 

 or if with a deficit, yet with some prospects of 

 an early self-sustenance. It is, therefore, a per- 

 fectly fair question as to whether this merchan- 

 dise pays, or is likely to pay. We presume it 

 does pay, and did at the old rates. At any rate 

 that should have been considered well before the 

 attempt was made, and thousands of firms had 

 adapted themselves to the new circumstances. 

 If it was not statesmanship to enter on so great 

 a charge without fair facts or figures, or laws of 



sound political economy, it was still less to take 

 a backward step, and especially in so sudden a 

 way. The bare idea of statesmanship in con- 

 nection with it is laughable. It is not states- 

 manship, it is robbery ! 



Flower Thieves. — A thief in Jersey City did 

 not read the papers. He did not steal the flow- 

 ers direct from the plants, but he stole them 

 from a messenger who was taking them to a 

 customer. He is to stay two years in jail. Serves 

 him right. He should have studied the laws a 

 little more. It shows, however, that flower 

 thieving is a risky business unless intelligently 

 pursued. 



Phvsalis edulis. — Of this the Garclenei-'s 

 Chronicle says : 



" Physalis edulis is receiving the attention it 

 deserves from some French horticulturists, and 

 M. de St. Quentin, writing in the Bulletin de la 

 Societe d'Acclimatafion, declares the fruit to be 

 superior to the best flavored tomatoes. With us 

 it is still very little grown, and usually more as a 

 novelty than for the sake of its crop of fruit, 

 but doubtless it will sooner or later come into 

 favor in this country, just as the tomato has 

 done. Within the last ten or fifteen years the 

 demand for tomatoes in England has increased 

 to an enormous extent, though few persons like 

 them on the first trial ; but after the taste for 

 them is once acquired nothing is more palatable. 

 The same remark applies to the beet-root, which 

 is now rapidly superseding the less wholesome 

 and more expensive indigestible pickles." 



The Lemon Verbena.— Very few of our read- 

 ers, we suppose, ever fancied there were medi- 

 cinal virtues in the Lemon Verbena, but this is 

 what the London Gardener's Chronicle says : 



" The Lemon plant, or sweet-scented Verbena 

 of our English gardens [Aloysia citriodora), holds 

 a foremost place among Spanish herbs. Every 

 leaf of it is treasured and di-ied for winter use, 

 and it is regarded as the finest cordial and 

 stomachic in the world. It is taken in two ways 

 —either made into a decoction with hot water 

 and sugar, and drank cold as a refresco and 

 tonic ; or, better still, with the morning and eve- 

 ning cup of tea. ' Put a sprig of Lemon Ver- 

 bena, say five or six leaves, into the teacup, and 

 pour the tea upon it ; you will never suffer from 

 flatulence, never be made nervous and old- 

 maidish, never have cholera, diarrhoea, or loss of 

 appetite. Besides, the flavor is simply delicious ; 

 no one who has once taken his Pekoe with 



