222 JHorticuUural A^o/cs. 



Asparagus from the kitchen garden are very useful ; so is the foliage of Tamarix 

 galiica, a hardy deciduous shrub ; also Ilumea elegans, and suchlike. Variegated 

 plants work in well ; the Iresine, with its handsome mottled red leaves, keeps well 

 in the sand ; so do Coleuses and variegated Pelargoniums ; of the latter, such as 

 Mrs. Pollock, and the white Ivy-leaved kind, L'Elegante. Then there are blooms of 

 Gladioli, Asters, Chrysanthemums, and many others, with stiff stalks to support 

 them. In a general way, many of the flowers will last only one day, and I change 

 the whole of them three or four times a week, but make a rule of looking the stands 

 over every other morning. The sand should not be so saturated that the flower stems 

 will not stand erect in it, or they are apt to fall out when the stands are removed 

 from the tabic. — 2'he Gardener. 



Horticultural iTTotes. 



friining Trees for Shape. 



About this time last spring I had a visit from an Indiana farmer. He was a 

 quaint looking old gentleman clad in home-spun "jeans," and with a profusion of 

 black hair reaching down between his shoulders. I looked for nothing new to come 

 out of that man ; but as these warm spring days bring the pruning fever out of us 

 country people, so this old gentleman found me slashing away among my young' 

 apple trees. He stood it like a hero until I had ruined the shape of one row of 

 trees, when, bless his soul, how mildly he put it — first a suggestion that "that" 

 limb might come out, then " if it was me I would take that one off." " Don't you 

 think the tree would be better balanced if one of those two parallel limbs was taken 

 out ^ " For once in my life I expressed no opinion but obeyed instructions, and 

 when I stepped back and looked at that tree, it " gleamed like a diamond." Was 

 it possible so little labor could create such symmetry ? In about the time it had 

 taken me to spoil one row, he perfected the rest of my orchard. 



I asked him if he could teach me to do that other sort of thing. In his answer 

 he affected no great amount of knowledge, but said it would take him about 100 

 years to be able to tell with any degree of certainity, what effect pruning the twig 

 would have upon the matured tree. This was a little more time than I cared to 

 devote to the subject; but this I did learn from him. You must first have in your 

 mind the picture of a perfect tree, and then prune each tree to conform as nearly as 

 possible to the proportions of that picture, leaving buds to produce limbs where they 

 are wanting. But the great point in his design, to my notion, is his picture. He 

 thought a perfect apple tree should have one main branch running up the center, and 

 the other limbs forming as nearly as possible a tulip shape about the main stem. 



This may not be the most approved form, but I never could trim under the 

 directions of a book, while I can conform the most neglected tree to this design, and 

 it lets the light and air into the tree with as much uniformity as any other design 

 with which I am familiar. Every limb that points inward, and all those that touch 

 others, should be taken out, and where two limbs form a very acute angle at the 

 crotch, one should be removed as they are liable to split when loaded with fruit. — 

 Cor. Farmers'' Home Journal. 



Jtasjiberfies. 



The Rural Neiv Yorker states that after a trial of one hun'dred different sorts, 

 and fifteen yeai's experience, there are now really no better and more profitable 

 kinds then these: These famous old sorts, such as Miami. Doolittle, Franconia, 

 Brinckle's Orange, Knevitt's Giant, and Hudson River ^Vntwerp, have, as yet, no 

 superiors. We have, it is true, made some progress in numbers of varieties, but 

 have added no merits nor made any advance on the whole, but only in certain im- 

 portant qualities. The Clarke is certainly a richer berry than the Franconia, and 



