Hoi'ticuUural JVotes. 125 



Horticultural Notes. 



GroH'ltnj Foreat Trees, 



R. S. Elliott, the great Kansas tree planter, gives the following directions for 

 starting certain forest trees : 



The lohite ash can be grown from seed planted in drills, and then cultivated, thin- 

 ning out by cutting or transplanting. Plant the seed either in spring or fall. If 

 kept over, it should be wintered in sand and slightly dampened. 



The Cottonwood^ for large quantities, is best grown from cuttings. Cut in one foot 

 lengths, and bury in moist, but not wet earth, and set out in the spring. 



The Houey locust: Keep the pods till spring, in a dry and cool place, if not con- 

 venient to plant in the fall. If planted in spring, the seeds must be immersed in 

 warm water, to soften the horny shell. If planted in the fall this is not necessary ; 

 but some may not grow till the second year. 



Basswood or linden seed can be sown when ripe, or kept in damp sand till spring, 

 most of which will germinate the first season. The seedlings can be readily trans- 

 planted. 



Destroy iny Weeds on Liiwiis. 



W. Nichol. in the Cottage Gardeiiei^ speaks highly of the use of oil of vitriol for 

 eradicating plantain and other weeds on garden lawns, having applied it successfully 

 for several years. He says : " We use a small narrow-necked glass bottle, such as 

 is used by chemists in laboratories, etc. One may be purchased at any chemist's at 

 a very trifling cost. If the glass stopper in the side be kept firmly in its place, the 

 liquor will only come out in drops, and therefore the operator is not so likely to waste 

 the acid or throw it over his clot.hes, as would otherwise be the case. If the acid 

 can be procured pure, it may be considerably diluted with water, in some cases quite 

 one-half, and it will still be sufficiently strong for all weed-killing purposes." 



CiiciDitbers on Trellises, 



The Gardenei'^s Monthly says no one who has not tried it, can have any idea of the 

 luxurious growth of a cucumber, when trained on a stake, which has a set of stubby 

 side-branches left along its length ; and the crop on some the writer saw so trained 

 was enormous. By this plan the vines occupy less ground, and it is the natural habit 

 of the cucumber to climb instead of trailing on the ground. This is a hint worth 

 remembering, especially by those who have small gardens. 



I'crtilizers for the J^inrn. 



F. R. Elliott rocommends in the Cleveland Herald the following fertilizers : Bone 

 meal is the only one that can give off a bad odor, and if that could be sown upon a 

 light snow, or just before a rain, the ammonia would probably be washed into the 

 ground before much would pass into the air. 



•' We are aware that it is a long old time practice to dress the lawn in autumn 

 with coarse manure, and so make the whole foreground of a gentleman's place the 

 apparent receptacle of his stable yard for the winter, but, thanks to our American 

 ideas of propriety, and our knowledge of assimilation of plant food, we now measura- 

 bly ignore the dogmas of old country gardeners and use specifics, i. e., just now we 

 apply salt at the rate of four bushels to eight bushels per acre, bone meal in same 

 quantity, and plaster one-fourth. The sooner these manurial agents, all except the 

 plaster, are now applied, the better, unless it be upon a lay of land so sloping that 

 the coming rains, with melting of snow and ice, will cause the commingling or detri- 

 tion of the manures to wash away witli the falling water. In such locations we should 

 not apply our specifics as above named, until the snow and ice are gone, but then we 

 would make no delay. The application of the plaster, i. e., its sowing, should be just 

 after the grass has made an inch or more of growth," 



