138 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[May. 



valuable to others, but the florist or nurser3man 

 who has to earn his daily bread cannot afford 

 time to teach all mankind gratis what he has 

 learned. Yet people pay more each year for 

 foreign plants and seeds not suited to the cli- 

 mate and soil, and for those which would suc- 

 ceed if properly cultivated which are lost, than 

 would pay for a periodical suited to the wants 

 of the climate. Yes, we lost a worthy friend and 

 co-laborer when Dr. Swasey died during the late 

 epidemic. It does not always follow that a 

 writer has the practical experience. Dr. Swasey 

 had experience, which makes the loss the 

 greater. 



You say in the January Monthly that the 

 E. Ravennte is light brown with you. Is not that 

 owing to the way it is cured ? I cure mine by the 

 French method : Cut before it has shot entirely 

 out of its sheath. I hang it up head down , to dry. 

 I think not more than two showed any color 

 in fifty plumes. It has been admired here as 

 more rare than the pampas. 



I had some Persimmons, Texas variety, to 

 send you last fall, but procrastinated until they 

 spoiled. The Persimmon here grows very laro-e, 

 at least two and a half inches in diameter. They 

 commence ripening the last of August or first of 

 September. They require no frost, but on the 

 contrary, ripen during our hottest weather; the 

 thermometer is usually about 90^ in the shade. 

 The fruit dealers usually have them on their 

 stands, and persons accustomed to them are 

 very fond of them. The black or dark purple 

 persimmon, which grows in places in Texas, is 

 a beautiful small-leaved evergreen; the fruit 

 ripens in July, but can scarcely be called edible ; 

 the tree will bear clipping, and is very orna- 

 mental. 



Retinospora plumosa here, during the cold of 

 winter, turns as brown as tan-bark, and on this 

 account is objected to, although a very beautiful 

 tree all the rest of the year. Thujas and Bio- 

 tas also turn brown for a few weeks in Janu- 

 ary. 



[We are not sure that this letter was intended 

 for publication, but the manner in which a 

 " leggy" pot-plant was fixed up for an occasion, 

 so interested us that we have had an engraving 

 made of that phothgraph ; and besides there are 

 other good hints that we thought deserved more 

 than a mere " pigeon hole." We hope to be 

 pardoned for using the letter in this way.— Ed. 

 G.M.] 



SOBRALIA MACRANTHA. 



BY MANSFIELD MILTON, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO. 



A very beautiful and showy orchid from Gua- 

 temala. The flowers are of large size, about 

 six inches across, of a beautiful purple and 

 bright crimson color ; only one flower is open at 

 one time, but then as one decays another soon 

 follows. The plant requires plenty of pot-room 

 and good rough fibrous peat for the rather 

 succulent roots to grow in. During the season 

 of growth plenty of water should be sup- 

 plied withholding as the growths ripen, but 

 do not allow the plant to get so dry as to injure 

 it by allowing the shoots to shrink. Look out 

 for scale or any other insects on the leaves as 

 this is one of those plants which is much easier 

 to keep clean with an occasional sponge than 

 destroy the insects when once they get a foot- 

 hold. 



THE AMERICAN BANNER ROSE. 



BY PETER HENDERSON, NEW YORK. 



In your last number you seem to express a 

 doubt of how the new striped Tea Rose, Ame- 

 rican Banner may hold to its description. To 

 give you ocular evidence, I to-day send you two 

 buds, making the statement that we have now 

 had it growing for nearly a year, and in the 

 thousands of buds our stock has produced in that 

 time, not one has been seen except such as 

 has been clearly and distinctly marked — crim- 

 son and white like those now sent you, — some 

 lighter than others, but that is the only variation. 

 It is as we have said, a " sport " from Bon Si- 

 lene, but is entirely distinct in its foliage from 

 that or any other Rose we have ever seen, 

 and this peculiarity of foliage in my opinion, is a 

 guarantee that it will hold to its peculiar mark- 

 ing. The Beauty of Glazeuwood, as 3'ou are 

 probably aware was nothing but the old For- 

 tune's Yellow, issued some twenty years ago, 

 and when sent out from London last year, must 

 either have been done through the grossest ig- 

 norance or rascality — in all probability the lat- 

 ter — for no condition that ever Fortune's Yellow 

 could assume would ever have shown the strip- 

 ing of " crimson and gold" as the colored plate 

 showed in the Beauty of Glazenwood. This ex- 

 perience in the Beauty of Glazenwood Rose was 

 such as to well make the American nurseryman 

 hesitate to take anything on faith from Euro- 



; pean growers, after such an impudent swindle. 



! Mr. Saul of Washington, who sent it out here, 



