1885.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



lOI 



tire of reading, writing, worlcing or talking about 

 them. 



[We are very glad to l^now this lovely rose is 

 still in existence. It is many years since we saw 

 a plant. We share our correspondent's warm 

 admiration for it. In regard to its striped char- 

 acter we may remark that all of this class come 

 self-colored at times, just as she found it with 

 the American Banner. — Ed. G. M.] 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The Love of Herbaceous Plants. — In an 

 admirable essay before the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society recently, Mr. E. L. Beard says: 

 " What is needed in the place of bedding plants is 

 diversity of form and color and artistic combina- 

 tions. Let us mark each season with its flowers 

 and enjoy them in their order, and the develop- 

 ment of our interest and pleasure will become 

 more full and gratifying with each successive 

 year. Our attention will be diverted to new pleas- 

 ures, before unknown or unappreciated, for the 

 realm of horticultural investigation has no limits. 

 A well-known writer, summing up the contrast be- 

 tween bedding and hardy plants, says there is 

 nothing whatever used in bedding to be compared 

 in any way — color, fragrance or bloom — to that 

 found in many families of hardy plants. There is 

 no beauty at all among bedding plants, compara- 

 ble with that of lilies, irises, paeonies, delphiniums, 

 narcissi, and a host of others. Are we to put aside 

 all this beauty or put it into a second place, for 

 the sake of the comparatively few things that 

 merely make beds and lines of colors for two or 

 three months, and from which you cannot cut a 

 nosegay ? Let those who like bedding plants en- 

 joy them ; but no one who knows what the plants 

 of the northern and temperate world are can ad- 

 mit that their place is a secondary one. We might 

 also argue from an sesthetic standpoint against the 

 artificialty of bedding out, and its violation of artis- 

 tic ideas, independent of its practical disadvan- 

 tages ; but as we have to deal with practice rather 

 than theory, it is better to attempt to show how 

 many beautiful, and to most people unfamiliar, 

 plants can be used to decorate our gardens and 

 grounds, many of which are barren wastes com- 

 pared with what a little knowledge and taste might 

 make them. The essayist therefore turned from 

 any arguments, for or against favorite plants, to 

 consider how our gardens may be made beautiful 

 by the culture of hardy plants." 



D.^NGERS FROM WiRE FENCES. — Forestry says 

 that among the dangers which follow wire fences 

 in that part of the world is the death of cattle from 

 lightning strokes conducted by the fences. 



C.\LLICARP.\ PURPUREA. — There seems to be 

 several species under this name in cultivation. 

 Certainly the one figured in the London Garden 

 of June i6th, last year, is not the one so known in 

 American gardens. The American is much pret- 

 tier as a shrub than that can be. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Copper Wire for Zinc Labels. — In reply to 

 an objection that the eyelet hole in a zinc label 

 soon wears away when it is suspended by copper 

 wire, "J. R. S." says: "The points of contact 

 are so minute between the wire and the label, 

 that I think enough moisture could not lodge . 

 thereto set up a galvanic action. Soft galvanized 

 wire or lead wire might be used." 



Raising Chrysanthemums from Seed. — 

 •■Mrs. J.G. M.," Buffalo, N. Y., writes: "Could 

 you not give, for amateurs, in the next issue of the 

 Gardeners' Monthly, some directions about the 

 raising from seeds, and care through the summer, 

 of the Japanese Chrysanthemums ? I am about 

 to try some, inspired by the New York Horticul- 

 tural Show last fall, and am most anxious to suc- 

 ceed." 



[Chrysanthemum seeds are generally sown by 

 the raisers as soon as ripe ; that is, early in winter, 

 and sown at once in a greenhouse. The plants 

 are quite forward by spring, and if set out in good 

 garden ground, will flower the following autumn. 

 Those who have no greenhouse could sow in the 

 open ground in early spring, but we do not know 

 whether such plants would bloom the same year. 

 The very double Chrysanthemums do not seed 

 well, for, though a double Chrysanthemum is not 

 double as in the case of Roses or Carnations, 

 through the stamens changing into petals, there is 

 a sexual change in Chrysanthemums, Dahlias 

 and many other flowers of the Aster-like or com- 

 posite class, with the change in the form of the 

 florets. In the single or " anemone-flowered " 

 Chrysanthemums, Dahlias, and so forth, the cen- 

 tral florets are tubular, and each has a pistil and 

 stamens. A double flower of this class is simply 

 the changing of a tubular to the strap-shaped 

 character, which generally forms the outer row of 

 florets. This outer row is very often neuter, or 



