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THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[April, 



and only the propagator and his assistants ever 

 allowed to enter. These assistants had to pay a 

 round sum for initiation into the mysteries of this 

 sacred place, and of course it was not necessary 

 under these circumstances for the chief propaga- 

 tor to put his finger on his lip, or to wink his eye. 

 They were interested in keeping the secrets that 

 flourished only within the walls. With the era 

 of magazine literature, however, the wonderful 

 processes leaked out, and bell glasses, hand glasses, 

 various colored glasses, silver sand and other 

 wonderfully colored sands, hot-water pipes, hot- 

 water tanks, hot chambers, and no end of con- 

 trivances, were illustrated and described ; and we 

 often look back to even so recent a time as the 

 early volumes of our own magazine in amazement 

 at the many wonderful contrivances for success- 

 ful propagation. In these days nurserymen em- 

 ploy even the most thick-headed boys in grafting, 

 budding and cutting making. A backwoodsman 

 with a hatchet can graft a tree as well as an old 

 professional with a five-dollar grafting outfit. 

 Boxes of sandy mush set in the full sun, root soft 

 wooded cuttings as well as any old-time forcing 

 pit ; and when we look at our boxes of rooted 

 heath cuttings stuck in by a boy who hardly 

 knows how to read, and remember the time we 

 had with them when we hardly dared to speak of 

 them except as Ericas, we really think the world 

 moves. 



As a practical hint in propagating, we may make 

 room for one leading principle here; Full light 

 is opposed to the rooting impulse of a plant. Roots 

 are formed under ground, in the darkness. Wood 

 formed in partial light will root easier than wood 

 formed in full light. For this reason those who 

 propose to strike cuttings grow their plants first in 

 partial light. A rose grown under glass will give 

 cuttings that strike easily ; cuttings from out-door 

 roses root with difficulty. We learn from all this 

 the kind of wood to be used for cuttings is of much 

 more importance than any method of heating or 

 of treating them. — Ed. G. M.] 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Insects on Roses and Carnations. — " Mrs. 

 G. R.," Pemberton, N. J., writes: " Your remarks 

 on page 31 of the January number of the (Gar- 

 deners' Monthly, give me courage to write you 

 on a subject in which I am much interested. 1 

 send you with this mail a tin box containingasmall 

 bunch of yellow cocoons, from which little black 



flies are hatching. I inclose with it some of the 

 flies that have hatched, and I have reason to 

 think that some of them will be alive when it 

 reaches you, as a number of them have lived 405 

 days in my incubator, which is an mverted tum- 

 bler on the mantel, back of the stove. A friend 

 hasjust told me that she found in a work on en- 

 tomology, a description answering to this insect, 

 and it said the little black fly destroyed the cab- 

 bage worm. We found a great number of these 

 cocoons on the under side of the leaves of our 

 Carnation plants, when we took them in the green- 

 house last fall. I shall be under great obligations 

 to you if you will tell me what they are, and 

 whether they are friends or enemies ; and I would 

 like very much to know if they have any con- 

 nection with the common brown grub that does so 

 much damage in the spring. They cut off hundreds 

 of our Carnations and other plants last spring. At 

 that time I brought two of them in the house and 

 placed them in a pan of soil ; after they had been 

 there a number of days, one of them showed great 

 uneasiness, as if trying to escape from the pan ; 

 then I was called away for fifteen or twenty 

 minutes, and when I looked again the grub had 

 shrunk to one-third its former size, and close by 

 it lay a bunch of what looked like yellow silk 

 floss, and squirming all through it a great number 

 of tiny white grubs. Now I cannot say that the 

 flies gave birth to those little grubs and the floss 

 that enveloped them, as 1 did not see the action, 

 but it is the only way in which I can account for 

 their being there. The grub died in a short time ; 

 the other grub went into the chrysalis state and 

 j finally got destroyed. It seems improbable to me 

 i that there is any connection in the two or three 

 forms of insect life that I have mentioned. I give 

 you the facts as they have come under my ob- 

 servation, hoping you will give me some light on 

 I the subject, which 1 earnestly desire, and which is 

 j my only apology for writing you such a long let- 

 ter I have also fifteen katy-did eggs in my incu- 

 bator which have not hatched yet. 1 am very 

 curious to see what they will develop." 



[There were no signs of black flies in the box. 

 The cocoons seem to belong to Apantcles, a 

 class of Microgasters, that are friends rather 

 than enemies. The grub that is often so de- 

 structive to the roots of flowers is generally 

 the larvai of the May Beetle, and we know of 

 no other that is so destructive. It is said 

 that a little earth taken away around each plant 

 and a little salt placed therein, will kill these 

 grubs; but salt in an overdose will kill the plants 



