1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



123 



they, good creatures, throw around the failings 



of men : 



" She had views on co-education 



And the principal needs of the nation ; 



And her glasses were blue, and the numbers she 



knew 

 Of the stars in each high constellation. 

 And she wrote in a hand-writing clerky, 

 And she talked with an emphasis jerky ; 

 And she painted on tiles, in the sweetest of styles. 

 But she didn't know chicken from turkey." 



James Ritchie. — The few still remaining of the 

 older race of florists in the United States will learn 

 with great regret of the death of James Ritchie, 

 which occurred March i ith, from suffocation with 

 coal gas, coming from the heater through the regis- 

 ter. He had reached his 77th year, and was still 

 hale and hearty, having been but a short time be- 

 fore with the writer in the City Council Chamber, 

 in which he also had served six years. 



He came to America in early life from Scotland, 

 and after a short time in Philadelphia, he started in 

 partnership with Mr. John Dick (who had married 

 his sister), in the florist business at Kensington, 

 when in his 28th year. The firm of Ritchie & Dick 

 was a very successful one, and in some articles, 

 especially in camellias, roses, and azaleas, obtained 

 a reputation all over the world. About twenty-five 

 years ago, having a competency that satisfied him, 

 while his partner was still anxious to push things, 

 the firm dissolved, taking the unique and friendly 

 way of dividing the plants into two lots of as nearly 

 equal value as possible, by one taking- what be 

 thought the best plant, the other the next best, and 

 so on till the whole was divided. Mr. Dick estab- 

 lished himself in Kingsessing ; Mr. Ritchie contin- 

 uing in Kensington, but confining himself to little 

 more than cut flowers. In this he may be said to 

 have been one of the leading pioneers in a trade 

 that has since reached enormous dimensions in 

 Philadelphia. His work was so tasteful as to be 

 always in demand. He was among the leading 

 members of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 

 in its palmy days, and continued his interest 

 through all its days of trouble and disaster, down 

 to the day of his death. He was one of the original 

 contributors to the fund for building the famous 

 Horticultural Hall. 



The first articles that appeared in our magazine 

 on steam heating, were from his pen, and much 

 of the wonderful progress made in this department 

 is the result of the interest his papers excited. 



New Book on Gardening in the South S. 



W. Peek, of the Hartwell Nurseries, in Georgia, 

 will soon issue a work entitled, " The Nursery and 



Orchard." It will be of 200 pages, and illus- 

 trated. 



How John's Wife Made Money at Home. — 

 Published by Hunter M'Calloch, 1828 Reed St., 

 Philada. 



This is full of very good suggestions about bee- 

 keeping, silkworms, canaries, one cow, and chick- 

 ens. It is a pamphlet of 80 pages, and will be 

 well worth its cost to those interested. It is, per- 

 haps, all a matter of taste, but the effort to make 

 one believe that John's wife wrote it is a miserable 

 failure. It is another case of the old Adam putting 

 up a job on Eve. One can, however, excuse 

 this for the sake of John's good suggestions. 



Corn and Potato Manual. — ByJ.C. Vaughan, 

 Chicago. 



The tables of the Gardeners' Monthly fairly 

 groan with trade catalogues which we are repeat- 

 edly asked to notice. There is rarely one that 

 has not some commendable feature, and we can- 

 not notice one without taking in nearly all. A 

 magazine like ours has no room for this, and 

 hence catalogues cannot be noticed in our read- 

 ing pages. But it is often very difficult to decide 

 as to what is a mere catalogue, for some of them 

 give information equal to that which the most 

 valuable library book could give ; and just such a 

 case is this before us, though it is essentially a 

 catalogue intended to help the trade of the author. 

 It is brim full of information which in its treat- 

 ment at least, has a fair claim to be repeated as 

 original. We give the following specilhen from 

 the chapter on Indian corn : 



"It is not the age, but the birth-place of Indian 

 corn that is in dispute. All authorities agree as 

 to its antiquity. Those who claim America for its 

 origin tell of its being found in tombs and ruins 

 of South America, in caves of Arizona, and 

 mounds of Utah. Darwin, in his 'Voyage of a 

 Naturalist,' mentions a head of a stalk found im- 

 bedded in a shell and sea-drift eighty-five feet 

 above the surface of the sea. The 111. Hort. Soc. 

 Trans., 1876, contain the statement of a Mr. Spitz, 

 that he came upon petrified stalks and cars of corn, 

 perfect in appearance, while working a stone 

 quarry, near La Prairie, Adams Co., 111. The 

 Smithsonian Institute has an irregular, 13-rowed 

 ear of corn found in an earthen vessel eleven feet 

 under ground, in the tomb of a mummy, near 

 Ariquipi, Peru. 



" Those who claim Asia for its origin point to the 

 representation of the plant found in an ancient 

 Chinese book in the Royal Library in Paris, and 

 tell of the grain being found in cellars of ancient 

 houses in Athens. Rifaud speaks of finding the 

 grain and ear of maize within the tomb of a 

 mummy at Thebes, in 1819. A few like Corbett 

 claim it to be the corn of Scripture. It is in- 



