1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



131 



I have it naturalized in one corner of a mill-pond, 

 where, could you have visited me last summer, I 

 could have shown you a bit of Nile scenery con- 

 sisting of a fine bed of this ancient plant, with 

 abundance of noble leaves from one to two feet in 

 diameter ; one hundred buds in all stages of de- 

 velopment, and twenty expanded flowers at one 

 time. Nelumbium luteum is a beautiful plant, and 

 well worth cultivating, but N. speciosum is in 

 every way much more desirable. I find it much 

 easier to transplant and establish. It grows more 

 rapidly and flowers more freely than N. luteum. 

 It will flower the first season it is planted, which is 

 seldom the case with N. luteum. With me it be- 

 gins to bloom early in July, and produces a con- 

 stant succession of flowers until late in October. 

 At least this is the case as grown in my largest 

 artificial basin, where last summer it produced (en- 

 tirely without artificial heat) some leaves thirty 

 inches across on foot-stalks five and six feet in 

 length, and flower-stalks the same length as the 

 latter, one, however, measuring seven feet. 



Many of the flowers were eleven and twelve 

 inches across when fully expanded, and one meas- 

 ured thirteen inches from tip to tip of petals. The 

 first day the flowers appear like gigantic tea rose 

 buds of a bright rose color. The second day they 

 open like a tulip, the base of the petals being 

 creamy white, beautifully shaded off into bright 

 pink. The third day the flower opens more 

 broadly, and is still lighter in color. They are also 

 delightfully fragrant. This plant can be grown in 

 a large half-hogshead, but a better plan is to have 

 a basin of brick and cement sunk in the ground. 

 One six feet in diameter and two feet deep would 

 answer very well. It could be covered with boards 

 and litter in winter. 



attractive ? I have seen the American elm, which, 

 when the growth of the top has a proper shape, is 

 one of the noblest of our shade trees, grow up in a 

 straggling manner, sometimes almost like a naked 

 pole, and again like the letter Y, a body and two 

 arms like a pig yoke. I think large trees are 

 much improved in appearance if cut back into a 

 regular head when planted. And the Norway 

 maple can be made to grow erect like the sugar, 

 or otherwise, by allowing the leader to grow and 

 shortening the side branches. 



NOTES. 



BY " DOGWOOD. 



SHADE TREES. 



BY ISAAC HICKS. 



It IS admitted that thrifty, well-formed trees of 

 any class are objects of beauty, but there is a wide 

 difference in the kindsof trees that fulfill this requi- 

 site. Among these pretty trees I think the weep- 

 ing silver linden excels all others. They are rare, 

 and are worked on other stock, but the eye can 

 rest on a perfect, graceful specimen in a fine lawn, 

 standing by itself, with much pleasure. 



But why is it that so many will spend time and 

 money to plant shade trees, and then allow them 

 to grow out of shape, forlorn objects, where a little 

 care in regulating the growth of the head or 

 branches would have made them uniform and 



Several years ago a friend who was born in 

 England and grew some forty varieties of roses, 

 &c., gave me what he called a buckthorn. It did 

 not do well, and died in a few years. But mean- 

 time I had grafted and budded it in our native 

 thorn, common in low pasture fields. The way it 

 has grown and blossomed shows it well adapted to 

 it. The bud was put in midway on a limb, where 

 it is hard to bud the peach. Still it grew finely. 

 The flowers are double, rose color, striped and va- 

 riegated, and are much admired. 



Huntiiig the Balloon Tree. — I suppose botanists, 



I some at least, hardly know what a balloon tree is. 



But I must preface with a word about my guide. 



: While I know but little of botany — only read a book 



or two on it — my guide never saw a book on botany. 



I He is a farmer's son, twenty-three years old ; still he 



j has made a greenhouse some forty feet long. I'll 



1 take you through it before we start for the balloon 



tree. He did all the work himself, even to making 



' the brick flues and chimney. On one side we find 



overeighty varieties of begonias — the best collection 



j I ever saw. His Rex are grown mostly in manure, 



j and are very fine. There are over forty varieties 



I of fuchsias and a good collection of geraniums. 



I One also sees palms, dracaenas, crotons, orchids, 



i camellias, besides too many things to mention. But 



' this is not all he attends to. In the summer he 



goes into the field, drives the reaper, follows the 



plow barefooted, and helps milk the cows at night. 



Well, he had a balloon tree, and I wanted one. 



' So he led the way down a deep ravine, where 



I one finds several trees not very common in the 



woods, such as black-haw (Viburnum prunifoUum), 



wahoo (Euonymus), red bud, or bean tree (Cercis 



Canadensis), Juneberry (Amelanchier botryapium), 



! and the balloon tree (Staphylea trifolia), I guess 



it. While none of these are quite as good for lawn 



trees as the large flowering dogwood (Cornus 



