1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



197 



worthless any suggestions that I might offer. My 

 only object in alluding to the subject here is the 

 desire to caution all against planting trees and 

 shrubs too thickly, and thus destroy the very ob- 

 ject we have in view when planting them. A room 

 crowded full of furniture has not a very attractive 

 appearance ; neither has a lawn when thickly 

 covered with trees and shrubs. Grass will not 

 grow in such situations, and in consequence the 

 whole will not present a very attractive appear- 

 ance. A few well-grown handsome specimens, 

 properly arranged and cared for, with a smoothly 

 mown lawn, will give more satisfaction and pleasure 

 to all who see it, as well as to the favored pro- 

 'prietor. 



Fellow members, I trust that you will be as 

 lenient in your criticisms as possible, for I acknowl- 

 edge my inability to instruct you. But, when 

 called upon to prepare an essay, I could not find 

 it in my power to decline, for 1 would not wish to 

 give any person the opportunity to say that the 

 officers of this Society — a Society that has 

 so often honored and rewarded me — should ask 

 me to perform any proper service for them, and 

 ask in vain. 



[This excellent essay was read before the New 

 York Horticultural Society at its April meeting. — 



Ed. G. M.] 



«-■-» 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Raising Gladioli from Seed. — It is no more 

 trouble to raise Gladioli from seed than to raise the 

 most common vegetable ; with the simplest garden 

 culture there is an almost absolute certainty of 

 success. Prepare your bed in spring as for any 

 hardy annual ; the soil should be made fine and 

 comparatively rich ; sow the seed in drills, cover to 

 the depth of one inch, hoe and weed sufficient 

 to keep the soil light and clean, take up the bulbs 

 after the first frost or before if ripe, store them dur- 

 ing the winter in a dry cellar or room free from 

 frost, plant them out again in the spring following, 

 and in the ensuing summer very many of them 

 will flower. With the convenience of a hotbed, or 

 frame, bulbs may be produced from seed in one 

 season that will very nearly all flower the second. 

 It will require a little more care and trouble to 

 grow them in this way, but the increase in the size 

 of the bulb will more than pay the extra cost. 

 One of the chief advantages, however, in sowing 

 in a frame is that in case of a heavy storm, the 

 young plants may be protected by the sash that 

 during all heavy rains should be kept closed, as 



the young plants rarely recover after the leaves 

 have been bruised or broken down. I know of no 

 pleasure in gardening equal to that of growing 

 plants from seed. — Garden. 



Trapping Insects. — Referring to insects which 

 crawl up or down the trunks of trees, Mr. J. W. 

 Manning tells the Mass. Horticultural Society: 

 " For tall elm trees, which cannot be reached with a 

 syringe, printer's ink on a band of paper round the 

 trees, or a metallic collar filled with oil, may be 

 used. A box set round the base of the tree, with a 

 trough for oil, was used in Mr. Clapp's orchard, in 

 Dorchester, nearly forty-five years ago. The first 

 set of boxes lasted twenty years, the second set 

 still remain. They cost about two shillings each. 

 The use of these methods would be of more benefit 

 if a general application should be made to all the 

 trees infested. It is a singular fact that the canker 

 worm will eat everything up to a certain division 

 wall, while beyond the wall not one will be seen. 

 The orchard of T. C. Thurlow, West Newbury, 

 was devastated for years by the canker worm, 

 but the use of printer's ink, at the expense of four 

 and a half cents per tree, was followed by a crop 

 of nine hundred barrels of No. i Baldwins, seven 

 hundred the next year, and fourteen hundred 

 barrels the third year." 



NEW OR RARE PLANTS. 



New Crested Ferns. — Those who keep a look- 

 out for new varieties of native plants often find them 

 in the woods. At a recent meeting of the German- 

 town Horticultural Society an exhibitor had present 

 a distinct variety of Aspidium acrostichoides. The 

 divisions of the fronds are deeply incised, and the 

 whole frond of a crimped, or wavy outline, quite 

 unlike the typical lorm. The same exhibitor has 

 a crested form of Aspidium Noveboracense, a de- 

 cided acquisition. Both were obtained from the 

 woods near Germantown. 



Andromeda japonic^. — Flowering so early in 

 the year as this shrub does, it is particularly wel- 

 come, and its flowers combine a delicacy of color 

 with elegance of habit seen in no other Andromeda. 

 In this country it usually is a dwarf bushy shrub, 

 furnished with leathery bright green foliage. The 

 flowers, which remmd one of those of Lily of the 

 Valley in size and color, are borne in a branching 

 cluster terminating the shoots, each branchlet of 

 the cluster being a long one-sided spike, all the 

 flowers being arranged on the under sides of the 

 stalks. It is an uncommonly pretty shrub, quite 



