26 



Garden Topics. 



"Warming Small Greenhouses.— An 

 English journal says that a gentleman who 

 had a small greenhouse of half hardy, not 

 tender plants, employed at first no heat but 

 gas, during cold snaps. The gas was how- 

 ever found ruinous to the plants, and he 

 substituted cheap paraffine lamps, distributed 

 in different parts of the greenhouse, with en- 

 tire success. In the colder winters of this 

 country, the same means of softening the 

 severity of the temperature might be adopt- 

 ed, provided the half hardy plants selected 

 were sufficient to bear some cold, or in 

 smaller greenhouses or plant cases. 



A Rare Plant. — The London Garden de- 

 scribes the Godwi?iia gigas, lately in full 

 flower for the first time in that country. It 

 is an Arold, with a very large leaf and flower. 

 The flower, or more properly, spathe, was 

 nearly two feet long and a foot and a half 

 in circumference, on a stem only 18 inches 

 high. It came from Nicaragua, where it is 

 stated the petiole is often 10 feet long. 



How Trees Help. — I am not disposed to 

 paint a word picture of my own home or its 

 surroundings in winter, but as I look out 

 upon the snow to-day, and notice how cheer- 

 ful the brilliant green of the Austrian pines, 

 hemlocks and spruces appear, toned down by 

 the more somber colors of the various species 

 and varieties of the arbor vitaes, I cannot 

 help thinking that, if the surroundings of 

 farmers' homes are so cheerless in winter, it 

 is merely because there is no disposition on 

 the part of the farmer to make them other- 

 wise. The first cost of our best and most 

 hardy evergreens is so trifling that no one 

 need put that in as an excuse for not plant- 

 ing them, after which very little attention 

 will insure beautiful trees in a very few 

 years. A few handsome evergreen trees 

 about a place soon change the entire aspect 

 in winter, and instead of the cold, cheerless 

 outlook, they will impart to it warmth and 

 beauty. — Moore's Rural. 



Errors in Ornamental Tree Planting. 

 — A few days since, in passing through the 



pretty village of Warren, the capital of War- 

 ren county, Pennsylvania, I was forcibly, 

 not to say painfully, struck by the utter 

 want of taste and judgment displayed by 

 some of the residents, in the matter of orna- 

 mental tree planting. In some of the in- 

 stances referred to, evergreens were planted 

 in the immediate front of the houses, and so 

 near to them that, although they had ob- 

 tained only a partial growth, the branches 

 had already intruded themselves into the 

 verandah, thereby not only inconveniencing 

 the residents, but presenting anything else 

 rather than a handsome appearance, and 

 threatening, in the course of a few years, to 

 almost entirely exclude the sunlight from 

 that portion of the premises. Many old 

 residences are open to similar objections. 

 No greater error in taste, or in the impor- 

 tant matter of health, can be committed than 

 this. Trees, however beautiful, should 

 never be planted so near the house as to 

 bar out the sunshine. There is no more 

 effectual method of destroying their beauty, 

 nor a better plan for introducing disease. 

 I have known houses, thus crowded upon by 

 trees of dense foliage, that became so un- 

 healthy as to be regarded as almost untena- 

 ble. They were restored to fitness for 

 human habitation by removing a portion of 

 the trees that obstructed the sunlight and 

 the free circulation of the air. Another 

 error in ornamental tree planting is the set- 

 ting of trees of large growth in small yards, 

 and especially, as is frequently done in cem- 

 etery lots. Just as lofty mountains dwarf 

 adjacent hills, so large trees have the effect 

 of lessening to the eye the size of small 

 yards or small buildings. It is sound and 

 seasonable counsel, therefore, to advise all 

 persons who are about to plant ornamental 

 trees adjacent to dwellings, or in small yards 

 or gardens, to have an eye to taste and 

 health. Let them be in keeping, in point 

 of size, with the building or plot they are 

 intended to beautify ; and, moreover, let the 

 planting be not so close as to shut out the 

 blessed light of the health-giving sun. — 

 Journal of the Farm. 



