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• ' • GARDENING. 



Jan. 15, 



ing aphis and other insects that nicotine 

 will kill. In rose houses smoking is almost 

 entirely abandoned, and evaporation in 

 some form or other is now in general use. 

 In a small establishment or the amateur's 

 greenhouse this is infinitely better than 

 fumigating. Get an extract of tobacco. 

 The Louisville "rose leaf extract" is I 

 think the best. Get a common tin dish, 

 sav 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 

 inches deep, put in 2 inches of the extract 

 diluted to 1 in 6— that is one part of the 

 extract to six of water; into that drop a 

 piece of red hot iron (I use a piece of old 

 rail road iron) an inch or so smaller in 

 length and breath than the tin dish. The 

 liquid will be evaporated, or always part 

 of it, in a few seconds. It will effectually 

 kill your plant enemies and will not hurt 

 your most tender plants, and what is of 

 great value will leave no objectionable 

 odor. 



Try this. The whole apparatus would 

 cost you fifty cents and you will not com- 

 plain of burnt plants or fill your clothes 

 with tobacco fumes. 



William Scott. 



ANNUALS FOR DECORATION DAY. 



What seeds may I sow now for plants 



to be in full bloo<n the last week in May, 



so I may have the flowers for Decoration 



Day? N. E. B. • 



There are not many seeds to be sown 

 now that it would be well to grow for 

 their flowers for Decoration Day. Sweet 

 peas if sown now on your benches at the 

 pillars of your carnation beds would be 

 in full floweratthat time. Pansies would 

 also be in flower, but you would most 

 likely have plenty of them in frames at 

 that time and they are not of great value 

 as cut flowers. Gladiolus can be planted 

 on the benches of carnations and should 

 flower about that time. Instead ot tak- 

 ing up room with cheap and unprofitable 

 crops, retard some of the useful things 

 that there is a good demand for. Leave 

 out in the cold a batch of Spirwa Japon- 

 ica it can be brought into flower just 

 when you want it. Keep a lew hundred 

 longifiorum lilies in your coldest house or 

 cold pit that is not much exposed to frost. 

 Nothing is more acceptable at that time. 

 A few years ago I put 3,000 Von Sion 

 narcissus into a neighbor's ice house. 

 Thev were taken there about the last 

 week in March and had not made a 

 growth of more than two inches above 

 the soil in the flats. It was not cold 

 enough in the ice house to entirely sus- 

 pend growth, and they only needed one 

 week in a frame covered with glass to 

 have them in lull bloom. It was a great 

 success and nothing ever paid better for 

 the trouble. Hyacinths, narcissus and 

 tulips could all be treated so, but put 

 them in the ice house before they have felt 

 the warm spring days. 



William Scott. 



Miscellaneous. 



THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE. 



It is seldom that any book appears on 

 matters pertaining to gardening in any 

 of its forms that is so charming in its 

 composition, so enticing in its details, 

 and where one is so soon placed upon 

 intimate terms with the author and his 

 subject, as in Alfred Austin's production 

 entitled "The Garden That I Love." 



The English Poet Laureate is extremely 



happy in his expressions and as some of 

 the readers of Gardening may not have 

 seen the book a few quotations may be 

 accep'able. 



"For gardening is a partnership in which 

 nature, the senior partner, exercises the 

 principal authority. It is only fair that 

 she should, for hers is the main portion 

 of the capital, and she admits you into 

 the business only because, while a clerk in 

 her service, you displayed a certain 

 amount of skill and a good deal of 



assiduity." 



* # * 



"Autumn, I grant, knows the art of 

 gardening to perfection, possessing the 

 secret of careless grace even beyond the 

 spring. There is an orderly negligence, a 

 well-thoughtout untidiness about autum- 

 nal forms and colors no other season can 

 match. Even to the garden proper, the 

 cultivated plots of man, autumn adds 

 such wonderful touches of happy accident 

 that, when it comes, really comes, a wise 

 man leaves his garden alone and allows 

 it to fade and pass away, without any 

 effort to hinder or conceal the decav - . 

 Indeed, it would be worth while having a 

 cultivated garden if only to see what 

 autumn does with it." 



# * * 



"The moment I enter a garden I know 

 at once whether it is the owner's garden 

 or the gardener's garden. Nearly all 

 large and costly gardens are gardener's 

 gardens, and for my part I would not 

 take them as a gift. . . . I continually 

 see cottage gardens, little village or 

 secluded plots, cultivated and made beau- 

 tiful by the pathetic expedients of the 

 poor, which seem to have a charm that 

 mine cannot rival." 



# * * 



"A garden that one makes one's self be- 

 comes associated with one's personal 

 history and that of one's friends, inter- 

 woven with one's tastes, preferences, and 

 character, and constitutes a sort of un- 

 written, but withal maniiest autobiogra- 

 phy. Show me your garden, provided it 

 be your own, and I will tell you what 



vou are like." 



* * * 



"Over and above fostering equanimity, 

 the cultivation of a garden promotes the 

 tender graces and extends the sweet 

 charities of life. I need no introduction 

 to a person who has a garden; and be his 

 or her rank what it may, in I go, opening 

 the gate, whether a huge iron or a hum- 

 ble wicket, with a proud confidence, cer- 

 tain to find a man and a brother, or a 

 woman and a sister. Love of gardening 

 creates a safe freemasonry among those 

 who cherish it. ... I beg, borrow, 

 and, I verily believe, if need were, would 

 steal, a cutting of any beautiful plant 

 that was a novelty. But petty larceny 

 is unnecessary; for we who have gardens 

 that we love willingly give of our super- 

 fluity. ... A flower border thus be- 

 comes a living record and diary of your 

 wanderings, your visits, yourfriendships, 

 a perpetual reminiscence of the generosity 

 of the rich, and the graciousness of the 

 poor." 



OLD TIME GARDENS. 



While enjoying writings upon modern 

 gardens it is well also to take a peep into 

 a little book entitled The Garden, pub- 

 lished by G. P. Putnam's Sons, where the 

 two Plinys give us descriptions of their 

 gardens, and where Lord Bacon so charm- 

 ingly writes that "God Almighty first 

 planted a garden. And indeed it is the 

 purest of human pleasures; it is the great- 

 est refreshment to the spirits of man; 



without which buildings and palaces are 

 but gross handy works; and a man shall 

 ever see, that, when ages grow to civility 

 and elegancy, men come to build stately, 

 sooner than to garden finely; as if gar- 

 dening were the greater perfection." 



Where Sir William Temple mentions the 

 curious custom among the Greeks and 

 Romans of pouring wine upon the roots 

 of the plane tree as 'they believed this 

 tree loved that liquor, as well as those 

 that used to drink under its shade, which 

 was a great humor and custom, and per- 

 haps gave rise to the other, by observing 

 the growth of the tree, or largeness of its 

 leaves, where much wine was spilt, and 

 thrown upon the roots." 



Toseph Addison in 1712 writes: "Our 

 British gardeners, on the contrary, in- 

 stead of humoring nature, love to deviate 

 from it as much as possible. Our trees 

 rise in cones, globes and pyramids. We 

 see the marks of the scissors upon every 

 plant and bush. I do not know whether 

 I am singular in my opinion, but for my 

 own part, I would rather look upon a 

 tree in all its luxuriancv and diffusion of 

 boughs and branches, than when it is 

 thus cut and trimmed into a mathemat- 

 ical figure." 



In another letter he closes with these 

 lines: "You must know, sir, that I look 

 upon the pleasure which we take in a gar- 

 den as one of the most innocent delights 

 in human life. A garden was the habita- 

 tion of our first parents before the fall. 

 It is naturally apt to fill the mind with 

 calmness and tranquility, and to lay all 

 its turbulent passions at rest. It gives 

 us a great insight into the contrivance 

 and wisdom of Providence, and suggests 

 innumerable subjects for meditation. I 

 cannot but think the very complacency 

 and satisfaction which a man takes in 

 these works of nature to be a laudable, if 

 not a virtuous habit of mind." 



The allusion of Addison to the preva- 

 lence of clipped and formal treatment of 

 trees and shrubs in his time is further 

 commented upon by Alexander Pope. It 

 must be remembered that in the earlier 

 part of the seventeenth century no gar- 

 den was complete unless it contained 

 plants, trained into fantastic shapes in 

 imitation of men, living animals and 

 mythological Deities. These were grown 

 and trained into shape and then sold to 

 owners of gardens. Pope after stating 

 "that those who are most capable of art, 

 are always most fond of nature," writes: 

 "On the contrary, people of the common 

 level of understanding are principally de- 

 lighted with little niceties and fantastical 

 operations of art, and constantly think 

 that finest which is least natural. A citi- 

 zen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of 

 yews than he entertains thoughts of 

 erecting them into giants, like those of 

 Guild hall. For the benefit ot all my lov- 

 ing countrymen of this taste, I shall here 

 publish a catalogue of greens to be dis- 

 posed of by an eminent town gardener 

 who lately applied to me upon this head. 

 He represents that, for the advancement 

 of a politer sort of ornament in the villas 

 and gardens adjacent to this great city, 

 and in order to distinguish those places 

 from the mere barbarous countries of 

 gross nature, the world stands much in 

 need of a virtuoso gardener who has a 

 turn to sculpture, and is thereby capable 

 of improving upon the ancients of his 

 profession in the imagery of evergreens. 

 My correspondent is arrived to such per- 

 fection that he cuts family pieces of men, 

 women or children. Any ladies that 

 please may have their own effigies in myr- 

 tle, or their husbands in horn beam. He 

 is a Puritan wag. and never fails when he 



