38 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



etc., they will be found just what is 

 needed to stimulate and feed the crop. 

 The ash is the mineral element of anj 

 vegetable structure, and therefore indis- 

 pensable to its growth. The farmer 

 who will sell his ashes, is actually pai-t- 

 ing with so much of the fertility of his 

 farm. As an application to reclaim 

 mai'sh land, the effect of ashes is often 

 wonderful. The burnt lands in the 

 Huron peninsula will have their pro- 

 ductiveness greatly increased by the 

 burning of the forests that covered 

 them ; and farmers there will receive 

 great benefit in the future from the 

 clearing of the lands and the depositing 

 of the ashes from the burned forest 

 upon them. — Michigan Farmer. 



THE WAX PLANT. 



{Hoya carnosa.) 



Next to the English Ivy, I know of 

 no climbing plant better adapted to 

 culture in ordinary living rooms than 

 the Hoya, or Wax Plant, as it is more 

 popularly known. It grows rapidly, 

 has fine foliage, blooms profusely, and 

 has beautiful flowers, and is easily kept 

 clean, because its thick, leathery leaves 

 can be washed as well as so many pieces 

 of china, with much less danger of 

 breaking them, and its stems are very 

 tough, so that there is but little danger 

 of damaging them in taking down the 

 plant and putting it up again whenever 

 a bath is given it. If it is trained 

 where it is convenient to get at the 

 leaves, it will not be necessary to take 

 it down in order to give it a washing. 

 The only insect that has ever troubled 

 my Hoya is the mealy bug, and I ex- 

 terminated him V)y pei'severing warfare 

 with a hair pin, ruthlessly dislodging 

 the little pest as fast as he found a new 

 location. 



You will often see inquiries in papers 

 to this eifect : My Wax Plant is a year 

 or two years old, and doesn't gx'ow. 



Can you tell me why 1 Perhaps Hoyas 

 take to growing only when they become 

 well rooted, and perhaps it takes most 

 of them a year or two to get in that 

 condition. I don't know how that is, 

 but I know that I have owned three, 

 and I have never had one make much 

 growth before the second year. I have 

 always raised my plants from cuttings, 

 taken from half ripened wood. Each 

 cutting genei'ally has thi'ee or four 

 leaves attached. These cuttings I have 

 struck by inserting them in sand kept 

 wet and warm. The roots will make 

 their a])pearance in two or three weeks, 

 and in a month or six weeks I pot the 

 plants in a soil composed of one-third 

 leaf-mold, one-thii'd garden soil, and 

 one-third turfy matter from under old 

 sods, with a handful of sand added to 

 each six-inch pot. Usually, the Hoya 

 plant will put out a few new leaves, just 

 enough to show you that it is alive, but 

 I have never had my young plants send 

 up any stems until the second year. 

 When they do begin to grow, they grow 

 very rapidly. My last plant began 

 growing when it was about eighteen 

 months old, and sent up eight stems 

 which averaged eight feet in length in 

 less than five months. 



The stems will twine about a string 

 or wire, and need but little training. 

 Whatever support you give them must 

 be quite stout, for a branch with a good 

 many leaves on it is heavy. — The 

 Amenran Garden. 



A THOUSAND CLUSTERS OF GRAPES 

 FOR ONE DOLLAR. 



On one of these vines we have 

 just counted two hundi-ed and forty-six 

 bunches of grapes, nearly all tine ones, 

 and the dwellers tell us, " a great many 

 have already been picked and eaten." 

 A whole row of hanging clusters still 

 fringes the upi)er front of the piazza ; 

 the cross trellis is black with them, and 



