40 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



any of them, the cai-p is i-ather taste- 

 less. In very cold spring brooks carp 

 will not grow at all, they rather seem 

 to shrink, if we can imagine a fish 

 shrinking witli the cold. But in warm 

 waters, especially in the Southern 

 States, where there is no trouble with 

 frost, they attain an enormous size 

 quickly. There have been instances 

 of their growing to seven pounds 

 weight in two years, which far sur- 

 passes anything known of any other 

 species of fish. In the North, if the 

 ponds have liard bottoms and freeze 

 their entire depth, the carp will be 

 killed. But if the bottom is soft and 

 muddy they will burrow into it and 

 protect themselves. They are said to 

 feed on vegetables, either the natui-al 

 growth in the water, or the refuse from 

 the garden, but I imagine the}'^ are 

 greatly improved by an occasional taste 

 of the numberless insects that are 

 found on all aquatic plants. The same 

 rule ap];)lies to them that is found to 

 govern in all other departments of 

 nature; the best is always the hai'dest 

 to get. Not only will carp never sup- 

 ply the place of trout, but they will 

 hardly live in the same water. They 

 need little care, and will exist on 

 poorer food, are content in less fine 

 water, and they are in the end an 

 inferior fish. The common pi'overb 

 says that whatever is worth having is 

 worth working for, and that, translated 

 into fish literature, means that an 

 ordinary variety is more easily main- 

 tained than a superior one. Still there 

 is always more need of the lower class. 

 Few men eat trout, more eat shad, and 

 infinitely more use cod, while the 

 ponds that are adapted to trout, are 

 not as one in a hundred to those fitted 

 for carf). Any old sluggish pond, 

 above a mud-hole, will answer for 

 them. In conclusion, it is almost self- 

 evident that carp are no more a game 

 fish than a fattened hog is a game ani- 



mal. Carp can generally be procured 

 through the State Fish Commissioners, 

 and several breeders ofier them for sale. 

 — -RoBKRT Barnwell Roosenvelt, in 

 American Agriculturist for January. 



DOUBLE-FLOWERED GOLDEN 

 FEATHER. 



The pretty lace-leaved (lolden Fea- 

 ther, usually called Pyi-ethrum aureum 

 laciniatum, has proved with us to be 

 the best Avhite flowered bedding plant 

 we have. Without any attention, it 

 has been a dwarf and compact mass of 

 white flowers the whole season, and the 

 flowers are so freely produced that one 

 can scai'cely see the foliage except at 

 the margin of the beds, where the pale, 

 lemon-coloured leaves make a pretty 

 fringe. I am by no means enraptured 

 with Golden Feather, seeing it is so over- 

 done in manygai-dens; but white flowers 

 have so softening a character amongst 

 brilliant summer blossoms, that any 

 plant is welcome which produces them 

 freely, and I feel sure that any one giving 

 the double Pyrethrum a trial — not as a 

 foliage, but as a flowering plant — will 

 be well satisfied with it. It keeps 

 sendiug up a continuous succession of 

 flowering shoots from the base in such 

 a way that a dense mass of double but- 

 ton-like flowers is produced the whole 

 season. It is as easily raised from seed 

 or by division of the old ])lants as the 

 ordinary form ; but whereas old plants 

 are of veiy little service in a tine-foli- 

 age point of view, from their running 

 up to flower so persistently, in this 

 case they are very useful. In a cut 

 state this plant is also serviceable. The 

 shoots average from 9 inches to 1 foot 

 in height ; and, as white flowers are so 

 effective in all kiudsof floral decorations, 

 a plant that produces an unfailing suj)- 

 ply is ever welcome, whether for beds 

 or borders. — The (rarden. 



