THE CANADIAN HORTICTJLTTJRIST. 



257 



sheathes disengages itself from the rest, 

 curls up, and discloses a row of three 

 or four long blossoms, with the young 

 fruit of each beginning to form. 



While this row of fruit is tender, 

 the spatlie remains hanging over it like 

 a roof, but when the fruit has acquired 

 some size and strength the protecting 

 shield drops off, and the next in order 

 rises up, with a similar row of young 

 fruit, over which it stands in the same 

 watchful attitude, till it also drops off 

 to be succeeded by another. When 

 one circle of fruit is completed, another 

 is commenced below, and in due time 

 another; while the common stem 

 around which the fruit is disposed grows 

 constantly longer and the cone of 

 spathes diminishes in size till it is all 

 unfolded, and a monstrous bunch of 

 bananas is finished, which seldom 

 weighs less than twenty or thirty 

 pounds and sometimes as much as 

 seventy or eighty. Of all kinds of 

 vegetable nutriment the banana is per- 

 haps the most productive, and most 

 easily raised. 



After a plant has produced its bunch 

 of fruit, the stem is either cut, or is 

 suffered to wither and fall on the spot. 

 In -the former case, it is good fodder 

 for cattle ; in the latter it forms good 

 manure for the young shoots which are 

 springing frorp the root, and which are 

 soon ready to bear fruit in their turn. 

 From the^e shoots or sprouts the plant 

 is propagited. — Michigan Fanner. 



THE SOUTHERN FRUIT SHOW. 



At the great fruit show made at the 

 Southern (Louisville) Exposition on 

 August 2<Jth the Fern Creek (Ky.) 

 Fruit Growei-s' Association took the first 

 premium of $500 for the best display of 

 fruit, having over 1,700 plates of 

 fruit on exhibition. The Davidson 

 County (Tenn.) Society took all the pre- 

 miums for the best ten varieties of 

 2 



apples, and also first premium on several 

 single varieties. 



The display of grapes is said have to 

 been very fine indeed, comprising 

 over one hundred varieties. The 

 premium for the best new grape was 

 awarded to the "Julia," a seedling grape 

 orignated by John Hege, of Tennessee, 

 said to be much larger than the Con- 

 cord or Worden, and in quality fully 

 equaling either of these sorts. The vari- 

 ety which can thus stand prominent 

 above all others out of over fifty new 

 kinds, each claiming excellence in some 

 marked particular, must indeed be a 

 fine grape, and we shall wait with in- 

 terest to learn more of its character and 

 merits. 



MIMULUS OUPREUS BRILLIANT. 



The pretty little coppery red Mimulus 

 has been a favourite with most people 

 ever since it has been introduced from 

 the Chilian Andes, and the attention be- 

 stowed upon the raising of it from 

 seed has resulted in obtaining several 

 distinct and beautiful varieties. The 

 older forms of it are tigrinus and varie- 

 gatus, both with flowers quaintly and 

 brightly spotted, and the double variety 

 or rather a hose-in-hose kind. All 

 these are distinct from the type itself, an 

 extremely pretty plant, but all sur- 

 passed in brilliancy, neat and compact 

 growth, and florif'erousness by the new 

 variety which Messrs. Carter have ob- 

 tained and named Brilliant. We lately 

 saw a broad mass of this Mimulus in 

 full flower at their St. Osyth seed 

 grounds, and thought at the time that 

 we had rarely seen a moi*e glorious bit 

 of colouring, viz., a glowing crimson-red 

 inclined to orange as netir as one can 

 describe it. There wetre thousands of 

 plants in the quarter just alluded to, all 

 without exception being not more than 

 from 4 inches to 6 inches in height, 

 spreading, and forming a dense tuft.pro- 



