294 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



require no coddling, get them rightly started and largely let them alone, if 

 healthy, don't repot often ; you will be surprised how much neglect they will 

 bear, but treat them properly and they will amply repay you, though you may 

 not understand their " speechless eloquence," you cannot avoid observing their 

 plump, shining bodies smiling their thanks for your care, and vieing with each 

 other how best to reward you with flowers of satiny sheen in all the colors of 

 the rainbow — flowers in your home such as have entranced travellers in Mexico 

 or Brazil. Readers of the Horticulturist, try them, subscribe for the 

 " Baltimore Cactus Journal," only fifty cents a year, not gotten up to make 

 money, but by a few cactus fanciers to increase the love for, and knowledge of, 

 these curious plants. The articles are thoroughly practical, the answers to 

 enquiries, yours and other beginners like yourself, are just the information you 

 need. There are few families without at least one plant or flower lover. Parents, 

 encourage your children in this, it is a pure and elevating taste ; get them some 

 cacti, the interest in one plant or flower soon extends to others, they will make 

 their home brighter and more attractive to themselves and all their friends, and 

 you will soon be ready to admit that there are few things productive of as much 

 pleasure as being a 



Cactus Crank. 



Gladiolus. — A few years ago there was a great wave of popularity in favo 

 of the cultivation of the gladiolus ; but during the past few years, there seems to 

 have been a falling off, judging from the reported sales by those who deal in 

 flower roots ; but there seems no reason why this should be. Possibly there 

 may be objection to the fact that the ground occupied by this plant seems so 

 bare of plants until the gladiolus itself opens in late summer. But this can be 

 remedied by planting something else with them, so that when the latter dies 

 away, the gladiolus can succeed them. For this reason, they are often planted 

 with tulips, hyacinths and other spring flowering bulbs. The gladiolus soon 

 follows into bloom after the other plants decay. A friend of ours plants them 

 in the spaces between rhododendrons, and they add very much to the rhodo- 

 dendron garden, by blooming after the other flowers fade. The bulbs can easily 

 be taken up and preserved through the winter. — Meehans' Monthly for June. 



The chief beauty of the garden should lie in its flower colors and plant 

 forms, and not in the symmetry of its beds and borders. If our ideas of a per- 

 fect garden include any rigid geometrical principles, we would better study nature 

 and let our ideals go ! Our ideals, at best, are extremely limited, while nature's 

 realism is immeasurable ; she puts so much variety into her reality that she is 

 more beautiful than we can imagine, by sheer force of quantity ! . . . We 

 should seek to display the whiteness and purity of the lily in the garden, and not 

 trouble ourselves so much about the brown' earth patch from which it grows. — 

 Schuyler Mathews. 



