276 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



Owing to the large percentage of water in the fresh material (60 % to 80 %), 

 it is good economy to pile the sea-weed on the shore and allow it to dry out 

 partially before hauling. 



Sea-weed acts as an excellent fermenting agent for mixing with peat in the 

 compost-heap — and at the same time supplies much valuable plant-food. 



THE EMBELLISHMENT OF HOME-GROUNDS. 



Flowers and showy foliage being professedly used for ornament should of 

 course occupy the choicest site of the home-grounds. The work being neces- 

 sarily formal and artificial, there will be no incongruity in the close proximity of 

 rigid lines ; and the dwelling-house may be as near as will best suit the general 

 convenience in the use and enjoyment of the garden. The nature and extent 

 of the collection will of course vary with the taste and means of the owner. The 

 finer the design and the greater the variety of plants the better, so long as there 

 is ample room for all in fitting proportion to the intrinsic merits of each kind, 

 and to the general plan of the whole garden. It is well not to make any am- 

 bitious or pretentious display unless it can be easily and willingly kept in perfect 

 order at all times. The immediate setting or surrounding of the garden should 

 be in keeping with the central design. It is poor taste to make a gaudy show 

 of fine flowers or bright foliage if adjacent grounds are weedy and seedy. It is 

 equally bad taste to intrude such plants in formal masses into outlying portions 

 of the grounds mainly devoted to other uses. Even on the ordinary lawn the 

 quiet repose of the green sward may be disturbed by some garish mass of high 

 colors. The discord is equally great when formal beds of like character are 

 scattered along the lawn border amid irregular groups of shrubbery. This in- 

 congruity lasts the year round, for after the tender exotics die or are removed, 

 the bald plots look equally foreign to turf and coppice. A lawn is one thing, a 

 flower-garden another. Grass has recently supplanted gravel in the garden, 

 thanks to the lawn-mower. But only in city lots can the plants be properly in 

 such relative proportions to the turf as to convey the idea of both garden and 

 lawn. — Wm. McMillan, before the Society of American Florists. 



Pot-grown strawberry Plants.— By the use of pot-grown plants, we 

 market our early crops of potatoes, peas, etc., and afterwards, by setting these 

 pot-grown plants, we may obtain a full crop of the finest strawberries the follow- 

 ing season less than ten months from the time of planting, from the land that 

 has produced a crop the previous season. One of my neighbors grows all his 

 strawberries from plants set the preceding August or September, and he markets 

 the choicest fruit grown to my knowledge. — R. N. Y. 



