THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



279 



that will greatly promote the growth 

 of healthy wood, and the development 

 of fair and luscious fruit. 



Many horticulturists and farmers 

 purchase bone-dust costing not less than 

 two cents a pound, simply to enrich the 

 soil around and beneath their trees and 

 vines. Fragments of bones are just as 

 valuable as ground bone, although their 

 elements of fertility will not be found 

 available in so short a time as if the 

 large pieces were reduced to small atoms 

 Nevertheless, if large bones be buried 

 three or four feet from a grapevine, the 

 countless numbers of mouths at the end 

 of roots will soon dissolve, take up, and 

 appropriate every particle. When cast 

 out of the kitchen door, bones are like 

 a nuisance ; whereas, if properly buried, 

 they become a source of valuable fertil- 

 ity. Let every person who owns a 

 grapevine or fruit tree save all the bones 

 that pass through the kitchen, and bury 

 them where such worthless material 

 will be turned to some profit. — Western 

 Farmer. 



CLEMATIS COOCINEA. 

 Among the new and beautiful plants 

 of recent introduction, we know of none 

 of more value, as a climbing plant, than 

 the Clematis Coccinea. Its flowers are 

 from 1 to 1^ inches long, bell-shaped, 

 and of the most intense coral scarlet, 

 shining as if polished, and are produced 

 from tlie axil of each leaf, on strong, 

 wiry foot-stalks 3 to 4 inches long, 

 standing out boldly from the foliage. 

 The leaves are of a rich, deep, shining 

 green, deeply lobed and of a thick 

 texture. The plant is like the old and 

 well-known species Criapa, herbaceous, 

 dying down to the ground each year. 

 Its tii-st flowers appear in July, and are 

 produced in great abundance until the 

 plant is cut down by frost. It is very 

 desiraV)le as a pot plant, [larticularly in 

 localities subject to early frosts. — 

 Ladies Floral Cabinet. 



THE UTILITY OF HIGHWAY TREE 

 PLANTING. 



[A paper read at the summer meeting of the State 



Horti(;iiltnral Society at Benton Harbor, by 

 Henry G. Reynolds, of Old Mission.] 



Not the least valuable among the 

 labors of the Michigan Legislature is a 

 modification of our highway laws, which 

 will within a few years go far toward 

 making every country road throughout 

 the State, a delight to the eyes, a plea- 

 sure to the weary ti'aveller, a source of 

 pride to every citizen. This modifica- 

 tion of the laws is of two parts, by the 

 first of which our former law relative 

 to cattle at large, has been made an 

 active reality, so that henceforth our 

 lands are to be condemned for public 

 use as common highways, not as com- 

 mon pig yard or cattle pen, unless we 

 locally decide to make them such. This 

 measure, by which our highway will 

 be cleared of all animals not under con- 

 trol, prepares the way for the second 

 step, viz., the gradual planting on each 

 side of every highway a row of trees, 

 to be from eight to ten feet from the 

 fence, and, as near as may be, sixty 

 feet from tree to tree. This will, 

 within a score of years, line every pub- 

 lic road in the State with handsome 

 trees, and make Michigan well worth 

 travelling far to see. 



There was some opposition to the 

 passage of this law, based upon the 

 idea that large trees along the roadside 

 exerted an unfavoral)le influence upon 

 the road bed by preventing the drying 

 effect of sun and wind, and thus keej> 

 ing the road muddy and ensuring deep 

 ruts. If such were to be the result of 

 the law, it certainly was a blunder ; 

 and as pictures of mud and deep I'uts 

 rise before the imagination, it is true 

 that with them aie generally associated 

 the deep shade of the forest. Is this 

 then what we are coming 1o] No, 

 cmphaticjilly not. Who of us in this 

 part of the State cannot call to mind 

 lon<r stretches of road buried in the 



