3^8 Notes and Gleanings. 



will not fail to come forth healthy and vigorous in spring, and, in due season, be 

 crowned with the gorgeoiiss, almost tropical, beauty for which the Japan lilies are 

 everywhere so justly prized. 



Besides this, when once established, they increase rapidly by natural growth, 

 while the small scales which may be accidentally separated in the process of 

 cultivation soon develop in^o perfect flowering bulbs. 



For exhibition or for specimen plants, high culture and a degree of extra care 

 and attention will be required, as Mr. Parkman suggests ; but the Japan lily 

 may be grown, with a good measure of success, almost anywhere. It is never 

 fastidious, — at least I have not found it so, — and I have even gathered a pretty 

 spike from a bulb that had escaped from my border and found a home in the 

 sward adjoining. Even when neglected and almost forgotten, left to struggle 

 against weeds and drought, it not unfrequently imparts to the garden a generous, 

 though undeserved, measure of beauty and fragrance. 



In the hands of skiiful growers, I doubt not " the time is coming when these 

 lihes will even surpass their present beauty." Let it be hastened. 



The best Time for pruning Grapes. — This matter of pruning grapes has been 

 pretty thoroughly discussed, both as to the time and the method ; and now we 

 have to go to work again, and try the different seasons and plans. No doubt 

 there are vines enough whose owners didn't find time to prune them in fall or 

 winter, which will afford fine opportunities to test the question of pruning after 

 vegetation has commenced in summer. 



But there is one point on which Mr. Kelley must allow me to differ from him, 

 and that is, when he asks Mr. Underbill to give him facts instead of theory ; 

 for if I have read Mr. Underhill's articles rightly, he has given us a good many 

 facts of the most interesting character. And as to theory — what is it ? Simply 

 the ideas, which, reasoning from observation, have been formed as to the best 

 probable method to be pursued. Now, when I get such ideas from a man of 

 common sense, and at the same time a careful observer, I think the chances of 

 success are much greater in carrying them out than in working at random. 

 For, after all, some theory we miist have, and the choice lies between that which 

 circumstances may suggest at the moment of action and that which has been 

 carefully thought out beforehand, — the result, perhaps, of years of observation. 



The Curculio. — I am sorry to say it, but tlie curculio has proved an over- 

 match for everything I have been able to bring against him. Defying man and 

 the elements, his work of destruction goes on almost unchecked, and he must be 

 regarded as a calamity second only to the canker-worm, or the mysterious black 

 knot, of which he is sometimes accused of being the origin. 



Thirty years ago, I had upon my place most of the varieties of the plum then 

 under cultivation. The trees were models in form, and in health and vigor were 

 everything one might desire. A " Washington " measured fully ten inches in 

 diameter, and other varieties were correspondingly large and well developed. 

 Some of these trees yielded a barrel of fruit each in a season. I remember the 

 beauty of the Jefferson, Loml^ard, Cruger's Scarlet, Smith's Orleans, Diamond, 

 Coe's Golden Drop, and others I have not space to mention, but shall probably 

 never look upon or taste the like again. 



