October, 1887 



POPULAR GARDENING 



AND FRUIT GROWING. 



"V" o L TJ ns/o: E III. 



Autumn. 



'Tis Autumn hy the half -clothed Trees, 

 And all the land is seeking rest; 

 The Bluebird, Robin, and the Bees 

 Are now In quest of winter ease. 

 The Acorns and the Walnuts fall; 

 The Milk -weed turns its leaves to gold. 

 And Thistles nod. and Blue-stems tall 

 Grow slowly old at Natiu-e's call. 

 The skies have donned their brightest blue. 

 And trimmed their robes with fleecy lace; 

 For Autumn's task Is almost through. 

 And Winter's face appears in view. 



Late growth in young Oleanders mean.s no 

 flowers next year; ripen such off gradually now. 



The Apple chop of Canada promise.s to be a 

 good i>ue, there ha\ing been little suffering from 

 drought there as compared with many parts of 

 the States. 



Lifting and potting plants may make rough 

 hands, but this does no harm. At the same timp 

 a little ammonia or borax in the wash water will 

 soften them. 



FRtJiT Storage with a Vengeance. A Brook- 

 ticld, Pa., correspondent wiitas that the common 

 mode of storing fruit in his section has been to 

 put it in a warm cellar, bank it up warm, and 

 after the work of decomposition has gone on until 

 spring shovel it u]) and carry out and dump. 



The keynote in the successful arrangement of 

 cut flowers is never to crowd the individual 

 blooms; keep them apart by a backing of moss or 

 Lycopodium between the stems, if the circum- 

 stances of the case admit of no other way. A 

 good florist makes his flowers go a great ways. 



The Wealthy Apple. The complaint is some- 

 times made that this is not a good keeper. A 

 grower who claims t« have the largest orchard 

 of this variety in New England says that it is 

 only those who put off gathering too long and 

 let the fruit become over-ripe that experience 

 the trouble complained of. He says the Wealthy, 

 and all winter Apples, should be gathered as soon 

 as the skin is colored up and the seeds have 

 turned brown, which with the Wealthy is on or 

 before October 1st. 



Gardeners and Florists' Club of Boston. 

 This is an organization of the enterprising florists 

 and gardeners of Boston, and of which W. J. 

 Stewart was the first president. It embraces in the 

 neighborhood of 100 members. Judging by the at- 

 tendance of members and the character of the pro- 

 ceedings of a meeting which it was the writer's 

 good luck to be present at receutly, it is a society 

 destined to have a most useful career, and to be 



of special benefit to the trade of Boston. A grand 

 flower show to be held in one of the fall months 

 is under contemplation. 



Enriching Land. .Joseph Harris is reported by 

 an e-xchange as telling of a farmer who selected 

 a piece of land for a large garden, and prepared 

 it by plowing and sowing Buckwheat in spring, 

 and when this was in flf)wer he plowed it under, 

 and again sowed it with Buckwheat. This second 

 crop was very heavy, but by means of a chain 

 attached to the plow he turned this weU under. 

 In September sowed the land to rye, and this he 

 plowed under the next year about the middle of 

 May. The land thus became wonderfully mellow 

 and full of vegetable mattei-, and by the addition 

 of some manure and phosphate he had a grand 

 piece of ground on which to raise vegetables. 



The Moon Flower. Ipomea grandi- 

 flora syn. Ipomea noctileuca. 



PETER HENDERSON, JER.SEY CITi' mSIOHTS, N. J. 



From the immense number of this beauti- 

 ful climber that was distributed last spring 

 in every State and Territory in the ITuiou, 

 there has been created such a widespread 

 interest about it, greater perhaps than that 

 made by any plant ever before introduced, 

 that there is but little doubt that any infoi-- 

 mation that can be obtained about it will be 

 interesting to cultivators. 



Last week Mr. Elias A. Long, editor of 

 this magazine, and Mr. Wm. li. Smith, 

 Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens at 

 Washington, met at my place, when the 

 question of the proper botanical name of 

 the Moon Flower came up. Mr. Smith, 

 who perhaps is the highest authority we 

 have in botany here, says that the true 

 Moon Flower is known to botanists as 

 CnUinyction ririnidifiord, hut admits that the 

 popular name of Ipomea will proltably be 

 held in use; but the iniportaiu p<jint decided 

 by an examination of our speclmems was to 

 show wherein it differed from Ipomea Bona 

 Nox, thousands of which have been sold for 

 the Moon Flower the past season, partic- 

 ularly by seedsmen, as that species seeds 

 freely, while the true Moon Flower does 

 not. The difference in the two species is 

 most marked, in that the Ipomea Bona Nox 

 has larger and more cordate leaves, has the 

 calyx darker in color and much shorter, and, 

 above all, the stems are destitute of the 

 embryo roots which cover so comi)letely 

 every twig of the Ipomea grandiflora. More- 



over these plants of Ipomea grandiflora on 

 our grounds, planted side by side with the 

 Ipomea Bona Nox on the same day, both 

 plants being trained against the south side 

 of a building and are now thirty feet high, 

 have been covered nightly and on dark days 

 witli a perfect sheet of bloom, from the first 

 week in August, while to-day (ITth of Sep- 

 tember) not a flower has yet developed on 

 Ipomea Bona Nox. Whatever it may do in 

 the Southern States, where it has a longer 

 season to grow in, our experiments here 

 show conclusively that the Ipomea Bona 

 Nox is worthless, if flowers are desired, for 

 the Northern States. 



I have had hundreds of letters from our 

 customers the past month asking wliether 

 the Moon Flower is hardy, and if not, 

 what they shall do with the plants that have 

 made such growth. The Moon Flower 

 is not hardy, in fact, is very tender, and will 

 be killed by the first frost. The large plants 

 could hardly be lifted so that they would 

 live, even if desirable, but no plant roots 

 easier than the true Moon Flower, lin>mi;a 

 {iruiidijloru. Cuttings three or four inches 

 long put in like Geranium slips wiU root in 

 a week, and should Ije i^otted into small pots 

 just as Geraniums or any otlier house plant; 

 if desired they can be grown to festoon the 

 windows of the sitting-room, or if grown in 

 a greenhouse, where they would get plenty 

 of light, they would flower in winter, but 

 light is essential to their blooming either in 

 winter or summer. Witli all care the past 

 season we grew in boxes a lot of them on 

 the north side of our seed warehouse in New 

 York; they have grown vigorously to a 

 height of tliirty feet, but bloomed very spar- 

 ingly, while plants set out about the same 

 time on the south side of a IjuUding, where 

 they had sunshine all day, are blooming in 

 the gi'eatest abundance yet and have done 

 so for nearly two months. In all cases 

 where the lyomca ijramliflora, the true 

 Moon Flower ha.s failed to bhjoni, it 

 must have been in consequence of its being 

 grown in whole or partial shade. 



Fruit Preservation: M. P. Wilder's 

 last Essay on the Subject. 



The following matter is from one of the 

 last essays which the late Marshall P. Wilder 

 presented to the Massachusetts Horticult- 



