88 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



January, 



Statesmen as Botanists and Horti- 

 culturists. 



" Do public men know or care much about 

 botany or your garden ? " a New York Star 

 reporter recently asked William R. Smith, 

 Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at 

 Washington. 



" That's a question," he replied, " that can 

 be answered in several ways. To most of 

 them the science is a sealed book. They 

 only know the garden as a convenient flower 

 bank to draw on when their wives give 

 dinner parties, or want to fix up for recep- 

 tions, or their sweethearts need a few Pansles 

 for remembrance. Of course there's no sym- 

 pathy between such propensities and mine. 

 " But there are exceptions, no doubt ? " 

 "Oh, yes, and some very distinguished 

 ones. Some public ni en have excellent tastes 

 and are experts in botany. Mr. Sumner 

 was a great enthusiast; he ran to trees, and 

 was about the most intelligent man on the 

 subject I ever met in public life. He used 

 to tell me that vchen traveling he would 

 peer out of the car windows by the hour on 

 the lookout for beautiful trees. He would 

 gaze as lovingly as a fond parent on that old 

 Italian Beech that stood so long east of the 

 Capitol, and what an apostrophe he paid it 

 in one of his speeches ! The last enjoyment 

 I had with him, shortly before he died, was 

 in visiting a favorite Elm of his on Boston 

 Common. Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, a 

 very dilettante gentleman in his tastes, also 

 i-uns to trees, and is a most devoted student 

 of arboriculture. Some of the most vakiable 

 suggestions about distributing plants in the 

 West come from him. 



" Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, was an ardent 

 apostle all through his long public life. I 

 remember that his wife had a Sweet Verbena 

 in their home in Maine of which she was 

 very fond. She watched it tenderly as a 

 child, and Mr. Fessenden shared the feeling 

 so thoroughly that for thirteen years he 

 would journey home from Washington to 

 take up the plant in the autumn, and make 

 another trip in the springtime to set it out. 

 No pressure of public business could make 

 him forget that Ver- 

 bena. It was really 

 a paternal devotlou. 

 " Senator James 

 A. Pearce, of Mary- 

 land, was one of the 

 most cultivated bot- 



m'/mm.' 



A Cucumher Forcing flottsc. 

 anists ever in Congress. Scarcely a day passed 

 that he did not drop in on me to watch the 

 growth of some favorite plant or some new 

 experiment, and his ideas were always 

 scientific and valuable. And then there was 

 B Gratz Brown, a vei")' warm lover of 

 flowers and thorough master of their culti- 

 vation. During all the time he was in the 

 Senate I don't believe he missed a day at the 

 garden, and we would chat for hours when 

 he felt in the humor. 



"There's another botanist in Congress, a 

 most ardent disciple, and I know the name 



will surprise you — Mi\ Holman, of Indiana. 

 No one has been in Congress since I can re- 

 member, and that's a long time, with a more 

 hearty and intelligent love for the garden. 

 He is a fi-equent visitor, and you can see 

 from his conversation that he watches every 

 new phase of the science as keenly as he 

 does the money bags of the treasury. It 

 seems to be a mental exhilaration for him 

 to commune with these curious plants from 

 all over the world, and study their hidden 

 life. He is quite as famiiiar with the botan- 

 ical names and the habits of plants and 

 flowers as most professional botanists. He 

 picked it up as a recreation, and his spare 

 time is nearly all devoted to it. 



" Sam Cox is a flrst-class botanist. He is 

 a walking cyclopfedia on every subject 

 covered by books. If any phase of a new 

 subject is Introduced, Cox wiU know enough 

 of some kindred subject to give him the key 

 to the situation, and it's really incredible 

 how soon he can infomi himself. Now in 

 botany, for Instance, he will strike a snag 

 some afternoon that he didn't know anything 

 about, but the next morning he'll come 

 around with his mental channel all bridged 

 out. He can learn more in shorter time 

 than anv man I ever saw." 



A Winter and Spring Cucumber 

 House. 



The question is often put, says a writer in 

 Gardening Illustrated, as to what is the 

 best form and arrangement to adopt for a 

 house to produce good Cucumbers at the 

 times above-mentioned; we therefore give 

 an illustration of a section of a house ad- 

 mirably adapted in every way to the pur- 

 pose in view. It is 7 feet wide, 10 feet high 

 at the back, and 4 feet high in the front— 

 the length is, of course, optional — and 

 should face due south, and be, if possible, 

 sheltered from the north and east winds, 

 but not by anything that will in any way 

 obstruct the light. 



A house of these dimensions gives an 

 ample roof area or training surface for 

 either Cucumbers or Melons. Three rows 

 of hot-water pipes are shown in the plan, 

 and this quantity, though it may appear 

 large, will not be found too much in severe 

 winters, for it takes a large amount of heat- 

 ing surface to keep up high temperatures at 

 such times without making the pipes hotter 

 than they ought to be. 



Each row of pipes should be furnished 

 with a stop valve, and in mild weather the 

 front row may be turned off, as, being near- 

 est to the plants, It is more likely to cause 

 injury than the others should the pipes get 

 too hot at any time. The ventilation is ef- 

 fected as shown at A and B in the plan. 



So marked have been the results that we 

 have plowed up about half that part which 

 was left in grass. — College Report. 



Orchards in Sod— Experiments at the 

 IVIichigan Agricultural College. 



Permanent sod is an injury to the orch- 

 ard. This has been proved in the exper- 

 ience of nearly every successful orchardlst. 

 It is forcibly illustrated in the Instance of 

 the old College orchard. 



In the earlier experiments conducted by 

 Dr. Beal the same fact was emphasized. 

 For some years he kept a part of the trees 

 in sod; others were cultivated thoroughly, 

 while still others were cultivated at vary- 

 ing distances from the body of the tree. 

 Even as early as 1874 he found that " trees 

 in grass made less growth, looked yellow in 

 foliage, and bore smaller fruit and appar- 

 ently less of it." In 187.5 he observed that 

 " the evidences look more and more strongly 

 every year against the propriety of leaving 

 trees, in our section, in grass. They have 

 stood the severe winters no better ; they 

 have borne no better ; the apples are .smal- 

 ler ; the trees grow more slowly, and more 

 have died than of the cultivated ones. 



Something New in Verbenas. 

 That improvement in the Verbena which 

 admits of the growing of deep blues, scar- 

 lets, white and other colors quite true from 

 seed has been supplemented by an improved 



T)ie New Dwarf VeiheiM. 



form of growth that is quite as constant. 

 We refer to Verbena hybrida compata nana, 

 illustrated herewith, and which appears for 

 the first time, and as a variety that repro- 

 duces Itself very true from seed. 



The habit of this Verbena is bushy and 

 compact, as shown in our engraving, instead 

 of long jointed and spreading like the or- 

 dinary sorts. This should prove a welcome 

 addition to our garden flowers, for who 

 does not prefer compact, sturdy plants 

 which snbstantlallj' support themselves, to 

 straggling ones branching in all directions. 



The branches, according to our German 

 correspondent, David Sachs, of Quedlin- 

 burg, the weU-kuowu seedsman, measure 

 scarcely half the length of those of the old 

 kind, are of short, vigorous habit, and 

 gather themselves into a compact bush of 

 only 5 inches in height, which is literally 

 covered with beautiful umbels of flowers. 



Repeated endeavors have been made to 

 obtain compact Verbenas, but hitherto with 

 more or less doubtful results; but the opin- 

 ion of competent men seems to be that this 

 sort is more perfect and constant than any 

 former attempts at compact Verbenas. 



518. The Culture of Peppermint. The crop is 

 raised on low, mucky gi'oimd. The land is 

 plowed in the spring. It is then laid off in fur- 

 rows 18 inches apart, and sets, portions of old 

 plants, are planted closely together in the row. 

 This is done early in April. The roots are trans- 

 planted every other year. The roots that are 

 planted this year, after the crop is gathered, 

 will be transplanted in every other row for next 

 year's crop. The first year's crop is always the 

 best, because the plant is then freest from weeds. 

 Usually they are allowed to run only two yeai-s, 

 after which the ground is plowed. When the 

 plants have grown to about H^z feet in height 

 they ripen. The harvest begins usually in the 

 last of August. It is cut like clover, with a 

 cradle, and raked into cocks, where it is allowed 

 to wilt a little before it is taken to the distillery. 

 Distillation continues until the last of October. 

 The yield, on au average, is about 30 pounds to 

 the a"crc in a good season. 



499. Grapes in Florida. Northern grown 

 Grape-rines will thrive in this State. Whether 

 they will do as well as home grown stock is a 

 question not yet settled. The presumption is 

 tliftt tlu'\' will not. The climate is so different 

 that till' change must affect them somewhat. 

 Still thousands of Northern grown Grape-vines 

 have been planted in the State and are dding well. 

 I prefer good one-year vines to ordinary two- 

 year vines.— W. C. Steele, f<n'itzi>laii<l, Fla. 



529. Benovating Old Trees. Dig in at once a 

 large quantity of well decayed manure as far as 

 the roots are likely to extend; or else dig a deep, 

 wide trench around the trees, and fill it up with 

 a compost composed of turfy loam and well de- 

 cayed manure m equal parts.— C E. P. 



531. Azalea Leaves Dropping. Ton may be 

 gi\ing your plants too much water, or else they 

 may be infested with the red si>ider, either of 

 which will cause the leaves to drop. Sponge off 

 the leaves and stems carefully with soajiy water 

 and then keep in a cool, airy situation. From 

 now to the middle of March water sparingly, 

 keeping the soil only Just moist.— C. E. P. 



