220 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



July, 



How it All Ended. 



A Morning-glory was Bleeping close by, 

 With her head In the Holloyhoek's lap — 



" Come, go along with me," said the bouny Sweet Pea. 

 " Wake up from your noon-day nap ! " 



She refused with a frown, a tramp through the town. 

 She was sure would bedraggle her ebony new gown. 



A sweet little miss, with scissors in hand. 

 Tripped out for flowers that morn— 



" Come, bonny Sweet Pea, come go along with me 

 To the fair, my throat to adorn." 



Then a Rose on a spray, which was* reaching that way. 

 Said: "Bonny Sweet Pea you will rue this day." 

 ****** 



The sun poured dofm and the rain came down, 

 And the hearts at the fair were glad; 



But little Sweet Pea had lost all her glee- 

 She was looking bedraggled and sad 



With a tear in her e>'e she gave a great sigh. 

 For her pink poke-bonnet was jammed all awry. 



— Daughters of Hcth. 



Buttercups. 



They laugh and dance all through the day 

 They nod and smile in winsome way. 

 No other flowers are half so gay— 



The merry-hearted Buttercups. 

 They glow and glisten everywhere. 

 In city parks In meadows fair. 

 Ah! well their regal crowns they wear. 



The kingly-hearted Buttercups. 



—Nellie F. O'Neil. 



If the summer Rose could guess 

 Before the sunbeam wooed her from the bud. 

 And reddened into life her faint young blood. 

 What blight should fall upon her loveliness, 

 What darkness of decay, what shroud of snow- 

 Would the Rose ever blow? 



— Kate Putnam Osgood. 



The Nasturtium came from Peru. 



Single Boses are becoming fashionable. 



Thin Pears when about one-third grown. 



More watering troughss for the highways. 



Birds tio not lilte black thread strung about. 



Sorghum bagasse makes a good mulch tor 

 Raspberries and fruit trees. 



A pile of sods should now be provided for fur- 

 nishing potting soil in the fall. 



Dry Weather. Up to this date, June, 1.5 the 

 season has been extremely <ir5- in Niagara Co. 



I use pieces of newspaper to bag or rather 

 wrap my Grapes; this works weW— Michael 

 Troup. 



The secret of flower growing is to adopt the 

 easiest possible plan that is sure to give good re- 

 sults.— E. P. Powdl. 



Gardening is the hand-maid of civilization; the 

 more enlightened a people become the more do 

 they study the securing of better health, com- 

 forts and lu.\uries. Horticulture provides these. 



Handsome Foliage. My e.xperienee is that 

 blooms are at the expense of fine foliage. Par- 

 ticularly is this the case with the fancy-leaved 

 Geraniums. Coleuses lose in beauty if permitted 

 to seed.— JVfrs. T. H. Lovejoy. 



Hedges of Boses have been adopted on some 

 European railways to screen the lines from drifts 

 of snow, and thus prevent blocking. They have 

 proved immensely serviceable. The Provence 

 Hose is the favorite for the purpose. 



Bose Bugs. All the time that E. P. Powell 

 wants for treating fifty Rose bushes is half an 

 hour. His remedy is two spoonfuls of hellebore 

 in a pail of water with one teaspoonful of kero- 

 sene, and kept well stirred in applying. So he 

 says in the Independent. 



Don't Want it to Pay. When our esteemed 

 friend A. 1. Root, of Bee Gleanings fame, was 

 asked whether he could not make a certain out- 

 lay of his pay, he said; " I don't want it to pay. 

 I want to have some recreation that has no dol- 

 lars and cents about it." Mr. Root possesses 

 many right ideas of life. 



Leave the Leaves, To have good fruit there 

 must be good leaves; so go slow in clipping them 

 out. And further, if some must go, bear in mind 

 that one Uirge broad leaf is better than two small 

 ones of an equal combined area. The indiscrim- 

 inate pinching away of large Grape leaves to 

 admit light to the fruit is a poor practice. 



Hybrid Teas. This cross between the Tea and 

 the Hybrid Perpetual section Mr. Henderson 

 places at the head of the list for outdoor culture. 

 They require a little care in covering or shelter 

 in winter, but with that prove hardy throughout 

 the month. The best so far are La France, Duke 

 of Connaught, Coquette des Alps, Captain Chris"- 

 tey and Puritan. 



A Good Bose. There is a Hybrid Perpetual 

 Rose that I find in but one or two catalogues out 

 of between thirty and forty which I receive that 

 has, in my estimation, special merit. I refer to 

 Mad. Alfred Carrier; flesh white, shaded salmon; 

 a very fine bloomer and good grower; half climb- 

 ing here. It has a fine perfume, and is desirable in 

 all ways.— Mrs. T. H. Lovejoy, Mitchell Co., Iiiwa. 

 Vincas, The varieties Harrisonii and Ma.1or 

 variegata are trailing plants with ornamentjil 

 foliage, that of the former being a dark green 

 with a light green center; the latter, a bright, 

 glossy green, margined with white. Their habits 

 of growth being similar, they make nice com- 

 panion plants for vases or hanging baskets. A 

 desirable feature of these plants is that they can 

 be wintered in a cool cellar.— Jlfcs. E. L. Pattersnn. 

 To Kill the Cabbage Worm. I have found 

 nothing better than the following: Seven i)arts 

 sour milk, one part kerosene oil. They must be 

 thoroughly mixed at the start, and then stirred 

 to the bottom every time the brush is put into 

 the pail or the kerosene will separate from the 

 milk and kill every plant it touches. It is to be 

 sprinkled on the plant with a brush, and if the 

 head has begun to form the leaves must be pulled 

 apart so as to kill the worms, as it kills only those 

 it touches.— S. C. Faniham. 



Fruit for the Fairs. Mr. W. C. Barry says they 

 could not get good exhibition Pears without 

 thinning the clusters. The.v use a pole with a 

 notch in one end, which enabled the operator to 

 twist them off rapidly. Usually if the cbistei-s 

 were reduced one-half or more the crop would 

 be more valuable. It seems a pity to cut out the 

 young fruit .just as it is formed, but it will paj-. 

 Nature does some of this thinning, l)\it not 

 enough. If half the blos.soras drop without set- 

 ting fruit the orchai-dist will do well to cut out 

 half of those that remain. 



Expediting Their Season, white Canterbury 

 Bells, Phlox Drummondi, Garden Carnations 

 and Verbenas, Alyssum and HeIioti'0)ie are per- 

 petual bloomers from May till frost, if cai-e is 

 only taken to cut or rub off all blossoms as soon 

 as faded, if not before, and dig a trowelful of 

 fertilizer at the roots every three weeks, with 

 plenty of water and mulch in hot season. It is a 

 labor merely U> cut the wealth of bloom by this 

 method. By the way, flowers were meant to cut 

 if not wanted for seed. Better far give them 

 away than suffer them to fade and exhaust the 

 plant.— S/iir!<;y Dare. 



The Productiveness of Land. An idea as to 

 the amount of produce a well managed garden is 

 capable of yielding is well shown by the follow- 

 ing statement recently made by G. W. Hallock & 

 Son, concerning their .58 acres of land near Green- 

 point, Long Island, during the past year: 3750 bu. 

 of Onions and 4500 bu. of Carrots, Early Cabbage 

 5500 bbls, early Potatoes 2500 bu. Strawberries 

 11,000 qts. Onions from sets 2360 bu. White Beans 

 160 bu. Carrots 11,000 bu; late Potatoes 450 bu. 

 Onions from seed 3900 bu, ears of Corn 2000 bu, 

 Brussels Sprouts 500 bu. Potato Onion sets 10 bu. 

 Carrot seed 40 lbs. Onion seed 100 lbs, Brussels 

 Sprout seed 4 lbs. Cabbage seed 3 lbs, Hungarian 

 Grass 3 tons. Cabbage plants to carry over 250,000. 



A Propagating Pan. It is very simj)le, as the 

 accompanying cut indicates, and is likely to be 

 found useful by amateurs and others who have 

 few conveniences for propagating plants. The 

 trough of earthen ware or metal is hollowed on 

 the under surface, so that it fits evenly on a hot- 

 water pipe. The lower part is filled with water, 

 and upon two small ridges at the side a perforated 

 false bottom rests, the soil in which the cuttings 

 are to be inserted being placed on this. The top 

 can be covered with a piece of glass, and in it 

 most soft-wooded plants are said to strike readily. 

 The troughs are 14 inches long, 6)^ inches wide, 

 6 inches deep, and the bottom is made to fit a 4- 

 inch hot-water pipe. We get the idea from the 

 London Gai-deners' Chronicle. 



Weed Pests in the Lawn. Plantains and Dan- 

 delions are a great blemish to many a lawn. A 

 recent reliable writer says he has destroyed 

 thousands of them by dropping crude carbolic 

 acid, also sulphuric acid, right into the hearts of 

 the plants. He had seen the latter used and fall, 

 the plants growing again; but when he supplied 

 the acid to other plants on the same lawn the 

 cure was complete. This showed that the acid 

 in the former case was either too weak or not 

 properly applied. Roots of Dandelion dug up a 

 week after the crowns were dressed with sul- 

 phuric acid were found to be burnt right down 

 to the tips a foot below the surface. It is not 

 sufQcient to merely kill the leaves of the plants; 

 the acid must enter the hearts quite in the center. 

 Chrysanthemums for Exhibition. All exhibi- 

 tion plants should be gi-own in pots, and should 

 be shifted from a smaller pot into a larger, using 

 the richest of earth, until about the first of July, 

 when they are ready to be put into an eight or 

 ten-inch pot, in which they should remain. Water 

 them about twice a week with manure water. 

 Never allow the plants to sufEer for want of 

 water, and tie every strong shoot to a stake, not 

 neglecting to pinch out the tops every two weeks 

 until August 1st. To procure extra fine flowers, 

 pinch off two-thirds of the flower buds as soon 

 as they appear. The worst enemy of the (Chrys- 

 anthemum is the black aphi.s, which appear in 

 great nn mbers on the yoiuig shoots of the plants. 

 They are readily destroyed by sprinkling tobacco 

 dust over the entire plant while the dew is on the 

 leaves.— ir. C. Pufer. 



Success With a Johnson's Amaryllis. I re- 

 potted my Amaryllis Johnsfinii in the fall in a 

 six-inch iiot, good friable soil, well enriched with 

 old cow manure, placed it in a cool room, giving 

 but little water until the leaves began to grow, 

 and as soon as they had made some little growth 

 I brought the plant to a corner where it had the 

 sun all day. Kept it well watered, and was 

 awarded with an elegant bloom of four flowers, 

 each of them being over 5 inches in diameter. 

 To my great surprise before they began to fade 

 a second flowering stalk apiJeared and is now 

 about ready to bloom. I never had such success 

 before. I have had this bulb for nearly ten years, 

 and there has been no increase from it. After 

 flowering 1 let the plant dry off, and in the spring 

 set it out in the pot in a shady place in my gar- 

 den until the fall, when I shake out the old soil 

 and replace with fresh well enriched cow manure. 

 — S. T. ir7i«c. 



Plants are thus personified by the Western 

 Christian Advocate: The Pepper and Mustard 

 represent a class known as "sharp" people; the 

 Spice trees, others, and Tobacco and Barley, 

 saloon keepers. The Violet and Lily are the 

 preachers of humility, purity and righteousness. 

 The Tea plant and Catnip are the old ladies of the 

 village, without whom society would be incom- 

 plete. The Beet and Sugar Cane are confection- 

 ers; Roses and Pinks, perfumers; Wheat and 

 Corn, proWsion dealers; and the Cocoanut palm 

 furnishes as many articles as a country store. 

 The little wayside plants by stagnant pools are 

 scavengers. Some plants prefer water, they are 

 the Baptists; some run all over, they are the 

 Methodists; some stand up straight and orderly, 

 they are Presbyterians; others cling to ancient 



4(1 haitl I I ij < 

 walls and churches, they are the Episcopalians. 

 There are plants that live alone like hermits; 

 others lead a nomadic life wandering all over. 

 Do Worms Fall During Showers? Popular 

 Science News accounts for the fact that after 

 some rainfalls, angle-worms are occasionally 

 found in crocks or other vessels placed under trees 

 or roofs of buildings, by certain birds, as robins, 

 having a short time pre\iously deposited them, 

 or left them suddenly by an attack from jay- 

 birds, or being otherwise scared away. It- under 

 a tree; or e\'en in a clear space, the worms would 

 be dropped at once into the vessels: and as they 

 are smooth inside, on account of the glazing, 

 the prisoners would have to remain. If dropped 

 on a roof, and the roof is old and mosssy, they 

 find lodgment under spots of old moss or under 

 the ends of spongy shingles, where they remain 

 until the rain induces them to crawl out and be 



