TUBEROSE. 



The Tuberose is a beautiful, pure white, wax-like, very sweet-scented, double flower, growing 



tall stems three feet in height, each stem bearing a dozen or more flowers. The engravings 



show a plant, much reduced in size but giving 

 a very good idea of its appearance when in 

 blossom ; a flower, and also a tuber, both of 

 natural size. The Tuberose, being a native 

 of the East Indies, delights in great heat, and 

 where summers are short and not very warm, 

 does not always flower before frost destroys 

 the plant. In such latitudes, obtain tubers 

 early and plant them 

 in boxes of earth, 

 and place these 

 boxes in the hottest 

 place in the house, 

 watering very little, 

 where they can re- 

 main until the atmo- 

 sphere and soil is 

 quite warm. Then 



transplant to the garden. Those who want this beautiful flower in the 



early winter can plant a few bulbs in pots in July or August, sink them 



to the rim in earth in the garden, where they can remain until the cool 



nights of autumn, to be then removed to the house. Those who 



are favored with warm and long summers, need only plant the tubers in 



the garden as soon as the weather is warm. The Tuberose flowers but 



once; but the old tuber forms many small ones, and these, after one 



year's growth, under favorable circumstances, make flowering bulbs. A dwarf variety, called 



Pearl, has a shorter flower-stem, usually about eighteen inches. Those who preserve tubers over 



winter for flowers the next summer, must keep them in a warm room, or the flower stem will rot, 



and the tubers never flower. 



MADEIRA VINE. 



The Madeira Vine is a beautiful climber, with thick, glossy, light green, almost transparent 

 leaves, and climbing to almost any remarkable height, and twining in any desired form. Then 

 it is as useful as beautiful, because it will bear almost any kind of merciless 

 treatment, without saying a word. Plant the tuber out of doors in the spring, 

 and it commences to grow at once, and if in a warm, sheltered place, very rapidly, 

 until its slender branches, covered with pretty leaves, have climbed nearly a 

 score of feet over pillar or porch ; and then towards autumn, as though grateful 

 for a chance to live and grow, it sends forth its racemes of little, delicate, white 

 flowers, as sweet almost as Mignonette. In the autumn, cut off the tops, dig up 



the tubers, and throw them into a cellar, where 

 they will keep sounder and safer than potatoes ; 

 or, take up the bulbs carefully, pot them, remove 

 them to the house, and they will bear the heat, 

 dust and smoke of the worst living room imagin- 

 able, with perhaps only a pitiful look of remon- 

 "strance from their sensitive leaves, while any- 

 thing like decent usage will cause a smile of 

 satisfaction, from the root to tiniest leaflet. 

 The Madeira Vine is excellent for baskets and 

 vases, furnishing a large amount of pretty, grace- 

 ful foliage. For screens for windows and other 

 m-door work it is equaled by no climber, except, perhaps, the Ivy, which is almost a salamander. 



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