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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



HORTICULTURAL ITEMS FROM FOREIGN 

 JOURNALS. 



Cinerarias are said to be a cure for the green- 

 fly in orchard homes. The fly attacks the cinera- 

 rias and lets the peach trees alone. 



Asparagus is said to be a sure witness to the 

 earliness and lateness of the season. This year it 

 was a month earlier than in 1860. 



The Journal of Horticulture speaks of a head of 

 Carters Champion brocoli, two feet three inches in 

 circumference and even and beautifully grown. 



Arrangements are in progress for constructing an 

 " Exhibition Palace and Winter Garden" in Dublin. 

 The grounds devoted to the purpose comprise 16 

 acres. 



Thomas Rivers has issued another (the tenth) 

 edition, enlarged and improved, of his little book 

 "The Orchard House." The cultivation of fruit in 

 these orchard houses is yearly becoming more' and 

 more popular in England. 



Charles Darwin has written a work " on the 

 various contrivances by which orchids are ferti- 

 lized by insects, and the good effects of intercros- 

 sing." The object of the work is to sustain his 

 theory " on the origin of species." 



"We have lately heard litttle of the new lawn 

 grass, or moss, spergula pilifera, of which so much 

 was said a year or two ago. A writer in the last 

 Journal of Horticulture speaks of it as tolerably 

 satisfactory, though he thinks it will have a ten- 

 dency to turn yellow. We tried it here, but it did 

 not succeed. 



The Royal Horticultural Society has received a 

 number of " Tree Frogs" from the south of France. 

 u They are not only charming for their beauty, aud 

 the marvellous similitude which they bear to the 

 leaves among which they live, but are most useful 

 in a conservatory in cleaning off green-fly and all 

 sorts of insect vermin." 



The caterpillars on the gooseberry and currant 

 bushes seem to be as troublesome in England as 

 with us. A correspondent of the Journal of Hor- 

 ticulture writes, w I have had three women con- 

 stantly picking on the gooseberry, apple and currant 

 trees, and our destruction of caterpillars has been 

 by bushels." He attributes their increase to the 

 destruction of the birds. 



M. Barral, in his letter of May 12th, from Lon- 

 don, to the Remie Horticole, says, in speaking of 

 the Kensington Gardens, that " The oriental and 

 Chinese marvels, the enchanted palaces of fairy 

 stories, the most beautiful conceptions of the poets, 



are all surpassed." And he adds, " One has need 

 of flowers to console oneself for the grayest of 

 skies, the most frightful weather, and the gloomiest 

 fogs that one can imagine." 



M. Nattdin, in his report oi an exhibition of the 

 Imperial Horticultural Society 6ays : " The acces- 

 sory arts of gardening have too large a place in this 

 exhibition. Seeing these machines of all forms, 

 these complicated and costly utensils whose object 

 is to perform the most simple work, only tends to 

 discourage novices in gardening. No machine, 

 however ingenious, can replace the common uten- 

 sils, of which experience has sanctioned the usage. 

 Man is the true instrument, and he it is, he alone, 

 whom it is necessary to perfect. While horticul- 

 tural knowledge is no wider spread, while gardeners 

 confine themselves to the routine of their work, 

 indifferent to anything but mere manipulation, and 

 ever guided by old tradition, no improvement can 

 be expected. 



m i m 



PLANTING STRAWBERRIES AT NIGHT. 



" Very nice strawberries, sir ; fine Hovey's 

 Seedlings, only fifteen cents a quart," said the old 

 marketman to me, a few mornings since. 



" Thank you, I am growing my own strawber- 

 ries," I replied. 



" Indeed," said he, in surprise. " I thought you 

 were giving your attention to flowers only." 



Last year I purchased one hundred plants of 

 Wilson's Albany Seedlings ; planted them in ten 

 rows, one foot apart. The man from whom I 

 purchased them took them up, at my request, in 

 the night time, and packed them after night ; and 

 I planted them at night, so that no sunlight ever 

 touched the roots. Last year they produced prob- 

 ably five or six quarts. In September, I hoed them 

 and cleaned them of weeds ; in December, mulched 

 them with sawdust ; this spring, removed the saw- 

 dust. The plants are healthy and vigorous, and 

 very prolific bearers. I have already gathered 

 more than two gallons of fruit from this little spot 

 of ten feet square, and there are at least ten gallons 

 yet in prospective now on the plants. 



Every family owning a house and lot in this city 

 might, just as well as not, grow their own straw- 

 berries, as well as many other small fruits ; hut the 

 truth is, that there are not more than thirty or 

 forty families, in a city of twenty thousand inhab- 

 itants, who grow their own strawberries. — j. n. 

 klippart, of Columbus, Ohio, in the Ohio Farmer. 



We do not attribute much importance to such 

 night-work. We cannot think that a little light 

 would have hurt the roots so much. If it does, 

 dipping the roots in a puddle made of clay and 

 water as soon as they were taken out of the ground 

 would, it seems to us, by encasing the roots in a 

 thin coat of clay, effectually exclude it This, in 

 fact, is a practice often resorted to in transplanting 

 trees and plants, and more especially when they 



