70 Hepatica Propagating' 



the lad inflamed his ambition to drop some one or two branches of agri- 

 culture, and take to raising briers also. He began his plantings several 

 years ago, — for the son has long been harvesting very paying crops, — and 

 has been planting annually from the increase of his own fields, until he 

 now has thirty acres of Lawtons. Last winter, he cut down an apple- 

 orchard of large bearing trees to make room for more briers. The profit 

 from the latter far outstripped the best orchard in the county. 



It is thus manifest that the commercial value of the blackberry has been 

 satisfactorily ascertained, in Burlington at least, and doubtless in a thousand 

 other localities. No wonder, then, that we are hearing of new candidates 

 for public favor in the same field. The effort, whether in floriculture or 

 horticulture, is for something new that will pay better than what we already 

 have. Hence the tangled brier-thickets, which line the decrepit worm 

 fences of a thousand fields, are annually searched over by acute and enter- 

 prising novelty-hunters for a new blackberry. The woods and the aban- 

 doned fields are traversed by others on the same errand. If the superior 

 varieties we now possess were stumbled upon by accident in tliese waste 

 places of the earth, the presumption is, that as the sea still contains as 

 good fish as have ever been caught, so these will yet be made to yield up 

 to systematic search even more precious contributions to this apparently 

 humble branch of horticulture. Edmimd Morris. 



Burlington, N.J., June, 1867. 



Hepatica Propagating. — Early in April, take up the root, and divide it 

 into as many parts as there arc crowns : if each division have some roots 

 attached to it, success will be almost certain. Plant the divisions in a sit 

 nation not overhung by trees, and sheltered from the sun's rays from ten, 

 a.m., to three, p.m. ; or shade with a mat placed over them during the mid- 

 day hours when the sun's rays are powerful. Work into the soil a 

 liberal dressing of leaf-mould, and, if the soil be heavy, of sand also. Plant 

 quite up to and even bury the crown half an inch, and put them in lines 

 six inches apart, and three inches from plant to plant in the lines. Keep 

 well supplied with water until established, discontinuing it and the shading 

 after May. 



