Editors' Letter- Box. 383 



W. F. G., Boston. — Plants which bloom out of doors in summer will not at 

 once furnish winter-bloom. We presume you refer especially to such plants as 

 roses, verbenas, heliotropes, and geraniums. If such have bloomed all summer 

 in the garden, they will receive a severe check in transplanting, and probably 

 will have to be both root and top pruned to adapt them to pots. This, of course, 

 will prevent bloon, and the leaves will generally drop. They soon begin to 

 grow, however, and will show bloom after a month or two, and give plenty of 

 flowers after January. 



Plants for earlier blooming should be potted in August, and any flower-buds 

 pinched off during September and October : then they will, if properly cared for, 

 give bloom in November and December. 



We refer only to parlor-plants : in a pit where flowers are planted out, bloom 

 may be had at any season. 



I. R. R, St. John, -N.B. — The reason the flower-buds of your sweet-pease 

 blighted or fell o.Twas that the soil was too rich, the growth, therefore, too luxu- 

 riant ; and the strength of the plants went to leaf, and not to flower, until the 

 heat of summer somewhat checked the growth, when you had flowers in plenty. 

 This is not uncommon with this flower ; and, the present year, the wet season 

 has rendered it of frequent occurrence. 



Try your plants in a more sandy soil, and you may succeed better 



Idem. — Do not transplant your sea-kale, but form your bed where the plants 

 are. Let the plants stand separately. We do not think sea-kale pots can be 

 obtained in Boston. The plant is very litde grown. Large-sized flower-pots will 

 answer instead of sea-kale pots. For forcing, you may cover the pots with ma- 

 nure or leaves : the former would probably be better for you. 



Idem. — Raspberry-plants may safely be separated, and transplanted in the 

 autumn ; but we much prefer the spring for all such horticultural operations. 



Idem. — The manure from a hot-bed will make a very good top-dressing for 

 your asparagus-bed. Thank you for your suggestions. 



O. A. A., Blackington, Mass. — The insect you enclose is the little-lined 

 plant-l3ug {Phytoceris Uneclaris) ; but it is probably 7tot the insect that damages 

 your dahlia-buds, for it has no mandibles for biting or "eating off " buds. It 

 sucks the sap of numerous cultivated and wild plants. You will find it fully 

 described in Harris "On Insects Injurious to Vegetation." 



For the cabbage-maggot, see the article Anthoinyia cepanim, p. 617, Harris. 



For a remedy, try wood-ashes or air-slacked lime round the plants. 



H. Lenni, New York. — The evergreen-leaf is pipsissewa, botanically Chema- 

 phela umbellata. — See Gray's " Manual of Botany," 1866, p. 261. 



The other plant is Monotropa Hypopitys, —pine-sap or false beech-drops. — 

 See Gray. p. 262. 



