238 Notes and Gleanings. 



the trees shall be grown in the open quarters, in the usual bush form, — open in the 

 centre, — then, when the leaves have fallen in the autumn, two out of the three 

 may be cut away, leaving the third, the most upright, for the future stem, and 

 shortening it down to about three buds. The lowest bud below the cut must be 

 about eight inches above the ground. Three shoots will usually be produced 

 in the following year ; and, in the autumn, the trees will be ready for their final 

 planting. — Cottage Gardener. 



Mathiola Bicornis. — "An evening-scented stock of unrivalled fragrance, 

 from the mountains of Greece. No annual in cultivation, even including migno- 

 nette, surpasses or perhaps equals this in the powerful and yet delicate per- 

 fume of its flowers. At a hundred yards' distance, the scent of a bed of this 

 annual, on a summer's evening, is often so strong as to arrest special attention. 

 The plant grows one foot or more in height ; the upper half or two-thirds being 

 a branching spike of pink and lilac blossoms, partially closed during the daytime 

 (when the scent is feeble), but expanding fully towards evening, and remaining 

 so during the night and early morning. Unlike some ' night-scented ' flowers, 

 this is pleasing in color, and, especially when grown in a mass, forms quite a 

 pretty effect. The perfume resembles that of the stock and sweet-scented clem- 

 atis combined. It must be treated as a common hardy annual." 



Stocks for Camellias. — Propagating Azaleas. — The best kind of 

 stock is the single-flowering camellia. The stocks are raised by sowing the 

 seed, or from cuttings ; but the latter are not nearly so free-growing. The begin- 

 ning- of April is a good time to graft camellias. The varieties oi Azalea indica 

 are propagated by cuttings taken from the shoots of the current year when about 

 half ripe. Inserted in very sandy peat and silver sand under a bell-glass on a 

 gentle heat, they root freely. 



Conservatory Glazing. — Those of our readers who have rooms and con- 

 servatories with a north aspect, or which are overshadowed by other buildings, 

 will be aided by the following note of a suggestion by Sir David Brewster : " If, 

 in a very narrow street or lane, we look out of a window, with the eye in the 

 same plane as the outer face of the wall in which the wmdow is placed, we shall 

 see the whole of the sky by which the apartment can be illuminated. If we 

 now withdraw the eye inwards, we shall gradually lose sight of the sky till it 

 wholly disappears, which may take place when the eye is only six or eight inches 

 from its first position. In such a case, the apartment is illuminated only by 

 the light reflected from the opposite wall, or the sides of the stones which form 

 the window ; because, if the glass of the window is six or eight inches from the 

 wall, as it generally is, not a ray of light can fall upon it. If we now remove 

 our window, and substitute another in which all the panes of glass are roughly 

 o-round on the outside, and flush with the outer wall, the light from the whole 

 of the visible sky, and from the remotest parts of the opposite wall, will be in- 

 troduced into the apartment, reflected from the innumerable faces, or facets, 

 which the rough grinding of the glass has produced. The whole window will 



