304 Notes and Gleanings. 



not needed for that season, if you commence at once. First prepare some sandy 

 loam, adding about a fourth of good decayed leaf-mould or rotten dung. Exam- 

 ine it well to see that there are no worms. Having mixed it, then procure some 

 five-inch or 48-size pots ; let them be filled to about a fourth of their depth with 

 drainage ; then fill them wtth the soil, adding on the surface about an inch of silver 

 sand. In selecting your cuttings, the wood should neither be too hard nor soft, 

 but of a medium texture. Before you insert them, cleanse them of any insects 

 that may infest them. It is not advisable to put them in so thick now as in the 

 spring, because, if successful in rooting your cuttings, you will allow them to 

 remain in the stone pots through the winter months. Having inserted them, 

 gently sprinkle them with a fine rose of a watering-pot ; then place them under 

 hand-glasses, or in a close frame, where they must be shaded from the sun's rays. 

 They will not require the admission of any air till they show signs of having 

 begun to root. Occasionally examine them, and remove any that are decayed. 

 When struck, they should be gradually inured to the weather, so that the shoots 

 may become firm. 



The Ixfluenxe of Sun-Heat on Fruits. — Never was there a greater 

 mistake made than that of supposing that fruit produced in the shade has the 

 best flavor : it is a false notion, the mere chimera of half a century ago. The 

 Black Ham.burg Grape is, to some extent, an exception ; for its berries will not 

 color if the branches are deprived of too many of their leaves, so as to let the sun 

 in amongst the bunches too freely : whereas, the Muscat of Ale.xandria will not 

 attain its rich amber color if so much overcrowded with leaves as to keep the rays 

 of the sun from penetrating freely amongst the bunches. A pine-apple produced 

 in the winter has not the flavor of one ripened in the summer months of the 

 year, when the sun is powerful. Again : under the old method of planting 

 strawberries in beds four feet wide, the friiit is not to be compared, either in size 

 or flavor, with that of those planted out in single rows. Now, what is the reason 

 of this ? I contend that it is in consequence of the action of the sun upon the 

 fruit. The fruit shaded by leaves will always be more or less insipid and worth- 

 less, as compared with that on which the sun has had full play. It is the sun 

 that puts flavor into our fruits. 



Celery, now a common dessert of every table, it is said, came into the gar- 

 den-plants from the following circumstance : An Italian nobleman, in a paroxysm 

 of passion, slew his only brother. The church condemned him for three years to 

 a monastery, to prayer and penitence, his food to be of the weeds which grew in 

 the enclosures about his prison. Celery, bleached in the shade of the cloister, 

 then became a favorite food ; and, when released from his confinement, he trans- 

 planted the weed, then but little better than a night-shade, to his garden : it was 

 set in trenches to bleach it, and to make it crisp and tender for his palate. He 

 was a leader in fashionable life ; and his example was imitated throughout Eu- 

 rope ; and celery became at first a garnishment for the table, then a luxury, and 

 now a necessary for every palate. 



