io8 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



April, 



Some Favorites and Two Pests Re- 

 ported on by an Amateur. 



MRS. SI. R. WAGGONER, SCOTT CO., IOWA. 



One of the most satisfactory house plants, 

 providing it is not kept too warm, is tha Chi- 

 nese Primrose. Nothing excels it for con- 

 stancy of bloom. It should be kept well wat^ 

 ered but never over-watered, and no water 

 should be allowed to fall on the foliage or j 

 opening buds. If it falls on the latter they j 

 will immediately blast. Young plants grown 

 ^ach year are preferable to old 

 ones, though these can be used. 

 I start the seed in May, and when 

 the young plants are out of the 

 seed leaf I pot off in thumb-pots, 

 changing the pots as the plant 

 seems to require it until time for 

 removal to winter quarters. 

 With the plants being kept in a 

 cool place, bloom is certain. 



A brilliant plant for the window- 

 garden is the Coleus, if it be prop- 

 erly grown. For this slips should 

 be started in September, pinched 

 out to make them shapely, then 

 later potting and trtinsferring to 

 reeil warm winter quarters. It 

 must have plenty of heat and 

 light. The least chill will cause 

 it to immediately drop its leaves 

 and then its beauty is gone. 

 Given these simple requisites, 

 with a good watering every al- 

 ternate day, and it is one of the 

 very easiest plants to have beau- 

 tiful in the window. 



To all liking house plants, but 

 who do not cai'e to trouble with 

 them much, I can suggest no class 

 so accommodating as the Cactus. 

 Beyond watering say once a 

 month in winter, and along with 

 the other plants in summer, there 

 is very little to do to them. The 

 plants are interesting and curious, 

 even without bloom, but when we know that 

 they produce on some varieties some of the 

 most gorgeous blossoms, we must admit their 

 worthiness in any collection. They do well 

 in any frost-proof room, but wiU do better in 

 a well heated one. In summer plunge the pots 

 in sandy soil in a sunny situation. 



To raise iiue Radishes, enrich the soil well, 

 putting with it also plenty of sand, and having 

 it deep and very mellow. Plant the seed by 

 puncturing the ground with a small dibble, 

 put only one seed in a place, and at several 

 inches apart, just before a rain if possible. 

 Never hoe, but hand weed them. In this way 

 one cannot f aU to have Radishes, crisp and good. 

 A certain remedy for Aphis, that pest of 

 many plants, I find to be Tobacco. With a 

 tea made of it I deluge the leaves infested, both 

 on the upper and under side, and then sprinkle 

 a little fine-cut Tobacco over the soil. When 

 the plant is watered, the fumes arising wiU 

 help in utterly annihilating them. If one dose 

 is not sufficient, try again. 



To banish Red Spider one has but to give 

 plants in the window a daily syringing with 

 water of the same temperature as the room. 

 Red Spider cannot endure a moist atmos- 

 phere. A regular shower bath for all plants is 

 very refreshing and beneficial, acting upon 

 them as a gentle summer rain. " An ounce of 

 prevention is worth a pound of cure," and the 

 shower bath should come in as a preventive. 



spreading; the young shoots dark brownish red. 

 The fruit of the Pewaukee is of medium to 

 large size, with a skin of bright yellow, striped 

 and splashed with red over most of the surface 

 and showing numerous light dots. The surface 

 is also covered with a thin grayish bloom. The 

 flesh is white, a little coarse, but quite tender. 

 It is a juicy Apple, sub-acid, as to flavor slight- 

 ly ai-omatic, and passes generally as being of 

 good quality and beautiful. Its season is from 

 January to May, and this, considering its great 



after trying it, made: " When in full bloom it 

 made such a furore in the neighborhood that 

 to have restrained people from seeing it would 

 have been difficult, indeed." 



THE 



The Pewaukee Apple. 



The Pewaukee is of Russian parentage, hav- 

 ing been raised from seed of the Oldenburgh 

 (Duchess of) by Mr. George P. Pepper, of 

 Waukesha county, Wisconsin. It is a winter 

 Apple and as such ranks among the best for 

 cold climates, because of its great hardiness. 

 The tree is a strong grower, center upright but 



PEWAUKEE APPLE. A SEEDLING OF THE OLDENBU 

 hardiness, may be looked upon as one of its 

 best characteristics. It comes in fully six 

 months later than its estimable and hardy 

 parent, the Oldenburg. 



The Glory Pea of Australia, Cllan- 

 thus Dampleri. 



WILBUR F. LAKE, WAYNE CO., N. Y. 



Of all Australian flowers this is probably the 

 most brilliant ; no lover of rare and beautiful 

 growths should rest content until he has grown 

 it. In habit of growth it may be termed a 

 shrubby climber, with leaves shaped not unlike 

 those of our common garden Pea. 



I do not pretend to claim that the Glory Pea 

 is one of the easiest of plants to raise, but I do 

 claim that the care it requires is not difficult to 

 bestow and it will be well repaid. Like many 

 another favorite from warm climes, the seeds 

 and plants need heat to succeed in attaining to 

 fine specimens. But this in their season of 

 growth is easily provided. 



If the seed are sown this month in heat, and 

 after the seedlings attain a height of three 

 inches they be placed in a position exposed to 

 much light and sun, and a night temperature 

 never lower than 60° (ten or fifteen degrees 

 higher would be better), there will be little 

 need to fear failure. It Ukes very sandy, mel- 

 low soU, not too rich. To promote quick ger- 

 mination, seeds before planting should be 

 soaked in luke-warm water until they swell. 



Another point of importance: The young 

 plants do not readily favor being transplanted. 

 The seed should therefore be sown in small 

 pots, plmiged in a box of sand, taking cai-e that 

 no roots find their way through the hole in the 

 pot, to be broken off at the setting-out time. 



As something of an assurance that the praise 

 I have given the Clianthus is not unjustly be- 

 stowed. I win quote a remaik an amateur 

 friend, always on the alert for something rarei 



Floriculture Running In Ruts. 



A PAPER BY ONE OF OUR EDITORS, READ BEFORE THE 

 NEW YORK STATE FARMERS' INSTITUTE, MARCH 16. 



Reference is had to that tendency of the times 

 which leads to the excessive cultivation of a 

 few kinds of ornamental plants to 

 the exclusion of many others 

 equally or more desii'able. 



There are to be seen, for exam- 

 ple, in not a few places,flower beds 

 planted only to Zonale or Scarlet 

 Geraniums, as if the planting of 

 such constituted the height of de- 

 sirable floriculture. Elsewhere 

 the taste similarly may run to 

 employing general greenhouse 

 plants for the dress of the summer 

 flower beds to the almost com- 

 plete exclusion of everything else. 

 In still other places a floricultm-al 

 rut is clearly apparent in the use 

 of scarcely anything outside of 

 ordinary seed-grown plants, valu- 

 able as they are, but alone not 

 sufficient for the best results. 



Then again it is in this day no 

 difficult matter to pass through 

 localities where "a perfect craze 

 for the 



SETTING OUT TO ACTUAL EXCESS 



of that most excellent flowering 

 climber, Jackman's Clematis, is 

 apparent. Of such a showy 

 bloomer one might perhaps well 

 ask whether it were possible to 

 plant too many. And yet, when 

 as along the streets of some towns. 

 Purple Clematises are met to the 

 right, Purjile Clematises are met 

 RGH. to the left, and Purple Clemat- 



ises are met wherever place could be found 

 in which to put Purple Clematises, it must be 

 admitted that a degree of monotony in beauty 

 arises that is quite undesirable, in view of the 

 desirable variety which might be employed. 

 Enough is enough, even of the best of things. 



Stepping outside of the domain of strict flori- 

 culture, I do not hesitate to say that in Buffalo 

 and its suburbs, for one place, the people of 

 certain streets have gotten into a complete 

 groove in the excessive planting on their lawns 

 of the beautiful cut-leaved Birch tree. It is 

 met on almost every grass plot, and sometimes 

 it would seem as it the smaller the yard the 

 more determined were the owners to have as 

 many trees of this Birch in it as they possibly 

 could. A simOai- state of things may be ob- 

 served in some neighborhoods of the free use 

 of the Norway Spruce as a front-yard tree. 



In the planting of not a few rural cemeteries 

 and public parks, and even such as hold to some 

 pretentions to fine gardening, the rut is visable 

 in an excessive use of a few kinds of plants and 

 trees, when the use of many more kinds would 

 serve far better for good effect. 



THE CAUSES FOR SUCH A PEONENESS 



to run in certain grooves in ornamental plant- 

 ing are perhaps not hard to surmise, and some 

 remedies may possibly be suggested: As for 

 causes, no doubt these may in l£u-ge part be 

 attributed to a prevailing lack of popular knowl- 

 edge, concerning the great wealth of beautiful 

 and easily grown flowers and ornamental plants 

 which are at the command of all planters. 



While the people, on the one hand, show a 

 gi-eat and most gratifying desire to adorn their 

 grounds with handsome plants, on the other 

 they too often know not well what or how 

 to plant; unless it be to repeat on some more 

 or less conspicuous plantings, to which their 

 neighbors have perchancij attained. 



