292 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



iabks* StpirrlmeHt. 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY; 



OR 



HOW TO MAIvE HOIME PLEASANT. 



BY ANNE G. HALE. 



rEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 

 1866 hy R. P. Enton & Co., in tine Clerli's Office of the 

 District Court for the District of Massachusetts.] 



CHAPTER V. 

 HOUSE PLAINTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



Oleander.— This plant in its natural state in- 

 habits the borders of rivers— hence its botanic 

 name, Nerium. It is a species of laurel— is some- 1 

 times called the rose-laurel- and though both 

 leaves and flowers arc harmless to touch and smell, | 

 they are poisonous to the taste. It is a native of 

 Southern Europe and Asia. In 1683 it was taken 

 to England from the East Indies. It is grown in 

 the gardens and shrubberies of Italy, Sicily and 

 Greece, and cultivated in pots to adorn the gi-ounds 

 of chateaus in France and Spain. One species of 

 the plant has been used in tanning ; from another 

 a blue dye, equal to indigo, has been procured. 

 N. splendens, a variety of N. odorum, is the kind 

 generally cultivated in greenhouses and conserva- 

 tories in this country ; but the atmosphere of the 

 parlor agTces with it. Under good cultivation it 

 bears very large and fragrant flowers of a bright 

 pink color. Propagate it by cuttings. After a 

 mature plant has bloomed, in the spring, cut back 

 the shoots two or three joints, and from these pieces 

 select the strongest, and place it in a bottle of water. 

 Hang the bottle in the sunshine, till it is nearly 

 filled with roots. Then get a pot five inches deep. 

 Fill the first inch with pebbles, and the next with 

 broken charcoal. Lay on this a mixture of loam, 

 peat and leaf-mould in equal proportions. Sprin- 

 kle a little of this upon the charcoal. Then hold 

 the young plant in the centre so that the tender 

 roots are not injured, and add the soil : occasion- 

 ally pressing it in with a trowel-, or a potting stick, 

 and then striking the pot to settle-it. When the 

 pot is filled, water the oleander, and if the soil be 

 loosened around its collar, add more, and press it 

 carefully to make it firm. Keep it in the shade, 

 and water it every day, till it shows signs of 

 growth. Then give it the sunshine. Wash it 

 often, and give it liquid manure to hasten the 

 flower-lnids. Water it abundantly while blooming 

 —indeed, from the first appearance of the (lower- 

 buds. If kept in the shade the blossoms will be 

 pale— let it have all the sun possil)le after they be- 

 gin to show color. Old nails mixed with the soil 

 darken the color of the flowers, and make them 

 grow large and full. Every spring get out all the 

 old soil that you can with a trowel— a large iron 



spoon is better for this puiiDose— and fill in new 

 soil like that named above. Do not injure the 

 roots. The pot need not be changed for three 

 years. Keep it in the shade out of doors, where 

 worms cannot reach the pot nor trees drip upon 

 the plant. Water it enough to keep the soil from 

 drying till the middle of August, then give it more 

 water and the sunshine, gradually. Toward the 

 last of September it should be taken to the house, 

 and in October it will be in bud and ready for the 

 parlor. At Christmas it will be in bloom, and, if 

 the plant is three years old or more, continue so 

 until the middle of May, its large clusters of bright 

 pink flowers delighting everybody with their 

 beauty and fragi-ance. 



OxALis, comes from the Greek, and signifies 

 50„>. ;_the leaves of the plant have an acid taste ; 

 and of their expressed juice a chemical preparation 

 is made, and sold under the name of Salts of 

 Lemon, to take out iron-mould and ink-spots. It 

 is a native of Brazil, Chili, and the Cape of Good 

 Hope. There are also a few species gi-owing wild 

 in this country and in Great Britain. Old English 

 herbalists call it '-wood-sour tre-foil" (of which our 

 word wood-sorrel is a corruption,) and "stubwort." 

 Stubwort, because it covers the ground among the 

 stubs in coppices when they are cut down. They 

 also give it the names of "Alleluia," and "cuckoo's 

 meat;" because it springs up and flowers with the 

 singing of the cuckoo, at which time Easter-Al- 

 lelulias, or anthems of rejoicing, were sung in 

 church. 



Seedlings of the oxalis are easily raised, but the 

 plant is generally increased by offsets, which 

 should be set in a pot drained with pebbles, in a 

 soil of sandy peat and loam. October is the best 

 time to start them, when the parent plant is pre- 

 pared for the winter. The leaves will soon appear, 

 followed by the flowers, (some species have pink, 

 others yellow) and both leaves and flowers fold 

 themselves up for sleep at the approach of night. 

 During the winter, water liberally; but in the 

 spring gi-adually withhold the supply till the leaves 

 are dead, and keep the pot in a dark, cool place all 

 summer. The oxalis is very pretty for a hanging 

 pot. 



Orange, has been considered under the head of 

 Lemon. 



Pansy.— This word is^a corruption of the French 

 pmisee, thought. Louis XV. called Qucsney, the 

 founder of the economists, his "thinker," and 

 caused him to wear three flowers of the pensee as 

 his coat of arms. "There's pansies, that's for 

 thought," says Ophelia, in Hamlet. Shakspeare 

 also calls it "love-in-idleness," as in this extract 

 from the "Mid Sunnner Night's Dream— 



"Yet marlvcd I whom the bolt of Cupid fell,— 

 It fell niKin u little western llowcr ; 

 IJclbri' milk-wliite, now piirpU^ with love's wound, 

 And niiiidens call it love-in-idleness." 



The plant is really a violet, and is sometimes called 

 the tn-colored violet. It also bears the names 

 herb-triuity, three-faccs-undcr-a-hood, ladies'-de- 



