FOREST AND STREAM. 
37 
language deserves a place in “the archives of gravity,” as 
one of our colored members of the Legislature said in 1868. 
But Sparks could shoot, and had a splendid pair of barrels. 
Of course we had to go bear hunting, and we were placed 
upon stands, afong the banks of a large canal, where the 
tracks and droppings of very large bears were as plenty as I 
have seen of hogs where a corn fieltl was given them for 
feeding ground. We were all green at the business, 
except Sparks, and it caused a very curious sensation to 
run along the spinal column, as we crouched in the grass 
after dark waiting for bruin to put in an appearance, when 
a jack ass a little distance above us commenced to break 
©If the corn, the sharp crackling of which caused all to sup¬ 
pose one of the black rascals had crossed the canal without 
our seeing him. We were not scared, oh no! but I guess 
one of the boys wanted to go home. The wind blew freshly 
from us upon the pocosin, and bruin’s scent warned him 
of danger, and he didn’t come. 
But my communication has reached far beyond the limits 
I proposed, when I sat down to simply to tell your numer- 
fous readers the fine sport to be had around New Bern. 
.Around Norfolk, and down in Currituck Sound thousands 
mf persons are during the whole winter engaged in hunting, 
’while with us, being farther inland the game is not disturb¬ 
ed except by our own people. Our game laws are very 
doosely drawn and are a dead letter upon the Statute Book. 
Tke best of guides can be procured for one dollar per day 
;and rations, and almost every man in the country owns one 
-or more hounds. 
The officers of the Revenue Cutter Stephens went ashore 
at the mouth of Bay River (near the mouth of the Neuse) 
two weeks ago and started seven fine deer within three 
hours. Mr. Editor, I find I didn’t tell anything about how 
we shot geese and black ducks in Lake Ellis, but L guess it 
will keep, so more anon. J. E. W. 
ffoadland, Jjp twit and (garden. 
PARLOR OR WINDOW GARDENING. 
• —j— - 
NO. VIII.—SUB-TROPICAL AND FERNS. 
'“The wet leaves, the morning air 
Are stirring at its touch, and birds are singing 
As if to breathe were music; and the grass 
Sends up its modest odor with the dew, 
Like the small tribute of humility. 
Lovely, indeed, is morning! I have drunk 
Its fragrance and its freshness, and have felt 
Its delicate touch; and ’tis a kindlier thingj 
Than music, or a feast of medicine.” N.P.Willis. 
N our last paper upon the science and modus operandi of 
window gardening we promised our readers a few 
words upon the more difficult division of the art of win¬ 
dow gardening, called the sub-tropical, with the introduc¬ 
tion of aquaria, etc. 
We naturally suppose that all who would try their taste 
and ability to make a pretty combination of different kinds 
of flowers of varied foliage and colors would have in the 
first instance a place of sufficient capacity to lay a good 
foundation for the same. In order to well develop all the 
beauties of such a window as we here describe, and which 
has given us much pleasure and many hours of study, one 
whole bay window of largest dimensions will be found 
none too large for our purpose. 
In the first place, you will have a neatly made box of 
such shape as will fit snugly to your window recess. This 
as to be placed upon good strong rollers, so that it may be 
drawn out into the room if desirable. The front of this 
box may be made of panels, and ornamented to suit the 
(taste of the lady of the house. Very tasty, and even beau¬ 
tiful, cabinets can be made with little effort on the part of 
the originator, and they are always beautiful either in sum¬ 
mer or winter. Your box may be made of such depth as 
your window will admit, taking care not to have it more 
tnan three feet from the bottom of the parlor floor. In 
this box, if you design to unite the sub-tropical style with 
the fernery, or Wardian style of culture and plants, it will 
be necessary to fix a zinc box, as before noticed, from 
which a small lead pipe—size, quarter of an inch—should 
pass through the wooden box, with a small stop-cock at¬ 
tached, to draw off superfluous water. 
This is your necessary preparation. You will now fill to 
the depth of one foot from the bottom of your box with 
goodly sized pieces of crock and bits of brick, etc., for the 
purpose of giving a good drainage. Upon this you are to 
place your soil for the reception of plants. You can, if 
you desire, throw an arch from each corner of your box, 
meeting in the centre, or a small rocky arch made of scoria, 
bits of melted iron, and flinty substances found near blast 
furnaces in any quantities; small iron rods may be used as 
supports for the scoria, and these can be bent in any shape. 
Then the scoria is to be compacted around these rods, 
broadest at the base, using from the bottom of the box, 
and wired with small wires to the supporting iron rods 
above named; hydraulic cement maybe used to unite to¬ 
gether these bits of scoria, and as they are irregularly 
shaped and full of smoke holes they are well adapted to 
the use for which you now use them. In these crevices 
formed by the scoria you can place bits of quartz and small 
specimens of minerals that you value, and if you unite 
with your sub tropical plants the aquarium you will find a 
very pretty effect will be produced. The scoria are then 
to be painted of a stone color, or ornamented to imitate 
rock work. This portion of the work, when well done, is 
one half of the whole undertaking, and hence we remark, 
if you cannot afford the time and study to do this you had 
better not attempt to do it at all. In making these column 
arches, as we call them, you can make little spaces for the 
reception of earth all along these arches (they will be, if 
made right, six inches in diameter and quite strong) to hold 
mosses, lichens, and other water or humid plants. You 
can run a shelf six inches wide some three inches below 
the top of your box, upon which you can place on the edge 
next the inside of the box bits of scoria as large as your 
fist; these will support the peat, earth, and composition 
made of rotted mosses, etc,, for supporting ferns and fern¬ 
like plants. Now below this shelf—one foot below it will 
be sufficient—you can place a second shelf, running like 
the first all around the box, and fourteen inches in width. 
This is to be edged like the other with pieces of scoria, 
twice as large as on the first shelf. This running flower 
box is to be filled like the first one, with peaty soil, two 
parts peaty composition to one of sand. 
You now have your boxes ready to fill up to within three 
or four inches, or even two inches of the lower shelf, with 
your prepared soils. In order to have a good combination 
of plants you must have a good foundation; if for a sub¬ 
tropical arrangement (always a delicate and somewhat dif¬ 
ficult arrangement.) your principal source of difficulty will 
be found in too much moisture and not too little. You 
should bear in mind this fact— look to your parlor garden , if 
a sub-tropical one , every day. 
Your box, being now, as we will suppose, filled with the 
necessary soils, you can begin planting the same, and you 
will plant the outer small box—which runs all around the 
box—with the plants best adapted to such situations. 
Among these you can use the following:—Begin with the 
fern tribe—by many considered to be a remnant of the veg¬ 
etation of a past age, or rather era, and the very peculiar 
treatment they receive would seem to confirm this view. 
Most of the ferns delight in a loose soil and abundant mois- 
turej with a warm, humid atmosphere. Many kinds are 
quite hardy, and readily adapt themselves to their new 
homes. Of the kinds of ferns to be used, we may name 
our own native ferns of the meadows and woods. All, 
under a high state of cultivation, are a study of themselves, 
and some very beautiful in their first development. 
Many of the English, as well as American ferns, grow 
very finely, and under a good state of cultivation pre some¬ 
times scarcely known as our old familiar friends of the 
woods, so much has good, careful culture changed them. 
There is no more stately and beautiful fern than the dick- 
sotiia , or tree fern; though growing quite large, they can be 
used to advantage, and are a splendid addition to a sub¬ 
tropical window garden. We have planted this fern in a 
large box, and placed it near one corner of the room, and 
it was a grateful addition to the parlor or sitting room. 
To return, again, to our sub-tropical window garden, we 
find many fine specimens among the ferns. One of short 
stature, called the “low growth” ferns, are well adapted for 
this decorative use, and after a little time and observation 
the study of the spores or seeds fouud beneath the leaves 
of many of the ferns are an object of much interest to the 
inquiring mind. These fern spores, as seen through an 
improved microscope, are a wonderful revelation of the 
hidden mysteries of the vegetable or flower world. Won¬ 
derful, indeed, are the revealed minute atoms beneath the 
object glass of this instrument. 
As an accompaniment, or companion of the ferns—very 
pleasant to look upon and easily cultivated, is the creeping 
species of Lysimachia mummularia, called moneywort from 
the rounded form of its leaves. This plant will hang in 
long and graceful stems, its deep green leaves and small, 
bright yellow flowers sparkling like gems amid the pearly 
drops of water around the fountain and rockery out of 
doors, or the miniature rocks of the sub-tropical garden 
within the bay window of our parlors. These fine flowers, 
though wild, are much improved by cultivation, and when 
used side by side with lilac, or reddish purple, have 
a fine effect. There are various river side plants, and a 
walk beside almost any of our summer brooklets will re¬ 
veal this quiet little plant in its festive loveliness. 
Another well known plant, so common that every boy 
weT knows it, is nevertheless admirably adapted to our 
use in this window association of plants. We refer to the 
Sempervivum lectorum, or common houseleek, which covers 
the roofs of our old houses with its rosettes of living green 
foliage; its large clusters of juicy, pinkish flowers are 
beautiful indeed. This plant is tenacious of life, is easily 
cultivated, and placed within the crevices of our arch of 
scoria is beautiful when it forms a rosette from which de¬ 
pends in graceful festoons the moneywort before mentioned. 
As you will find it necessary to cover your peaty earth 
with some of the fine growing mosses, many kinds of which 
you will find vigorous and full of life in any greenhouse, I 
need not specify by name any particular one, leaving you 
to make your own choice to suit your own fancy, and we 
will next name as a fitting plant, and one that will grow 
well in your outer box shelf, rising up from the green moss, 
bright and full of fragrance when in blossom, the Viola 
palustris , always found growing among the mosses, much 
in its habits like our wood violet, so muck prized in spring 
time, and having something of its pleasant odor. It is of 
a pale lilac color, and looks well in the place you have as¬ 
signed it. While you are out in the woodland swamp in 
search of the violet you may look about you and see if you 
cannot find a sweet little flower, quite common in our 
woods, and found often in damp grasses. We refer to the 
Campanula hedenicea. It is the smallest of the bell-sliaped 
flower tribe. A honey bee could not hide its head in its 
flower, so tiny is its perfect blossom. The leaf is ivy 
shaped, and when in blossom in favorite conditions its pur¬ 
plish blue flowers are a compensation for all our care in its 
cultivation. You will find it quite easily in its favorite 
haunts, and having found it pass your transplanting trowel 
well under it, taking up a generous share of the soil, and 
carry it to your garden, where it will grow and thrive until 
such time as you are ready to place it within your window 
garden. In this place, which we will call the place of the 
ferns, we would state that in our usage of the ferns, whether 
in fern cases (of which we shall hereafter speak) or in the 
window, it is best always to choose those of very dwarf 
and compact habits. This will allow for a little drawing 
up of the ponds from confinement. Of course you will 
not forget the formula before given (a mixture of loam, 
leaf mould, and sand to grow them in), to which you may 
add a few bits of charcoal as large as walnuts. Ferns thus 
set out will absorb all the moisture they require; they can 
now, and will, take care of themselves. They will hold a 
supply of moisture without stagnating, but should you ob 
serve that the water remains unabsorbed you are now only 
to turn the little stop-cock before mentioned and your su- 
perflous water is easily removed. One other matter in this 
connection is particularly necessary to be observed, and 
just in this place you will notice its adaptedness to success. 
Near the edge of your window sash, about the middle of 
the seeond pane, bore a half inch hole through with a clean 
cutting bit, and into this hole fit a piece of half inch lead 
pipe of about a foot to fourteen inches in length, both ends 
of which are open. This is your ventilator, and your cork, 
of which only one is necessary upon the inside within yotiv 
bay window, will give you all the ventilation you need. 
This will be found of great value to the beauty and brll* 
liancy of your plants if you have, as many do, glass doors 
opening into your parlor from your bay window. If you 
would have a complete success in a tropical garden like the 
one I am now describing, you will have a sort of standing 
case, made of sufficient size to cover your inner space of 
the window, separating completely the garden from the 
parlor or room within which you grow your plants. Let 
the sides of the casing to the window have (in other words 
a bay window case) one pane, or one foot deep at each side, 
and front whole, with the exception of one or two panes 
like a door, on hinges in the center, and you are ready to 
grow the most delicate plants. 
We shall further continue our description in our next 
paper, and will, with your attention to the necessary de¬ 
tails, help you to finish your sub-tropical window garden. 
Olltpod Quill. 
- -<-•-*»-- 
—The Homeward Mail , an Indian journal, contains some 
interesting facts in regard to the destruction of the forests 
in Hindostan, and from a very thorough article on this sub¬ 
ject we make the following brief abstract. The Homeward 
Mail states that no country has suffered to an equal extent 
from the destruction of forests as India. In Europe the 
regrowth of trees is quite possible, but in India the effects 
of climate prevent it. It is evident that climatic differ¬ 
ences already exist in Hindostan. Some three centuries 
ago the Indian Peninsula was covered with forests, and 
lakes, marshes, and water sources were numerous; to-day 
but few exist. Rain fell there some hundred years ago on 
the surface of the ground, and was retained, evaporation 
being diminished; rivers ran full through their banks, and 
grasses and plants were nourished. To-day all this has 
changed. Lakes, morasses, and small streams no longer 
have any existence. Even the rainfall has diminished, and 
general aridity of soil is slowly but certainly following the 
disappearance of the forests. Some people may say, “We 
have cut down the woods, but they will grow again.” 
Those who express themselves in this guise have no idea of 
the difficulties in the way. It may be possible that during 
the rainy season the weather is more or less favorable to 
the growth of young plantations of trees, but during eight 
months of the year the dryness of the climate is such, and 
the ground is so baked, that even should the trees have 
taken root in the wet weather they are swept away by the 
rains, or killed in the subsequent hot months. Numerous 
trials have been made to restore the forests in certain local¬ 
ities, but without success. The measures taken have been 
too long delayed, and the Homeward Mail concludes by as¬ 
serting that the task of replanting the forests of India is 
impossible. _ , 
Obituary. —Robert K. Potter, Esq., of the firm of 
Wright & Potter (Massachusetts) State Printers, who died 
in Boston Wednesday, the 5tli inst., at the age of fifty-eight, 
after a nine Peeks’ illness with pneumonia, was one of the 
pioneers among Boston men to explore the Adirondacks, 
making many annual excursions 'in company with Hon. 
Frank W. Bird, long before they became popular as a 
place of summer resort* and their attractions only realized 
by like genuine sportsmen; He wrote a very interesting 
lecture on this subject, and often delivered the same before 
large and appreciative audiences, doubtless planting the 
seeds in many a ybitiig mind which ripening added many 
to the grand army of sportsmen who love to forget the cares 
of business and recruit their health in pursuit of the pleas¬ 
ures and enjoyments afforded by the forest and stream. 
