THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



or for sale in the market. On this last point, 

 — preserving fruits, &c, for sale, — we shall 

 have something to say in the August Planter, 

 by which time we shall procure data which is 

 not now in possession. 



Pruning Evergreens. 



In a work of some authority we find three 

 rules for pruning evergreens which we have 

 concluded to copy for the benefit of our readers, 

 with the remark that any other season is more 

 suitable for this work than that which many 

 persons select, by which we mean the winter. 

 Because they have more leisure then, they 

 prune, although they are conscious of its im- 

 propriety. But for the rules. 



1. In pruning evergreens, the lowest branches 

 should be the longest whatever the shape of the 

 head may be. 



2. No leaf should be cut through in pruning 

 an evergreen. 



3. No cut ends should be seen on the bush 

 or tree. 



These three rules are supported by good and 

 sufficient reasons which would satisfy the most 

 skeptical, if indeed there can be any skepti- 

 cism about directions so obviously proper. It 

 may be worth while to tell how the last can be 

 observed as there may be novices to whom it 

 may be useful. It is effected by beginning the 

 cut on the opposite side to where you stand and 

 always cutting with an upward stroke. Then 

 the cut part will either face downwards or to- 

 wards the centre of the plant, and if you cut 

 close to a lateral branch, to the bottom of a leaf 

 stalk, at a few yards distance no person could 

 tell that your plant had been pruned at all. 



My Pink and other Pinks. 



On the table as we write, is a small flower 

 vase, containing twenty Pinks, whose fragrance 

 perfumes the entire body of atmosphere in the 

 room, while their extreme beauty charms the 

 eye of every person who enters. They are all 

 double flowers, and about one-fourth the largest 

 flowers of the kind we have ever seen, and no 

 two of them are of the same shade and colour. 

 One is the deepest crimson, and then the hue 

 of the flowers grows lighter and lighter, until 

 we arrive at a pure white, with the edges of the 

 leaves tipped with a red that is very near a pur- 

 ple. Altogether, thay form a boquet of great 

 beauty. 



Beautiful as they are here, they looked far 



447 



more beautiful early this morning while the dia- 

 mond dew-drops sparkled in their petals, as the 

 earliest rays of the sun fell upon the garden 

 bed where they grew. It was a small strip, 

 perhaps two feet wide and twenty feet long, de- 

 voted exclusively to pinks, of which there was 

 a great variety, and at a distance one could 

 scarce repress the fancy as the flowers swayed 

 to and fro, to the motions of the zephyrs that 

 they were gay plumaged butterflies sporting 

 and playing in the breezes of morning. In- 

 deed it was a charming sight, and we told our 

 friend that it amply repaid us for our early 

 rising and long walk to visit his garden, and ■ 

 we are quite sure that our lady readers would 

 emulate the example of our friend if they could 

 have stood, by our side this morning and look- 

 ed on the beautiful flowers and inhaled the 

 grateful odour which they flung upon the air. 



And this is the moral we would teach, in this 

 notice of our friend's bed of pinks, that every 

 person who has a flower garden -at all, or who 

 makes any pretence to cultivate flowers should 

 have pinks, and should put them in one spot, 

 with no other kind of flowers. Persons some- 

 times cultivate pinks but scatter them here and 

 there in small clusters over all the grounds, but 

 if they wish to see them in their greatest per- 

 fection and beauty, let them be planted all to- 

 gether in one bed, as we have more than once 

 advised with respect to all flowers. When the 

 best varieties are originally selected, and they 

 are thus planted, when they come into full 

 bloom, the entire bed will be covered with the' 

 flowers, almost hiding the green stems and the 

 earth entirely from view. Such a bed of choice 

 pinks cannot be surpassed by any of Flora's 

 beautiful creations. 



Perhaps we are over partial to this flower, 

 because it is associated with the sweetest and 

 purest scenes of our childhood, before we knew 

 what sorrow meant, or had tasted the bitter wa- 

 ters of disappointment. In that far away pe- 

 riod of the past, we wandered oft through the 

 well kept grounds o*f a country home, our only 

 companion a blue-eyed, fair-haired, littie girl, 

 whose sweet prattle was more precious to our 

 childish affection, than any and all words of 

 later years. They called her Pink, and per- 

 haps for that reason, we used chiefly to fre- 

 quent a portion of the grounds, where seated 

 beneath the wide-spreading branches of a no- 

 ble willow oak, we could look on a large bed of 



