104 



BUDS, BLOSSOMS, FRUITS. 



A Simple H\nd Weh 



Some of Washington's Wild-Flowers. — A lover of 

 flowers who has lived a long time in the east, and has to 

 coax and pet and house with such care in winter certain 

 favorites of the floral family, will be filled with delight- 

 ful sensations when beholding for the first time those 

 same pets growing wild, as free from any need of coaxing 

 as the grass, and as luxuriant as the heart could wish. 

 Here the Mimulus inoschatus forms dense carpets, and 

 there the monkey-flower [Muitnhis tigriniis) grows in all 

 its splendor, rivaling the calceolaria in its bright colors. 

 Then early in April the delphiniums bloom with their 

 colors of deepest blue and scarlet. The lilies, too, are 

 well represented in twenty or more varieties. A very 

 fine one is Lilhim Cohimhianiim of the catalogues. In 

 flowering shrubs there are the red-flowering currant, 

 which is a beauty in early spring, the fuchsia, the flower- 

 ing gooseberry, the Mahonia aquifoliiim and wild roses 

 in great profusion. — T. H. Carter, Callam Co., Wash. 



A Hand Weeder. — One of the simplest yet best tools 

 used in our onion and other beds this season was a hand 

 weeder we made ourselves 

 by sawing a broken hoe- 

 handle into eight or ten- 

 inch length, and fastening 

 each piece to the apex of a 

 34 -inch triangular piece of 

 band-iron, as shown in 

 illustration. The cutting- 

 edges were filed sharp. 

 These tools never clogged, and did better work than any 

 patent weeder. Of course we use the Planet Jr. wheel 

 hoe and attachments, and the weeder made an excellent 

 supplement to it. — L. G., Pa. 



Street Fruit-Vendors.— While Charles A. Green, in 

 his readable little book "How we made the old Farm 

 Pay, " gives some sensible advice in favor of fruit-growers 

 turning peddlers in disposing of their products, the 

 Chicago papers on the other hand have recently raised a 

 cry against a certain class of fruit-vendors, mostly 

 foreigners, who make the air hideous crying their wares 

 through the streets. We believe thoroughly in fruit and 

 vegetable-growers selling direct to consumers; we regret 

 much to see the honorable vocation brought into bad 

 name by a class of peddlers who make a nuisance of 

 themselves in every way. But after all, the one class is 

 a set of irresponsible street hawkers, while your honor- 

 able grower usually works up a line of regular patrons 

 whom he visits periodically, with satisfaction to himself 

 and his patrons. The grower who thus distributes his 

 products is never a hawker, hence the harsh things said 

 of the latter are not to be interpreted as applying to the 

 former. 



Who are the Commercial Men. — The complaint is 

 made by the commercial florists in England, that so- 

 called private collections of orchids and other choice 

 plants are grown in the interests of trade, more or less. 

 It is an evil that has often been complained of in this 

 country, but is hard to remedy. When a man who is 

 engaged in mercantile or other pursuits goes to the 



country to live, the growing of horticultural products 

 becomes his occupation and recreation to some extent, 

 and it is not easy for him to confine himself only to pro- 

 ducing enough for his personal wants. But in most lines 

 the professional grower is able so to excel the other that 

 he has little difficulty in disposing of his crops advan- 

 tageously. 



Burnt Earth in Propagation. — Have any of our 

 readers tried burnt clay or other soil to stick cuttings 

 in? So excellent an authority as Dr. Masters, of the 

 London Gardener's Chronicle, says that in his own experi- 

 ence he has found that roots are emitted in this sub- 

 stance more rapidly than in others. Another writer 

 gives as a reason why this is so, that burnt clay has 

 the property of absorbing ammonia from the atmosphere, 

 thereby securing a constant and regular stimulant to the 

 cuttings, enablingthem to send out the radical fibers very 

 quickly. Another English gardener testifies to the value 

 of burnt earth about delicate alpine plants, and also in 

 the kitchen-garden. 



Pears in Mid-Winter. — Ellwanger & Barry, of 

 Rochester, are doing a good service to American po- 

 mology, by showing how successfully winter pears can 

 be grown and marketed , A year ago an excellent article 

 appeared in these columns on this subject. Recently we 

 had an oppertunity to taste some of their last year's crop 

 of Anjou pears. The specimens were large, handsome 

 and luscious. The growers have no hesitation in saying 

 that, one year with another, this plat of Anjou pears 

 proves far more remunerative than plats of like size 

 devoted to Bartlett or any other variety. This is un- 

 questionably the finest winter pear in cultivation. 



Home- Made Garden -Roller. — Take a sound piece of 

 chestnut log 15 or 18 inches 

 long and a foot or so in 

 diameter. Make it round 

 and smooth. Insert iron 

 pins or bolts at each end. 

 Fasten the roller part to a 

 simple handle by means of 

 two pieces of wagon-tire, as 

 shown in the illustration. 

 This makes a roller as good 

 as any you can buy and the 

 saving in expense is certainly worth considering in these 

 days. 



Roots in Drains. — It is well-known that roots often 

 obstruct drain-tiles to an extent that renders the latter 

 useless. In the last issue of Meehan's Monthly an instance 

 is recorded of a drain from an out-building in the yard 

 of a public school in Philadelphia, that was choked, 

 and on examination a little root of a maple tree was 

 found to have penetrated a very small pore in the terra- 

 cotta pipe; yet so rapidly did these roots increase, after 

 they found there was plenty of food at command in the 

 drain, that although the pipe was eight inches in diame- 

 ter, several bucketfuls of small fibrous roots were 

 taken out, which had completely choked all circulation 

 through the drain. It was a wonderful example of the 



Home-Made G/> 

 Roller. 



