350 



TREASURES FOUND IN WOODS AND SWAMPS. 



For home use or for special customers who are willing 

 to pay a fancy price for a superior article, I advocate the 

 following method, which has grown fine plants in my 

 garden : Set the plants in rows four or five feet apart, and 

 about seven inches apart in the row ; plants thus grown 

 on the surface have the advantage of direct sunshine, 

 make a rapid growth, and are easily kept free from 

 weeds. One very essential point is to keep all soil out 

 of the heart of plants until they are large enough for 

 blanching. To make sure that this is not done by care- 

 less hoeing, I usually go through the rows myself with a 

 push-hoe. When the plants are well grown, I wrap 

 each plant in a paper jacket, and then hill up almost to 

 the top of the papers. For this purpose I usually buy 

 common straw-paper and cut it into strips from twelve to 

 fifteen inches wide. After a little practice the wrapping 

 can be done as quickly as the ordinary tying-up. The 

 loose end of the wrapper may be kept in place by a 

 handful of earth thrown in with a trowel, or if the plants 



are very bushy it is less work to fasten the ends together 

 with an ordinary pin. 



Last fall I placed a light protection over the celery 

 rows when rain-storms were imminent, and was well 

 repaid for all my trouble. The bunches were immense 

 and of fine quality, and the blanching was perfect. This 

 year I think I have a better scheme in view and propose 

 to use a light-weight oil-paper, similar to that used for 

 building purposes. This paper costs less than two dollars 

 per roll, will cut to advantage and is water-proof. Straw- 

 paper of course will rot if left in the ground too long, and 

 a "diet of worms" will be likely to follow. 



The space between celery rows should always be used 

 for some quick-growing crop, like radishes, kohlrabi or 

 early cauliflower. Care should always be taken in hilling 

 to give a broad base to hills, as the soil may need to be 

 drawn up higher later in the season. Personal super- 

 vision of all these details is important. 



Vermont. G. A. Woolson. 



TREASURES FOUND IN WOODS AND SWAMPS. 



THE RICH FLORA OF NEW JERSEY. 



QAS there ever a country whose sur- 

 face expression was so at variance 

 with its real character as this one of 

 New Jersey ? These sand - barrens, 

 seemingly so flat and sterile, hold rare 

 delectable qualities that take shape in 

 a surpassing variety of fruits and flow- 

 ers. Given a little moisture and mingled with rich dark 

 soil, into what beauty will they not bud and blossom ? 

 The white sandy roads of the barrens, as they lead down 

 into the swamp region where the soil is moister, firmer 

 and darker, are bordered with a denser and more varied 

 growth of forest-trees, from whose cool, dark depths 

 comes a musical jangle followed by long clear notes, for 

 this is the home of the hermit-thrush. Here on rich, 

 black soil the magnolia rises among cedars, above thickets 

 of alder and azalea, and wherever they can find room 

 giant ferns spread their fronds in tropical exuberance. 

 The road is replete with interest as it compasses the 

 borders of the swamp. Crowding mosses and trailing 

 vines take up the roadway, till we reach the edge of 

 an open marsh, where myriads of pendent ruby globules 

 hang low over lush beds of moss and grasses — the barren 

 has ended in a cranberry bog, where a feast of beauty is 

 spread. 



These open, wet, half-cultivated meadows are favorite 

 haunts for other interesting forms of plant-life. Pitcher- 

 plants, the edges of their brims stained with carmine, 

 and rare and beautiful grasses grow here, and in just 

 such localities throughout the state a floral life is found 

 that is the wonder of the botanical world. Geological 

 disposition of strata and the slope of our low-lying Fea- 

 board toward warmer latitudes partly account for this 

 extensive and beautiful flora. East Indian lilies take 

 kindly to these temperate waters ; beautiful orchids and 



asphodels, Pyxidanthera haybuhita and the rare he- 

 lonias grow in the swamps and marshes, and bright- 

 hued flowers and grasses give to low meadows fringing 

 the Atlantic a red autumnal tint. 



Even in early spring-time New Jersey bogs and by- 

 ways are plentifully sprinkled with flowers. The " pyxie " 

 in russet winter foliage, with its pink buds half-blown 

 as early as March, is found in moist open spaces about 

 the wood, sharing its bed with the mosses which it 

 slightly resembles. The leather - leaf's dainty, brave 

 white blossoms are sometimes found amid the snow, and 

 roseate, waxen clusters of arbutus peep from beneath 

 their weather-bronzed foliage very early in spring. The 

 white banners of the dogwood are unfurled all through 

 our woodlands ; rose-red honeysuckles tint the thickets ; 

 columbine, anemones and wild geraniums grow about 

 sunny slopes and forest ways, and big blue wood-violets 

 with golden stamens are waiting along the old roads. 



Can one wander too far in these half-broken wilds, or 

 fear to lose one's way, with such a multitude of upturned 

 faces in attendance ? If, at a glance, one could see the 

 characters of beauty inscribed upon forest-floors and the 

 white sands, one might read the claim of New Jersey to 

 the title of " Garden State" in its floral life, as well as in 

 its wealth of fruits, roots and melons. Wreaths of white 

 laurel are twined amid the shadows of the wood and 

 overflow its edges in clouds of pink and white bloom — a 

 study of delight in the rough wild setting of the thickets. 

 There are patches of blue in meadow-courses where the 

 iris is unfolding its pennons among bright green water- 

 sedges ; cowslips and ranunculus are out in the marshes, 

 and golden hudsonia is strewing the sand-barrens with 

 the hieroglyphics of the sun. Pretty red moccasin- 

 plants grow about the wood, in just such places as may 

 have been pressed by the footsteps of a departed race, 



