CURRE.VT GARDEN LORE. 



505 



Poppies by Wholesale. — As the cultivation of to- 

 bacco is prohibited in England except under a special 

 license from the excise authorities, so the cultivation of 

 the poppy in British India is forbidden unless a license 

 has been taken out. When a cultivator takes out a 

 license from the Opium Department to cultivate a certain 

 area (usually two-thirds of an acre of his own land), he 

 receives an advance in money to secure his allegiance, 

 and he binds himself to deliver to the opium-agent at a 

 fixed price, ordinarily of 5s. a pound, whatever opium 

 may be produced on his land. When official supervision 

 is efficient, it is certainly very difficult for a man to cul- 

 tivate the poppy on a larger area than is covered by his 

 license without detection. The cultivation cannot be 

 concealed. The poppy-plants are grown in little squares 

 or beds, intersected by tiny water-channels for irrigation 

 whenever this is possible. The growth of the plants is 

 carefully tended ; and at length the time comes when 

 they burst out into flower, and the fields look like a sheet 

 of silver, the white petals of the flowers glistening with 

 morning dew. The women and children of the cultiva- 

 tors' families come forth and pick these beautiful petals 

 off one by one, and carefully dry them, so that they may 

 serve afterward as covering for the manufactured cakes 

 of opium. Then the poppies, with their bare capsule- 

 heads, remain standing in the open field until they are 

 ripe for lancing. The cultivators then come forth in the 

 evening, and with an implement not unlike the knives of 

 a cupping instrument, they scarify the capsule on its sides 

 with deep incisions, so that the juice may exude. In early 

 morning the cultivators reappear with a scraping-knife 

 and their earthenware pots, and scrape off the exuded 

 juice and collect it in their pots. This is crude opium. 

 — Blackwood' s Magazine. 



Hedgerows. — The old "haga," "haye," enclosure, or 

 " hedge," dates from very early days in English history. 

 As a rule, inclosure was carried on briskly throughout 

 the country proportionately with the rise in the price of 

 corn. Temporary accidents stopped it, such as the rage 

 for sheep-walks, which marked the later Tudor times. 

 Writers of the eighteenth century bestow many direc- 

 tions on the making of fences, and their particular in- 

 junctions show the downfall of the "common " system of 

 agriculture. Many old sheep-walks were enclosed, and 

 that more wheat might be grown the rabbits were exter- 

 minated from numerous old warrens while the high 

 price of corn prevailed, early in the present century, 

 especially in such years as 1810, 1812 and 1813. These 

 newly acquired fields were surrounded with hawthorn 

 and blackthorn hedges, infinitely less picturesque than 

 the old informal fences described above, but far more 

 beautiful than the attenuated hedges of the modern scien- 

 tific farmer. Being planted on the surface of the soil and 

 not on mounds, if neglected, cattle soon make their way 

 through them, while the weaker parts and undergrowth 

 are devoured and trodden»under foot, leaving only the 

 stouter hawthorns, with gnarled stems and bushy heads. 

 Hence, the lines of hawthorns which the traveler by rail 

 frequently observes in Northumberland, Lincolnshire, 



and other counties. They stand like survivors of an 

 older state of things, and possess great beauty of their 

 own during autumn, when frost has touched them with 

 crimson hues and they are hung with red berries, the har- 

 vest of fieldfares and redwings. — LojigmatV s Magazine. 



Spraying Potatoes. — The Rural Nezv-Yorker uses 

 the following formula : Two ounces of copper sulphate 

 (crystals) are put into a one-gallon demijohn of cold 

 water. They will dissolve in 24 hours. Three ounce; 

 of quicklime are put into another one-gallon demijohn 

 of water, the lime first being slaked by adding only a 

 sufficiency of water. The two gallons are poured into 

 the ordinary patent water-pail, and we are ready to 

 spray, using an ordinary aquapult pump, which, for 

 small patches, answers just as well as more costly 

 pumps. To every pail of the copper-lime liquid, a level 

 teaspoonful of Paris green is added so that the applica- 

 tion may serve to kill the potato-beetle as well as protect 

 the vines against blight. Constant stirring is necessary 

 while spraying, or the lower part of the liquid will have 

 an undue proportion of lime and Paris green. The cop- 

 per sulphate is entirely soluble. The above quantity of 

 liquid will serve for a row of vines about 40 feet long. 

 For larger areas, the same proportion of copper sulphate, 

 lime and Paris green would be as follows : For 16 gal- 

 lons of water, use two pounds of copper sulphate and 

 I '-2 pound of lime, adding one teaspoon level full of 

 Paris green to every two gallons of the mixture. 



The Large-Flowering Single Rose. — Judged by the 

 specimen in the Arnold Arboretum, there is no shrub 

 more beautiful at this time than Rosa grandijlora , with 

 its great single white flowers as handsome as those of the 

 Cherokee rose and far more fragrant. This fine plant, 

 although an old inhabitant of gardens, is rarely seen 

 in these days, but taste for single-flowered roses must 

 soon bring it into general cultivation. — Garden and 

 Forest. 



Good Foliage Nepessary. — The best-flavored, best- 

 colored and finest specimens of fruit ripen on plants 

 having an abundance of healthy foliage. The finest 

 strawberries are found in the densest foliage, and so 

 with grapes and other fruits. Yet the question is occa- 

 sionally submitted as to whether or not the leaves should 

 be removed from a bunch of grapes, so that their maturity 

 might be hastened by exposure to the sun. It has been 

 advised as a necessity, and that it is a rule to do so in 

 some European vineyards. To all this it may simply be 

 said that the removal of leaves never yet improved the 

 quality of fruit or hastened its healthy maturity. Ex- 

 posure to the sun will sometimes effect a premature col- 

 oring in grapes, but the mere coloring is not a sign of 

 maturity, although it indicates approaching ripeness. 

 The only true indication of a ripened bunch of grapes is 

 when the shoot upon which it is growing has turned 

 brown and hard. Pulling the leaves from figs, grapes 

 or any other fruiting plants with a view to assist in ripen- 

 ing their crop is a fatal error, because such treatment 

 has quite the opposite effect from that intended — /V- 

 parlynent of Agriculture. 



