BUDS, BLOSSOAfS. FRUITS. 



679 



pina, Malmaison and Clothilde Soupert. Without doubt 

 each expert would have endorsed as good all the roses on 

 the other's list, but he could not include them among the 

 " 12 best." 



Outdoor Roses. — Plant roses in the richest bed you 

 have. You can hardly give them too much decayed vege- 

 table and animal fertilizer, or keep them too clean of 

 weeds and insects. If thoroughly watered just before 

 blooming time with whale-oil soap dissolved in luke- 

 warm water, insects will give little trouble. Give the 

 plants also, once a week, a pot full of warm water in which 

 a tablespoonful of nitrate of soda has been dissolved. 

 Keep full-blown roses picked off, as they exhaust the 

 plants. Roses may be set in fall in climates having 

 mild winters. Protect them during winter by pegging 

 down and covering them with straw, leaves, evergreen 

 boughs or soil. — S. S. Story. 



Tree Expert and Lawyer. — Some time since a wit- 

 ness in court was testifying as to the value of certain 

 trees on some land to be taken for park purposes, and 

 the following dialogue occurred : 



Cross-Examining Lawyer — You say the tree is 

 seven feet in circumference at four feet from the 

 ground. Now, why do you not give the diameter 

 — a smaller-sounding figure ? 



Tree Expert — I can't measure through a tree, 

 but I can measure around it. 



Lawyer — Why do you take all measurement: 

 at four feet from the ground ? " ' 



Expert — To keep the knees of my pantaloons 

 clean. 



Protection for Young Trees. — We have tried many 

 plans to keep rabbits and insects from injuring young 

 fruit-trees, but the best thing yet is tarred paper. We 

 buy the paper as it is prepared for roofing, and cut it 

 into strips about six inches wide by two feet long. It is 

 easily and quickly wrapped about the trees, and is secured 

 with wire or strings. The offensive smell of tar drives 

 insects away, and they will not get between the tree and 

 the wrappings, as when rags and veneering are used. We 

 wrapped 35 acres of trees in this way, and the paper has 

 now been on two years. This is certainly worth a trial. 

 — H, R. Friedgen, I}id. 



Old and New Phloxes. — This year I tried, for the 

 first time, the star-shaped and fringed phloxes, about 

 which .so much has been written. A pleasant surprise 

 awaited me when they came into bloom. The colors 

 could not exceed in brilliancy the old P. Drummondii, 

 but they were quite as fine, only a few being in any sense 

 dull or dingy, and the shapes were exceedingly odd and 

 pretty. Some were much like the old sorts, except a 

 delicate notching of the edge of the petals ; others were 

 neat stars, and still others had so little surface of petals 

 that they reminded me of an umbrella-frame with the 

 cover off, but to the varied arrangement of colors I can- 

 not do justice. Try them yourselves. — Elder's Wife. 



Gathering Forest Leaves. — We are frequently ad- 

 vised to collect leaves when damp. This is all right 

 when they are to be used as a mulch for hotbeds, but 



for bedding for animals the dryer the leaves are the better, 

 and it is very easy to collect them when dry, if sugar- 

 barrels are used to pack them in. Take as many barrels 

 as will stand upright in the wagon, place them on the 

 ground beside the leaf-pile, and pack the leaves in them 

 by getting in atop and tramping down their contents. 

 In this way a wagon can be made to hold as many dry leaves 

 as damp ones, and it is easy to remove the barrels from it, 

 dumping the leaves just where you want them. Straw 

 is scarce and expensive here, so damaged salt-hay is gen- 

 erally used for bedding. This answers for the purpose 

 tolerably well, but dry leaves are better, as they pack 

 down closer, are less apt to burn in the manure, and are 

 more valuable as a fertilizer. — W. F. Bassett, X. J. 



Economical Sodding. — To obtain sufficient sod of 

 suitable quality for covering terrace-slopes or small 

 blocks that for any reason cannot well be seeded, is of- 

 ten a difficult matter. In the accompanying illustra- 

 tion we show how a surface of sod may be used to 

 good advantage over a larger area than its real measure- 



ECONONMICAL SODDING. 



ment represents. TL's is done by laying the sods, cut 

 in strips from 6 to 10 inches wide, in lines and cross-lines, 

 and after filling the spaces with good soil, sowing these 

 spaces with grass-seed. Should the catch of seed for any 

 reason be poor, the sod of the strips will tend to spread 

 over the spaces between them, and failure to obtain a 

 good sward within a reasonable time is almost out of 

 the question. On the other hand, if one needs sod and 

 has no place from which to cut it except the lawn, by 

 taking up blocks of sod, leaving strips and cross-strips, 

 and treating the surface as described above, the bare 

 places left are soon covered with green. 



Points in Judging the Pecan. — Perhaps we should 

 make a distinction between pecans for home use and for 

 market. For home use we may have sorts for which we 

 have a personal fancy. If the nuts are for the trade, we 

 must cater to the public taste. All agree that the com- 

 mercial pecan must be large. The large ones are al- 

 ways more salable ; besides, a tree can carry a larger crop 

 of large nuts than a tree of the same size could carry of 

 small nuts. The shell should be moderately thin, but 

 not so thin that wet weather at the ripening season would 

 cause it to burst, letting the meat swell out very much as 

 the albumen of a cracked egg does in a kettle of hot 

 water. The shape should be regular and attractive, the 

 color light, with enough dark marking to give a pleasing 

 contrast, and the shell well filled with delicate meat, 

 easily separable from it. — B. M. Young, Louisiana. 



