INDFA LLS . 



503 



rain. Were it not that the Mikado is a trifle coarse it 

 would certainly be my favorite. For earliness, firmness, 

 yield and good keeping I have not found its equal among 

 the eighteen or twenty varieties I have raised. It is free 

 from the mean habit of most others, of rotting when first 

 beginning to ripen. Planted in a hot-bed last March 

 and set out on May 20th, it ripened perfect specimens 

 126 days from seed with no special care. I planted seeds 

 of five varieties, Ignotum, Beauty, Mikado, Peach and 

 Red Cross, on June iith on a sandy slope facing south- 

 west. A handful of Bradley's X L fertilizer was in each 

 hill. After the usual preliminary rotting, I picked per- 

 fect specimens from Beauty and Ignotum in gg days, 

 Mikado following three days later. The Peach is hand- 

 some, productive and well flavored, but a poor keeper. 

 Livingston's Beauty well deserves its name. — A, B. Chis- 

 HOLM, Barnstable County, Mass. 



A Large Mushroom is described by Land and IVater. 

 Dimensions; Height, 7 ins.; diameter, 11 ins.; circum- 

 ference of head, 32 ins.; circumference of stalk, g ins. 

 Weight, I lb. 2}, oz. 



A Pink White Glory of Clover. 



A pink-white glory of clover, 



Linking with summer's light; 

 A patch-work gay, all nectar. 



Makes hills and valleys bright. 

 A pink-white glory of clover. 



Comes in the rose-set June ; 

 When the sky above is bluest, 



The world with joy a-tune. 

 A pink-white glory of clover, 



Out lasting summer flowers ; 

 The roses, blooming and fading, 



To autumn's chill, dark hours. 

 A pink-white glory of clover, 



Going only with the leaves ; 

 With the fall of the maples' crimson. 



The binding of the sheaves. 



—Florence Carr. 



A Southern Artichoke Bed. — A friend is enthusias- 

 tic over a bed of globe artichokes in the garden of my 

 brother-in-law. It is some 14x40 feet long, with plants 

 six or eight years old, and from three to four feet apart. 

 These, he says, if properly advertised and merits known, 

 would be greedily taken at the north in sub-tropical 

 gardening. Imagine these plants, many of them four 

 feet high, with leaves full two feet long by one foot wide, 

 pale silvery greyish green, deeply lobed and deeply ser- 

 rated ! Imagine an enormous flower of Scotch thistle, 

 as large as a quart measure, with its outside scaly calyx 

 surmounted with the deep, rich purple, thread-like 

 thistle flowers ! Even after the artichoke has formed, 

 the plant would be considered an attractive feature of a 

 garden to those who can separate the beautiful from the 

 useful, and utilize even the commoner forms of vegetables 

 to beautify our homes. I recall a specimen plant on my 

 brother's lawn, placed there for its gardenesque effect, 

 which is now full five feet high, fully as broad, and 

 which elicits universal admiration from passers by. — 

 Mrs. J. S. R. Thomson, Spartanburg, S. C. 



Evaporating Sweet Potatoes. — Though I have never 

 seen them dried, the drying of sweet potatoes is a perfect 



success. I mention this so that some of our Northern 

 friends can try it when they can get them cheap in the fall, 

 and so be secure of a winter supply. They dry quickly 

 and easily, even in the sun, and with one of the potato 

 evaporators of the American Manufacturing Company 

 it is simply fun to run them through. They are pared 

 and sliced, of course. Steaming brings them back to 

 their normal condition, and if a dish is filled with these 

 steaming slices and some butter and sugar spread over 

 the top and put into the oven and baked, they are a dish 

 fit for a king. They are also as useful and better for 

 pies than the winter squashes and pumpkins of Yankee- 

 dom. We formerly dried them in Virginia, but here in 

 North Carolina where potatoes are kept over so easily 

 and we can buy old potatoes until June at 50 cents per 

 bushel, it don't pay. — W. F. Massey, in Rural N'c-iij- 

 Yorker. 



Kola Nut. — Generally speaking, the virtues attributed 

 to newly-introduced drugs or articles of food require to 

 be as severely discounted as if they were patent medicines. 

 This precaution is hardly needed in the case of the kola 

 nut, provided the nuts are in a fresh wholesome condi- 

 tion. The power of the nut in enabling the partaker to 

 undergo prolonged fatigue, whether of body or mind, 

 and protracted abstinence from food, is established be- 

 yond question. The military authorities in India are 

 likely to adopt it in cases of military expeditions, where 

 food is scarce and difficult of carriage. A trial could be 

 made of it in the hay-field and among harvesters. In the 

 form of a drink it is very serviceable, as we can testify in 

 the obviating and lessening the fatigue of prolonged men- 

 tal exertion ; but in the field ' ' Kolatina, " mixed with water 

 or milk would, of course, be preferable. There is no 

 fear of ill results, but a strong probability of its forming 

 an excellent substitute for beer. We have spoken of 

 kola as if it were new ; this is hardly correct — the tree 

 and its virtues have long been known to botanists, but 

 it takes a long time for the general public to become ac- 

 quainted with such matters. — Gardener^ s Chronicle. 



Pecans in Massachusetts. — While I am about it 

 I may say that some years ago I planted some few 

 pecan nuts which I got at a grocery store. They were 

 grown in Texas, and vegetated well enough, but the 

 young trees were, as might have been expected, so much 

 injured by the winter, that I soon gave them up and 

 ceased to try to rear them. I afterwards got nuts from 

 the late Arthur Bryant, of Princeton, Illinois, the trees 

 from which proved to be perfectly hardy as respects the 

 winter. I gave away most of them and am unable to say 

 how they did. I have only two remaining, which are 

 still small, having gone through various hardships owing 

 to my being too busy to give them proper attention, but 

 they do not appear to suffer from the winter. If any 

 one is going to cultivate pecans he should remember that 

 like all the genus they make very long tap roots, and 

 should be transplanted while young. — R. M. , Sale///, A/ass. 



The Lichti Nut in 1883. — I notice in The American 

 Garden for May, p. 26g, the statement that the y\'^£'//;£'//z<7« 

 Lichti was introduced into southern Florida in 1886. It 



