H> I N D FA LLS. 



cinnamon colored ones with rat-tail roots, while more 

 than half were black with the same rat-tail roots and ten- 

 dency to run up to seed at once, and one cinnamon colored 

 specimen with a root large enough for the table. Fortu- 

 nately we had a good supply from the seed obtained from 

 a commercial seed store, and did not have to depend on 

 these for our table. A summing up of the total result 

 would read somewhat like this : Some unreliable seeds- 

 man or grower of worthless seeds, found a market for his 

 old stock without imposing it directly upon the public ; 

 the P. O. department was furnished with business to do 

 for nothing, and M, C. had an opportunity of displaying 

 his love for his constituents -and reminding them that he 

 might again want votes, at the expense of the government ; 

 while I was supplied with an item for account of profit 

 and loss. — Wm. F. Bassett, Ocean Co., A^. J. 



A Vegetable Man-Trap in Australia. — There is in 

 cultivation a small white-flowered greenhouse shrub, 

 named Baiiera rubioides, which belongs to the saxifrage 

 tribe. It is a native of Australia and Tasmania, and is 

 quite an innocent-looking little plant ; yet in some parts 

 of its native country it is said to have sometimes caused 

 the loss of human life. The following account has 

 been furnished by two gentlemen residing in Tasmania, 

 both of whom have been entangled in its meshes, and 

 only escaped with great difficulty. My friend, Mr. A. 

 J. O., writes as follows; 



" The bauera is not a creeper or climber, but only a 

 plant that is weak in the legs, having a very thin stem, 

 so flexible that it usually supports itself against its 

 neighbors, growing up and becoming entangled with 

 them. A bauera scrub often commences very insid- 

 iously, so that a person not used to it may find himself 

 in the thick of it before he knows where he is, for at 

 the outer edge of the patch the plant grows only as an 

 erect little plant about i8 inches high, while in the very 

 heart of the scrub it may reach lo feet, or sometimes 

 even 20 feet high. As you get into the thick of it you 

 find it a more and more tangled mass, till you become 

 at length so enveloped in it as to render movement al- 

 most impossible. You cannot cut it with an a.xe, because 

 it yields and offers no resistance to the blow, and even 

 when cut with a knife or bill-hook, the confused mass 

 of tangled rope like stems falls more closely about you. 

 All you can do is to struggle and flounder on to your 

 speedy exhaustion. Moreover, you cannot see where 

 you are going, and may be within a few yards of the 

 outside of the patch without knowing in which direc- 

 tion to go. " 



Another gentleman who knows the plant well, and 

 who once only escaped from its embraces in a state of 

 utter exhaustion, gives the following account : 



" A really good specimen of bauera scrub occupies the 

 whole of the ground, having either smothered the other 

 vegetation or having covered ground once cleared by 

 bush fires, and usually on low-lying ground. In the 

 gullies leading down to such places it grows mixed with 

 tea tree and large tussocks of cutting grass, and here 

 you can force your way through it, though never easily. 



It is where it occupies nearly the whole ground that 

 the real trouble is. The Bauera throws up from the 

 roots, which grow pretty thickly together, a number of 

 slender stems up to about half an inch in thickness and 

 tapering very gradually. These are interlaced with one 

 another in all directions, until the whole becomes one 

 compact mass — if one can apply such a term to what 

 has no solidity. I have seen it growing in this way to a 

 height of seven or eight feet, the stems being as pliable 

 as a cart-rope and almost as difficult to break, Of 

 course, a track can be made through bauera scrub by 

 cutting it with strong knives or bill-hooks, and then 

 tearing and treading down the cut portion as you go on, 

 but to the solitary bushman or explorer it is most for- 

 midable. He will perhaps try to wriggle along the 

 damp ground under it, but he soon finds this to be im- 

 possible ; then he tries to tear the stems apart and 

 struggle through. When he is exhausted with this work 

 he will perhaps climb up some old stump, and try to 

 flounder along the top of the scrub ; but he soon sinks 

 helpless into the yielding mass. The most extensive and 

 densest bauera scrubs are found on the cold, damp soils 

 derived from the Silurian and Cambrian schists and 

 clay slates west of Tasmania." 



These accounts are interesting as showing what differ- 

 ent forms the same plant may assume when growing 

 under different conditions. The species here referred 

 to is found in all southern and eastern Australia as far 

 as Queensland, but it is only apparently in the damp soil 

 and climate of western Tasmania that it attains the 

 luxuriance of growth here described, and becomes a real 

 danger to the solitary traveler, who may become heed- 

 lessly caught in its tangled meshes. — A. R. W., in L071- 

 don Garden. 



Bordeaux Mixture in Texas. — Dr. A. M. Ragland, 

 of Pilot Point, Texas, writes that several in that section 

 used the Bordeaux mixture last season with success. 

 A. M. Dougherty began, before the leaves started, to 

 wash his vines, trellises and posts with a strong solution 

 of iron sulphate. After the fruit had set, he began with 

 the Bordeaux mixture and made three applications at 

 intervals ef ten days. He left some rOws for compari- 

 son, and says that those not treated were almost ruined 

 by rot, while those treated made a good crop, J. A. 

 Henderson sprayed his vines four times during the sea- 

 son of growth, with good effect. The Pilot Point Socie- 

 ty, at its rnonthly meetings, will give special attention 

 to the study of vegetable pathology and entomology, in 

 connection with their experiment station. This is a most 

 commendable step. What are other societies doing ? 



Strawberry Notes from South Alabama. — The 

 strawberry crop here was an unusually small one. The 

 dry weather last fall prevented the plants making a good 

 growth. The steady cold of the winter, late frosts and 

 summer drought, all helped to shorten the crop ; and 

 yet, kinds that have for years borne but little did well, 

 such as Bubach, Jewell and Jessie. The Nunan is most- 

 ly planted here, but being a failure this year, will, in the 

 near future, be discarded. — Julius Schnadelbach, Ala. 



