28 



THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 



February, 



BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED, 

 Farm Library, No. 1, Flowers in Winter.— 



How to have Beautiful Flowers in the House. One 

 Pot of Geranium, Flower Stand, Window Garden, 

 Fernery, etc., by Eben E. Rexford. Published by E. 

 H. Libby, Chicago. Price 10 cents. 



Farm Library, No. 2 ; The Flower Garden.— 

 Annuals ; Bedding Plants : Spring and Summer Flow- 

 ering Bulbs. Published by E. H. Libby, Chicago. 

 Price 10 cents. In these little pamphlets, of which the 

 two before us are the precursors, the publisher fur- 

 nishes in compact form, at a uniform low price, con- 

 densed treatises of the most important branches of 

 Agriculture and Horticulture. Each number of the 

 series is complete in itself ; the subjects are ably 

 treated by experienced writers, and, to judge from 

 what has already appeared, the Farm Library is well 

 calculated to supply the wants of those for whose 

 needs it is intended. 



Kansas Agriculture.— The Fourth Quarterly Re- 

 port of the Kansas Board of Agriculture is at hand 

 promptly, and is not only a report for the quarter 

 ending December 31st, but contains a summary for the 

 entire year, together with the most recent and com- 

 plete State map. 



Those desiring copies should forward 7 cents in 

 stamps to the Secretary, Wm. Sims, Topeka, Kansas, 

 and while the supply lasts he will be glad to promptly 

 forward them. 



Menticulture and Agriculture, or What Our 

 Schools Should do for Agriculture, is the subject of 

 an address by the Hon. B. G. Northrop, before the 

 Connecticut Board of Education, which comes to our 

 table in pamphlet form. The author takes a broad 

 and comprehensive view of the subject and many of 

 his suggestions, if carried out, would prove beneficial 

 additions to our school systems. The writer thinks 

 that a love for practical, systematic work should be 

 fostered in our schools, the time being past when no- 

 bility was but a synonym for idleness ; now he is no- 

 blest " who works most and best for the common 

 weal." The author further states, with much truth, 

 that the education children receive at the public 

 schools of to-day, is theoretical and not practical ; 

 they are taught those things which they have no 

 earthly use for, at the expense of their daily needs, 

 and would suggest that reading be made the principal 

 study, as with that art thoroughly mastered, the pupil 

 " can open any door in the, Temple of Science." " To 

 elevate farming," the writer says, " is to elevate the 

 farmer." This can only be done by educating him to 

 the dignity of his work ; the realization of this lies in 

 the common school system so modified that it will 

 bring the greatest benefit to those whom it is intended 

 to serve ; for this end, elementary Natural History 

 should be taught in its relations to the farm, and thus 

 engender a taste for study and investigation ; the au- 

 thor believes this would, in a way, " prove a partial 

 substitute," for the Agricultural and Industrial schools 

 of Germany, which have done so much for her national 

 prosperity. The writer regrets the tendency of our 

 young men to leave the farm, for city clerkships ; be- 

 sides the greater rcmunerativeness of the former, he 

 claims also the greater social position and independ- 

 ence. We would, with him. gladly welcome the time, 

 when our young men will get over this false pride and 

 remain on the homestead, which is a far better friend 

 to them than the over-crowded city. 



CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 

 G. H. & J. H. Hale, Elm Fruit Farm ami Nvrst ry, 

 ■Smith Glastonbury, Conn.— Special Trade List of Small 

 Fruits, Quince and Peach Trees, with fine illustrations 

 of the Souhegan Raspberry and Manchester Straw- 

 berry. 



Houk & Peet, Canajohqrie, N. Y.— Circular and 

 Price List of Italian and Holy-Land Bees and Queens, 

 and general supplies f< >r the Apiary. 



dir. Lorenz, Erfurt, Germany— Illustrated Cata- 

 ogue for Ow ners of Gardens and Amateurs. 



J. S. Lovett, Monmouth Nursery, Little Silver, N. J. 

 —Special Circular of the Manchester Strawberry, its 

 History, Description, Notices of the Press, and Opin- 

 ions of Experts. 



E. P. Roe, Cornwall-on-the-IIuilson, N. I'.— Cata- 

 logue of Small Fruits and Grape Vines. A full de- 

 scriptive list of all the leading varieties, with valuable 

 cultural directions. 



Hiram Sibley & Co., Rochester, N. Y, and Chica- 

 go. ///.—Catalogue of Seeds and Bulbs. 



E. & J. C. Williams, Chestnut Hill. Nursery, Mont- 

 elair, N. ./.—Descriptive Catalogue and Price-List of 

 Small Fruits, Fruit Trees and Seed Potatoes. The 

 Montclair Raspberry a specialty. 



new 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



Books on Gardening. — 11'. F. C, Worcester, Mass. 

 — " Money in the Garden," by P. T. Quinn, and " Gar- 

 dening for Profit " by Peter Henderson, are the best 

 American books on Gardening. Either one will be 

 mailed from this office for $1.50. 



Beans for Florida.— ./as. G. 0., Be Land, Fla., 

 writes : Black Turtle Soup Beans are the best Bean 

 for this country I have ever tried, vigorous grower 

 and profuse bearer. We are eating Snap Beans at 

 this season (Dec. 30,) and they do equally well in the 

 heat of summer. You can recommend them. 



Drying Potatoes.—.?. B. Riverside, Co/.— By 

 process invented in California, Potatoes are 

 and dried so that they will keep for years without 

 losing their "natural flavor. The machine made for 

 this purpose is capable of pressing and drying six hun- 

 dred bushels of Potatoes in twenty-four hours. 



Keeping Onion Sets.—//. T. E., Hightstown, N. J. 

 —Sets as well as large Onions should be kept as dry 

 and cool as possible, without being actually frozen, 

 although they are not injured materially by frost, pro- 

 vided they are not handled while frozen. If spread 

 on a tight barn floor and covered thickly with chaff or 

 cut straw they will keep well till spring. 



Hardy Grapes.—.!/. N, Sjiriugfu Id , Mass.— AX the 

 faU exhibition of the Southern Ulster Horticultural 

 Society, which comprises among its'.territory the cele- 

 brated Hudson River Grape Regions, first prizes were 

 awarded to the Duchess for the best hardy white 

 Grape for general cultivation and market ; the Bright- 

 on for the best hardy red Grape, and the Concord for 

 the best hardy black Grape. 



Preserving Posts.— R. II., Holyoke, Mass.— To pre- 

 serve posts for trellises or fences, and poles as long as 

 possible, the part which is to be in the ground and a 

 few inches above it should be charred and then, 

 before they are entirely cooled, soaked with coal tar. 

 The charring process alone is worse than useless, 

 and coal tar applied to uncharred wood cannot pen- 

 etrate sufficiently to become preservative. 



Plant for Name.—./, ./. //. Baltimore, Md.— So far 

 as it is possible to analyze so imperfect a specimen as 

 the one sent, we should determine the plant to be 

 Rndbeckia fulgens — Cone Flo wer — which grows in 

 dry soil from Pennsylvania to Kentucky and south- 

 ward, and although it may be rare in your immediate 

 locality, is common throughout that region. The spe- 

 cies hirta, which closely resembles it, is a common 

 weed throughout the eastern states, and was much 

 used by the ladies of New York for belt bouquets dur- 

 ing the past summer, when it was sold in bunches on 

 the street for a few cents. We w r ould hardly feel justi- 

 fied in recommending you to grow the flowers for mar- 

 ket, as from what we saw of them, the supply already 

 exceeds the demand ; the experiment on a small 

 scale could not - entail much loss, and should you 

 make it we would be pleased to hear the result. We 

 think you have been misinformed as to the prices the 

 Field Daisy {Li urant/a mum ndgttn) brought in Bos- 

 ton, last summer. Here, in New York, at least, five 

 cents bought a good-sized bunch of them. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Mistakes will Happen.— An exchange prefaces 

 Whittier's beautiful Hymn, written for the American 

 Pomological Society, thus : 



" The following hymn, written for the occasion by 

 Mr. John G. Whittier, was sung to the tune of ' Old 

 Lang Syne ' at the banquet of the American Theologi- 

 cal Society in Boston." 



Winter Reading. — Rev. E. P. Roe says, with 

 much truth, that " country residents may do more to 

 increase their crops by judicious reading in their arm- 

 chairs, before a winter fire, than by months of un- 

 skillful and ignorant toil." 



Keeping Vegetables in Moss. — Professor Beal 

 recommends to pack Celery and other vegetables in 

 damp moss, for keeping through winter. It is said 

 that vegetables thus packed will not only keep a long 

 time but retain their flavor and quality so well that 

 they can hardly be distinguished from fresh ones. 



Vegetables in Paris. — The consumption of "vege- 

 tables in Paris last year was 1,027,000,000 pounds, 

 which with a population of two millions or more 

 makes the quantity used per capita about; one and 

 a half pounds per day. 



Grapes and Malaria. — Those localities may gen- 

 erally be considered safe for the Grape in which there 

 are no miasmatic influences. When malaria and fever 

 prevail there is no safety for the crop, as the vine 

 seems to be as susceptible to such influences as are 

 human beings.— Prof. G. Husmann. 



" Swet Vilinches." — What might that be, we 

 thought, a few days ago, when we saw a peddler's 



wagon, with this mysterious sign affixed, pass our 

 office. Presently the wagon stopped and the vender 

 commenced to sell some fine Oranges to the passers 

 by. This naturally led to a clue and we surmised that 

 the words stood for " Sweet Valencias " (Valencia 

 Oranges), and that the vender, in connection with 

 selling Oranges, was endeavoring to introduce a new 

 system of phonetic spelling of his own invention. 



Local Lightning.— The San Francisco Chronicle 

 says : " There is a tract of country in Butte County, 

 Cal., about fifteen miles long by half a mile in width, 

 where lightning strikes trees nearly every time a storm 

 passes over. Outside of this strip there is no such 

 damage. The line can be plainly traced by dead tim- 

 ber. As many as three fires have been caused by 

 lightning in this tract in one single storm." 



Petroleum Against Scale Insects.— Petroleum is 

 an infallible specific against insects of every kind, but 

 when applied in its crude state, proves generally inju- 

 rious to Roses and other shrubs. It has been stated 

 that mixed with castor oil it loses none of its efficacy 

 to destroy the scale insects, while it is rendered more 

 harmless to the tender parts of the plants and on the 

 whole proves rather advantageous to the health of 

 the plants. In applying it, in either form, care must 

 be taken not to let it come in contact with the roots 

 of plants. 



Length of Roots.— The old idea that the roots of 

 trees do not extend farther from the stem than the 

 branches is rapidly disappearing. J. J. Thomas says : 

 A rule adopted by old writers gave the length of the 

 roots as equal to the length of the branches above. 

 It is safe to say that this rule does not indicate gener- 

 ally more than a tenth of the ground which the entire 

 roots really occupy. The truth is that they are usu- 

 ally longer on each side than the entire night of the 

 tree. A tree thirty feet high forms a circle of roots 

 more than sixty feet in diameter. It is therefore use- 

 less to cultivate a small circle around the stem of a 

 tree only. 



A Five Hundred Dollar Bouquet. — It is stated 

 that some one who had more money than brains paid 

 $500 for a single bouquet which he presented to Miss 

 Neilsou. It contained two hundred Marshal Neil 

 Rose buds, costing then from 75 cents to $1 a piece. 



Some favorites of the stage receive sometimes 

 twenty and more bouquets in one evening, and to dis- 

 pose of this floral avalanche, it is not an uncommon 

 custom for the maids of these actresses to sell the 

 bouquets back again to the venders, who re-sell them 

 the same evening in front of the theatre, probably to 

 be thrown before the foot-lights again and repeat the 

 circuit. 



The Largest Farm in the World.— Mr. Oliver 

 Dalrymple's " Bonanza " farm, in Dakota, of 30,000 

 acres, with 800 horses ' and mules and 800 men as a 

 working force, is often described as the largest farm 

 in the world, and, for all we know, it may be at pres- 

 ent ; but compared with some of the ancient farms it 

 is a mere flea-bite. 



Ninus inherited from his father, Nimrod, a farm as 

 big as a good sized western state, with 120,000 cattle, 

 14,000 slaves, and about $600,000,000 as working capi- 

 tal, all of which he doubled before his death. Cyrus, 

 the King of Persia, had at one time, 30,000 horses, 40,- 

 000 cattle, 200,000 sheep, 15,000 asses, and 25,000 slaves, 

 and three thousand million dollars spare cash besides, 

 This is what may be called " farming under easy cir- 

 cumstances." 



The Macadam and Telford Roads.— The Mac- 

 adam patent road has uniformly broken stone from 

 top to bottom. The Telford patent has large stone at 

 the bottom, preferably long, and placed largest ends 

 downwards. The Central Park practice, since imi- 

 tated everywhere, was to use Macadam only six or 

 eight inches deep on those portions of the Park where 

 the bottom was sand or earth which is not changed 

 by water, and to use the Telford about two feet deep 

 on all those portions where clay occurred. All roads 

 must be rolled with a filling of finer broken stuff or 

 gravel at the extreme top ; otherwise the broken 

 stones would move under the rollers, and under the 

 wheels of heavy carriages. A test of good condition 

 is to put lumps of trap or other hard rock on the fin- 

 ished surface, and to move a heavy steam roller over 

 it. It must crush the loose stone without indenting 

 the road. 



Broken pieces about two inches square could be 

 produced much more cheaply, and singularly were 

 much more valuable, for repairing roads than finer 

 broken material. It must be understood that there 

 is a finer packing of gravel between the stones at and 

 near the surface in all cases.— Samuel S. Marsden, be- 

 fore the Polytechnic Association of the American Insti- 

 tute. 



