q6 



NEGLECTED NATIVE PLANTS. 



every month sees new improvements in the gas-making 

 plants and in new methods of producing gas. A non-lum- 

 inous heating gas is the florist's fuel — clean, safe, power- 

 ful, uniform and reliable. Only the cost stands in the 

 way of its immediate universal adoption in our plant- 

 houses. Every year, almost every month, sees some- 

 thing done to lower the price, and when the price falls 

 gas fuel will come, and the long nights spent by the 

 florist " tending fires" will be over forever. 



How shall we burn gas ? Burners and " mi.xers," as 

 they are called when used with natural gas, are already 

 in the market, and can be purchased very cheaply, or 

 anyone can make one himself. The chief points are to 

 give plenty of air for combustion and a good draft. In 

 the Bunsen burner the air is mixed with the gas before 

 burning, and this gives a larger volume of flame and a 

 greater mass of hot air to flow through the pipes of the 

 boiler. So far nearly all our gas stoves and gas heaters 

 use the air and gas at the natural temperatures at which 

 they may happen to be in at the time they burn. This 

 is clearly not the most economical method. Both the 

 gas and the air needed for combustion should be heated 

 before they reach the burner. 



The little drawing is designed to explain this matter 

 of heating the air and gas before burning. The cylin- 

 der is closed at the bottom ^nd opens at the top. The 

 gas enters at the pipe marked i, and passes downward to 

 the burner, near the bottom of the cylinder. The air 

 enters by the pipe 4, and passing down^vard escapes into 



the cylinder directly under the burner. At the side of 

 the cylinder is a door for lighting the gas, and when the 

 burner is started the door is closed. Now, both these 

 pipes are over the gas flame and are 

 heated by it. Both the gas and air 

 are therefore hot when they reach 

 the flame. The result is a longer, 

 brighter and hotter flame ; in other 

 words, economy of fuel by causing 

 the flame to give more heat for a 

 given quantity of gas. 



When any subject attracts general 

 attention, and when many improve- 

 ments are being made at the same 

 time in any particular field of sci- 

 ence, it always happens that new im- 

 provements are announced that 



, J ii,- t I. gas-pipe; 2, door 



promise to do somethmg for nothmg. for lighting; 3, burner; 

 Curious stories of wonderful gas- 4, air-pipe; 5, chimney! 

 making machines, that will manufacture water gas in 

 a cook-stove for nothing at all a thousand feet, have ap- 

 peared in print. We can abide in peace, certain that 

 while cheap gas is coming, it will be and must be made 

 by scientific processes in regular plants erected for the 

 purpose and on a large scale. The larger the plant the 

 cheaper will the product be, and as florists and garden- 

 ers we can only wait till the gas manufacturers are ready 

 to give us v;hat we want — cheap fuel gas. 



Charles Barnard. 



Diagram of Section 

 OF Ideal Regener- 

 ative Gas-Burner. 



NEGLECTED NATIVE PLANTS. 



ill this direction 



REVIVAL of interest in the 

 wild garden has brought into 

 deserved notice and apprecia- 

 tion many of our native plants, 

 but there are some others, na- 

 tive in the southern states, , 

 for which I would like to speak 

 a word in season. 



My last and loveliest venture 

 was Lobelia cardijialis, whose 

 native habitat is creek sides, swamps and boggy 

 places, so that, though I had admired it long, 

 I was afraid that in my high and dry upland 

 garden it would refuse to grow. But one au- 

 tumn its glowing spikes of brilliant scarlet were 

 tempting beyond resistance, and I transplanted 

 it while in full blossom, making it as comfortable as 

 possible in a partially shaded spot with a north- 

 eastern exposure. Strange to say, it grew ! finished 

 expanding the flowers on its spike, and sent up new 

 shoots from the root which were green all winter, 

 and gave each a brilliant spike of bloom in autumn. 

 The cardinal flower is one of our richest colored 

 natives. It has found its way into one florist's cata- 



logue, and is surely well worthy a place in any gar- 

 den. The seed vessels are large and conspicuous, 

 and the plant increases from the seed quite rapidly 

 and easily. 



Sangiiinaria canadensis is the old bloodroot, with 

 fragile, starry, snow-white blossoms, disappearing 

 so rapidly in the wake of the root-digger and herb 

 dealer that unless it is taken into our gardens there 

 is danger of its vanishing entirely. It is one of 

 the earliest of the spring wild flowers, and is cjuite 

 amenable to culture, given a loose, somewhat sandy 

 soil and a partially shaded eastern exposure. The 

 bloom is much larger in cultivated than in wild 

 specimens, and being snow-white, six-petaled and 

 shapely, with a center of golden anthers, it is a 

 very "lovely, modest flower." The petals are not 

 very persistent, and fall in three or four days, but ' 

 new buds keep crowding up, and when flowers dis- 

 appear, the thick leathery leaves of a silvery pur- 

 plish green, with crimson stalks and veins, are very 

 handsome. 



Another wild plant with beautiful leaves is the 

 Ervthroniiiiii Aiiiericaiiinn ox Dogstooth violet. Early 

 in the spring they come pushing up from the tiny 



