THE Y SA Y 



117 



in the house. As we moved the next fall, the plant was 

 merely dug up and reset in the new garden. The next 

 year it bloomed abundantly out of doors. In the fall of 

 '89 I dug up the root, now grown quite large, and with a 

 sharp hatchet chopped it into four pieces, leaving two 

 pieces in the ground for next summer's bloom out of 

 doors. The other pieces I stored in a .box of loam in 

 the cellar. While you read this the roots are again 

 starting in new pots in my windows, and promise an 

 abundant bloom. Here is a way, if you are patient, to 

 have the beginning of a stock of window plants that are 

 strong, vigorous, free from insects, and that will grow in 

 the moderate heat of a living-room. If you wish to try it 

 now, have a root dug up and potted. It will do no harm 

 to chop it out of the frozen ground, provided care is 

 taken not to tear or cut it too much. Place the frozen 

 lump of root and soil in the cellar to thaw, and then 

 pot it and place in a sunny window. One plant, 

 costing you twenty cents, will give two plants in one 

 season. Leave one in the ground ; store the other 

 in the cellar till after Christmas. The next year 

 you will have four plants, the next year eight, the 

 next year sixteen, and so on. You can keep succes- 

 sion in the cellar and fill your windows with a suc- 

 cession of flowers. Every plant will bear' its crop 

 and then go on growing in the garden, and by alter- 

 nating the plants, giving them one year in the ground 

 in turn, you will have flowers both in the house 

 and in the garden from March to June. This is 

 what I did and have done often. You can do it if 

 you try ! Why don't you try ? — Parlor Gardener. 



Exochorda from Soft Cuttings.— This fine 

 shrub has been the stumbling block of most propa- 

 gators, from the difficulty of propogating it except ^ 

 by seeds, and seeds have been produced in such 

 meager quantities that the plant still remains a 

 high priced one. Like many others, I have tried 

 various methods to root soft cuttings, but without 

 much success until last winter. In February 

 last, Mr. Whittier, one of the propagators at Shady 

 Hill, tried the following method with complete success. 

 Cuttings about one inch long from forced plants were 

 put into one inch of sand in small boxes which were 

 closely covered with a single pane of glass, the cutting 

 being set almost or quite down to the bottom of the 

 box. These boxes were put in the warmest part of a 

 house heated by flues, where the bottom heat was 

 probably about go° to 100°. They were syringed very 

 carefully twice a day, and no other water given, with 

 the result that all the cuttings rooted in two or three 

 weeks. This result was seen by several who had tried 

 and failed like ourselves, and excited much inter- 

 est. The requisites for rooting Exochorda, then, seem 

 to be these ; Cuttings grown under glass ; a high tem- 

 perature ; not too much water, and that all applied to 

 the foliage ; thin sand, and tightly closed small com- 

 partments. About 300 cuttings were used in this ex- 

 periment, and everyone rooted ; they are now 3 to 20 

 inches tall, in rows — F. L. Temple, Caiiihridgc, Mass. 



Nicotiana, Colossea. — The Nicotiana colossea must 

 be placed in the first rank of the foliage plants exhibited 

 at the Paris Exhibition in i88g. The history of this 

 plant is curious enough. Several years ago I sold some 

 fine plants of Brazilian orchidS|^to a lady of St. Ger- 

 main les Corbeil. Her gardener, Mr. Maron, a skillful 

 cultivator, took the trouble to plant in his greenhouse 

 the trimmings and dust of the orchids. A goodly num- 

 ber of plants sprang up, and among them was the Nico- 

 tiana colossea. This is not the only case in which a new 

 plant has been introduced in the soil adhering to other 

 plants. Ptcris tricolor and Begonia A\:r-were discovered in 

 the same way . Mr. Maron at once divined the proper mode 

 of culture for the stout young seedlings, and transplanted 

 them to the open air. Mr. Andre introduced the plant 

 to the horticultural world in the Revue Horticole, Nov. 



16, 1888, as follows : ' ' The plant is annual when grown 

 in the open air, perennial in the greenhouse. The stem 

 is simple, very stout, cylindrical, herbaceous and fleshy, 

 green in color, and attains a height of 6 to 10 feet in a 

 single year. The leaves are of enormous size, 40 inches 

 in length by 22 in breadth. When young they are pur- 

 plish red and erect : afterwards they become spreading, 

 and in color a dark glossy green. The leaf stalk is very 

 stout, flattened, red above : the blade is entire, oval, 

 pointed ; narrowing at the base and forming two wings 

 (or stipules) with wavy margins which run down the 

 stem as far as the next leaf. The veins of the young 

 leaves are dark red and very prominent on the under 

 surface, which is ash-colored and pubescent, young 

 shoots start from the axils of the leaves. A red spot 

 marks the stem just below each leaf stalk." Unlike the 

 cultivated species of tobacco, the N. colossea does not 

 bloom in the open air. It did not seed until last year, 

 1889. — L. LEBoeUF, France. 



