374 THE ] 



drawing and painting, designing, botany, geology, chem- 

 istry, modeling, and the use of the microscope. All of 

 these things a gardener ought to learn. Use every spare 

 moment you can in study ; it will be a pleasure now, 

 and a profit in the near future. 



A good plan would be, where four or more florists and 

 gardeners could meet together, to form a debating club 

 on botany and kindred work. It might be the means of 

 educating one another. Ideas would be expressed which 

 would be valuable, and I feel sure that all nurserymen 

 and florists would give practical assistance if employees 

 would form such clubs. 



The following incident will show what it is possible 

 to do : One day the Duke of Argyle, walking in his 

 garden, observed a Latin copy of Newton's " Principia" 

 lying on the grass ; and thinking it had been brought 

 from his library, called someone to carry it back to its 

 place. Upon this. Stone (the gardener's son), then in 

 his eighteenth year, claimed the book as his own. 

 ' ' Yours !" replied the Duke, ' ' do you understand geome- 

 try, Latin and Newton ?" "I know a little of them," re- 

 plied the young man. The Duke was surprised. "But 

 how, " said the Duke, ' ' came you by all this knowledge?" 

 Stone replied : "A servant taught me ten years ago to read. 

 Does one need to know anything more than the twenty- 

 four letters in order to learn everything else one wishes? 

 I first learned to read, I next learned arithmetic, then 

 geometry ; I then bought a Latin Dictionary, also a 

 French Dictionary and learned them. And this, my 

 Lord, is what I have done ; it seems to me that we may 

 learn everything when we know the twenty-four letters 

 of the alphabet." Profit by this, my fellow gardeners, 

 and do likewise; persevere and all things are made easy. 

 — G. M. Str.'XTTON, Minnesota . 



International Meetings to Consider Viticulture 

 and Fungus Diseases. — An International Exposition 

 of apparatus and products for the treatment against 

 mildew, was held at Rome, from the 23d to the 27th of 

 March, i8go, under the auspices of the Italian O^no- 

 phile Club. At the same time an International Viticul- 

 tural Reunion was held, at which various subjects relat- 

 ing to fungus diseases of the vine, investigations on and 

 remedies for the same, were discussed. — Insect Life. 



The Bulletins of next fall and winter from the ex- 

 periment stations will probably be numerous in the di- 

 rection of plant diseases and economic entomology. 

 Every cultivator should prepare to get and read them. 



Horticulture in Common Schools. — Yes, and agri- 

 culture ? Why not? " For lack of teachers." This is a 

 formidable but perhaps not an insuperable obstacle. 

 How many teachers in the public schools were qualified 

 to teach temperance hygiene well when Mrs. Hunt be- 

 gan her work ? Of course very few young girls who 

 "pass" as teachers would at present be able to give 

 much of the needed instruction ; but suppose people are 

 in earnest in this matter ; that they become satisfied that 

 it will be as profitable for the children to become ac- 

 quainted with nature, and interested in those occupa- 



SA Y. 



tions which large numbers of them will eventually be 

 engaged in, as to study grammer, geography or even 

 arithmetic, cannot some way be contrived to teach 

 them ? Text books may not be at hand, at least till de- 

 manded ; but children can be taught a great deal orally 

 and experimentally and to advantage. There is hardly 

 a branch of horticultural knowledge that may not be 

 made almost captivating to bright children by a teacher 

 of proper qualifications, one who is wide awake, well 

 informed, and who can impart to them his own enthu- 

 siasm. 



And is there a town in which some person of this kind 

 cannot be found, who can be hired to go from school to 

 school and give little illustrated lectures, or talks on hor- 

 ticulture or agricultural topics, and occasionally to take 

 the children out to successful farms, orchards, and gar- 

 dens, to show them just what makes success in these 

 directions ! Let him call attention to peculiarities of veg- 

 etable life, bring the strange insect into the school-room, 

 show difierentkinds of soil and tell how they came to be ; 

 or the lime, potash and plaster used as fertilizers, tell 

 where they came from, why they fertilize, and how plants 

 take their food. Set the children themselves to work 

 raising plants, catching insects, investigating, experi- 

 menting. The curiosity of childhood is good material 

 to work with. 



Is there anything that would do more to wake up 

 mind, develop the observing facilities, educate scientists, 

 and give education a practical direction than this ? — 

 Mrs. M. p. A. Crozier, Michigan. 



Hard Names for Plants. — We are all delighted at 

 the noble stand some folks are making at the abomina- 

 bly hard names which so many plants receive from those 

 pedantic old chaps, the botanists. Several of my neigh- 

 bors, fond of gardening, or perhaps I should say more 

 properly, horticulture, come to my house occasionally, 

 and we talk most emphatically against the abominable 

 nuisance. Mr. Poniatowski, who came originally from 

 Varadjadagh, tells me they have the same warfare 

 against the botanists in his land ; and my other neigh- 

 bors, Maillebois of Katzbach, and Khujeet Khang, 

 say that in France, Germany and even in Bombay, the 

 same struggle against hard names is going on. Mr. 

 Khujeet Khang, having been fed in early life on kalo 

 roots a well known plant of our gardens, is particularly 

 violent when these hard names are mentioned. He is a 

 famous dendrologist, arboriculturist and silviculturist, 

 and is much worried when he gets a hard name for a 

 tree. He contends that English, pure and undefiled, is 

 good enough for all the world ; far superior, in fact, to 

 his own Asiatic mother tongue. ' ' Observe, " he remarked 

 to me at our last meeting, ' 'the obfuscation of the cephalic 

 textural pigment in the pernicious eccentricity of con- 

 sciousness, during the cerebral oscillations deflected un- 

 der molecular depression, potentially and periodically 

 evolved under the hypothesis presented by Hecatompy- 

 bug, the celebrated lascanthropher, that the elucidation 

 of metemphychosis approximates an anomalous com- 

 plication involving an intermittent exacerbation with 



