147 



Could a patent be obtained on baskets or boxes 

 made from straw, corn husks or rushes, if it can be 

 made practicable? I would like to know whether 

 you have ever seen anything of the kind in use for 

 the above purpose. I may think best to give some 

 of my experiments to the public, — if I do not con- 

 clude to secure some of the results to myself 



The want of a cheap, neat fruit box has led me to 

 these experiments. I have, thus far, been well 

 pleased with the results. If you should have a 

 leisure moment, to give me your opinion, or make 

 any suggestion on the same, it will be appreciated. 

 I have long been of the opinion that matting made 

 of rye straw would be useful for many purposes in 

 gardening, — protecting plants from insects, wind 

 and frost. Can' t some Eastern Yankee get up some 

 machine for manufacturing the same." 



Black Hawk Grape.— J. W. C, Vmeland, N. 

 J. — " Can you give me any information about the 

 Black Hawk Grrape. I think I saw some descrip- 

 tion of it in the Monthly^ but cannot turn to it 

 readily." 



[The Black Hawk Grrape is a seedling from Con- 

 cord. We have not seen the fruit yet.] 



Aspect of a Vinery. — B. «/., Chester Co., Pa. 

 — I am about to erect a cold grapery, and have a 

 choice of a West, South or East aspect. I supposed 

 the South would be the best on account of the light 

 and sun ; but my gardener favors the East. We 

 have agreed to ask you to decide for us. 



[The gardener is right. For a cold vmery an East 

 aspect is better than any other.] 



41 



Weeping Norway Spruces— i?., Frayihfort, 

 Ky. — "When visiting the East, I am struck with 

 the different forms of the Norway Spruces, in the 

 large trees on old places. Some of these are quite 

 pendulous, and are, to me, very beautiful : the others 

 have none of this character. Are there two species 

 of Norway Spruces? If so, why are they not offer- 

 ed distinct, in Nursery Catalogues? I am sure it 

 would be a convenience to customers." 



[The Norway Spruce, although classed with the 

 monoecious class of plants, is, at times, almost dioe- 

 cious, perhaps quite so ; that is, has male and fe- 

 male flowers on separate plants. At any rate, it is 

 only those which are abundantly fertile (or cone- 

 bearing) which have the pendulous habit. Those 

 which rarely bear cones are rarely pendulous. There 

 is no way of distinguishing them while young, — as 

 soon as they come to fruit-bearing age, which, in 

 transplanted nursery trees, is about 10 years old, 



they can be very readily detected. Very coarse, 

 straggling growers, when young, are mostly cone- 

 bearing or pendulous.] 



Indelible Ink for Writing on Zinc Labels. 

 — In our first volume, Mr, Petticolas, of Cincinnati, 

 gave us an article on this matter, showing that a 

 common lead pencil was the best kind of indelible 

 ink. We adopted his suggestions, and have, now, 

 labels written six years ago blacker every year. The 

 idea is worthy of a monument to the memory of this 

 worthy gardener who, we believe, has been deceased 

 several years. Strips of zinc, coiled around a branch 

 will, we believe, carry the name of the tree for a 

 lifetime, and spread out as the branch swells. 



Hybridizing Ferns. — We have not been able to 

 find the piece we promised in our last on this sub- 

 ject, but we give the enclosed from A. Braun's 

 work on "Rejuvenescence." 



" The interweaving of the reproduction and the 

 individual development is exhibited very strangely 

 in mosses and ferns. As in flowering plants, it is a 

 single cell in which the subsequent is called forth 

 through the influence of the male sex ; but in one 

 case, it is the primary ceil of the entire generative 

 cycle, i. e. of all the cells which, by their connected 

 succession, represent the individual ; in the other 

 case, it is a cell occurring within the cycle itself, and 

 merely forming the beginning of a new segment of 

 it. In the flowering plants it is the germ cell, 

 formed after the entire accomplishment of the met- 

 amorphosis in the uppermost central cell of the seed 

 sprout, (the embryo sac of the ovule,) which re- 

 ceives the impregnation by means of the advance of 

 the pollen tube up to the embryo sac, — with it the 

 entire development recommences. 



In the mosses and ferns it is the central cell of the 

 Archegonium, (a sproutlet which may be compared 

 with th(? nucleus of the ovule,) which is impregna- 

 ted in a manner not yet accurately known, through 

 the spermatozoids formed in the antheridaea. The 

 development of this, however, is not a recommence- 

 ment of the entire cycle, but only an advance towards 

 a new and higher stage of the metamorphosis which, 

 unfolding in connection with the pre-existing, pre- 

 paratory structure, carries over the individual life 

 only after more or less complex, intermediate stages 

 of formation, to the production of the true repro- 

 ductive cells (spores), with which, and without furr 

 ther impregnation, the new cycle of development 

 commences. 



The point of transition marked by impregnation 

 is, again, different in the Ferns and mosses. In the 



Ol A 



