302 The Dahlia. 
wise good meal for a hungry man, so a compact subsoil that col- 
lects moisture and the salts of iron, alumina and other minerals in 
excess, may truly poison the otherwise nutritious food of your 
crops. Too much of a good thing, like too much heat applied to 
the body in a cold day, may be more suddenly destructive than 
none at all. 
We don't know a farmer in the Union who makes the best 
known use of lime, ashes, bones, g\'psum, stable manure, ni-Tht 
soil, marl and other fertilizers, such as green sand, forest leaves, 
salt, and swamp muck. The food given to each plant, not being 
adapted to its wants — having some elements in excess, while de- 
ficient in others — a large share of it is wasted. If a tanner wastes 
his hides and bark with which he makes leather, every body calls 
him a dance; but an agriculturist may waste any quantity of the 
substances required to form bread, meat and wool, and yet pass 
for a wise farmer. Nearly all night soil, in every part of the 
country, is thrown aw?y. But a small portion of the liquid ex- 
cretions of man and his domestic animals is ever restored to the 
fields at the proper season, and in due quantity per square rod. — 
Genesee Farmer. 
FLOWERS— THE DAHLIA. 
Among the many indications of the advance of our country, in 
taste and refinement, none can afford a surer criterion than the 
increased attention which is given to flowers and fruit. Every 
thing which tends to increase domestic enjoyment, which furnishes 
to a family that pleasure at home, which otherwise they would be 
impelled to seek elsewhere, is valuable. 
There is certainly nothing of the flower kind which for brilliancy 
of color and magnificence of effect, can compare with the Dahlia. 
And it is a little flattering to the pride of American Florists that 
they have brought them to a much higher degree of perfection 
during the short period they have been cultivated here than they 
have been in Europe. The facility with which they may be cul- 
tivated should render them a favorite, nothing more being neces- 
sary than to place them in a rich moist loam, well manured, where 
they will grow with the greatest luxuriance, nothing else being 
necessary than to keep them clean, and watered in dry seasons. 
The following extracts from the London Horticultural Maga- 
zine, we do not hesitate to say, will be perused with pleasure and 
profit: 
" The admirers of that magnificent autumn flower, the DAm.iA," 
says the editor of the Genesee Farmer, to whom we are indebted 
for the cut, " will peruse the following extracts from the London 
