1881.] 
AMERICAN" AGRICULTURIST. 
247 
•ground. While the plants are young, and be¬ 
fore they begin run, the use of the rake upon 
the ridges will keep down the weeds ; after 
-culture will be given in the monthly hints. 
The Value of Common Plants. 
That a plant may be valuable or not, ac¬ 
cording to circumstances, is most strikingly 
illustrated by the common “ Ox-eye Daisy,” 
or “ Whiteweed.” This perennial plant 
(Leueanthemum vulgare), is in many places, 
especially at the East, a weed so abundant as 
to give the meadows the appearance of being 
sheeted in white. While it is not known 
to possess any deleterious qualities, it is truly 
a weed as it occupies ground intended for 
other plants, and thus becomes a nuisance. 
In February and March, as we have passed 
the show windows of the Broadway and 
other florists, we have thought of the aston¬ 
ishment with which the farmer, whose fields 
are in summer filled with this pest, would 
see the large clusters of these flow¬ 
ers offered for sale. Singularly 
enough, the Ox-eye Daisy has at¬ 
tained to the dignity of a florists’ 
flower. Plants of this weed are 
dug up by the thousand—many a 
farmer would gladly spare them 
—and under the florist’s care, in 
houses artificially heated, are 
forced into bloom soon after mid¬ 
winter. Clusters of these flowers 
are not only taken by ladies for 
personal adornment, being worn 
upon the dress or in the hair, but 
they are used in floral decorations. 
With the recent custom of “Easter 
Cards,” now as elaborately decor¬ 
ated as Christmas and New Year’s 
Cards, we find the Ox-eye abund¬ 
antly employed in ornament¬ 
ing them. Enormous clusters of 
this flower alone, or the same 
worked into various decorative 
compositions, are a marked fea¬ 
ture of the present Easter Cards. 
That a midsummer flower should 
he made prominent in Easter 
decorations, where only those 
flowers characteristic of the earli¬ 
est spring are appropriate, is no 
doubt explained by the name. In 
England the true Daisy is one of 
the spring flowers, and as White- 
weed is the only one of our wild flowers 
called “ Daisy,” that name being often used 
without the prefix “Ox-eye.” Those who 
know nothing about plants confound the 
two, and make a flower which rarely shows 
itself before summer do duty for Easter. 
Primroses, Old and Hew—The Cashmerian. 
The native Primrose of England is more 
generally interwoven with poetry and litera¬ 
ture than perhaps any other flower. Besides 
as Primrose, it is often mentioned as Cow¬ 
slip, and Oxlip, names which, with others 
more local, are given to the wild varieties of 
Primula veris. The Polyanthuses, which pro¬ 
duce flowers of singular markings and rare 
beauty, are cultivated forms of the common 
English Primrose, and deservedly receive 
much attention from English gardeners. It 
is a matter of regret that the various kinds of 
Primrose, so beautiful in themselves, and to 
which attaches so much of interest, are so 
seldom seen in our gardens. Belonging to a 
moist climate, it is only in exceptional local¬ 
ities, where there are more moisture and shade 
than our gardens usually afford, that they 
can be preserved from year to year. They 
are richly worth the artificial protection re¬ 
quired for their successful culture, but few 
of our amateur gardeners will take the 
'l'lie Medlar on Long; Island.—In an 
article on the Medlar, in April last, we cited 
some trees at Rochester, N. Y., as the only 
ones that we knew of. Mrs. J. A. Hewlett, 
■Queens Co. (L. I.), N. Y., kindly informs us 
that at “Rock Hall,” her residence, the tree 
succeeds perfectly, there being on the estate 
one 14 feet high, which bore last season 
some two bushels of fruit. Mrs. H. suggests 
that it succeeds well when grafted on the 
pear. In Europe seedling medlars are most 
generally used as stocks upon which to bud, 
or graft, but the pear is also used, as are the 
’White-Thorn, and more especially the Quince, 
-which is in England a favorite stock for it. 
the cashmerian primrose ( Primula Cashmeriana). 
touble to give it. If the English Primroses 
will not generally succeed in our gardens, 
there are others that are not so difficult to 
manage, and of late years several have been 
introduced that, coming from climates more 
like our own, are better suited to our gardens. 
A few years ago we figured the Cortusa-like 
Primrose, Primula cortusoides; this, and 
especially its variety amcena, is a plant that 
increases in favor with us each year; amcena 
—“lovely,” exactly describes this charming 
spring flower. The Japan Primrose ( Primu¬ 
la JcCponica), brought out a few years ago 
with such a flourish of adjectives, and figured 
with such pyramids of flowers, has not, with 
us, come up to the representations. Another 
quite recent introduction is the Cashmerian 
Primrose (Primula Cashmeriana), which, as 
its name indicates, comes from a country 
whence of late many choice garden plants 
have been received. The engraving shows 
the plant much reduced ; in England it has 
produced flower stems between one and two 
feet high, with flowers an inch to an inch 
and a half across. Our few plants are too 
young to show what they may do when well 
established. The leaves are well formed, and 
the flowers, with their handsomely notched 
corollas, are of a fine mauve color. We do 
not commend a plant for general culture un¬ 
less we have had more than a single season’s 
experience with it, and we can only say of 
this Primrose that it looks very promising. 
Primroses, as a general tiling, vary greatly 
from the seed, and they are likely to repay 
the careful cultivator who will undertake to 
establish a race quite suited to our climate. 
How to Destroy Currant Worms. 
“H. G.,” Cheshire, Conn., writes that he 
has used air-slaked lime to destroy currant 
worms, and finds it “to do the work pretty 
surely,” and congratulates himself that he 
runs “ no danger from poison.” This last re¬ 
mark has reference to the use of White Hel¬ 
lebore, which some fear to use because it is 
poisonous. With regard to this, we would 
say that when Hellebore is promptly used, at 
the first appearance of the insects, its use will 
be discontinued long before the fruit is ripe. 
Were the fruit to be but partially covered 
with the powder, it would be so soiled that no 
one would eat it. Were one to eat a berry 
upon which was any considerable portion of 
powdered Hellebore, the taste would at once 
prevent the eating of more. Indeed we can 
not see how it is possible for any injury to re¬ 
sult from the eating of fruit from bushes 
upon which Hellebore has been used to kill 
insects. The poison has been widely used for 
many years, and we have never heard of 
any ill result from its application. When 
dusted upon the bushes as a dry powder, it 
may cause severe sneezing, but it is vastly 
better to use it mixed with water. Place a 
tablespoonful of powder in a bowl; pour upon 
it a little boiling hot water ; stir so as to wet 
every particle, then add more water, stir well 
and pour into a pail; then rinse the bowl 
and pour the washings into the pail, which is 
then to be filled with cold water. Thus pre¬ 
pared, the mixture is to be syringed over the 
bushes. Two, or at most three, applications 
will finish the “worms,” and it would be dif¬ 
ficult to find a safer or more effective remedy. 
Success with this, as with all similar things, 
depends upon applying the remedy early. 
Those who will take the pains, and where 
there are but a few bushes, it is advisable to 
do so, can avoid much of the necessity of 
poisoning, by destroying the eggs of the ca¬ 
terpillar. These are laid upon the underside 
of the lower leaves of the bushes, and the 
leaves themselves may be plucked, or the 
eggs crushed between the thumb and finger. 
Xliuntoerg-’s Spiraea.—Some six or 
eight years ago we described this fine shrub, 
Spircea Thunbergii. It was then rare with, 
us, and the illustration was made from a 
potted plant a foot or so high. Now that it 
is abundant, there being in the garden a mass 
10 feet or more across, we think none the 
less of it. In its graceful habit, with its 
delicate leaves of a tender green, it is beauti¬ 
ful without flowers, but when its profusion 
of small flowers hides the foliage with a sheet 
of white, this bed is worth a journey to see. 
Those looking for neat, small flowering shrubs, 
should not omit this from ever so small a 
list. It is, we should add, perfectly hardy. 
