326 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August. 
to show its bright flowers in June and blooms, 
on and on, and keeps blooming, until frost 
comes, always a bright spot where it stands, 
and always ready to be cut and to bloom all 
the more for the cutting. By the way, the 
French common name for tire plant is CEil 
de Bceuf —“ Ox-eye,” the same name that we 
give to the related “ Whiteweed.” Com¬ 
mending Anthemis tinctoria as one of the 
good things, among hardy perennials, to have 
in a garden, I would say a word about 
Present Flower Fashions. 
One brought up in New England, where 
almost every meadow is a sheet of white 
with the “Ox-eye Daisy,” finds it difficult to 
see any beauty in what he has been taught 
to look upon as a pestiferous weed, the most 
despicable of plants. I do not despise any 
plant, but there are some that I do not love, 
and ‘ 1 Whiteweed ” is one of them. So long 
as I stay at home, in the country, I do not see 
much “Whiteweed,” but when I go to the city, 
I am met on every hand by my pet aversion. 
On the street and at the corners are men with 
baskets of the “Ox-eye Daisy”; the win¬ 
dows of the florists show enormous bunches 
of them, and if I enter a street car, the 
woman opposite will have a large cluster in 
her belt. In the season of them, this is bad 
enough, but the florists force them, and begin 
to intrude the “Ox-eye Daisy” in February 
and March, while those in the fields are still 
dormant. No doubt this fashion . /ill have its 
day, and we might be glad that it prevails, 
did we know that their abundance in the 
city diminished the .weed in the farmer’s 
fields—which is doubtful.... The severe cold 
of last winter in many localities so injurtjd 
The Chinese Wistaria, 
that its failure to bloom was very general, 
even in some of the sheltered streets of the 
city. This vine is so frequently planted in 
New York, there being many magnificent 
specimens, that its failure is a public calam¬ 
ity. An occasional severe winter like the 
last will kill the buds, and this should suggest 
the more frequent planting of its relative, 
Our Native Wistaria, 
which, besides being perfectly hardy, is in 
some respects preferable to the Chinese, 
especially in the fact that its flower clusters 
do not open until the foliage is well de¬ 
veloped. In the native species the flowers, 
and the clusters, are much smaller than in the 
exotic, and instead of the beautiful blue of 
the Chinese, we have a pale lilac, which, 
though pleasing, is not brilliant. Still more 
satisfactory than the usual form is the 
White Variety of this, 
which seems to be veiy little known. This 
is so rarely seen in cultivation, that I doubted 
if it was in the catalogues, but referring to 
that of Ellwanger & Barry, found that they 
had it as “ a seedling of ours.” This shows 
that the native Wistaria has a tendency to 
produce white-flowered plants from the seed. 
Our own vine came from Mr. A. S. Fuller, 
who many years ago found it in that strange 
collection of rare odds and ends, the nursery 
of the late Wm. R. Prince, at Flushing. L. 
I. The vine is one of the best of our climbers, 
the flowers being of a pure white. 
The Yellow-wood, or Virgilia, 
I have commended once before, but it 
is so easily among the finest of fine trees, 
and withal being a native, that I am sure I 
do tree-lovers good service by keeping it be¬ 
fore them. What a show it was this spring 
—short-lived on account of the rains, but that 
is not the fault of the tree. The long, loose, 
graceful tassels of the purest white made the 
tree an object of rare beauty. Then the fo¬ 
liage soon takes on such a robust, semi-metal¬ 
lic hue—a green unlike any other that I know 
of. Cladrastis tinctoria is the botanical name 
of the tree, though it is often called Virgilia 
lutea .... There have been many misnomers 
in naming plants after people, and when a 
good name is attached to a good plant it is 
fortunate. Whoever gave the name to the 
Hydrangea “Thomas Hogg,” 
made a happy hit, for the plant is one of the 
best introductions of late years. Its occur¬ 
rence on the street-stands in large numbers, 
not only attests its popularity, but the ease 
with which it is multiplied. A little plant, 
four inches high, will give a flower cluster 
as many inches across, of the purest white, 
while a large bush, if properly pruned into 
shape, will produce the globular clusters so 
freely that the whole becomes a wonder of 
floral abundance....I have not yet undertaken 
to make a “wild garden,” though there are 
two or three corners about the place that 
have become rather wild. It is convenient 
to have such spots where odds and ends can 
be put on probation. Going towards one of 
these I saw some bright rose-purple flowers 
that I could not at first recognize ; a closer 
view showed them to be clusters of 
“The Perenuial Pea,” 
Possibly a chance seedling had come up 
there, and unnoticed had rambled over the 
bushes, and was just making its existence 
known by its flowers, showing what a capital 
plant this is for a wild garden, and that a 
place where it can “ go as you please ” over 
the low bushes, is just the one for this grand 
old plant. In speaking of this, I would not 
omit a good word for its white variety, which, 
on the whole, I like even better than the 
colored one, but it is well to have both.... 
One spring, in making a rock-work in a cor¬ 
ner, now 10 or 12 years ago, a seedling birch 
was noticed. As shade would not come amiss 
in that place, the little thing, a foot high, 
was allowed to remain. The tree is a 
Red or River Birch, 
of which there are several along the river 
bank a few rods away, and seedlings often 
come up here and there from their scattered 
seeds. The tree is now 30 feet high, its trunk 
between 9 and 10 inches through, and it has 
a large, handsome head. I mention this for 
the encouragement of those who neglect to 
raise trees from seeds, for fear that they shall 
a prairie farmer would gladly give $10 to 
have this tree near his house—who might 
have groves had he put in the seeds ten years 
ago—not especially of this kind, but of 
other forest trees that grow much faster. 
The “Hall’s Japan Honeysuckle,” 
is, upon the whole, the best of all the Honey¬ 
suckles. It is not only among fruits that 
one kind will stand out as the most popular 
of all of its kind. What the Concord is 
among grapes, and the Bartlett among pears, 
so is Hall’s among Honeysuckles, combining 
all the good qualities of all the others, and 
adding some of its own. Some may object 
that it lacks the bright colors of the Dutch, 
and others, but its flowers open of the purest 
white, and in a few days change to a color 
that can best be described as “ Nankeen,” 
a shade among flowers as rare as it is pleasing. 
“Peen To.”—The Flat Peach of China, 
China produces strange and peculiar vege¬ 
table forms, as well as quaint people and 
unique manufactures. Among their radishes, 
the “Rose-Colored Winter,” is so unlike 
other radishes, and so striking in its form, 
that one asked to guess its origin would be 
likely to say that it must be Chinese. The 
fruits in China present many strange for ms , 
among them the “Peen To,” the “Chinese 
Flat Peach,” which is as unusual as a peach 
as a Celestial is as a man. The “ Peen To ” is 
not regarded as a distinct species, but as a 
curious form of the ordinary peach. In the 
ordinary varieties of the peach, any change 
from the globular form is mainly lengthwise, 
and slightly oblong peaches are not uncom¬ 
mon. In the “ Peen To,” the fruit appears as 
if it were compressed until the flattening out 
could go no further on account of the stone ; 
indeed, there is at the upper end scarcely any 
flesh between the skin and the stone. The 
engraving gives this curious fruit in section. 
The tree, cultivated under glass, in England, 
proves to be nearly evergreen. Our friend, P. 
J. Berckmans, Augusta, Ga., grew this variety 
a number of years ago, and we now leam 
that it is being cultivated in Florida. Dr. J. C. 
Neal, Alachua Co., Fla., sends us a specimen 
of fruit, and writes that in their climate and 
soil the tree flourishes admirably, being a 
rampant grower and exempt from nearly all 
the diseases and troubles that attack ordinary 
THE “PEEN to” OR FLAT PEACH OF CHINA. 
peach trees. With him the tree blooms in 
December, and bears very abundant crops, 
which ripen in April and May. This peach 
is not only interesting on account of its pecu¬ 
liar shape, but is really desirable as a fruit. 
The specimen sent us, which was picked quite 
green, did not arrive until eight days later, 
and was then in good eating condition, show¬ 
ing that it has qualities which commend it to 
the shipper. The fruit is very sweet and of 
delicious flavor, and though it had been picked 
over a week was really very fine. We would 
suggest to our Florida friend that he experi¬ 
ment with seedlings of this interesting vari¬ 
ety. We shall be glad to learn how far north 
this Flat Peach has been found to succeed. 
-^ ^- 
Among the Strawberries. 
In the vicinity of New York City the hight 
of the Strawberry season is the first half of 
June, and those two weeks have rarely been 
more unfavorable than during the present 
year. The abundant—almost continuous 
rains, while admirable for the growth of the 
plants and the “swelling” of the berries, al¬ 
lowed quite too little sunshine to perfect the 
fruit in color and flavor. Often the berries 
reached their full size and then commenced 
to decay before attaining their proper color. 
The unfavorable weather prevented us from 
making our usual visits to the grounds of the 
growers, and our observations, aside from 
