1SS4.J 
AMEEIGAIn AGElCtJLTUEIST. 
soon as possible. If the trees have started, great 
care will be needed in handling them. Such trees 
should not be trimmed at planting. Grafting 
for the renewal of old trees may continue, taking 
great care in cutting away the branches to make 
no bad wounds, as the bark now peels readily. 
Grafting Wax .—Four parts of rosin and one part 
each, bees-wax and tallow,make a good preparation. 
If too hard, add more tallow, or if too soft, take 
less. The best way of using it is upon cloth. Take 
an old sheet or the skirt of a well worn dress ; tear 
it into strips two inches wide, make the strips into 
rolls, and let them remain in the melted wax until 
thoroughly soaked through ; remove and let them 
drain and cool. This waxed cloth may be torn off 
in pieces of convenient size to cover the wounds, 
and can be applied to make a complete covering. 
Squashes are a good crop for a young orchard. 
Potatoes, mangels, turnips, or other roots may be 
grown between the rows of fruit trees. 
Tent-caterpillars. — If any eggs escaped, their 
“tents” or webs will soon appear in the trees. 
Remove them while small. Curculios attack the 
young plums soon after the blossoms fall, and the 
thorough jarring of the trees should begin early. 
Mulching is far better than watering to save new¬ 
ly planted trees. Cover the ground over the roots 
with bog hay, old straw, or litter of any kind. 
/Straw5er7-ies.—Beds that were covered last fall 
should have the straw left on them until after the 
fruit is picked. The straw should be pulled away 
just over the plants. Pull up such coarse weeds 
as appear through the mulch of the bed. 
Watch for the first appearance of holes in the 
leaves of Currants and Gooseberries, and use White 
Hellebore dusted on, or better mixed with water, 
a large tablespoonful of the powder in a pailful of 
water, and apply with a syringe or pump. Repeat 
a few days later, to destroy those which escaped 
or have hatched since the first application. 
Young grape vines set this spring, should be al¬ 
lowed to push but a single shoot. If two or more 
buds were left, to guard against accidents, rub off 
all but the strongest, and keep the shoot from this 
tied up to a stake. Rose-bugs destroy the flowers 
of the grape, shake off these pests in early morn¬ 
ing, catching them in a pan in which there is a 
thin film of kerosene floating on a little water. 
Kitcbcn and market Ciiardeu. 
In many places the first of May is moving-day, 
and many change their place of residence this 
month. Though it may seem late to begin garden¬ 
ing, seeds sown and plants set out now will come 
forward with great rapidity, as the soil is now well 
warmed. Asparagus beds that were planted two 
years ago may be cut sparingly. Established beds 
should have every shoot cut, allowing none to 
grow until cutting stops. If a cold rain comes on, 
the seed of Lima beans will usually rot in the 
ground. Examine and re-plant. Weed beets and 
carrots as soon as large enough, and thin, using 
the young beets for greens. Keep cabbages and 
cauliflowers well hoed. Sow seeds for late crops 
in a seed-bed in open ground. Try some Savoys. 
Make a small planting of com as soon as the season 
will allow, but do not put in the main crop until 
settled weather. Cucumbers may be forwarded by 
starting seeds in pots or on inverted sods, in a hot¬ 
bed or sunny window. When they are set out, 
cover at night by some kind of a hand-light or 
screen. Sow seeds in the open ground, protecting 
the plants in the same manner. Sow sage, thyme 
and other sweet herbs in a seed-bed, to be trans- 
planted later. Plant a few horseradish sets m rich 
soil. It should always be taken up in the fall to 
prevent it from becoming a weed. Continue to 
transplant lettuce for a succession, and hoe often. 
Do not sow melons until the soil is warm ; use an 
abundance of seed to provide for insects and ac¬ 
cidents. Early weeding of onions by hand in the 
rows, and thorough cultivation between the rows, 
are needed, whether grown from seeds or sets. 
Early kinds of potatoes should be fonvarded by 
good culture. A sprinkling of ashes and plaster at 
hoeing on some soils helps wonderfully. Tall peas 
should have brush or other support early. If al¬ 
lowed to fall over before they have these, they 
rarely do well. The be st substitute for brush is 
wire, as described elsewhere. Sow fora succession. 
Cut away the rhubarb flower stalks as soon as they 
appear. In cutting spinach for use thin it, to leave 
plants at six or eight inches apart for the final cut¬ 
ting. Sow weekly. When the soil is warm, sow 
New Zealand spinach for summer use. For squash¬ 
es make richly manured hills eight or ten feet apart 
for the running sorts, when the weather is settled, 
and sow an abundance of seed. Give a trellis or 
some kind of support for tomatoes when they are 
first set out, and keep them tied up as they grow. 
The Houstonia or Bluets as a Basket Plant. 
For those who cultivate wild flowers, writes Mar¬ 
garet Donaldson, the Houstonia ccerulea is flne for 
rock-work, and it is one of the best of 
our early wild flowers for baskets. On 
points of worn-out land, I have seen 
single flowers growing in the grass, on 
branchless stalks not more than two 
inches high. But when set in a basket of 
leaf-mould they branch freely, spread¬ 
ing over the sides of the basket, and 
bloom profusely long after their com¬ 
panions have disappeared from the 
meadows. Their roots are so diminu¬ 
tive, that they will thrive in a very small 
vessel. I once saw a clump growing 
in the inverted lid of a tea-pot. Give 
them sunlight, keep the soil moist, and 
they will grow in a cup, scarcely larger 
than an eggshell. They bloom in April, 
and some seasons one may look long 
before they find them, at other times 
they make a feature of the landscape. 
In the spring of 1882, there were acres 
of sloping meadow land, sky-blue with 
these flowers; on the same slope the 
following spring, they bloomed under 
the grass, but nowhere thick enough to 
be seen at a distance. Their time of 
continuing in bloom is not much over a 
month, but their earliness, faint fragrance and 
delicate beauty, amply repay one for the small 
amount of labor required for their cultivation. 
Side Grafting. 
To those who have never attempted grafting the 
operation seems to demand peculiar skill, and they 
are deterred from trying for fear of failure. One 
of the simplest forms 
is the side graft, 
which is more easily 
performed than the 
common cleft-graft 
much used by florists 
and nurserymen in 
propagating camel¬ 
lias, some conifers, 
and other shrubs and 
trees. Unlike some 
other grafts it-is not 
necessary with this to 
remove the top of the 
stalk. A clean down¬ 
ward cut- is made in 
the side of the stock, 
and the cion, care¬ 
fully cut to a wedge, 
is inserted, bringing 
SIDE GRAFTS. inner ba.'’k, on 
one side at least, 
in close contact with that of the stock. It is 
sometimes practised on fruit trees to replace a lost 
branch. It is not necessary to wax grafts of this- 
kind ; they are merely tied closely with bast mat¬ 
ting or worsted yarn. The amateur will find much 
interest in practising with this graft as it will give 
him confidence to attempt more difficult kinds. 
It has been practised on herbaceous stems, even 
on those as tender as the melon, with success. The 
195 
engraving shows the method, giving the stock, 
the prepared cion, and the two united. 
Narcissusses.—Old and New. 
Those familiar spring flowers, the Jonquil and 
and Daffodil, are really species of Narcissus, and 
these, together with the beautiful Poet’s Narcis¬ 
sus, are to be found in large clumps in all old gar¬ 
dens. In most cases they have received no care 
since they were planted, but have gone on, some¬ 
times for years, increasing and crowding and starv¬ 
ing one another until we frequently find masses 
that have ceased to bloom. These are the only 
kinds of Narcissus generally known ; the Polyan¬ 
thus Narcissus not being perfectly hardy is rarely 
seen in gardens, though it is sometimes grown in 
pots. There are over twenty species of Narcissus, 
while the number of varieties is very large. The 
flowers in all have six spreading petals, the peri¬ 
anth. These are united below to form a tube, at 
the mouth of which is a petal-like appendage called 
the cup or crown. It is this crown that gives to 
these flowers their peculiar beauty ; it often differs 
in color from the rest of the flower, and varies 
greatly in size, being in some species the most con¬ 
spicuous part of the flower. The relation this 
bears to the divisions of the perianth (or petals) 
serves to arrange the species in three groups. The 
Long-crowned Narcissus have the crown as long or 
rather longer than the divisions; figure 1, repre¬ 
sents a flower of this group. In the Medium- 
crowned group the crown is half or three-fourths 
the length of the divisions, as in figure 2, while 
the Small-erowned division has the crown less than 
half the length of the divisions, as seen in the well- 
known Poet’s Narcissus, figure 3. The species, 
many of them at least, have produced double va¬ 
rieties ; the crown is lost, its place being filled by a 
mass of irregular petal-like bodies. Of late years, 
some of the European cultivators have hybridized 
and crossed the species with most excellent re¬ 
sults, some of the hybrids having larger and more 
beautiful flowers than the species. Some of the 
hybrids of N. incompardbilis, figure 2, are extremely 
beautiful. In their present improved condition 
Narcissuses are attracting more attention from cul¬ 
tivators than they have formerly received, and they 
are well worthy of it. It is likely that the majority 
of the new kinds will prove hardy, and when they 
become more abundant cannot fail to be popular. 
In some of the new forms are exquisite tints of yel¬ 
low, the crown and perianth each being of a differ¬ 
ent shade. The Poet’s Narcissus, though one of 
the commonest, is one of the most beautiful. The 
perianth is of the purest white, the v@ry shallow 
crown, a mere cup, pale yellow, with its margin 
crisped and of a deep scarlet. By giving it good 
soil and preventing it from forming large clumps, 
the flowers will be finer than we usually see them. 
