302 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[August, 
shrub, and it is from this variety that the specimen 
was taken for the engraving. The- flowers are 
somewhat larger than in the ordinary form, and are 
handsomely variegated with white and red stripes. 
Unlike many shrubs, which are only of interest 
during the short time they are in flower, this Hon¬ 
eysuckle is pleasing during the whole season; the 
leaves appear early, and last until frost, being all 
the season of agood green, and where there no flow¬ 
ers at all, the dense and shapely mass of foliage 
would be worth growing the plant for. It flowers 
with us about the end of May, and at that time is 
superlatively beautiful; but when the flowers are 
off, the shrub does not cease its well doing, for after 
a while the berries ripen, and it presents another 
phase of attractiveness. The name Xylosteum, 
which has been given to the species of this section, 
is from the Greek words for wood and bone, one of 
the species having hard and bone-like wood; the 
wood of the Tartarian species is hard, handsomely 
veined, and is said to make fine walking-sticks. 
Glazed Flower Pots for House Plants. 
BT DETER HENDERSON. 
A writer in a contemporary, magazine, says that 
she has grown house-plants for twenty years in 
glazed pots, and found them to thrive better than 
plants do in the porous, unglazed pots. No doubt 
she is correct, if the atmosphere in which the plants 
are placed is as dry as that usually found in sitting 
rooms. The glazed surface will prevent the dry 
air from penetrating to the soil, much better than 
would the usual porous pot that we florists, who 
grow our plants in the greenhouses, find indis¬ 
pensable. There we have an atmosphere charged 
with moisture, which would soon be destructive to 
the plants, if grown in glazed pots, or such as were 
not porous. For the same reason, wooden boxes, 
or wooden flower pots, are better suited for plants 
grown in the dry atmosphere of an ordinary dwell¬ 
ing, than the pots usually used by florists. Of 
course, in any case, care must be used never to water 
a plant until it is dry, and tlien water freely. The 
“ Adjustable Plant-Box,” described in the May 
number of the American Agriculturist , would seem 
to be just the thing required for nearly all kinds of 
plants of medium size. The wooden sides will re¬ 
sist the dry air of a sitting-room, just as effectually 
as the glazed, or painted, pottery ware will, and at 
the same time the means of drainage from over¬ 
watering will be far better. We find, (in corre¬ 
spondence with our customers), one great hindrance 
to growing flowers in rooms, particularly in the 
South and Southwestern States, is the difficulty in 
procuring suitable vessels to plant them in. This 
new flower-box, if it can be sold at a reasonable 
price, will be certain to have a large sale, for its 
lightness, compared with the clay pots of the same 
capacity, will enable it to be shipued at one-fourth 
the cost, and also with perfect safety from the 
breakage, which is another serious detriment in the 
transportation of the earthen-ware flower pot. 
The Walking Stick Again —In June last, we 
gave an account of a remarkable visitation of 
myriads of the insect known as the Walking Stick 
(Spectrum femoratum ) in Tates Co., N. Y., and asked 
for information as to the appearance elsewhere. 
The following, from Mr. E. H. Conklin, Cumber¬ 
land Co., Pa., is the first response, which, we hope, 
may call out others. Mr. C. says : “ This insect, 
though not at all common, and seldom numerous, 
has made its ^annual appearance in our peach 
orchards for 40 years, and only once in this time 
have they been so numerous as to be injurious. In 
this instance, which was about 10 years ago, these 
insects denuded a row of Locust trees, that formed 
a shelter on the N. W. side of a peach orchard. 
For half a dozen rods from this Locust row, the 
peach trees were also stripped of their leaves. 
Previous to this time, we never saw them on any 
other trees except the peach. As to color, some 
arc light-green and others brown, amongst male 
and female. The female has a much heavier body 
than the male.” 
Hotes from the Pines. 
Last year 1 stated that a very fine specimen of 
Tine Smoke Tree, (Rhus Cotinus ), 
often incorrectly and unnecessarily called !l Purple 
Fringe ” in the nurseries, had the year before fairly 
bloomed itself to death—if we can properly call the 
mass of little hairy stalks the bloom. At all events 
the “smoke” was so copious as to conceal every 
leaf, and the foliage being shut our from the light 
and air, all the top of the tree died. There being 
some life in the trunk, it was cut off to leave a clear 
stump about 4 feet high ; last year this pushed nu¬ 
merous small branches, and this year these flowered, 
and now the whole is completely enveloped in 
“smoke,” from the ground upwards, and makes 
the finest specimen I have yet seen. Still, there is 
the same difficulty as before, the foliage is all hid¬ 
den, and 1 think that to save the life of the tree, it 
will be necessary to cut away a good share of the 
ornamental fuzz. 
Tile Various Dcutzias 
are. among my favorite flowering shrubs; I have 
endeavored to procure all the species and varieties 
offered by our nurserymen, and the labels said that I 
had them all. I noticed that there was a close simi¬ 
larity between my Deutzia scabra and B. crcnata, 
but gave them no close examintaion, until a note in 
Gray’s “Garden Botany,” to the effect that JD. ere- 
nata was generally cultivated as B. scabra , induced 
me to look at them more closely, when I found that 
all the difference between the two was in the labels, 
and that 1 had no JD. scabra. I then ordered from 
some half a dozen different nurseries, plants of D. 
scabra ; they came into bloom this spring, and every 
one is B.crenata. It is very doubtful if B. scabra is 
in any of our nurseries; at any rate, if the real 
thing is to be had, I should like to know it. Ac¬ 
cording to the engravings in Siebold and Zuccarini’s 
“ Flora of Japan,” B. scabra has narrower and much 
rougher leaves than B. crenata, but the marked dis¬ 
tinction is in the stamens ; 
in the former (scabra) the 
filament, or stalk portion of 
the stamen, is broadest be¬ 
low, and tapers upwards, 
while in the other the fila¬ 
ment is broadest above, with 
two blunt lobes just below 
the anther. I send a tracing 
from the work referred to, 
which will enable any one 
to see the difference. Fig¬ 
ure 1 is a stamen of B. sca¬ 
bra, and figure 2 that of B. crenata, both magnified. 
This is by no means the only case in which a plant 
has been sent out year after year under a wrong 
name, and cultivators abroad frequently complain 
that it is impossible to find certain plants in the 
trade, as some other has been, no doubt accidentally, 
substituted, and the error propagated not only from 
nursery to nursery, but from one country to another. 
Now that Deutzias are the topic, let me remind you 
that too much can not be said in favor of the 
Slender Deutzia, ( Deutzia gracilis), 
as it is far from being generally known. It is sel¬ 
dom higher than two feet, forms a handsome clump 
with gracefully recurved branches, and in June is 
covered with flowers as white as snow-flakes. I 
sometimes think if this, and many other choice 
shrubs, were fitted with some easy-going English 
name, it would do much to popularize them. It is 
a choice shrub for any garden, and is admirably 
suited for cemetery planting. Our florists know its 
value for forcing, and it is one of the hardy things 
that may be forced without a greenhouse. When 
frost has checked the growth, the plants may be 
taken up and potted ; keep them in a cool cellar or 
frame until February, then bring them to a sunny 
window, and they will come forward, if not so 
rapidly as in a greenhouse, quite satisfactorily. It 
is easily propagated from cuttings, or from the 
suckers which it produces in abundance. 
The Cultivation, of KsUivc Plants 
has long been a hobby with me. It is popularly 
supposed that merely bringing wild plants under 
cultivation, is sufficient to produce double flowers, 
| and all those improvements which distinguish our, 
| garden plants. Of course no marked deviation 
j from the wild type can (as a general thing) be pro¬ 
duced and fixed, except by a long succession of re¬ 
productions by seed, and the selection of such seed¬ 
lings to breed from as show a departure from the 
type. Still, when a plant is taken from the woods 
or fields to the garden, there is to a certain extent 
a change in the individual plant. It is just such 
a change as we often see in garden plants; if we 
remove a plant from a poor, sterile soil to a rich one, 
or if we turn a pinched and pot-bound plant into 
the open ground, in both cases the individual shows 
a great improvement, but that improvement is 
within certain limits; when the plant reaches its 
full development, there it stops. The same occurs 
with wild plants; we take them often from a poor 
soil to a rich one, and what is of more importance, 
we give each abundant room; its roots have not to 
contend (so to speak) for food with the roots of a 
dozen other plants, each striving as eagerly as itself 
in “the straggle for existence ; ” as a consequence, 
the individual thus favored developes to the ex¬ 
tent of its capabilities, and often astonishes those 
who have only known it under adverse conditions, 
I was led to these remarks by some clumps of the 
Bird-Foot Violet, (Viola pedata), 
the largest-flowered and showiest of all our native 
violets—at least of the Eastern States. I recollect 
seeing, some years ago, in one of the French or 
Belgian journals, a colored plate of this species, and 
being much amused at the extent to which the 
artist had allowed his imagination play in his pic¬ 
ture of our beautiful little native violet. But I had 
not then cultivated it, and were I to see the picture 
now, I should probably fiDd that it did not do the 
plant justice. Always attractive for its neat, hand¬ 
somely cut leaves, and its large lilac-purple flowers, 
held well above them on strong stalks, in the gar¬ 
den these characters are all the more conspicuous ; 
the plant is much larger in leaves and flowers, with¬ 
out losing that compactness, and air of neatness, 
which is one of its most pleasing qualities. It not 
only blooms much more abundantly, but the bloom 
continues much longer than in the wild plant. I 
have not had a chance to observe the ordinary form 
through the whole season, but the white variety 
(not rare in some localities) last summer proved a 
continuous bloomer. Whatever improvement may 
be produced through systematic raising from seeds, 
or by crossing with other species, this native violet 
as it is, if given a fair chance in the garden, is 
worthy of a place in even the choicest collection of 
hardy plants. Lovers of plants who have the op¬ 
portunity to cultivate the most promising native 
species, whether shrubs or herbs, and do not im¬ 
prove it, deprive themselves of what seems to me 
one of the greatest pleasures of flower gardening. 
_Especial pains had been taken with our Toma¬ 
toes this year, and never were a finer set of vigor¬ 
ous stocky plants set out, and when three rows, 
about 200 feet long each, were set, they were pleas¬ 
ant to look upon and full of promise of a splendid 
crop. One or two mornings after they were set, 
the man came in and reported that a majority of 
our fine plants were cut off, and he knew that it was 
The Work of the Cut-worm. 
It is very common that the cut-worm is mentioned 
while in fact there are many. However, one species 
effectually did the business for our tomatoes; fortu¬ 
nately we had a plenty more plants, though “the 
pick ” of them had been put out at the first plant¬ 
ing. About three-fourths needed re-setting, and to 
avoid more of the same trouble, directions were 
given to wrap the stem of each plant with a strip 
of stiff -and smooth brown paper, about 3 inches 
wide and long enough to make two or three turns 
• around the stalk. This was put around each stem, 
and in setting the lower edge, of the paper was 
covered with earth, for a double purpose—to shut 
off access to the plant, and to hold the paper in 
place. After this only one plant was found to be 
injured and this was sufficient to show the necessity 
for care in the matter; the lower edge of the paper 
was not well secured by the soil, and the free edge 
was blown by the wind sufficiently to open a passage 
STAMENS. 
