214 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
pflriiniltral Jeprtot. 
FINE HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS. 
The Brooklyn Horticultural Society 
will have a fine display of flowers, strawber¬ 
ries, &c., on exhibition at their rooms, dur¬ 
ing the afternoon and evening of the 15th 
(Friday of this week). All lovers of the 
beautiful and useful products of horticulture 
will be present. 
The New-York Horticultural Society 
are making extensive arrangements for a 
show at Clinton Hall (Astor-place) on Tues¬ 
day the 19th inst. We are happy to learn 
that there is every prospect of a brilliant 
and successful show. An address will be 
delivered by William Cullen Bryant, the dis¬ 
tinguished poet. This alone, without the 
appropriate accompaniment of flowers and 
fruits, would fill the exhibition hall. 
Full particulars of the show, premiums, 
&c., will be found in the official announce¬ 
ment on page 221, to which we direct espe¬ 
cial attention. 
SAVE YOUR PLUMS NOW. 
We begin to think this can be done with¬ 
out Mr. Matthews, if not with him. We 
were yesterday on the grounds of one of our 
best horticulturists, and saw the application, 
and have some faith in its success. Our 
friend thinks there is no chance for mistake 
about its efficacy. He informed us that he 
applied it last year, after the curculio had 
begun its ravages, and that it not only saved 
those which were unstung, but many of the 
plums on which the insect had left his card, 
healed up and ripened well. The liquid en¬ 
ters the opened wound and destroys the egg. 
This is the only remedy he has ever found 
to avail against this slippery enemy of one 
of our best fruits. His recipe is— 
One peck of unslacked lime, 
Six pounds of salt, 
One barrel of water. 
The mixture is to be applied with a com¬ 
mon garden syringe. If one application is 
not sufficient, repeat it. A single applica¬ 
tion answered with him last year. 
No time is to be lost, as the young plums 
are already set, and the enemy has begun to 
show himself. If a syringe is not to be had, 
sprinkle on the liquid in some other way. 
The mixture is cheap and easily applied, and 
every man who has a plum tree should try 
it. This is the most philosophical remedy 
we have yet seen suggested, and we com¬ 
mend it with more confidence than most 
new things to the notice of fruit growers. 
If it answers our expectations, it will be 
worth millions to the country. Plums can 
be grown on loose, sandy loams as well as 
on clay soils, to which they have hitherto 
been mainly confined, on account of the rav¬ 
ages of this insect. The cultivation of this 
fruit may be indefinitely extended, and we 
may make our own dried plums instead of 
importing them from France. 
Those who have Mr. Matthews’s remedy 
in keeping should hurry up their secret, or 
they will be too late for the fair. 
Bugs, Spare that Squash !—The young 
leaves of the squash, melon, and cucumber 
vines are just beginning to show themselves. 
The bugs are on hand, and ready to change 
them into sieves. The finer varieties of the 
squash, the Acorn, Marrow, and Valparaiso, 
are more fiercely attacked than the others, 
as they furnish a richer repast to the insects. 
They will not leave a shred of them unless 
they are compelled to do it. Last fall, at 
the State Fair, in this city, we saw very fine 
Marrow squashes, and they were saved from 
the insects by the use of a powder, made of 
four parts of plaster and one of Peruvian 
guano. This powder is best applied with a 
dredging box, and should be put on immedi¬ 
ately after every rain. A half day’s delay 
may prove their ruin. 
THE CINERARIA: 
ITS PROPAGATION AND CULTIVATION. 
Of all the winter and spring-flowering 
plants, the Chineraria deserves to be placed 
in the foremost rank, whether we consider it 
as the adopted inhabitant of the conservatory 
of the wealthy citizen, or the more humble 
companion of the Scarlet Geranium, which is 
so often to be seen in the cottage window of 
the hard-working artizan. For bouquets it 
is unrivaled, the colors being so varied, 
which, when nicely arranged, make such 
handsome ornaments for the parlor table or 
boudoir that they suit all tastes, thateven the 
most fastidious of Eve’s fair daughters can 
scarce fail to recognize in them a “ hobby ” 
far superior to pet cats and poodle dogs, and 
certainly requiring less care and giving less 
trouble. We have them in every shade of 
color from white to dark blue and from 
white to crimson. Then there are white with 
crimson, and others with blue tips, in every 
shade. And when we take into considera¬ 
tion the showy character of a few well- 
grown plants, with the little room they take, 
and the simplicity of their culture, it is 
rather surprising that they are not more gen¬ 
erally grown and to be met with in every 
greenhouse, however small, as they certainly 
deserve to be ; then the first outlay being so 
trifling that a small packet of seed is all that 
is required for any person, with a little care 
and attention, to have them in bloom from 
November till May. Dame Nature is always 
lavish of her gifts to her votaries, whether 
they be a Duke of Devonshire or the no less 
enthusiastic mechanic who prides himself on 
the few plants in his cottage window. The 
pleasurable feeling enjoyed by the lovers of 
Nature, felt by none else, in watching daily 
the expanding buds of the plants that they 
themselves have raised with their own hands, 
makes this a plant well calculated for the 
fostering care of the lady gardeners of this 
country, who could thus watch Nature in its 
onward progress—in its various changes— 
from the tiny seedling to the full-grown 
blooming plant, with the pride every lover 
of plants (and ladies particular) would feel in 
showing their friends native seedlings raised 
and named by themselves in honor of some 
favorite hero or in memory of some dear 
friend, and equal to any ever raised in any 
country. These considerations collectively 
make this a plant that should be grown by 
everybody—in fact, a plant for “ the million.” 
The seed should be sown, one portion the 
second week in June, and the other the first 
week in July, in wide-mouthed pots or pans, 
well drained, in good light soil—two parts 
leaf-mold, one part good turfy loam, and one 
part good sharp sand. Fill the pots to with¬ 
in half an inch of the top with the compost, 
sow the seed evenly all over, and barely 
cover the seed with the same compost. 
then give a gentle watering to settle the 
whole, and place the pots in a frame on the 
north side of a wall or fence, and by fre¬ 
quent sprinklings of water in the middle of 
the day they will be fit to pot off in the 
course of three weeks or a month. Half 
pint pots should be used for the first potting, 
putting four plants in each pot. 
As soon as you have potted as many as 
you require, place them in the frame again, 
and by paying a little attention to watering 
and ventilating to prevent them from draw¬ 
ing up weak, they will be large enough to 
pot singly in another three weeks. You 
must then use a compost of three parts good 
turfy loam, two parts leaf-mold, one part 
good decomposed manure, and one part good 
sharp sand, the whole well mixed with the 
spade, but not sifted. Half-pint pots willbe 
large enough for this potting. As soon as 
potted, place them in a frame in a more 
open part of the garden, where they will get 
the morning and evening sun, shading them 
when very hot. Frequent watering over¬ 
head is necessary to check the red spider, 
and smoking with tobacco to keep down the 
green fly, both of which are deadly ene¬ 
mies of the Cineraria. They should be fre¬ 
quently repotted as they progress, as nothing 
gives them a greater check than to be pot- 
bound. They require a liberal supply of wa¬ 
ter, using weak manure water once a week. 
"When they begin showing flower early in 
October, remove them to the front platform 
of the green-house, and in November they 
will commence flowering, and continue till 
the middle of May.—E. Decker, h\ Horticul¬ 
turist. 
THE USE OF FRUITS. AND HOW TO USE. 
While on the all-important subject of eat¬ 
ing, I may as well make a few suggestions as 
to their use, although this article is already 
long. 
Some people have a perfect plioiia of 
fruits—especially in summer time, when 
most abundant, most perfect and in their 
season. As there is no help for the ratioci- 
native capabilities of such folk, we will pass 
them by, and address our remarks to people 
of plain common sense ; that happy class 
who have no kinks on either side of the 
skull. 
Fruits and berries of every description, if 
properly used, are the great preventives of 
all summer diseases, of fevers, fluxes, head 
aches, side aches, neuralgias, blue devils, 
dumps, didoes, and desperations. 
Flow ? 
Because their natural tendency is to pre¬ 
vent constipation, and by keeping the bow¬ 
els soluble, that is, daily acting, they give an 
outlet to all febrile and bilious “ humors,” 
thus keeping the system cool, and carrying 
from it all its excess of blood. Our perver¬ 
sity takes everything in its season but fruits. 
Even a pig is tabooed in summer ; but fruits 
we muss up, and distort with sugar, and mo¬ 
lasses and spices, to be consumed in winter 
time, when we don’t want any cooling off - . 
But that is always the way with people of 
uncommon sense ; so we folks who are for¬ 
tunately lower down in the scale of practical 
life, may luxuriate in the greater abundance. 
I may be told here that General Taylor was 
killed by a dish of fruit, and so he was ; and 
that multitudes of children in cities are de¬ 
stroyed by eating ‘‘such trash," as it is called, 
and so they are— not; for only rich people 
can afford to buy fruit at any season of the 
year, in large cities ; and in summer time 
they take their children out of town. 
It was not the fruit that killed the honest- 
hearted old soldier; but it was the ice and 
cream he took with it, while the system was 
exhausted with heat and fatigue, consequent 
on the ceremonies attendant on laying the 
