116 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
BEGONIAS. 
Very many of the species contained in this 
genus deserve special attention, from the 
profusion and successional development of 
their flowers, and also their graceful and 
compact habit under good cultivation. They 
will flower at any season, but the winter 
months are the most useful, as they are the 
most serviceable. Few or any of them 
flower in a greenhouse during that period ; 
all that they can do is barely to support 
vitality, and that in a very feeble condition. 
By the return of spring their large succulent 
leaves are either dead or in a forward state 
of decay, and it may be that gangrenous 
manifestation shows itself throughout the 
entire plant, so that they occupy space that 
would be more usefully tilled with other 
things. 
That such is the case their geographical 
distribution sufficiently answers the question, 
being found in India, Brazil, Nepal, and lati¬ 
tudes of a similar character. 
This is not the place to enter into an ex¬ 
planation why the constitution of some plants 
is suited to a warm and others to a compar- 
tively cool temperature; the question is 
purely a physiological one, and has not, that 
I am aware of, been definitely settled. The 
subject, however, is worthy of consideration, 
as it contains much that is useful and inter¬ 
esting to the cultivator. The number and 
quality of the flowers depend on the size and 
fully matured habit of the plant; it will be 
necessary, then, that propagation begin 
about the first of February, and a monthly 
insertion of cuttings continued till the begin¬ 
ning of May, which will insure a succession¬ 
al display of flowers to the end of the follow¬ 
ing spring. Roots are produced freely with 
or without bottom heat, in a moderately 
moist atmosphere of about sixty degrees. 
Such a state is agreeable to the Begonia 
during all stages of its growth, but any ap¬ 
proximation to an excess destroys the roots, 
and gives the foliage a transparent dropsical 
appearance. 
There is scarcely any class of plants pos¬ 
sessing stronger digestive powers; hence 
they delight to feed on rich materials, unless 
with very few exceptions. The soil that I 
usually employ is fresh loam, leaf mold, and 
thoroughly decomposed manurq, to which is 
added as much sand as will allow the water 
to pass off freely, for we should certainly 
bear in mind that mechanical arrangement 
has more influence over the health of a plant 
than the manurial ingredients. Those spe¬ 
cies that possess a loose flexible habit 
should, so soon as the shoots have made a 
couple of joints, have their points pinched 
off, to give the plant a bushy form. Should 
it be desirable to grow the same plants a 
second season, cut them to within a few 
inches of the pot, and slightly reduce the 
supply of water, to produce repose, which 
will enable them to push again more vigor¬ 
ously. When the young growths are about 
two inches long shake away the soil entirely, 
reduce the length of the roots, and place 
them in pots comparatively small for the 
size of the plant, and subject them again to 
the same treatment. 
As this communication is addressed ex¬ 
clusively to the amateur gardener, I beg to 
recommend the following species. They 
are old kinds, it is true, but nevertheless 
they are good and easily cultivated : Bego¬ 
nia nitida, white ; manicata, pale pink ; ra- 
mentacea, white blush; parvifolia, white; 
fuchsioides, scarlet; dydrocotylifolia, pink ; 
albococcinea, scarlet and white; incurvata, 
pink ; and spatulata, white.—A., in London 
Florist. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
A CHAPTER ON BED-QUILTS. 
In visiting the Fair of the American In¬ 
stitute the past year, my attention was par¬ 
ticularly attracted by the great number of 
bed-quilts displayed in one of the galleries. 
There were several knit of tidy cotton, some 
close and firm, and others with an open 
ground, through which a colored lining 
would make a pretty contrast with the white 
of the figure. 
A silk landscape quilt was suspended from 
the ceiling, to exhibit to the best advantage. 
It represented a castle and the surrounding 
scenery. It was made of pieces less than 
an inch square, and they were as well ar¬ 
ranged as the nature of the materials would 
permit. It was closely and neatly quilted, 
yet I could not avoid thinking I should not 
like to sleep under it. An instructive fear 
of being crushed by the ponderous weight of 
those deep stone walls made my shoulders 
ache in the imagination. I thought of Jack 
the giant-killer, hidden in one corner of the 
room, when he feared his two-headed Welsh 
entertainer would “dash his brains out quite,” 
with a heavy club, if he remained in bed. I 
looked at the quilt with a feeling somewhat 
akin to that of “ the valiant Cornish man,” as 
he listened to the giant pacing up and down, 
and muttering, 
“ Though you lodge with me this night, 
You shall not see the morning light.” 
A bouquet of flowers would have been a 
prettier design for such a work. It should 
not be'placed in a vase, lest when in a hori¬ 
zontal position the water should run out. 
There were patched calico quilts of more 
varieties of pattern than I can remember. 
Squares, diamonds, hexagons and octagons, 
each presented their claims lor admiration. 
Most of them were made of very small pieces, 
which it must have required days to cut, and 
weeks to sew together. 
Then there were quilts with a white 
ground, on which were sewed most stiff and 
unnatural looking birds and flowers, made 
not in the image of anything in the heavens 
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the wa¬ 
ters under the earth, but needed to have 
“ this a blue-bird,” “ this is a canary,” &c., 
written near them, as I saw it done on one 
at the Great Exhibition in 1853. Pieces of 
yellow flannel were sewed on and stuffed to 
represent oranges, summer squashes, or 
something of the kind. Various nondescript, 
bright red animals followed each other in In¬ 
dian file. On one of these quilts was a card 
with this notice : “ These quilts not bound 
for want of time. This one for sale for 
$25.” This showed the estimate placed 
upon it by the exhibitor, while it was really 
too ugly to be admitted into the house of any 
cultivated person. 
In the days of our grandmothers, patched 
quilts exhibited a laudable economy. Calico 
was very expensive. There were no manu¬ 
factories in the country. Everything not 
manufactured in their own looms was 
brought across the water. They could not 
afford to waste even the small fragments. 
They were nicely cut and basted for little 
fingers to sew together at home or at school, 
for in those days a skillfuLise of the needle 
was considered an accomplishment worthy 
of receiving a teacher’s attention. But now 
we are not required to spend our time in 
precisely the same way. What may have 
been true economy fifty or a hundred years 
ago, may now be very far from it. “ Time 
is money” is an old saying, and it is also 
something which money can not buy. With 
the wisest arrangement most women make 
of their time, there is too little left for men¬ 
tal improvement. There is constant call for 
the needle either in making or repairing, and 
few are the hours which may be devoted to 
the enjoyment of a book. These few should 
not be intruded upon by patch-work quilts, 
that never can vie with pure white dimity 
or simple calico. How many of these twenty- 
five dollars would buy. How many valuable 
books it would add to the library. 
It can only be a waste of that which is 
more precious than money to sew together 
pieces an inch or two square, when for a 
York shilling a whole yard of pretty furni¬ 
ture calico can be purchased. How many 
of the quilts exhibited at the Fair of the 
American Institute were made by farmers’ 
wives or daughters I can not say ; that some 
of the more grotesque were not, “ Brook¬ 
lyn” or “Williamsburg” marked on the ends, 
made sufficiently evident. 
No life is more to be respected than that 
of a farmer, but to make it so he himself 
must be intelligent, and so must the ladies of 
his household. His leisure hours must be 
passed in the society of valuable newspa¬ 
pers and books, and his wife and children 
must be admitted to the same domestic circle. 
It is not possible to imagine that one of these 
ugly “ twenty-five dollar” quilts could have 
been made by hands accustomed to turning 
over the leaves of periodicals or books. 
They indicate no advanced stage of im¬ 
provement. As the production of a native 
African or a Northwest Indian, they might 
be looked upon with some interest, but as 
the work of American women, they occasion 
a far different feeling. 
An ordinary patched quilt by no means 
strikes one so offensively. It is only when 
they are vulgar in design, or indicate an un¬ 
due amount of time devoted to them, that 
they are disagreeable. I should, how¬ 
ever, quite as soon think of displaying a pair 
of patched pantaloons as a patched bed-quilt, 
and I should derive just as much pleasure 
from examining one as the other. Skillful 
mending is as well worthy a premium as 
any other kind of needle-work, and receives 
far too little attention. Anna Hope. 
A man of no account—A ready moneyed 
man. 
