£18 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
What an elephant would an acre of poppies 
be to any one, while a square rod or less would 
be ample for all purposes of experiment! There 
are many things that will grow with us which 
cannot be made paying crops on account of the 
cost of collecting them. Safflower is one of the 
plants about which inquiries arc made. In this 
country it is improperly called saffron, which is 
the product of a crocus, while the safflower, or 
American safTron, is from the Garthamus tinc- 
torius , a plant related to the Thistles. The 
plant is a native of the East, and is more or 
les3 cultivated in our gardens. It is an annual, 
growing from six inches to a foot or more high, 
and bears numerous heads of orange-colored 
flowers of the shape shown in the engraving. 
The leaves, as well as the scales qf the invol¬ 
ucre which surrounds th,e head of florets, have 
small, spiny teeth. The valuable portion is 
the small flowers or florets, which are plucked 
when in full bloom. In the East Indies, where 
the principal commercial supply is grown, the 
flowers are pressed into small cakes; the small 
quantity produced in this country is dried loose. 
More or less saffron is used in domestic medi¬ 
cine, and is probably as harmless as any of the 
many things given as warm drinks. Its virtues 
depend largely upon the amount of warm water 
given with it. It is used to adulterate the true 
saffron, which is an expensive drug, to make 
rouge and “ pink saucers,” and as a dye. It 
gives a brilliant red to silks, which is not a fast 
color. In Europe, the plant is frequently grown 
as an ornament in gardens. As with most of 
the oriental commercial products, it is difficult 
to find any details of the cultivation of saf¬ 
flower, or statistics with regard to its yield, 
etc. Those who wish to experiment with it 
should sow the seeds early this month; afoot 
apart would probably be a proper distance, and 
the rows far enough apart to allow of the 
necessary cultivation and gathering the flowers. 
More Mole Traps. • 
The number of washing-machines and cook¬ 
ing-stoves patented each year indicates that per¬ 
fection in these articles is not yet attained. We 
judge that this must be the case with mole 
traps, as each year brings us several new con¬ 
trivances for destroying the burrowing pests. If 
mortality to the moles were at all in proportion 
to the ingenuity expended in exterminating 
them, the race would have been extinct long 
ago. We iinagiue that one thing is needed 
which the inventors cannot supply—care and 
i?lg. i.—EX-SQUillE’S MOLE TltAP. 
persistence in using the traps wherever a mole- 
track is noticed. “ Ex-squire,” who dates from 
the odd place “ Six Acres not Enough,” in New 
Jersey, where “Ten Acres Enough” was dis¬ 
covered, sends his “con-traption,” of which he 
says : “ ’Tis death on the moles, and not being 
patented, is public property. It is made of 
strips of one-inch boards; there are two pieces 
like a joined by two pieces, e, e, nailed on; b is 
hinged to one c; d, over which the cord runs, is 
nailed toe/ e is on a pivot at x. The spikes 
are pieces of wire, ground to a blunt point. I 
make c- c about eight inches long.” Figure 1 
shows an end view of the trap placed over a run. 
Mr. Geo. Foland, Hagerstown, Md., (?) gives 
a drawing of his trap, which he thinks more 
simple and effective than any we have hereto¬ 
fore published. He says : “ It is only a com¬ 
mon dead fall, which any boy knows how to 
make. A board ten or twelve inches wide, and 
from four to six feet long, with a stone upon it 
for a weight, is used with the common trip 
trigger. Take a block nine inches long by three 
inches wide, and one and a half inch thick; 
strike a circle on each end, of two and a half 
inches diameter, and put in each circle four 
sharp nails, extending through the block about 
four inches. Place your foot upon the trail, 
and press it tightly down, and put the block 
upon the trail, with the nails on each side of 
the part pressed down. The point of the trig¬ 
ger must bear upon the part thus pressed down, 
as represented in the engraving. As the mole 
opens his trail, the trigger is raised, which drops 
the weight upon the block, and drives home 
the nails. This trap never fails to catch.” 
Notes from “ The Pines. 1 ’ 
Mr. Walks and Talks has given his experience 
in the paper, and why should pot I ? He has a 
large farm to walk and talk over, and I propose 
to do the same with my large garden. Now, it 
is very jolly to go upon a new place and find it 
all just as you would not have it. A place that 
is finished is a terrible thing to have—but one 
that has been begun, and has everything wrong 
from beginning to end is a perfect treasure. I 
have not time to make a map of the place as it 
is, but you may imagine along and narrow piece 
fronting on the river, and going back over hill 
and dale indefinitely, and including about ten 
acres. “Why do I call it ‘The Pines’ ?” “Because 
I could not help it.” You see, that there are on 
the river bank three pine trees, our beautiful 
native White Pine, the Weymouth Pine of Eng¬ 
land, which for hight and spread of limbs are 
rarely to be equaled ; and out of respect to these 
grand old monarchs, the place is called “ The 
Pines.” Beyond this natural growth the trees 
arc all wrong, as is every thing else. Two 
Balsam Firs, the worst of our evergreens, 
flank the front door, and shrubs put in a straight 
line with them give a very cheerful idea of a 
funeral. There is a row of cherry trees near 
the front line fence, which ought to bear fruit, 
but don’t; and all the grounds around the 
house which will be lawn, are occupied by 
pear trees, currant bushes, quince trees, and as 
near the road as possible is a bed of asparagus, 
and another of rhubarb 1 I can’t tell you of the 
odd things that are where th*y ought not to be, 
but some time I will make a plan and show 
how they are, and how I have changed them, 
as the suggestions will be useful to hundreds of 
readers. Now, next to making a place useful to 
one’s self, it is important to make it useful to 
others. I intend, in the “Notes from ‘The 
Pines,’ ” to record my failures as well as my 
successes, and to make them as talky, if not 
as “walkj*,” as Professor Harris does in his gen¬ 
erally appreciated Walks and Talks. My great 
satisfaction in the whole is, that we have what 
the Agriculturist has long want ed—a big garden. 
The different editors have four large farms, and 
I supplement them with a large garden, in which 
there will be ample room to test all the many 
things our friends send us every year. Already 
Saul, of Washington, D.C., Lum, of Sandusky, O., 
Carpenter, of Rye, N. Y., Fuller, of Woodside, 
N. J., Geo. Such, of South Amboy, N. J., Col. 
Wilder, of Mass., and J. J. A. Gregory, of the 
same State, Brcsee, of potato fame, Conover, 
who will be famous in potatoes, Mr. Vander- 
veer, whose seedling is working its way into 
popularity, and many others whom we cannot 
name here, have sent us things to be tested. I 
intend to make “ The Pines ” a trial ground, as 
there is ample room to test every garden prod¬ 
uct. Taking possession late in April, I can 
only make the tillable land do its best. Many 
kinds of potatoes have beer, put in side by side 
in purely field culture, and some impartial and 
interesting results may be looked for. Many 
“novelties” in the way of garden vegetables 
and flowers have been sown, and odd seeds 
from various sources put in, so that there is al¬ 
ready material enough at hand to mane the 
“ Notes from ‘ The Pines ’ ” interesting to every 
one who has a garden, large or small. 
The Cedar of Lebanon. 
BY A. B. ALLEN. 
In a late rapid jaunt over Great Britain and 
parts of the Continent, I took soipe pains to 
visit a few of the famous trees flourishing there. 
Of the evergreens the Cedar of Lebanon was 
the grandest and most noble. It is to this class 
what the white oak is to deciduous trees; and 
it affords me much pleasure to learn that its 
cultivation is considerably on the increase now 
among us. The largest Cedar of Lebanon I 
know in the United States is to be seen in an 
open field, formerly a part of the Bloodgood 
nursery, in the town of Flushing, about ten 
miles from the office of the American Agricul¬ 
turist. About three years ago it was struck by 
lightning, and several feet of the top were cut 
off, but it still towers upward of sixty feet high. 
The circumference of its trunk, close to the 
ground, is within a fraction of thirteen feet; 
three feet above, eleven feet; six feet above, 
nine feet. The lowest branches commence 
seven feet from the ground, and have a spread 
of about forty feet. They are all horizontal, 
very close to each other in whorls, and gradu¬ 
ally diminish in length to the top of the tree, 
thus forming a symmetrical cone. The foliage 
is very dense, and of the deepest, purest, and 
most vivid green, at all seasons of the year. 
When the sun falls upon this bright, fresh, ver¬ 
dant mass, it lends a golden tinge to its foliage, 
as beautiful as that of the celebrated Abies 
(Picea) Nordmanniana. It is not to be won¬ 
dered at that the Cedars of Lebanon of old 
were called “glorious,” and were said to be 
“planted in the garden of God.” 
The soil where this tree stands is a light sandy 
loam, of moderate fertility. Its growth, there¬ 
fore, has been slow, giving its wood a good op¬ 
portunity of ripening well every season before 
the severity of whiter set in; and this is one 
reason, undoubtedly, why its foliage is such a 
bright, fresh green all winter. I have watched 
