386 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
much larger than the others, and deeply split 
down, those towards the center smaller and 
tubular; the color is a deep sky blue on the 
margin of the head, lighter towards the center, 
where it is nearly white. The Stokesia is a 
native of the pine barrens of South Carolina, 
Georgia, and Louisiana, and is probably one of 
the rarest flowering plants in the country, as it 
is one of the handsomest. In England it is 
mentioned as “ a choice plant,” and as bloom¬ 
ing in September and October, and in localities 
north of London it is advised to grow it as a 
pot plant, it being “ well worth a place indoors 
or out.” With us, near New York, the plant is 
perfectly hardy, and blooms in June and July, 
continuing to produce a succession of flowers 
for a long time, and is one of the most pleasing, 
hardy plants, native or exotic, we have in the 
garden. Here it is necessary to anticipate nu¬ 
merous inquiries and say “ we do not know ” to 
the many who ask where it can be had. We 
have but one plant, and cannot be tempted to 
divide it. Our seedsmen should arrange with 
their southern correspondents for seeds, and 
our florists can procure it, as they do many 
other native plants, from Europe. 
Why the Peaches did not Sell. 
Editor Agriculturist : Early in the peach 
season, when almost daily rains caused the fruit to 
decay rapidly, very fair peaches, for immediate use, 
were offered at 15 to 30 cents the basket or crate. 
Both dealers and growers complained that people 
did not take advantage of these prices and purchase 
freely. It may seem strange to these persons that 
hundreds of crates were left to rot on their hands, 
to be thrown away the next morning ; this and the 
fact that fine fruit at very moderate prices has since 
been of slow sale, may open the eyes of the raisers 
and dealers to the fact that the fault is as much 
their’s as that of the people. People want peaches, 
but the growers and sellers will not let them have 
them. The present method of putting up peaches 
for the most part keeps the consumer from buying. 
To make a personal matter of it, I have not seen a 
crate or basket of peaches this year, or any other 
year, that I would take home if given to me. I 
want peaches, and would be glad to have them 
every day during the season, but the grower puts 
them up in a shape that prevents me from having 
them. Nothing more unhandy to carry than a 
basket of peaches was ever devised—unless it be a 
crate of the same. There is uothing to take hold 
of either by, and if carried at all, must be toted on 
the shoulder, or lugged somehow with both hands. 
Sometimes a handle is extemporized by means of a 
cord, but then the weight is too much to carry a 
long distance in one hand. There is such a thing 
as working too hard for a luxury like peaches, and 
rather than make a common porter of one’s self, 
hundreds who would gladly purchase the fruit, go 
without. In my own case it is a long distance 
from a dealer to the ferryboat, and another long 
stretch to reach the cars which take me home, and 
I had rather go without the fruit than tote it this 
distance. And the same is the case with the major¬ 
ity of my fellow passengers. “ But why do you 
not buy a part of a basket ? I sometimes do, and 
it works in this way : “ How much for half a peck 
of those peaches ? ”—“ Sixty cents.”—“ How much 
for the basket?”—“A dollar and a quarter.”—As 
there are five half pecks, (or should be), in a 
basket, this is paying largely for a small quantity. 
I do not so much blame the retailer, fori have seen 
bow with all his care in digging down for the half 
peck, he is obliged to put in some of the fine fruit 
the grower has carefully placed at the top, and the 
remainder does not look very tempting. A basket 
of peaches was sometime in the past, a bushel, it 
has been growing smaller, until custom and agree¬ 
ment among growers has established it at five half 
pecks. The roason the cheap peaches were not 
sold was on account of the inconvenient size arid 
shape of the packages. Let some enterprising 
peach-grower devise some method of putting up, 
say a peck of peaches, in a package which one can 
carry a mile in one hand without inconvenience, 
and I am very sure that no fruit offered in that 
portable shape will be thrown into the dock ; cus¬ 
tomers will gladly pay enough extra to cover the 
trouble and cost, though they do not care to pay 
a dollar, as is often charged, for the fourth of a dol¬ 
lar crate, put up in a light basket that costs 10 
cents. Messieurs peach-growers, people in cities 
want your fruit, we in the country want your 
fruit, but we rarely buy it, because you insist that 
we must take five-eighths of a bushel, in a shape 
that is as •difficult to handle as it is to carry two 
pumpkins under one arm. Give us good fruit in 
handy parcels, and we the people will willingly pay 
remunerative prices, New Jerseyman. 
Notes from the Pines. 
It is only fair that those who have kindly inquir¬ 
ed after the “man at The Pines,” should be assur¬ 
ed that he is there yet. When I began to write 
under the above heading, I did not intend to offer 
a regular series of papers. It is an open secret 
that the managing editor writes from The Pines, 
when he cares to give bits of personal experience 
in a more colloquial form than is allowable in an 
editorial. Brother Harris had a little rather set 
forth his failures than his successes, and it seems 
to me that he is never so happy as when the 
crops fail, the little pigs die, and everything seems 
going “to the bow-wows,” though it must be 
said to his credit, that he draws useful lessons 
from his mishaps. Had I written last spring, it 
would have been to chronicle the havoc of the 
past winter, and as there was no useful lesson to 
be drawn from it, I preferred to keep quiet. 
When the destruction is so general, all that it teach¬ 
es us is, that things before considered hardy, are 
really not hardy in such a winter as the last. 
Thrifty young apple-trees of well tested sorts, 
were killed root and branch ; blackberries and rasp¬ 
berries of all sorts badly injured ; grape-vines five 
years old either killed outright or sadly mutilated, 
and so on through the catalogue. If I cultivated 
these things as a business, I should feel as blue as 
one of my friends does ; he is a nurseryman, and 
6ays it will take him three years to get his stock 
up to where it was last fall. Much of the destruc¬ 
tion in the past few winters, has been ascribed, and 
apparently with truth, to the dryness of the soil. 
This Summer’s Rains must have gone far to¬ 
wards supplying the deficiency. Such continued 
moist weather as we had in July and August, has 
been most favorable to mildew, and the grapes 
look badly in spite of sulphur, which does but lit¬ 
tle good save when applied in hot dry weather.... 
The melon crop was badly injured by the rains; 
the vines so long without sun, were in an unnatur¬ 
ally succulent condition, and when hot and clear 
days came, the leaves curled and shriveled. 
Potato Bugs of course we have had. They 
were expected and watched for, and a persistent 
hand-picking kept them in proper subjection ; there 
was little difficulty in keeping them from the early 
sorts, and very few larval came to perfection on 
the place. But in August the later broods began 
to fly, and they came in hordes from elsewhere. 
One might go through the patch and sweep the vines 
clean, catching them in the affair figured in August 
on page 294, and after finishing, begin again and 
get about as many as at first, so rapidly did they 
come in. It was useless to try to catch all the 
bugs that the surrounding country could supply, 
and we applied Paris green. The love of the 
Dorypliora for the potato, is nothing to that of its 
passion for the egg plant. It seems almost a pity 
to pick the beetles from the egg plant, they seem 
so happy. Why don’t some one patent the plan 
of setting out egg plants among the potato vines, 
to keep the bugs from them? Quite as practical 
things arc patented. In their flight the bugs made 
their way all over the place, they were on the paths, 
in sheds and out-buildings, and a nuisance gener¬ 
ally. They quite took the tops out of some orna¬ 
mental Solanums in the flower garden, and made a 
vigorous attack on Batura meteloides. 
Triumph and Excelsior are the lofty names of 
the varieties of Sweet Corn upon which we have 
been luxuriating. The “Triumph,” originated by 
D. C. Voorhes, Blawenburg, N. J., and distributed 
by B. K. Bliss & Sons, was mentioned last year. 
“ Excelsior,” which was brought out this season 
by Washburn & Co., Boston, is the result of years 
of careful selection and improvement, by Thos. G. 
Potter, the well known seed-grower of Rhode 
Island, where they know what sweet com is. When 
we had Triumph on the table, that was voted the 
best, and on the days when Excelsior was before 
us, that was the best; then came days when we had 
both together, and we were confident of a final 
decision. One eating an ear of Triumph was sure 
that nothing could be better, until he had eaten an 
ear of Excelsior ; that was rather the best, but it 
was only fair to take another ear of Triumph in 
order to be sure; then that would be adjudged bet¬ 
ter than the other, and Excelsior must have another 
chance, and so on. We have arrived at the conclu¬ 
sion that the capacity of the human stomach is not 
sufficient to allow a fair decision to be reached, as 
to the relative merits of these two varieties. 
Either of them is good enough for any living mor¬ 
tal. The Triumph has a longer ear, but the rows 
upon the Excelsior are closer, and we think that 
it remains longer in the tender state, proper for 
eating; both varieties are abundantly productive 
and superlatively good. 
The Flower Garden has suffered from the co¬ 
pious rains. Two beds of ornamental planting are 
all I have time for. One was planted in concentric 
lines of “foliage plants,” the outer one being 
Centaurea gymnocarpa, which now presents a sorry 
6iglit, at least half the plants having decayed. 
Another bed, which I regarded as very effective, is 
a good sized circle, margined with two lines of 
Ecfieveria secunda glauca ; within are nice, thrifty, 
medium-sized agaves, aloes, and similar plants, 
and among them was planted an abundance of 
Othonna sedifolia —introduced a gew years ago un¬ 
der the incorrect name of 0. oassifolia— which 
made a dense charming green carpet, against 
which the other plants were seen with fine effect. 
I have but little fancy for garden embroidery, and 
the working out of stiff patterns with plants instead 
of colored worsted, but here was something worth 
looking at, and it received a tribute of admiration 
in a daily morning and evening visit. The rains 
came, and dampness prevailed, and the fleshy 
Othonna , which rejoices in a prolonged baking, 
was a succumbed succulent, and the bed in which 
1 took so much pleasure, now looks like a parlor at 
house-cleaning time—the furniture is there, but the 
carpet is up. A short spell of dry weather will 
bring it all right again, as the stems of the Otlumna 
are still alive. Let me in passing say another 
word for this Othonna , which is now to be had of 
all the florists ; it is one of the most useful plants 
for a hanging-basket that I know of, and grows 
admirably in a dry room. For engraving and de¬ 
scription, see Agriculturist for December, 1873, 
page 459. The most showy thing in the garden, is 
A Bed of Cannas,— Cannas which are Cannas, 
and it came about in this way. Mr. George Such, 
of South Amboy, N. J., asked in the spring if I 
would try a set of his new Cannas ; of course I am 
always ready to try any new thing, and accepted 
them. My former experience with new Cannas had 
not shown them to be superior to the older sorts, 
and I hesitated about giving these new comers the 
post of honor ; however, in deference to Mr. Such, 
the new comers had the bed on the lawn, and the 
old ones placed in the back-ground. That bed is 
now just splendid ; we had reached quite as perfect 
foliage before, but these, while they are equal to 
the older kinds in the luxuriance and color of their 
leaves, flower with an abundance and brilliancy of 
which I did not suppose the Canna capable. 
“ Prince Imperial,” “ Gloire de Lyons,” and others 
are intense in their scarlet and crimson, and there 
are fine orange and salmon colored ones; “Impe- 
