1870.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
61 
The Mexican Cobsea.—Variegation. 
The Mexican Cobsea is a rapidly growing 
climber, soon covering a trellis or lattice-work 
with handsome foliage, and later in.the 
season producing large bell-shaped flowers. 
It is interesting and attractive, and, though 
a quite old plant, is not very common in 
gardens, probably from the difficulty of 
starting it from the seed. It is properly 
a green-house perennial, but if it is started 
early enough, it will bloom the first season. 
Those who sow the seeds in the open 
ground, at the North, at least, will gene¬ 
rally fail, or ; if they do succeed in raising 
plants, they will be too late to bloom, un¬ 
less in an unusually prolonged season. 
Those who wish to start the Cobsea from 
seeds, can do so in a hot-bed, or in a sunny 
window. The seeds, which are large and 
flat, should be thrust into the soil edge¬ 
wise ; the plants are to be put out in a rich 
place when frost is no longer to be feared. 
It being a perennial, the florists usually 
keep plants grown from cuttings. The 
readiest way to obtain it is to procure 
well-established plants from a green-house. 
The flowers, which are two inches or more 
long, appear.late in summer, are at first 
green, and gradually change to a deep violet 
or purple, and last for a number of days. 
The large leafy calyx, and the long sta¬ 
mens, bent to one side of the flower, give 
it a striking air. In these days of varie¬ 
gated leaves, we are prepared to see any 
old floral friend wearing a “ motley coat,” 
and we were not altogether surprised when 
Mr. Peter Henderson pointed out to us a 
Cobsea which had taken a fashionable freak, 
and appeared in dappled leaves. Should 
the Variegated Cobsea appear as well out 
of doors as it does in the green-house, it 
will prove a very acceptable novelty, as its 
leaf markings are very well defined. The 
species generally in cultivation is Colcea scan- 
dens, a native of Mexico. The genus was 
named in honor of one Cobo, a Spanish priest. 
----->-•.- 
The Gigantic Water-bug. 
The large Water-bug must have been unusu¬ 
ally abundant last summer, as several have been 
Specimen the engraving was made, thus de¬ 
scribes their appearance, in large numbers at 
his place : “ About the middle of August, dur¬ 
ing a storm, after a rain ceased, large quantities 
GIGANTIC WATER BUG. 
sent us from different parts of the country. Mr. 
T. C. Grooms, Green Castle, Ind., from whose 
THE VARIEGATED MEXICAN COBiEA. 
of these bugs Were found on the ground. My 
attention was called to them by the chickens 
and turkeys making a noise. A neighbor of 
mine who has a tan-yard, found thousands of 
them in the yard. The water in the vats was 
covered with them. By. noon the next day 
after they came, they were all dead.”-This 
Water-bug (Belostoma grandis) belongs to the 
sub-order Hemiptera, which includes the true 
bugs, plant-lice, fleas, locusts, and other disa¬ 
greeable insects. There are several allied gen¬ 
era, which, like this, inhabit the water. Most 
of them swim on their backs, and their legs 
are admirably adapted for this kind of locomo¬ 
tion. They have a sharp sucker or proboscis, 
through which they take their food, and which, 
when not in use, is folded up under the chest. 
This insect lives on other insects, and is said to 
be very destructive to young fish; a friend 
informs us that he has been several times sharp¬ 
ly wounded by this water-bug while wading. 
The Egyptian Beet. 
In beets, deep color and sweetness seem to go 
1 ogether, but it is difficult to associate these two 
qualities with extreme earliness. The Bassano 
is a very early variety, but it is not of as fine 
quality as the Blood Turnip, which is a week 
or ten days later. Besides earliness and good 
qualities for the table, a handsome shape, small 
top, and slender tap-root are desirable. Some 
think that perfection has been reached in 
Dewing’s Early; others consider Hatch’s the 
best of the early beets, and this year the Egyp¬ 
tian puts in a claim for superiority. The seed 
was introduced last year by a German seedsman 
Who states that the variety came from Egypt. 
It is said that the leaves are distinct in 
character and are very ornamental, as is 
the plant when the roots are set out the 
second year for seed. It must he recollected 
that beets are used in Europe in ornamental 
planting for the sake of the effects of color 
produced by their foliage. We have not 
seen the leaves, but the roots as raised by 
B. K. Bliss & Son, were of fine shape, and 
were within of an intensely red color. We 
give an engraving showing the form. 
An Experiment with 25 Varieties of 
Tomatoes. 
BY PETER HENDERSON, BERGEN CITY, N. J. 
Last spring we gathered together all the 
varieties of Tomatoes that could be obtain¬ 
ed, with the view of testing their respective 
merits. By sowing time, we found we had 
upwards of two dozen varieties, or at least 
that number of papers, with different names 
attached. These were carefully sown un¬ 
der glass on March 20tli, in a temperature 
averaging70°. In three weeks the plants 
were an inch high, when they were trans¬ 
planted, at about the distance of an inch 
apart, into boxes containing three inches 
depth of soil. Remaining in these boxes 
for three or four weeks longer, they were 
again transplanted into cold-frames, this 
time, six inches apart, and grown carefully 
by attention to ventilation and watering, 
until it was safe to plant in the open 
ground, which, in this district, is the latter 
part of May. All were planted on the same 
day, May 26th, and tied up carefully as they 
grew to stakes placed three feet apart. On 
the 6tli of August they gave the following 
results, which satisfy us that the difference 
in earliness of the varieties of different toma¬ 
toes can never exceed ten days; even if the very 
earliest and latest are taken to test. For ex¬ 
ample, we find that in 8 varieties, all claiming 
to be earlier than the earliest, 12 lbs. of fruit 
taken from each did not vary 48 hours in the 
ripening, though in some cases a single fruit 
might be a week in advance of the others, as in 
the case of Keyes’ Prolific, but its main crop in 
EGYPTIAN BEET 
weight was rather behind, hence, for market 
purposes, could not be claimed as early. Our 
