only one in fifty worth looking at- Asters, stocks, 
and balsams have been brought to such high excel¬ 
lence by careful culture and skillful saving of the 
seed of the best flowers, that those who grow from 
penny and two-penny packets have no idea of the 
beauty of the flowers which may be secured from a 
pinch of first-rate seed. Asters are now to be had 
of the size and fullness of dahlias, and of all shades 
of color. Balsams the same. Stocks of the best 
kinds produce grand pyramids, equal to the best 
hyacinths, ami all the leading annuals are saved in 
distinct colors, so that the grower is in no quandary 
as to what the tints will be, if the seeds come from 
a first-rate house, and are sown separate as received, 
and with tallies to distinguish them. There is an 
immense trade carried on in penny packets of dead 
or worthless seeds in London, and that is one reason 
why the London people are so far behindhand in 
the growth of flowers. As a rule, never save seed 
of your own growing; you can buy for sixpence 
what it will Gost you live shillings in trouble to 
obtain; and there are a hundred chances against 
your saving a siogle pinch that shall be wovth the 
paper you wrap it in." 
Gkowino P.konikh PI!dm Skkd.—I Should like very much to 
know how to procure 1’fBonie- from the need—that is. how to 
save the seed, and what time to plant them, &o.? At some 
convenient season will you he kind enough to tell us through 
our friend, the RcuscV— Hkkiikrt, Urislol , R. I. 
We would gather and plant the seed as soon ns ripe, in a 
well prepared tied, covering about half an inch. It will take 
four or five years to obtain flowers from seed. The better 
wav for an amateur would lie to obtaiu plants in the autumn, 
of some of the Well known good varieties, from the nurseries. 
months, begin to languish, and at last will perish 
altogether. Take it up, and examine the roots, and 
you will find that the dead sticks gave rise to the 
growth of fungus, which has covered them with 
white threads; these threads have taken hold of the 
living roots, and have utterly checked their vegeta¬ 
tive powers, and even tho soil all round them is 
tinged of a ghastly blue, and would poison what¬ 
ever might be planted in it. I have lately seen so 
many instances of the pernicious -effects of decay¬ 
ing wood, that I would never rooie allow a single 
inch of dead stick to lie about anywhere, unless I 
knew that these Underground fungi were unknown 
iu the neighborhood. Two winters ago, I had to 
remove the whole of the soil from a border 200 feet 
long, owing to the state it had been brought to by 
an old fence, the posts of which had rotted, and 
spread the fungi about to such an extent that entire 
cart-loads were removed, in which there was not a 
single spadeful of soil of its natural color; it was 
uniformly tinged with a grayish blue, and smelt 
powerfully of toadstools. In such stuff as that 
nothing will grow, and trees and shrubs rapidly 
contract the disease about their roots, so as to 
become positively rotten from the collar down¬ 
wards, aud all the pruning, mamtring and watering 
that can be given them is so much labor and mate¬ 
rial wasted. 
« With trees so affected, there is but one course,—to 
burn them. I have tried washing, scrubbing, paint¬ 
ing tbeir roots with lime and soot, and other plans 
UOTES IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
There seems to be an increasing taste for small 
pl H e and white flowers. The great demand of our 
seedsmen is for the kinds that will produce small 
a nd delicate flowers, that will bear cutting well, and 
are therefore suitable for small hand bouquets. 
For this purpose the Candytufts are excellent, the 
y el0 While particularly so, while the Sweet Scented 
with small foliage, is very pretty. The Sweet Alys- 
siim is one of the most valuable plants of this class, 
growing about a foot in height, and covering the 
ground if planted about a toot apart- The White 
Sweet Pea is rather large for the purpose, but its 
fragrance is unequaled, and should be grown in 
large quantities, for nothing will be in more gen¬ 
eral demand. 
Among the small blue flowers, the Campanula 
speculum is desirable, which, like all we have 
named, is an annual, hardy, and free bloomer. 
Phacelia congests is a free bloomer, of a light, 
bright blue, as hardy as a weed. Eutoca visddtt is 
one ot the brightest blues that can be imagined. 
The leaves are clean and healthy in their appear¬ 
ance. but a dullish green. The whole plant has a 
vigorous look, and grows about a loot in height. 
The flowers are not sufficiently abundant to suit our 
taste, but they are of great brilliancy, being of the 
deepest, azure blue. One of the best, if not the best 
of all our small flowers, is the WkiUavia grandi/lora. 
It cannot be called new, as it has been pretty gen¬ 
erally grown in Europe for six or seven years; but 
we have seen it in this country only in a few cases. 
It commences blossoming in the hot-bed, or only 
when a few inches iu height, and continues during 
the season, bears transplanting well, endures the 
hottest, dryest. season, and is quite desirable. 
Among all the bright blue flowers of larger size, 
nothing surpasses for variety and brilliancy of color¬ 
ing the Delphiniums. Very few are aware of the 
beauty of the Dwarf Pocket Larkspur when well 
grown. It. is certainly one of the most showy orna¬ 
ments of the flower garden; but for cutting, the 
Branching is the most useful. It grows from, to 
three feet in height, the flowers are ii\ spikes, and 
blue, white, pink, and vnriegated v The seed should 
he sown in the autumn, tq bbtain fine plants the 
next spring. There are several perennial varieties, 
of the most brilliant shades of blue, perfectly hardy. 
Seed for these should be sown in Juue, and good 
flowers will be produced the next season, and plants 
may be multiplied by dividing the roots. 
Last season we obtained seeds of a novelty— Callb- 
opsis cwduminifolia hybnda, the plant being repre¬ 
sented as of a pyramidal.globular growth.andcovered 
with thousands of brilltaut yellow flowers. The 
seeds were sown in the spring of 1S61, and the 
plants produced did not meet our just expectations; 
but knowing that the Coreopsis cannot be grown in 
perfection if the seed is sown in tho spring, we 
waited for another trial before condemning this as 
unworthy of the praise it had received iu Europe. 
This spring we were much surprised to find that 
every plant of last year had endured the winter, and 
that each was throwing up a compact mass of 
leaves and branches. The plants are between two 
and three feet in height, with a beautiful globular 
head really covered with flowers, like our well 
known Yellow Coreopsis. It has truly a beautiful 
habit 
Lychnis Haageana has proved exceedingly desira¬ 
ble. If treated like a tender annual, and plants are 
grown in a frame with Ten- Week-Stocks, Ac., and 
transplanted in June, it will flower in July and 
continue during the season. The blossoms are 
almost as large as Dianthus Heddewlgii, and we 
have them scarlet and white. 
In our vegetable garden we have been testing 
several kinds of early cabbage, and alter a trial of 
two seasons we are satisfied that in this climate 
Wheeler Imperial is the best early cabbage grown. 
It heads well if the soil is even tolerable, grows 
very rapidly, and is not as liable to injury from 
insects as tho slow growing kinds, while, for the 
table we have no hesitation in saying it is unsur¬ 
passed. This is good enough if two or three plant¬ 
ings are made until winter cabbage is ready; but as 
this is some trouble, it may be followed by Winning- 
stadt, set out at the same time. This is a good 
variety if the seed is true, but a good deal we see 
growing shows mixture very plainly. 
Tkiomihik T)K (Saxo STUAWREKitr — Will you inform me 
tlirilllRh the columns of your valued paper whether the 
Triomphe de Gund strawberry is calculated to do well by 
itself, or whether it neod* a fertiliser; aud if so, what is best? 
—Sl'iiscmmsit, Auljurn. 1SB2. 
The Triomphe needs no fertilizer, 
ftovticuttuval ^otes 
Cherriks—Prodcctitknkss. —Among the many evidences 
we have received of the unusual productiveness of the cherry 
trees the present season, one of the most remarkable was a 
branch of the Black Maz.zard variety, five inches in length 
and hearing 140 specimens. For this we are indebted to 
Thomas Pkikst, of Webster, N. Y. 
Qcinoks for the Tka Tabus.— Bake ripe quinces thor¬ 
oughly, and when cold, strip off the skins, place them in. a 
glass dish, and sprinkle them with white sugar, and serve 
them witli cream. They make a fine-looking dish for the tea 
table, and u more luscious and inexpensive one Uian the same 
fruit made into sweetmeats. 
Tue Garden may be laid out with care and taste, 
and be planted with the choicest trees and shrubs, 
yet if destitute of convenient seats, it lacks a feature 
which gives an air of quiet comfort and ease to the 
whole scene. The garden is for pleasure and ease; 
A PERMANENT BLACK, 
Place in the garden, then, seats at all 
Garden- Walks.—N o garden can look well with¬ 
out neat walks, and no walk can be neat unless 
well made and drained. For keeping down weed3, 
or rather grass, which will appear at the edges of 
the best constructed walks, because the earth will 
wash upon it from the grass, there is nothing like 
salt. But the making of walks is so important a 
matter, that we give the author’s remarks entire:— 
“ Walks should be so made as to be hard aud dry all 
the year round, and unless well drained and with a 
good foundation, this is impossible. A mere sur¬ 
facing of gravel on a soft bottom may do very well 
for summer wear, and oven then will be continually 
broken up by worms; but during continued rains, 
and all through the winter, every footmark will 
leave a hole, and it will be impossible to traverse it 
without getting the feet, plastered with mud. In 
small gardens there is no better place for a pipe-drain 
than under the main walk. The drain should be 
laid at from two to three, feet deep, according to the 
level of the outlet. In making a walk, let the botr 
tom be taken out and the whole of the loam removed 
to the depth of a foot. Then lay down six Inches of 
whatever bard rubbish can be got—such as factory 
clinkers, builders' rubbish, Ac., —and over this 
spread a layer of old mortar or lime rubbish and 
coal ashes, mixed together, quite to the level at 
which the walk is to remain. Give the whole a 
eood rolling, and leave it to settle. If made in the 
RUSTIC CHAIR, J 
Convenient points—under the shade of the trees, 
and on the lawn, at points where a good view of the 
grounds or the surrounding country can be obtained. 
This we advise not only for large places, hut even 
lor small gardens of a quarter of an acre or less. 
In some cases and situations it would be well to 
build a summer-house or arbor, with sufficient roof¬ 
ing to afford shade. This is particularly necessary 
in new places, before the trees are sufficiently 
grown to aft'ord proper shade and shelter. But the 
more simply everything of this kind is done, the 
better. There should be no attempt at anything 
very fine. This may be well enough in some of the 
I gardens of Europe, where everything is in keeping; 
but iu our places, the more plain and unpretending 
PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE 
W. D. Gai.laguer has recently made a report to 
the Kentucky State Agricultural Society, on the 
commercial value of Fruit Culture, from which we 
extract the following: 
« Of course, the first question that most men will 
ask, when solicited to embark in horticultural pur- 
is this: Will they pay? Upon which we re¬ 
sults, 
mark as follows: 
“], Remuneration is relative. To be considered 
intelligently, it. must, be looked at with reference to 
the capital invested, the amount of labor employed, 
and the extent ot the personal supervision required. 
Horticultural pursuits will not ‘pay’ as a winning 
game at cards pays. They will not pay as a suc¬ 
cessful speculation in breadstuff's or provisions pays. 
Nor will they pay as five per cent a month on 
money loaned pays. Nor yet as a New York hotel 
or a New England manufactory pays, when those 
concerned in it are ‘satisfied.’ But that horticul¬ 
ture, properly pursued —not as a fancy or an 
amusement, but as a regular branch of agricultural 
will pay a good interest on capital invested 
How to Make Cider Wine.—J. H. Keck, of 
Macon Co., Ill., gives the following method in the 
Country Gentle man;—Take pure cider, made from 
sound, ripe apples, as it runs from the press, put 
sixty pounds of common brown sugar into fifteen 
gallons ot the cider, and let it dissolve; then put 
the mixture into a clean barrel, fill it up within two 
gallons of being full, with clean cider; put the cask 
into a cool place, leaving the bung out for forty- 
eight hours; then put in the bung with a small vent, 
until fermentation wholly ceases, aud bung up tight, 
aud in one year it will be fit for use. This wine 
requires no racking; the longer it stands upon the 
lees the better. Thi3 wine is almost equal to grape 
wine, when rightly managed. 
labor- 
in it, and make a handsome remuneration for work 
performed, there is not the smallest room for even 
the smallest, doubt 
“2. Examples or very great success in this busi¬ 
ness, in the United States, are by no means rare. 
Four or five years ago, a peach orchardist in Ohio 
was offered $18,000 for tho fruit on twenty acres of 
and more 
Cream Beer. —As the warm weather is upon us, 
we begin to think of refreshing drinks. I have a 
famed recipe, which I give. It is an effervescing 
drink, but far pleasanter than soda water, inasmuch 
aa you do not have to drink for your life in order to 
get your money’s worth. The effervescence is 
much more slow. Two ounces of tartaric acid, two 
pounds white sugar, the juice of half a lemon, three 
pints of water. Boil together five minutes. When 
nearly cold, add the whites of three eggs well beaten 
with half a cup of flour, and half an ounce of 
essence of wintergreen. Bottle, and keep iu a cool 
place. Take two tablespoonfuls of this sirup for a 
tumbler ot water, and add one-quarter of a tea- 
spoonlul of soda.— Selected. 
to consolidate it, and before spring will have sunk 
so as to allow of two or three inches gravel. With 
proper rolling the walk will sink the first summer 
so as to make another coat of gravel requisite, and 
if this is laid down when the garden is in its full 
autumn splendor, the appearance of the scene will 
be much improved, and a thoroughly good path 
insured for the winter. The plentiful use of lime, 
whenever it can be had cheap, is a good preventive 
of worms, which play sad havoc with walks imper¬ 
fectly made. To keep a walk in order, let the roller 
be used liberally after a rain; aud iu spring, when 
weeds first make their appearance, get them out at 
once by hand-picking; if allowed to get. strong, 
there is often no remedy but turning the walk and 
raking the weeds put from among the gravel. Iu 
small gardens it is but a little labor to clear away 
all the weeds by using a pointed trowel when the 
gravel is wet with rain, and then giving a good roll¬ 
ing to close up the holes. 
WatbkPROOF Walks.— These are sometimes very 
serviceable iu places subject to damp, and for walks 
on which there is much daily traffic in ail weathers. 
The following instructions for their formation are 
given iu the Floral World:—- A layer of stones, 
brick-bats, shells, or clinkers, six inches deep, to 
torm a dry bottom; a layer of chalk or lime, iu the 
peach trees, while it was yet growing, 
than a month before the period at which the earliest 
part of it would ripen. lid declined the proposi¬ 
tion, and realized about $20,000 from the same 
fruit by gathering and selling it to consumers him¬ 
self. This, however, was a most extraordinary 
instance of a good combination of circumstances, 
viz: fine fruit, a ready market, and high prices. It 
is one ot those happy accidents which occur only 
once in a very long while. And, besides, tour or 
five years of labor and care had preceded this crop, 
which was the first borne upon the trees. 
*3. Some vineyards near Cincinnati have, in 
favorable seasons, produced nearly $1,000 per acre; 
but a much more common yield, one year with 
another, is about $250; a sum for about which good 
land in the Ohio Valley, easily accessible to the 
best markets, may be bought, trenched, planted, 
(the price of slips included,) staked, (with oak.) 
and cultivated to its fourth year. The fourth year 
brings a crop—though notafull one. Let the avails 
rustic seat. 
the better. Rustic work, if well made, always looks 
w r ell. We give specimens of rustic seat3—one a 
chair, and the other attached to a tree. A very 
pretty seat can be formed around even a small tree. 
MAKING WINE 
Hard Times Pudding.—I saw in a late Rural a 
recipe for u Hard Times Pudding." I will give you 
mine, which I know to be excellent for farmers’ 
diDDer, if not for city folks:—Take one quart of 
sour milk, three spoonfuls of cream, four eggs, oue 
teaspoontul of soda, one of salt, any kind of dried 
fruit, stir in flour as thick as can be stirred handily, 
take a piece of cloth, wet it and put the mixture 
upon it and tie it up, leaving ample room to rise. 
Have a pot of boiling water, put it in and boil one 
hour. Do not lift the lid, nor lei it stop boiling. To 
be eaten with sugar and cream, or butter and sugar, 
Lillian 
We have a good many inquiries for a method of 
making currant and other wine. The process is 
similar in all cases, no matter what the fruit may be. 
The black currant, we think, makes the best wine 
of any of onr fruits, somewhat resembling port 
We have already published seveval methods, but 
give the following from the last number of the 
Ilorticulhirist: 
il 1. The currants should be fully ripe. 
‘•2. Have everything prepared beforehand—all 
the currants picked aud ready, as when one com¬ 
mences the process of making the wine he has no 
time to look about for materials of any kind. The 
work must be duue speedily, and with cleanliness. 
“ 3. Have ready a small press, a tub, a pounder, 
a pan to receive tlie juice, a measure, a dipper, a | 
funnel, aud the vessel to receive and ferment the 
wine. 
‘•4. To make five gallons of wine, use twenty 
pounds currants, and nine pounds double refined 
loaf sugar, to be dissolved iu some of the wine over 
the fire in a preserve kettle. To make a barrel of 
wine requires about one hundred and sixty-five 
pounds currants. Sixteen pounds yield one gallon 
of juice in a press—two and a quarter pounds sugar 
to each gallon of wine, which consists of currant 
juice and water, as hereinafter described. This 
does not make a sweet or sirupy wine. If sweet 
wind is desired, it inay be made at any time after 
the wine is fermented, by adding sugar to suit the 
taste. If more sugar is added than stated above, 
and well fermented, it adds strength and not sweet¬ 
ness to the wine. If the wine is not well fermented 
it remaius sweet, and is a simp, not wine. 
"5. Take twenty pounds currants; mash them 
well in the tub with a pounder; have ready a bag 
of light bagging; with a dipper put the pomace in 
the bag: lay this in the receiver, (mine is made of 
a half bushel measure fitted with a follower, with a 
wooden screw, Buch as is used on a carpenter’s 
bench, but placed perpendicularly.) The bag need 
not be tied, only doubled over in the receiver; then 
press gently at first, afterward more severely; when 
the juice is all pressed out. strain and measure it. 
I find it yields five quarts. Then take the pomace 
from the bag; place it in the tub, and pour on it 
five quarts pure rain water, (hard water will not 
do;) pound it. well, mixing with the water, and 
breaking such currants as did not. get cracked be¬ 
fore; then press as before. The yield will be some¬ 
thing over live quarts. Take the same pomace 
THE TOWN GARDEN 
Keene , Ionia Co., Mich, 
or sour sauce, 
anil 
youget theoi; out asters, stocss, Balsams, zinmasi 
and others prized for their high coloring and dis¬ 
tinctness of habit, should be purchased at none but 
first-class houses. The seed ot choice flowers is 
saved with as much care as gold dust—for it is gold 
dust iu another form—by all the leading growers. 
The plants for seed are picked with the greatest 
care; and as the best flowers produce the least seed, 
and single colorless and ragged ones plenty, that 
which is skillfully saved is valuable to a grain, and 
the rubbish is valuable only in pounds and bushels. 
All sorts of tricks are practised upon seeds. Good 
seed is purchased at a fair price, and mixed with the 
worst to increase its quantity, so that in a packet of 
some hundreds there will perhaps be only halt a 
dozen worth the trouble of culture, and yon cannot 
know it till your trouble is nearly over and the 
plants are in bloom; then you are dismayed to find 
Green Corn Budding. — Take one and a half 
dozen ears of green corn, split the kernels length¬ 
wise of the ear, with a sharp knife; then, with a 
case-knife, scrape the corn from the cob, leaving the 
hulls on the cots; mix it with three to four quarts of 
rich, sweet milk; add tour eggs, well beaten, two 
tablespoonfuls of sugar, salt to the taste; bake it 
three hours; to be eaten hot, with butter. 
Raisins—Tomato Figs. —Will some of the Rural 
readers please to give a recipe for making grape 
raisins, in the bunch; also a recipe for making 
tomato figs, and oblige—E. E. K., Kopies, IU., 1S62. 
