aright, cut-worms made great, havoc among 
Mr. E. S. Rogers’ young plants. Give 
the bed a light sprinkling of Peruvian 
guano before rains, which sprinkling should 
be repeated at least every ten days. The 
plants must be kept growing without 
check from the time they are visible till 
the middle of August. Mildew may be 
looked for after the 10th of July, and once a 
week, at least, after the first of July, and 
oftencr, if rains are frequent, the bed should 
have a liberal dusting with sulphur, sprink¬ 
ling it on when the leaves of the seedlings are 
wet with rain or dew. By the middle of 
August the vines should be at least eight to 
twelve inches high, and at that time the 
leading shoot, must, he pinched off, and also 
any laterals that may afterwards be thrown 
out. No guano need be applied after the 
middle of August, but the bed should be 
constantly hoed and kept clean. 
About September 1st, the base of the canes 
should begin to brown, showing that the 
wood is ripening. As soon as frost has de¬ 
stroyed the leaves, the tops may he cut down 
to one hud above tbe ripe wood ; or, if they 
have ripened very well, three or four inches 
of ripe wood maybe left, and the rest cut off. 
The young vines may then be lifted from the 
seed bed, half the roots trimmed off, and set 
out in the bed where they are to remain till 
they either fruit or show their incapacity to 
do so. The bed to which they have been 
transferred should he covered for the winter 
with two or three inches of leaves, kept 
down by pine branches or boards, to be re¬ 
moved early in the spring. Seedling vines 
should make a growth of four or five feet the 
second year, two-thirds of which should be 
cut off in the second autumn. The vines 
should be kept within reasonable bounds 
until they blossom. 
I have never had a seedling fruit, earlier 
than the fifth year from the seed, and then 
only a small percentage of the whole num¬ 
ber. As soon as a vine blossoms the llowers 
should be examined, and if found staminate, 
the vine should be at once destroyed. No 
seedling should he condemned or approved 
until it has fruited at least three years. If it 
shows merit it should be closely watched, its 
time of blossoming, coloring, ripening, &c., 
carefully noted, and the flavor of its fruit 
tested by comparison with well known and 
standard kinds. 
Perhaps on the whole, the Concord and 
its best seedlings are the best grapes from 
which to raise new vines. Ilealth, vigor 
and productiveness are attained in them, 
other brush, and some of the waste vinos 
from the vegetable garden. The bed should 
be well drained to prevent the action of 
frost affecting the plants injuriously. When 
plants are wanted for early spring blooming 
or sale, they are best wintered in a cold 
frame in rich soil. Covering the glass with 
mats, set them at sufficient distance apart to 
allow of good spring growth. As they' 
flourish in quite cold weather the mats may 
answer to inquiries in a late Rural New- 
Yorker on this subject, I give the following 
methods, which may be practiced with more 
or less success, according to the care or skill 
of the operator. 
Propagation in the usual way, by slips or 
cuttings, is somewhat slow and uncertain, 
owing to the peculiar nature of the cellular 
tissue of tbe wood to be propagated from, 
and is very rarely successful, even when 
a minute; it’s nothing hut pizen tobacco /” 
Sure enough! “ Out of the mouth of 
babes proceedeth wisdom 1 ” The secret 
was discovered. In fact, I was convinced of 
it long before. And when I looked at that 
delicate child who would never blossom to 
womanhood in this world, and knew that 
she was dying of slow poison, I wondered 
wltal Deacon Smudge would say if 1 were to 
accuse him of the veritable crime he so mue.li 
abhored ! Nay, a worse crime than murder 
lies at his door, for a slaughtered innocent is 
forever beyond the reach of suffering, and if 
its little life-germ is a soul, God will rare for 
it, tenderly. But to preserve a life that it 
may ho stunted and disfigured, to entail a 
life-time of suffering upon one’s children, to 
give them appetites which will torture and 
goad them like the tiresol hell,— irfmt crime is 
equal to this? Better send them into eterni¬ 
ty at once where the angels may find and 
care for them. 
Ami right here I should like to say a few 
words to Deacon Smudge and to all other 
unintentional child-poisoners. 
Nicotine, a volatile alkaloid, is tin* active 
principle of the tobacco plant. It is a color¬ 
less, inflammable, oily liquid, with a power- 
fill and irritating odor of tobacco, and is a 
most energetic poison, falling scarcely below 
prussic acitl in its destructive properties. 
One drop is sufficient to kill a large dog. It 
is contained ouly in (in: smoke of the burn¬ 
ing leaves, and the tobacco cbewer is there¬ 
fore exempt from its ravages. 
Now let us look into that kitchen contain¬ 
ing eight children of various ages and lung- 
power, and throe grown people, (with a cat 
and dog very likely, which consume nearly 
as much oxygon as human beings.) Bee the 
blue smoke creeping everywhere, carrying 
in its graceful whirls the subtlest poison; re¬ 
member that at every inspiration the lungs 
of an ordinary person contains two hundred 
and thirty cubic inches of air, and we 
breathe about fourteen times each minute, 
making3,220 cubic inches of air passing in 
and out of the lungs during one moment. 
Air made impure by any cause, will pro¬ 
duce giddiness, faintness, nausea, stupor, de¬ 
lirium and death. It produces scrofula, 
which, if localized in the lungs, ends in tuber¬ 
cular consumption, —which is fast removing 
pretty Lillian from Deacon Smudge’s arms. 
Air poisoned by nicotine and breathed 
from tbe hour of birth by a helpless infant, 
born of a mother already impregnated with 
the “oil of tobacco smoke," will produce 
constipation, pallor, convulsions, stupidity, 
and even idiocy; which is verified in the case 
of Deacon Smudge’s *' Bub.” A child who 
breaths this air for one hour, has done what 
is equivalent to smoking a cigarette. Tim 
mother has done likewise. What the lath¬ 
er’s case must be, with the death-dealing 
poison oozing from his pipe to his lips, 1 will 
leave him to judge. 
My plea is for the poor, smoked babies, 
who are powerless to protect themselves 
against hysteria, idiocy, insanity, which is 
contained in the fascinating blue wreaths 
which curl from the lips of its “doting pa- 
rient.” 
ngreme Mufoximtion 
ABOUT SMOKED BABIES, 
BY MRS. GEO. E. HALL 
Israel Smudge is a highly respected and 
respectable Deacon of “ our church.” He. 
lias been a pious, prayerful man all his life. 
Quite scholarly, too, is he, after a fashion of 
his own ; and, like all great, thinkers, he pos- 
sessesa “hobby,” which he rides vigorously, 
to and fro. ills hobby is, curiously enough, 
Infanticide. If you should hear him rave 
about the alarming prevalence of this crime, 
and scan the statistics which he has accumu¬ 
lated concerning it, you would look upon the 
present generation of Women as little less4han 
wholesale murderers. Israel naturally ab¬ 
hors the Sixteenth Amendment, and clamors 
loudly for a law which slmll inflict the se¬ 
verest punishment, upon every female who 
shall in any way, intentionally quench the 
tiniest, spark of life intrusted to her care. 
Israel’s wife is a gentle Quakeress. Of 
course their home is, poetically and literally, 
fragrant with human blossoms. A stranger 
on entering, might suppose it to he an em¬ 
bryonic. Foundling Asylum, especially as the 
" wee bit bairns ” have everyone a pinched, 
uncanny look, a nervous, restless manner, 
such as one expects to find in half-starved, 
deserted Infants. Not that Isr ael’s children 
are uncared for; not that food is lacking in 
that, hospitable farm-house. They are fond¬ 
ly loved, every one of them, by both father 
and mother Smudge, aud everything which 
money can do for them is promptly done; 
yet Deacon Smudge’s children are like 
blighted flowers. 
His oldest, pretty Lillian, aged fourteen, 
is a fast friend of mine. She loves me de¬ 
votedly, unselfishly; and proves it by pouring 
into my cars all Ivor trials and troubles, 
whose name is legion. She is the least un¬ 
canny oft,ho whole eight; but she has a petu¬ 
lant, irritable temper, a morbidly sensitive 
nature, and a total lack of self-control, will¬ 
power, which makes life a constant torture 
to her. She rarely sees a happy or a peace¬ 
ful moment, and her delicate chest already 
rattles with incipient consumption. 
Her visits to me are frequent; but Sunday 
night invariably brings her into my little 
room. 1 often wondered at I his, knowing how 
strictly the Sabbath was observed by Deacon 
Smudge, so I ventured to question Lillian 
ouc quiet. Sabbath evening 
A SEEDLING DOUBLE FLOWERING GERANIUM 
be removed early in spring, when they will 
at once begin to grow, and come early to 
bloom. 
For later planting they are best wintered 
in the original seed bed, and transplanted 
where desired at time of gelling other bed¬ 
ding plants; with good cultivation they will 
come soon into bloom, and continue up to 
the hot weather of summer, if picked freely. 
Very large flowers are obtained by a libe¬ 
ral use of fertilizers. The best., for Urn pur¬ 
pose, is obtained by filling a barrel from the 
cow-yard, and leaching this with rain or 
river water, and applying the liquor diluted 
to the rooks of the plants. Amateurs form 
a cup-slmpcd cavity around the roots, till 
with the liquid manure ami cover it with 
soil, sprinkling the plants with fresh water 
afterwards to keep the foliage clean. As 
they will bloom but little during hot weather, 
unless freely watered, the large stalks may 
be cut off, and new shoots allowed to grow, 
which will become vigorous during the fall, 
and bloom until covered with snow; indeed, 
we have gathered fine bouquets of blooms 
during a thaw at the holidays. 
As the plauts come into bloom, those not 
showing flowers of colors clear and well de¬ 
fined, should at once be removed. Those 
in which the colors run, or blend, so as to 
give them a greenish or muddy appearance, 
are not worth cultivation. Tbe standard 
shape of the flower when the leaves arc 
flattened on the hand, is that they should he 
nearly a circle, and, under good culture, as 
large as a silver half dollar. By placing a 
She had stolen 
iu just, at dark, and thrown herself into my 
lap, her little curly head resting on my 
shoulder, it was early spring, and the deli¬ 
cious breath of apple blossoms came in at 
the open window. Birds still lingered ten¬ 
derly over the last good night note, the last 
sunset gleams still flushed the sky, loth to 
depart. The t ranquil evening touched some 
harmonious chord in her heart, for she clasp¬ 
ed her transparent fingers over her breast 
and said :—“ If the world could be like this 
always, and I could have a sweet little homo 
like yours, I should be so happy and good.” 
“But,” I said, “your home is far more 
beautiful than mine, Lillian ; think of your 
dear little brothers and sisters, and-” 
She put her hands over her ears quickly. 
“O, don’t!” she said, with a shudder. 
Then I put my question:—“ Lillian, why 
do you always come to me Sabbath morn¬ 
ings?” 
She jerked herself out of my lap and 
flung her scarf into its place. “Smell of 
that,” she said, abruptly ; “ and that, and 
that.,” tossing hat and gloves after it. 
I obeyed, laughingly. The odor was cer¬ 
tainly disagreeable, but not new to me, for 
everything the Smudge’s wore was saturated 
with it, and 1 had sometimes found it a great 
trial to hold that golden-haired girl so near 
my olfactories. Something of the kind I 
said to her, ns gently as possible. 
“ That’s it precisely,” she answered ; 
“ that’s what’s killing us all. It’s bad enough 
week-days, when father only comes in to 
meals; but Sundays it’s positively awful. 
Father just sits and smokes and smokes , and 
Uncle Jabez comes over and smokes and 
smokes, hour after hour; and lheru wc all 
sit, huddled up in the kitchen, and eat and 
drink and breathe Lhe nasty stuff until I 
just think I’ll go mad! And the children 
always get cross and sick, and mother 
coughs and strangles, and my head whirls, 
and 1 get blind almost, and thou I run away 
and come to you.” 
“ Why don’t you go iuto the parlor, 
Lillian? ” 
“ Ugh! Eight children in the parlor all 
at once! Guess you never kept house! Be¬ 
sides, the parlor’s just ’bout as bad in five 
minutes, if the door’s open ! I can’t go to 
bed, ’cause my room’s right over the kitchen, 
and it’s fairly blue up there." 
The little thing cried a moment, and then 
burst out again: 
It’s no wonder Bub’s a fool! I should 
think we’ll all he fools soon, shouldn’t you? 
And there’s father a-mnning after the doctor 
a dozen times a week, to see what’s the mat¬ 
ter with some of us, ami I could tell him in 
bariJcnrr 
Alim [I*)- mi- lit Of Rotters* Hybrid*. 
The Germantown Telegraph says;—“It 
is suggested that most of these grapes are 
much benefltted, in having their branches 
perfected, by alternating them with rows of 
the Delaware and Hartford, which bloom at 
the same time, and assist in fertilizing the 
others, which do not seem to supply a suffi¬ 
ciency of pollen for their own thorough fruit¬ 
ing. We know this is the case with the Al¬ 
len raspberry, which, when so assisted, is 
one of the most luscious of the family. It is 
also so with strawberries, as we all know. 
GARDEN NOTES 
A New Watering: i’nt. 
A new thing in water pots has appeared 
iu England. There is no rose but the spout, 
which is pierced with holes, and indeed acts 
as a rose. 
TomlH in tile Garden. 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Entomologist, 
who keeps a large number of toads in his 
garden for the purpose of destroying other 
iusects, says that when first, a toad is brought 
into a garden and set at liberty, he will 
usually strike for some oilier parts the first 
night, but a few days penning up seem to 
attach him to the locality, lie may bo set¬ 
tled for the season in almost any particular 
locality by simply penning him up in a tem¬ 
porary inclosure for a few days, and then 
removing the inclosure without disturbing 
him. 
Weeds ia Walks. 
Those who have made walks in lawns 
and pleasure grounds, have had no little 
trouble iu keeping them free from unsightly 
weeds- Many devices have been employed 
to overcome the difficulty, with varying suc¬ 
cess. The following, from the Canada 
Farmer, can be easily applied, and is well 
worth a trial:—“A most efficient agent lor 
the destruction of weeds, and one not ex¬ 
pensive, can be made by boiling four pounds 
of arsenic, and eight pounds of soda in twelve 
gallons of water. To every gallon of this 
boiling mixture three gallons of cold water 
should be added, and the liquid care fit fly 
sprinkled over the walks Avhile it is yet warm. 
It, is desirable to do this in tine weal her, and 
when the walks are dry, so that, the weeds 
and weed seeds may have full benefit of the 
application. Care must he taken not to let 
any of Lhe liquid fall on the leaves or roach 
the roots of any plants it is not desired to 
kill. In twenty-four hours after the poison 
is put on the walks every weed will he kill 
ed; and if it he once thoroughly done, it. 
will keep the walks clean through the whole 
season.” 
DOUBLE-FLOWERING GERANIUM 
Our florist friend, John Saul, Washing¬ 
ton, D. G., has produced a seedling double- 
flowering Geranium that promises to sur¬ 
pass in delicate color and finely-formed truss¬ 
es of compact small double flowers, any of 
the varieties which have yet appeared. It 
is a sport from the well-known Glorie de 
Nancy. Its flowers are very double, small, 
individually, and very delicate; but the 
truss is large and strong. In color it is a 
lovely rosy pink, clear, soft and beautiful. 
The plant is a free grower and a profuse 
bloomer. It originated in 1800. Our draw¬ 
ing was made from a plant in "Mr. Saul’s 
greenhouse, where their appearance was ex¬ 
tremely beautiful. It is, of course, drawn to 
a reduced scale, to accommodate our col¬ 
umns. 
Inrintltnrr 
PANSIES FROM SEED 
The Pansy, viola tri-color , is deservedly 
a favorite with amateur, as well as profes¬ 
sional florists, and should be more generally 
cultivated. It is easily grown from seed, 
delights in a rich and rather moist soil, 
which is best prepared by digging the 
ground deep, pulverizing it well, and mak¬ 
ing a liberal addition of well decomposed 
cow manure. Tbe seed should be fresh, as 
its vitality is not of great duration. In out¬ 
door cultivation the seed may be sown du¬ 
ring July and August, iu rows, and quite 
thin, that the young plants may attain a 
good fall growth. At any good seed store 
may be obtained seed of both the Euglish 
and German varieties; the latter furnishing 
the greater proportion of the light-colored 
anil fancy varieties. 
After tbe young plants are well up, keep 
the ground free from weeds, well stirred, 
and if very dry, water thoroughly. The 
plants may remain in the seed bed during 
winter, protected by some evergreen or 
Blind Asters.” 
Joseph Bueck, ex-President of the Mass. 
Hurt. Soc,, has found that the cause of 
“ blind asters” is a worm in the pith of the 
stem of every sickly plant, lie thinks this 
a species of wire worm, and that he has 
missed it, planting the same ground with 
asters four successive years; that ihey should 
not be grown up op the same soil for more 
than two years. In planting on old ground, 
he would give the ground a good dressing of 
lime in the fall or early in the spring, which 
he thinks may prove’a preventive, although 
he has not tried it. 
P2E0NIA MONTAN—PROPAGATION. 
The Pmnia montun, or Chinese Tree 
Peony, is somewhat difficult of propagation, 
even in the hands of those whose business it 
is to reproduce it for their own profit., and 
whose practice may naturally la; supposed 
to be sharpened by that circumstance. In 
