io 
Early Tomatoes.— Hubbard’s Curled Leaf 
is the earliest variety we have ever grown 
in our garden, but its earlineas and produc¬ 
tiveness are its only merit, ns the plants have 
a withered and unsightly appearance, aQd 
the fruit is small and watery. Gen. Grant. Is 
quite early and good, as well as Cauada Vic¬ 
tor ; but of all the early varieties we have 
cultivated, Hathaway’s Excelsior ha3 proved 
the most satisfactory on our soil, which ia a 
gravelly loam.— h. l. 
Canada Viator Tomato. —I have seen this 
highly spoken of. Failed to get plants of it 
last year. 4Vho can give experience with 
it ? Ib it good for anything ? If so what 
are its particular merits | E. M. G. 
Little Heath Melon.— There is e, contro¬ 
versy abroad as to whether this melon is 
“nasty” or not. We have not yet formed 
an opinion as to which side will win. 
Onions for Market.—' The Danvers Yellow 
toward whioh they invariably went, never 
crossing the channel, I get but few. 
Wilson records a peculiarity of the Rail 
that is very singular. When frightened or 
angered, its passions operate so violently as 
to produce a kind of epileptic fit; it falls to 
the ground, stretches out its feet, bends its 
neck far back, and is to all appearance life- 
MUSHROOM CULTURE IN TAN 
AMERICAN GAME BIRDS.-IV 
It may be of interest to some of your read¬ 
ers to know that mushrooms can be grown 
A. RAIL. 
in tan. I have grown them with great suc¬ 
cess, for three successive years, in tan which 
had been used for hunters to trample on 
through the summer, and of course there is 
some of their manure incorporated with the 
tan. The genial heat that the tan gives 
renders it one of the best materials that can 
be used for the'growth of mushrooms. When 
well beaten together with the horse-dung, 
and in sufficient quantity, I find the mixture 
more productive and lasting than horse-dung 
alone. The beds are, in fact, masses of 
clumps with as many as from twenty to 
fifty in each, which could be and were often 
taken up whole. Some may aak, Does not 
tan produce unwholesome fungi l With me, 
and used as stated, there need be no fear of 
this ; I have not found one spurious one. As 
to flavor, they were pronounced by those 
who partook of them to be very 
savory and delicate. It must not be inferred 
that I recommend tan alone, but let a 
quantity be put in a loose, box, or any other 
suitable place where a horse is shut up for a 
H,i me, so that its man urn is well incorporated 
tvltk the tan, and use it when in a good 
Ifriablestate, neither wet nor dry ; if too wet 
the spawn will not run bo well, and if too dry 
the beds will not keep in bearing so long. 
My experience leads me to think that tan 
will be much sought after when its qualities 
are more known to mushroom growers, for I 
believe it to be superior to all droppings.— 
Charles Penford, in “Gardeners’ Chroni¬ 
cle. 
FLOBICULTURAL NOTES 
less ; but from this it recovers in a few 
minutes. R. E - R* 
Ascent of Water in the Stems of Plants.— 
Prof. McNab has presented to the Royal 
Irish Academy a memoir on the “ Ascent of 
Water in the Stems of Plants,” to investi¬ 
gate which point very many experiments 
were made. He finds in the privet the rate 
of ascent to be about 6 inches per hour ; in 
the elm, 16.6 inches ; in the cherry laurel the 
rate varied from 24 to 12 inches. Experi¬ 
ments were also made as to the influence of 
sunlight and darkness, the Influence of the 
bark, the influence of the leaves, and the 
influence of pressure. 
Green-Flavored Dianthus —Will you or 
some of your many readers have the kind¬ 
ness to inform me if a green-flowered Dian¬ 
thus is a common flower ? Among the seed 
planted by me last spring, one plant produced 
flowers one-half the size of a perfeot Dian¬ 
thus, of a deep green color, 1 am anxious to 
learn if others have them.—AMOS J. Potter, 
Henrico Co., Va. 
No ; we have seen green roses but never 
It seems to us it cannot be 
MANAGEMENT OF GEESE 
I take my pen to reply to Miss He Vwood’8 
inquiry about geese in Rural New-Yorker 
«f March 6. Geese are naturally great wan¬ 
derers, and for that reason they require a 
home of their own ; especially when harvest 
time approaches does this need most appear. 
If allowed to run they destroy much more 
than they are worth. A small piece of pas¬ 
ture land, through which runs a brook, is 
best calculated for geese ; even if the brook 
is small, they will love it, and with sticks 
and leaves dam it up until they they have a 
convenient place to wash and dive ; they 
love to keep clean. Inclose their home with 
a good fence. During the laying season, 
which commences as early as March, feed 
corn, buckwheat, oats, &c.; if cooked and 
fed warm it is much better. Geese also 
dearly love crumbs from the table, such as 
pancakes and potatoes, cut into small pieces 
and feed warm ; feed this once a day, and 
the above-mentioned once a day, as much as 
they will eat without leaving any. A little 
salt in their food improves it; also a quan¬ 
tity of loppered milk, if you have it, added 
after the food is cooked. 
If you have no nice little house for the 
goose to make her nest in, place n barrel in 
an elevated part of her lot or horoc, turn it 
on its side, place the open end of it toward 
the south, put in a few quarts of horse ma¬ 
nure ; over this place plenty of straw ; she 
requires enough to lay her eggs upon and 
cover them wich, for she never leaves them 
uncovered. My word for it, Goosie wi’l not 
green pinks, 
remarkable for beauty, but it may be worth 
propagating as a curiosity. 
Double Daisies.—' The Gardener’s Monthly 
says :—The English Daisy—Gowan of the 
Scotch poets—has been improved from time 
to time. Just now the “ Victoria” strain ia 
becoming popular in Europe. They are very 
beautiful in American spring gardening; 
but are somewhat difficult to get through 
our hot dry summers. Under the moisture 
of a hot bed sash, they got through very 
well, or in any similar place where they will 
not be subjected to a very dry summer air. 
Mulbhing Bedding Plants .— I think if all 
who want to grow flowers successfully would 
mulch the ground around the plants, as I did 
last summer, they would conquer dry weath¬ 
er to a certain extent. I used rotted manure 
and watered when plants needed it, giving 
them a good soaking and then let them alone 
till more water was wanted. This insures 
plenty of bloom.—R. S. B., Kansas City , Mo. 
Geraniums for Buttonhole Bouquets. —An 
English gardener 9ays:—“The doubles are 
the beBt for this purpose, as Incendie de 
Fontenay, Sapeur Pompier; La Vengeur, 
Victor Lemoine, Gambetta and Album ple¬ 
num. Of the singles—Harry Kmg, Master 
Christine, Reine Blanche, Bride, President 
Thiers, Mrs. Sach, and Diana. 
A Poetical Tribute to the, Rose.—A Ger¬ 
man lady, Countess Prokesch, has collected 
into a volume all the poems which could be 
gathered together from the works of German 
poets in honor of the Rose. It is said, that 
royalty figures largely in this poetic Rose 
garden. 
Sawdust.: in Flower Beds.—(Mrs. S. W.) 
—We know of no kind of sawdust that will be 
any benefit to flower beds until it is in a 
complete condition of decay, like other rot¬ 
ten wood ; then, mixed with soil, it will do 
no harm and be of much use to any flower 
bed. 
Rooting Cuttings.— Peter Henderson says 
that experiments with pure water, sawdust, 
charcoal, authraciie, brickdust and sand of 
all colors and textures show ed that cuttings, 
placed in each in the same temperature, 
rooted almost simultaneously and equally 
well. 
Daisy Queen Victoria.—We notice by a 
price list received that A. Hance & Son, Red 
Bank, N. J., are offering a large stock of this 
beautiful Daisy for sale. 
rise as the boat advances ana are snot wicn 
light charges, the boatman marking and 
picking them up, while the shooter loads. 
The sport continues till the decrease of the 
tide permits the running and skulking of the 
birds. 
Again, at the South the negroes kill them 
in this manner -. A kind of iron grate is fixed 
on the top of a stout pole, which is placed 
like a most in a light canoe and filled with 
fire. The darker the night the more suc¬ 
cessful is the sport. The person who man¬ 
ages the canoe is provided with a light pad¬ 
dle, 10 or 12 feet in length, and about an hour ] 
before high water proceeds through, among 
the reeds, which lie broken and floating on 
the surface. The whole space, for a consid¬ 
erable way round the canoe, is completely 
enlightened ; the birds start with astonish¬ 
ment, and, as they appear, are knocked over 
the head with a paddle and thrown into the 
canoe. In this manner from 20 to 80 dozen 
have been killed by three negroes in the 
short space of three hours. 
Audubon mentions having seen two nests 
of the Rail in the marshes of Lake Cham¬ 
plain, and I am inclined to think they breed 
in considerable numbers here, in the exten¬ 
sive marshes of Little Otter Creek, and 
probably in other marshes of like character. 
Certain it is, they are here every summer and 
fall, and sometimes in no small numbers. 
The individual from which the accompany¬ 
ing drawing was made was shot in the lo¬ 
cality first mentioned on Sept. 22, 1874, upon 
which occasion I saw more of these birds 
than ever before, I was rowing down the 
channel, alone, and the birds were continu¬ 
ally starting, as, alarmed at my approach, 
they rose from the lily-pads which inter¬ 
vened between the stream and the tall 
sedge3 and reeds of the marsh. Had I some 
one with me to row or paddle the boat, I 
might have made a large bag, but as it was 
pretty quick work, when a Rail rose, to drop 
my oars, pick up my gam and let fly at him 
before be reached the shelter of the marsh, 
GARDENERS’ N0TE8. 
Growing Parsley in, Beds of Manure.—In 
many places parsley is difficult to cultivate. 
In some situations the seed will not germi¬ 
nate and in others the young seedlings wither 
and die immediately after they come above 
ground. This used to be the way in which 
it behaved in the kitchen garden at Drum- 
1 an rig, and for yeare parsley there was 
scarce. Mr. Thomson has, however, entirely 
overcome the difficulty. After trying it in 
various ways and positions, he now grows it 
La beds made up wholly of rotten leaves and 
strong manure. Thus circumstanced it grows 
to perfection, and I lately saw there a large 
plantation of it in excellent condition. The 
roots ramify freely in the manure and the 
pdanta become so strong and vigorous as to 
defy all attacks of insects which formerly 
proved so destructive to it. The manure, 
too, does not soon become exhausted or need 
renewing ; bub if it did, the fine crops ob¬ 
tained from it would soon repay all trouble 
bestowed iu that direction.— Correspondent 
in Garden. 
Canada Victor Tomato.— On page 158 of 
the Rural New-Yorker Mr. Peter Hamil¬ 
ton wished to know what was the earliest 
tomato with the Rural gardeners. We 
have raised the Canada Victor for two 
I years, and I have found it to be much ear¬ 
lier than the other varieties. It i an excel¬ 
lent cropper, and when the fruit ripens it 
I has no green around the stem, as with some 
I ocher varieties. The fruit is of large size, 
I symmetrical and very handsome. Another 
POULTRY NOTES 
Creve-Coeur Eggs.—I know a hen that lays 
an egg, regular size, 6%x6 inches in circum¬ 
ference. The other rnbrning she produced 
one, of which the following ia the measure¬ 
ment 1% x 6X inches in circumference. 
How is that for a “big egg ?” The weight 
was 3% oz. Let me know who has imported 
Creve-Coeur stock.— Fred Cellem, Kala¬ 
mazoo, Mich. 
An Egg producing Feed for Fowls, highly 
recommended by a fancier who has tried it, 
is wheat and white peas, ground and mixed 
together as stiff as possible the night before 
and used only as a morning feed. 
