Aim. 27 
THf RURAL HEW-VORKEft. 
663 
- mg seen them thus grown together for years 
past. There were not a few old friends of the 
Wilson present, bnt there was no difference of 
opinion, so far as I coaid learn, as to the 
superiority of the Manchester. I am of opinion 
that we have in the Manchester a plant with 
all the vigor, raggedness and productiveness 
of the Wilson, and a very much better fruit. 
Let me say a word or two in support of 
"Stockman’s ” position about the gad-fly. My 
observation is to the effect that there is always 
an orifice in the skin immediately above the 
larva. Several years ago I made a prolonged 
visit at Mr. James Todd’s, an extensive Orange 
Co., N. Y., dairy farmer, and a good one, loo. 
(This is another family of Todds). Well, 
Jimmy Todd, Jr., and I used often to go up to 
the barn and squeeze the larvas out of the 
back of the old bull, just as a man squeezes 
the so called black-headed wormB out of bis 
nose or his face. The old fellow seemed to be 
grateful for it. Thera was no necessity for 
making a hole, for there was always one 
already there. 
There is a ring of the real metal in Mr. 
Bensel’s remarks on the quality of grapes, 
p. 516. Evidently he is a lover of good grapes 
and knows one when he sees it. He might 
have added the D daware to the Cataw ba, so far 
as the New Yoib market is concerned, for it 
at all times brought double the price, and late 
in the season five to eight times the price, of 
the Concord, as did also the Catawba. I 
think the Brighton £as now been sufficiently 
tried to be admitted to the select company of 
good grapeB; but in regard to eome others, I 
prefer negative goodness to positive badness. 
My theory has always been, that to secure 
good grapes you must first educate the public 
taste, and that the public is now at last doing 
for itself reasonably fast. There is a good 
deal still to be said and done on this subject. 
I have said that I began picking the Caro¬ 
line Raspberry on the 4th of July. On the 
4th of August five plants were picked, and 
furnished an abundant supply for a party of 
nine. I think this quite equals the editor’s 
picking. 
I. J. B. says the Spanish Chestnut is not 
hardy, according to his experience. This, to 
some, will be discouraging. Oa the other 
hand, there are quite a number of large bear¬ 
ing trees within 50 miles of New York (in 
Westchester Co., in New Jersey, on iitaten 
Island, etc..) that were notiDjured last Winter 
and are uow in fruit. 8ome of these trees 
must be quite 40 years old. Those of Mr. 
Meyer, on Staten Island, I think are about 
18 years old. These examples would go to 
prove the hardiness of this chestnut in a gen¬ 
eral way. B's trees were probably exposed to 
some local influence that helped to kill them. 
A large and well-grown plant of the Blue 
African Lily (Agapanthus nmbellatm) i6 a 
very beautilul subject for the lawn. Iis loDg 
and gracefully curved leaves and large umbels 
of brilliant blue flowers make it indeed, as its 
name indicates, a plant to be loved. It la now 
(Aug. 8) in full bloom with me. It is much too 
Beldom seen, but once successfully flowered, is 
not likely ever again to be abandoned. I pre¬ 
fer to grow it rather closely in a pot; and I 
not only keep the pot out of the ground, bnt 
elevate it on the the top of another. The 
effect will be even better if the plant be grown 
in a vase. * It Is only in this way that ihe fall 
beauty can be seen and appreciated. It 
should be daily and abundantly watered, and 
when thus treated doeB belter in the snn than 
in the shade. It will keep well in a cool cel¬ 
lar during the Winter, and bloom all the 
better for lts rest. There is an interesting but 
rare white form of this. 
On looking over the strawberry beds I find 
the Sharpless very badly browned by, the 
drought and heat; much more so, indeed, than 
any ether variety I have. I find this to be the 
case wherever I have seen it this Summer. 
[Not so at the Rural Grounds.— Eds ] It 
would appear to be a characteristic fault, and 
I am sorry it is so. The Bidwell bears the 
heat about as well as any aud looks well. It 
promisee to take a permanent place among 
the “ creams,’’ that being the proper word just 
now in polite horticultural circles. Next It 
will probably be the "creamof the creams,’’ a 
sort of very high-toned horticultural aristoc¬ 
racy. Hobtioola. 
-- 
RAY8. 
Yes, Mr. Parnell, the climbing cobaea is a 
handsome vine. An old lady, a neighbor of 
mine who has no greenhouse, has a very big 
cot®*; she plants it out in May and runs it 
up on a trellis alongside of her parlor window, 
and away it goes from the trellis-top 
on strings to the chamber window above, a 
thicket of vines and leaves and fall of its big 
purplish blossoms. In the Fall she shortens 
back the vines, lifts and pots the plant, 
keeps it for a while on the piazza, and then 
sends it to bed in the cellar till April, when it 
is again brought forth to the piazza so that 
the influence of sun and moisture may start it 
a little before planting-out time conies. 
* * 
This old lady is a great gardener ; she has 
a large, rough yard but a multitude of plants 
and blossoms. She saves her own seeds, ex¬ 
changes with her neighbors, aud in this way 
increases her stock. Her heart Is in her gar¬ 
den, and, weather permitting, she is nearly 
always there herself; this Btrict attention 
gives her good results; Bhe eavefc and pre¬ 
serves her plants while her neighbors by over¬ 
sight lose a lot, and in order to recuperate 
their store must buy or get afresh. They so 
arrange it that they buy what our old lady has 
not got, share with her and she with them, or, 
in other words, the neighbors furnish the money 
and the old lady the brains. 
* * 
The Rural folks have so much to say 
about strawberries, that, like myself, I reckon 
they have a biting fondness for them. All the. 
people hereabout are planting the Sharpless 
and many cannot get enough of it to plant. 
It is late, a rank grower and heavy cropper, 
and has large but very homely berrieB ; " put- 
ting-np ” is the end they have in view. 
* * 
I was amused the other day to find in one of 
our most pretentious gardens, the owner 
of which is worth bis millions, in a moist and 
faintly shaded nook, a patch of our common 
wild strawberry evidently well cared for. The 
garden sorts had finished bearing some weeks 
since, bnt there were still a few good berries 
on these wi Idlings. The gardener told me his 
employer was very fond of the wild straw¬ 
berries, and especially so after the garden 
kinds were past. 
* * 
"G. G's " Tobacco Notes' p 499 prompt me 
to 6ay that if all others used as little of the 
weed to smoke, to snuff or chew as I do, 
Lorillard would never have been rich enough— 
at that business at any rate—to own Iroquois. 
But, notwithstandiug that, 1 have a fondness 
for the living weeds. There are the night- 
blooming, white-flowered sorts, as profuse 
and bright as evening primroses and many of 
them are sweetly fragrant,—for instance N. 
suaveolens. Indeed, Mr. Cullingford of Lon¬ 
don, Eng., in the Garden. goes 60 far as to 
predict that a kind (N. sffliis) he grows, for 
elegance aad fragrance wdl rival the tuberose. 
And if yon want a rival to the Blue Gam or 
Fever Tree of California, try N, glauca ; its 
flowers are nothing, bnt its handsome, tree-like 
form and bluish cast throughout render it a 
prominent ornamental plant where there Is 
plenty of room. And th j showy, red-blooming 
varieties of the big-leaved kinds are not amiss 
as decorative plants. 
* + 
“ H. A. P's query, p 503, reminds me of the 
many stupid notions that are afloat regarding 
watering trees. I often see men and women 
epill a pailful of water around the stem of a 
lawn, street or orchard tree and think they 
have done a good thing, but they haven’t. The 
absorbing rootlets are not there, but instead, 
the bulk of i hem are about as faraway from the 
stem of the tree as the brauches extend, there¬ 
fore, it is there and not at the bole of the tree 
the water is needed. Ooseiveai isolated, thrifty 
tree: it rains, and you get uuderneath its boughs 
to get away from the shower; yon keep dry 
while beyond a little way the water comes 
down from off the leafy branches as if off a 
shingled roof, and that is just where it is 
needed, where it can do the most good; for it 
is there the fibrous roots prevail. And 
jnst about as stupid a practice is the annual 
piling of manure around the tranks of trees ; 
the manure is needed where the water is and 
no nearer. Bat in the case of a general 
plantation or orchard where the branches of 
the several trees meet, the rootlets are all over 
the ground, but much less so at the boles of the 
trees than elsewhere. 
* * 
It is no uncommon sight to see the hogs wal¬ 
lowing in the earth or mud around out West¬ 
ern doors, ducks and cblckenB stepping in and 
oat of the house, the dogB at rest upon the 
bed or elsewhere, where they choose—man and 
beast complacently eontented. And what a 
sight, what a state of thingB in this progressive 
age! breeding stench and filth and fleas, eras¬ 
ing the healthful comfort that Is proverbial to 
the farm, which it renders Utt.e purer than the 
poorer tenements of cl y streets. Bnt in this 
respect the West Is not more erring than the 
South whero swine often make their homes 
beneath the human dwellings. There, houses 
are usually set upon blocks or pillars, rather 
than over cellars, as is the case in the North. 
This pig-home, dry and dusty, is a paradise 
for flaas. Because this indifference may af¬ 
fect some of our neighbors, that is no excuse 
for us; on the contrary, we should the more em¬ 
phatically endeavor after greater cleanliness, 
and thereby induce onr neighbors by example 
to forsake their thriftless heedlessness. 
* >* 
Now is the time to go into the woods and 
meadows and gather fern-fronds for winter 
bouquets. They are plump, fresh and green, 
and if gathered now and dried, will be far 
prettier than if left till their vigor fades and 
their color becomes yellowish. People usually 
delay gathering fern-fronds till they go out 
hnntirg after Autumn leaves, hut it is wrong. 
Lay in a store of airy grasses as well; gather 
them when they are in flower just before they 
bloom. If gathered after they have 
gone out of bloom, their scattering 
seeds will be a littering nuisance daring the 
Winter months. And if you have sown a lot 
of "everlasting’’annuals their blossoms will 
brighten up your bouquets. Gut the buds be¬ 
fore they are fully opened ; they will open in 
the drying and appear clean and fresh, where¬ 
as If delayed till fully expanded their centers 
will look old and dirty and with age become 
undone and scatter about. Be on the outlook 
for clematis wreaths. As soon as the Beeds be¬ 
gin to swell a little and 6how their silky tails, 
gather your wreaths; they may appear imma. 
tnre enough at gathering time, but when dried, 
they will floss out whiter and softer than if 
they had been gathered when older. Those 
who live near the sea can get any quantity of 
sea-lavender or marsh-roeeraary as it is also 
called, growing in the salt-marsher; the flower- 
bunches make splendid "everlastings.” But 
remember, gather early, if you wish good 
material and pleasure of it. 
* * 
It would add materially to the interest in 
the snmmer display of our public gardens if a 
few beds in suitable places were filled with 
economic plants as castor beans, paper reed, 
cotton, hemp, India rubber, tea. coffee, sugar¬ 
cane, tobacco, fever tree and the like, and 
each plant legibly and neatly labeled. True, 
these plants may already be seen in onr public 
grounds, but when mixed in clumps with other 
plants, who knows woat they are ? Our pub¬ 
lic gardens should instruct the mind as well as 
please the eye. Let ns take a group of palms 
for instance: Hjw much more Instructive it 
would be to have the clump consist of the wine 
paim, oil palm, ivory paint, date palm, sugar 
palm, cabbage palm,. walkint-;tick palm, and 
so on. than to have them n&m sless and to the un¬ 
initiated uuknown. stuck uuher and thither in 
beds or vases for appearance's sake alone Plant 
them for »fftet’s sake if you will, and how and 
where you will, bat group them also and tell 
us what they are. Because of their great 
diversity in leaf and shape they cannot make 
a formal bed. Oar bananas, too, are noble 
plants, and many who want to know them, see¬ 
ing them, have no means whereby to recognize 
them. A neatly painted label would give us 
light. 
* * 
The Trumpet Vine is loaded with its blos¬ 
soms now, and what a splendid thing it it ! 
Running up a naked tree trunk, set upon a pil¬ 
lar by itself, trained up t y the water spout at 
the corner of the house, the posts of the piazza 
or the door-forch, it matters not; Us roots 
Btretch deep into the earth and more beyond 
the influence of Summer drought than many 
vines; its haid and woody stems reach as high 
as twenty feet or more, and from them droop 
on everv side graceful, leafy wands, each one 
tipped with a bunch of trumpet olooms. Some¬ 
times these wands are winter-killed to the hard¬ 
wood. but it matters little, fresh ones come forth 
in quantity and all will bloom. The older the 
vlue is the more it will bloum. Beetles, bugs 
and caterpillars pass it by, it is not to their lik¬ 
ing. Bat the prettiest way of growing it I 
have seen is in its wild state, where by the 
edge of creek and river bottom timber belts 
it drapes and mantles trees and bushes as 
grape-vines do in the North. 
* * 
I observe the Rural notes regarding the 
hardiness of Japaueee if aples are causing quite 
a stir. Most growers prefer the maples as they 
do roses—on their own roots, and suggest that 
nurserymen propagate by layering. Nursery¬ 
men do raise what they can fiom layers, bat the 
mode of increase is slow ; they want to econ¬ 
omize every little shoot they can remove in 
pruning, and the only feasible wav of doing so 
is by " working.’’ Bat I would suggest that a 
trial be given to our comtnou mountain maple 
and some of the smaller species of the Rocky 
Mountains, >s stocks to work the Japanese 
maples on. If any of your readers have al¬ 
ready done so, would they please report with 
what success. 
* * 
What an aversion there is to yellow flowers 
in California! The florists tell me that even so 
good a thing its an allamanda bloom wonld rain 
a common basket of flowers. I wonder If they 
will show equal antipathy to the lovely wreath* 
of dmdroblums, the airy sprays of oncidiums, 
the fragrant blooms of lemon cattieyas and 
many other orchids when these floral aristo¬ 
crats of India and Brazil become common with 
them ? I reckon not. Fashion governs the 
popular laste. It will take seme extra-fash¬ 
ionable party and the reigning light thereof to 
show partial taste for yellow fi >were—and or¬ 
chid blossoms are the only flowers in euch a 
case that will command that taste—to break 
this formidable prej adice. Leon. 
IN THE GARDEN. 
We have a most beautiful bed of flowers 
from the Rural seeds. I started ihe plants 
in a cold-irame, and then transplanted them 
out in a rich piece of ground, and they did 
finely. I also have about 150 a'p tragus plants. 
The potato beetle so nearly destroyed my 
White Elephant potatoes when they first, made 
their appearance above the ground that in 
despair I hoed them up. Tne other seeds I 
did not plant. 
The present season has been exceptionally 
good for all hardy vegetables. Fr„m thirty 
rod3 of ground I harvested 50 bnshe a of A’pba 
peaa in the pod, and I think I wonld have 
had 60 bushels if I could have let them stand 
another week ; but a more valuable crop 
crowded them off the ground. Ttiy were 
planted in rows three and a half feel apart 
five or Bix inches deep; aDd were brushed 
with brash about four feet higb ; they were 
kept well cultivated, the last hoeing being 
given jnst before picking. They were jnst 
one week later in ripeniDg than the same kind 
of peas were last year. The pods were large 
and well Slled and were so easy to pick that 
several mornings I went out and picked a 
bushel before breakfast, or in an horn’s time. 
They were of extra quality, and sold fur 
twenty-five per cent, more than other peas, 
They averaged about $t 40 per bushel. The 
30 rods of ground are now occupied by 500 
heads of cabbage. 1 800 heads of celery plants, 
200 hills of cucumaers, three by three and 
a half feet; and one row of beets, 15 rods long. 
The cucumbers were planted close up to 
the rows of peas and they got nicely started 
before the latter were removed. The cab¬ 
bages were also Bet out about one foot from 
each 6ide of the rows of peas. After these 
were removed I gave the cabbages and cucum¬ 
bers a got d hoeing and worked in a handful of 
phosphate around each hill. By the way, my 
early crops turned out so well that I gave the 
ground an extra barrel of phosohate over and 
above the regular allowance, just to encour¬ 
age it to do well in the futare. For the past 
five vears my acre of land has made an aver¬ 
age increase of 110 dollars each year in the 
value of its products, and this year will not be 
an exception. This is what I call progressive 
gardening—keeping up with the times so to 
speak. Adbibsut Wakefield, 
Oneida Co , N Y. 
The most satisfactory Strawberry —If 
I were a?ked which strawberry I would recom¬ 
mend as most certain of pleasing everybody. I 
Bhouldsay the Cumberland Triumph. Its size 
is very lanre and there are few small berriesi 
It is very prolific, being in this respect almost 
equal to the Wilson and Crescent. Its shape 
is perfect; its quali'y hardly inferior to tbat of 
Monarch of the West and T/iompbe de Gand. 
It stools well; is good on all soil*; has a 
strikingly handsome, daik green foliage. It 
is, in fine, sure to satisfy. Among IS kinds I 
would on the whole prefer it, if confined to 
one. For a short and txeelleut list covering 
the season take D ichess Cumberland, Mon¬ 
arch, Triompbeaud Kentucky. Siarpless and 
B dwell I do do not know enough about, but 
so Far think they should make, after Dichess 
and Cnmberlond, the main planting. P.obably 
th6 Bidwell and Cumberland will be the two 
best- D icbess is by far the best very early. 
A Remedy for the Rosb-bu.} —Oae of the 
Rural correspondents btgs for a remtdy for 
the rose bag. The following recipe is abso¬ 
lute. Fill an ordinaly sprinkling pail with 
water, put in three or lour spoonfuls of hellt- 
bore and two spoonfalsof kerosene oil. Keep 
it frequently stirred and sprinkle the rose 
bashes jist as the slug begins to work. It 
will need but one application to entire y get 
rid of the pest. E. P. Powell. 
gairg §j nstiaiifirg. 
THE DAIRY COW. 
HENRY STEWART. 
The Vice* of Uow*. 
Cows are given to few vices, and all that be¬ 
long to them are caused by faults of manage¬ 
ment. The most troublesome are the habit 
of kicking, holding up the milk, aud sucking 
themselves. Cows are caused to kick by ft ar, 
and the act is an ■ ff art to defend ihemstlves. 
Some young heifers may kick when first han¬ 
dled in the effort to milk and from nervous¬ 
ness, but it they are gtmy used this trouble is 
easily got over and nothing further maybe 
seeu of it. Bat if the young animal is beaten 
