THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
inches in diameter, is made at the top of a bank 
or on the sunny slope of a lawn, and planted 
with these fiery Nasturtiums. As they advance 
in growth, the vines clad in scarlet blossoms, 
reach forth in all directions among the grass. 
The grass is not mowed, but merely switched 
over with the Bickle, when it overtops the Nas¬ 
turtiums. Such brilliantly studded banks at¬ 
tract considerable attention. 
PROPAGATING THE VARIEGATED COBAA SCAHDENS. 
Mr. Farquahar, gardener of Forest Hills Cem¬ 
etery, called here the other day. “ I put in a lot 
of cuttings of the variegated Cob® a scandens in 
heat, and after waiting some weeks, found no 
appearance of any of them rooting, but in a cool 
greenhouse, where I made the cuttings, a few 
pieces nad fallen on the sand on the side bench, 
and there, uuoared for, they were rooting nicely. 
I changed my tactics at once and put in a lot in 
a cold house, and they all rooted right-awav.’ 
Just my own experience exactly, Mr. F- 
SPRING BULBS QRDWINQ IN FALL. 
Iris Anglioa, Susiania, Hispanica, and others of 
their class, are often considered tender and un¬ 
satisfactory generally ; they do well enough the 
first season after being imported, and the fol¬ 
lowing winter they die. And this is why: After 
they have blossomed and the fiower-stems die 
down and disappear, we should see no more of 
them till they stsit afresh the following spring ; 
but, alas ! onr fall runs affect them sadly, and 
they begin to grow in the fall, and thus suc- 
onmb to our winters. To avoid this evil, I lift 
my bulbs in August, keep them coo), dry, and 
out of the ground till October or November, 
when I replant, and all is well; they survive the 
winter and blossom out beautifully in spring and 
early summer. 
My neighbor, Dr. Walcott, learned this lesson 
by experience, and taught it to me. Owing to 
so much rains recently, I find my Jonquils and 
some other Naroissi are starting to grow ; I have 
shaken out a few, for I cannot afford to lose 
them all. I appreciate them too highly. 
THE BEST NEW FERN AT BOSTON, 
Adiantum cu -eatum, is the commonest green, 
house Fern in existence! A faot. The judges 
at the last annual exhibition of the Massachu¬ 
setts Horticultural Society, said so! The plant 
was a very ordinary-looking one at best, but it 
belonged to the President of the Society, and he 
didn’t deny its species either. Of course, Bos¬ 
ton people would not submit to such an errone¬ 
ous decision, so the judges were compelled to 
reoonsider their award and give the first prize to 
him who before had got the second. It would, 
however, have been more Com(e)ly if rectified 
8(p)ooner. 
THE BOSTON BABY SHOW 
is iD session just now. “One hundred proud 
mothers with their infant progeny, are platform- 
ed for the criticism of a generous public. 
Among the babies are five pairB of white twms 
and two pairs of colored ones. One pitiable in¬ 
fant, two months old, is thirteen inches long, 
and weighs only one pound! The children aio 
of different ages—four weeks to two years or so. 
There are some nice, clean-looking and healthy 
ohildren among them, but altogether, I could 
not see anything particularly attractive about 
them; in fact, though I dearly love children and 
made quite a fuss with several of these little 
ones, I must say that neither of the babes nor 
of their mothers was I specially enamored. 
I am strenuously opposed to baby-shows. Curi¬ 
osity took me there ; so now I am convinced that 
the baby-carriages rolling aloDg our streets and 
commons contain sweeter dirlmgs—to non-rela¬ 
tives, at least—than are this week exposed to 
the public gaze in the Boston Music Hall. At 
agricultural Bhows we usually find superior spec¬ 
imens of the better breeds of cattle, horses, and 
other domesticated animals ; but if you want to 
find babies yon oan kiss and love,—ohildren, 
sweet, clean and bright, visit your neighbors’ 
houses, and not the baby-shows. And if yon 
want to see in woman that honorable pride, 
rivetting sweetness, delicacy and refinement so 
becoming in the cultured mother, I say again, 
visit your neighbors. 
(gittomolofliral. 
THE CABBAGE PLUBIA. 
from the head ; but as there are usually quite a 
number of worms on a plant, these outer leaves 
are soou made to look aB though a shower of 
hail-stones had passed through them, and, thus 
the outer layer of leaves that form the head, is 
encroached upon. Unlike the Ripe-worm, these 
pests do not bore into the heart of the head, and 
as a consequence, they are not bo destructive, 
but the injury they do consists more in eating 
the outer leaves, thereby limiting the growth of 
the plant, and making the outer portion of the 
heads unfit for use, owiDg to the presence of 
their excrementitious droppings. From observ¬ 
ing both the Rape and the Plusia worms in my 
garden this season, I infer that they do not work 
well together; I could find great numbers of 
both kinds, but they were always on separate 
plantB. 
When full-grown, this caterpillar retires to 
Borne sheltered place, either between the leaves 
or elsewhere, and weaves a very thin, loose, 
white cocoon, within which it changes to a chrys¬ 
alis, which is at first yellowish-green, afterward 
usually becoming brown. This is soft and ten¬ 
der to the touch, and has several curled bristles 
at the small end. In abouL ten days these pro¬ 
duce moths that are of a dark-gray color, tinged 
with brown, with a bright silvery mark in the 
middle of the fore-wings, resembling an oblique 
interrogation point. The male differs from the 
female in having on each side of the abdomen, 
towards the tips, a tuft of golden hairs. 
These moths, after pairing, deposit eggs at 
night on the cabbages, from which another 
brood of the worms iH produced. 
Remedies —If the cabbage patch be Bmal 1 , or 
the infected plants few in number, to hunt the 
worms and kill them is a good remedy. As they 
usually fall to the ground when the plant is 
jarred, shaking the plant will he of assistance in 
finding them. Chickens, if allowed the range of 
infeoted cabbage patches, will destroy a great 
many of these pests as well as other insects. 
The use of any chemical preparation, unless it 
be a drenchirg of the plants with a solution of 
cresylio soap, is not advisable. 
Carbondale, 111. G- Fu®n° h - 
Besides the European Cabbage Worm that is 
so rapidly spreading over the northern United 
States, there is another caterpillar that is nearly 
as destructive. Like the one first-named, it is 
green, and about an inoh in length when full 
grown, but it may be readily known from the 
Rape-wormby the following characteristics : The 
Rape-worm has sixteen legs and moves along 
when it crawls with nearly a gliding motion, 
while the Plusia baB only fourteen legs, and as a 
result, it loops up the back as it crawls, some¬ 
thing like the Measuring-worm. Besides this, 
the Plusia has pale greenish-white stripes down 
the back, while as regards the Ripe-worm, if it 
has any stripes that are perceptible without the 
use of a magnifying glass, they are yellowish 
with fine black dots. 
ThiB worm eats round holes in the leaves, be¬ 
ginning with the outer leaves, or those away 
Jjloriciiltttral. 
OUT-DOOR FERNERY. 
ELLA BODMAN CHURCH. 
stones, besides giving an additional element of 
beauty to the whole arrangement. For even if 
the fernery is j ust planted for cutting, it may 
as well he beantiful. 
The central portion, if large, can be divided 
into several beds; but if small, one will answer. 
This oan be done by making divisions with 
mounds of earth and bricks ; striving, not for 
evenuess of outline, but for the utmost irregu¬ 
larity, as this produces the most picturesque 
effect and also affords the most space for 
Ferns. The stones or bricks must not be too 
thick, or the fernery will subside into a rockery. 
A few small rough logs or branches can be mixed 
in with a vary pretty rustic effect; and small 
Ferns, or creepers, will appreciate this provis¬ 
ion for their comfort. Holes should be bud k in 
the crevices between for the benefit of those 
that are accustomed to a liberal supply of mois¬ 
ture. Their own native soil is undoubtedly the 
best; but Ferns will do well in a made soil 
composed of loam, peat, or leaf mold, aDd river 
sand in equal parts. 
Great care should be taken not to wedge 
the plants into small oreviceB ; and in planting, 
to consider their various needs. Tall, upright 
Ferns require depth of earth to flourish in , 
those that have surface creeping rhizomas want 
something to cliug to; and those with under¬ 
ground, spreading rhizomas demand room and 
space to develop their individuality. Proper 
drainage also must be provided for, as super¬ 
abundant water will in j are the roots. 
Ivies are neveront of place anywhere; and 
the fern pasture may be beautified by rough 
arches of burrs covered with these climbers, or 
a column of stones may rise here and there 
with the trail of the Ivy over them all, and the 
dainty perennial green of its fresh shoots gleam¬ 
ing out like lingering touches of spring, 
An out-door fernery is a rare possession—a 
great bank of lovely green fronds that can be 
drawn upon at pleasure, and that diffuses an 
atmosphere of perennial greenness around its 
own particular corner, which may be the ugli¬ 
est and shadiest in all the garden; for Ferns will 
flourish where nothing else will. 
Exquisite Ferus of various kinds, called by 
the country people “ brakes,” are to be found in 
almost every moist woodland place, and are in¬ 
valuable for pressing or arranging with cut flow¬ 
ers ; but who wants always to go to the woods 
or brook for them, and who, unless armed 
with a botany-box, or great sheets of paper, 
can hope to bring them home without with¬ 
ering ? Why not, then, have them close at hand, 
when the thing can so easily be done ? Aud 
yet few people ever think of going deliberately 
to work to make an out-door fernery. If a 
rockery is erected, some few tufts of Maiden¬ 
hair and other wild fronds must, of course, be 
used to give It character ; but gardeners rarely 
plant a fernery as they do an aBparagus-bed, for 
the express purpose of cutting. 
Some dismal, neglected spot in garden or 
grounds, some place where rubbish may hither¬ 
to have been dumped and where the dominion of 
noxious weeds has never been interfered with, 
may prove the most promising site that could be 
found for a plantation of Ferns. Tney are not 
at all difficult to raise and they thrive where 
no flowers wonld condescend to prosper; but 
certain requisites they must have, and one of 
these is moisture. They also like a corner un¬ 
derneath a wall and will smile in the faoe of a 
northern aspect; great, branching trees, too, 
to which flowers are always antagonistic, do not 
disturb them in the leaBt- 
Ferneries may be made of all sizes ; but if a 
good generous one iB wanted, a bank of earth 
three < r four feet high should first be thrown 
up both as a dividing hue and as a sort of breast¬ 
work against the roughest winds. A pathway 
should carefully bo left leading directly into it 
from any point of the compass, that may be 
most convenient. Shrubs that develop well 
in the shade, may he planted on the top of this 
bank with quite an ornamental effect; while the 
Ferns will do better on the sides. The outline 
of the bank must not be straight, but furnish 
points and hollows for the better distribution 
of the Ferns, and the inside must be furnished 
with a generous supply of burred bricks or blocks 
of stone. If there is a wall at the back or on one 
side of the structure, either masses of burrs 
(bricks that have run together in the burning) or 
pockets and brackets of cement may be fastened 
upon it at intervals to great advantage, as Ferns 
of a creeping nature, as well as other plants no 1 , 
strictly classified under this head, will grow 
there and daintily clothe and hide the naked 
THE NATIVE FLOWERS AND FERNS OF 
THE U. S. 
Parts IX, X. XI, XII, which we believe com¬ 
plete vol. 1st, have been received from the pub¬ 
lishers, L Prang & Oo., of Boston. The general 
excellence of this fine work is fully maintained. 
Indeed from the cursory examination which we 
have given the present parts, the colored plates 
are even better executed than those of the pre¬ 
ceding numbers. Those of Part IX, are Viola 
Hiigittata; Gerardia pediculara ; Calochortus 
lutens, and Iris versicolor. Of Part X, they are 
Pugonia ophioglossoides ; Cleome pungeris, of 
which, it will be remembered we offered seeds in 
our laBt year’s seed distribution; Actinomeris 
equarroaa, aud Claytonia Virgiuioa. Those of 
Part XI, are Aspleuium Trichomaues : Anemone 
Caroliuiaua; Rosa Carolina, aud Pachystima 
Canbyi. 
Mr. Meehan has thus far accomplished the 
difficult task of rendering this work interesting 
to both the amateur and botanist. 
ABOUT INDEXES. 
B. PICKMAN MANN. 
When I sent to the Rural New-Yorker my 
criticism upon its indexes, which is printed on 
page 457, I was not mistaken in relying upon the 
candor of the editor for a hearing, and when I 
turned over two pages I was gratified to read 
that the editor was in accord with me in his esti¬ 
mation of former indexes and had already an¬ 
nounced his intention to give the index more 
care aud elaboration in the future than it had 
uad in the past. While this intention is un¬ 
doubtedly to be oarried ont in the excellent 
manner which characterizes the rest of the pres¬ 
ent volume, it may be well that the readers, 
generally, should be shown at least a part of the 
internal auatomy of an index, in order that they, 
too, may be in a situation to make, in the best 
manner, their own indexes of works which have 
no inuex, or which have an insufficient one. 
In the first place, the index should be ar¬ 
ranged by the significant words, not by articles, 
prepositions or subordinate adjectives. Taking 
as example the references quoted in my former 
article, page 457, the arrangement should be as 
follows: 
Grasshoppers, to drive away. 381 
Hennery, pest of the...... '* 
Hickory aeoiytua, .. 1 ‘ 4 ) 
Potato beetle, fighting the. 33 
Potato bug, exterminate .. 381 
Potato enemy, new. 48, ^ 
I oner, wonderful, of an Insect..... 318 
Tomatoes. ten-Uuers on.. 
Vines, American, in France. 332 
Here I have attempted no other reform than 
the transposition of the words and the arrange¬ 
ment of the lines in accordance with that change. 
I doubt not it will be admitted that iu this man¬ 
ner articles upon given subjects are made more 
accessible thau if the references were arranged 
as on page 457. It will be noticed that some of 
the references on page 457 have not been re¬ 
peated in the above list. This is because there 
was no meaning iu them. To get at the gist of 
the article which had for its title “ ‘A little learn¬ 
ing ' not always * a dangerous thing,’” we must 
amend the title to read in some way like the 
following 
App'e trees, borers tn, means ogalnst. TO 
Borers in npple trees, means against.... TO 
Superda bivutata, means against....,. TO 
It is the duty of the editor, as an artist, t„ 
embellish the articles with graceful titles, but 
the indexer must bean anatomist and call things 
by their strict names. 
A further improvement in an index is to re¬ 
duce the number of unmeaning variations as far 
as possible, thus, for instance, to use one form 
of expression for the extermination of inseots, 
somewhat as follows: 
Grasshoppers, moans against. • ^ 
Potato beetles, means against. ... .32. 384 
Potato, insects injurious to.* 8- 
Tomato, potato beetles Injurious to. 174 
The same things should not be called by dif¬ 
ferent names. Grasshoppers and looustH are 
really distinct families of insects, but in common 
talk their names are mixed. Everything which 
is said about “ grasshoppers ” on page 457, refers 
to locusts. It may not be thought best, however, 
to ignore the word “ grasshopper,” and the in¬ 
dexer may choose to take the words as they 
come. In this case a line should be added to the 
index where each of these words appears, direct¬ 
ing attention to the other word, thus: 
Grasshoppers, a visit from. 235 
Congress and the. ••••• 248 
[See LocustB.] 
Locusts, Rocky Mountain... J 88 
Western... 282 ' 383 
[See Grasshoppers.] 
This rule is of general application. Wherever 
different words are used for the same thing, re¬ 
duce the variation as much as possible, and 
wherever two subjects approach so closely as to 
overlap on their boundaries usually, send the 
reader to the other subjects by a note like that 
given above. 
Next in importance to the rule that only sig¬ 
nificant words should be used as a guide in the 
index, is the rule that there should be only oue 
alphabetical series. It may seem as if a person, 
turning to the index, would be saved a great 
deal of trouble by fiuding all the articles in which 
he is interested grouped under one head. Thus 
a poultry-raiser wonld look under the heading 
Poultry-yard, and need not trouble himself to 
look through the other columns. This field of 
search would I e one easy to scan. But in fact, 
by no arrangement except by frequent repetition 
could all iu which he is interested be brought 
together in this column without being taken 
away from some other place where it properly 
belonged. Take for an example the index before 
me. The first words iu each reference below 
are the headings, of which there arc thirty iu the 
present iudex, each with its separate alphabeti¬ 
cal series of references. 
Dairy husbandry. Butter and Egg Ass'n. 263 
Domestic economy. Eggs, packing lor winter use. 235 
preserved by silicate of 
soda. 26T 
to test. 235 
Industrial implements. Corn-sheller, home hand. 360 
The Centennial. Poultry [etc.] .‘-9T, 310 
Perhaps no oue of these references is general¬ 
ly important, but if the searcher happens to 
want one of them, it becomes to him very im¬ 
portant. Were all the references in one alpha¬ 
bet, he would make ont a lint of the words to be 
looked for, say chichens, corn, ducks, eggs, 
fowls, geese, hens, poultry, turkeys, etc , and 
look for these nine words or for such others like 
them as he might think of, aud be satisfied with 
a short examination of the index, that he had 
fouud all that was to be found; but were the 
index divided into chapters, he must look for 
these words over and over again in the different 
chapters, thus making his examination ten-fold 
or twenty-fold more laborious. 
To sum up the few points treated above I re¬ 
peat : Make the iudex iu one alphabetically ar¬ 
ranged series, using as the leading words those 
which will be most likely to be looked for by any 
person who is seeking an artiole upon the given 
subject, and Bay the same thing every time in 
the same way. 
WHAT OTHERS SAY. 
Mr. Parry says, iu au address to whiob refer 
ence is made elsewhere, that 
RASPBERRIES 
commence to ripen before strawberries are gone, 
and it iB usual to send some of each to market 
at the same time. They come with harvest, 
when it is not entirely convenient for grain 
farmers to be bothered with small things, hence 
they are not grown so plentifully as strawber¬ 
ries and consequently sell better iu market. 
Oue farmer, near where he reaides, sent to 
market a one-horse wagon lo id of raspberries 
and received $220 for the lot. Oue lady near-by, 
rented out her farming laud, while her husband 
was from home, reserving a patch of Raspber¬ 
ries and Blackberries, from which she sold this 
year, 43,000 quarts, or 1 S43 bushels of berries, 
worth several times more thau all other crops 
on the farm. He once visited a farmer who pai 
attention to small fruits as well as to the more 
important staple crops of grain and grass. Ihe 
day he was there they gathered for market 2UU 
bushels of raspberries and some days did more. 
