w*SSSk 
NEW YORK, FEB. 25, 1882 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1S82, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
throughout the East and West; others, as 
decora, which occurs from Southern Illinois 
southwest, have a more limited range ; whereas, 
some, as temiiflora, occur in swamps, and oth¬ 
ers, as indexa, prefer dry ground. Some are 
partial to bushes and tall weeds, and others to 
grass, clover and low growing plants; but 
none of them are fastidious; they grasp eager¬ 
ly and flourish on everything within their 
reach. 
These dodders are annual, leafless plants 
which, though much unlike the Morning Glory 
in general appearauce, nevertheless belong to 
the Convolvulus family of plants. They bear 
seeds in abundance, and these seeds fall upon 
the earth and germinate in it as the seeds of 
other plants do, The seedlings come up doubled 
like young onions, only they are yellow in¬ 
stead of green, and as soon as they straighten 
themselves they stretch forth their wiry arms 
and clutch at whatever other living plant 
comes first within their reach. Round this 
they coil their tendril stems and adhere by 
means of papillae or aerial roots at the points 
of contact. Thu3 provided with a foster¬ 
parent, they die off at the surface of the 
ground, and live entirely' on the sap of the 
plantstowhieh they fasten themselves. Should 
no other plant be within ready reach of the 
young seedling dodders, they will, after vain¬ 
ly waving their arms around, in a few days 
die off altogether. But those that have as¬ 
sumed their parasitic nature grow and spread 
most vigorously; and the warmer and moister 
the weather the more flourishing they become. 
Once established, it is almost impossible to 
clear dodder away, as every morsel left on a 
plant will grow, and the broken pieces torn 
off and dropped on other plants will also grow. 
Where it may become a pest, on first appear¬ 
ance the crop on which it is growing should 
be mowed over and carefully moved away or 
put into a heap to rot. Dodder is often tranr- 
mitted from one place to another in seeds, that 
is, theseeds of dodder are sometimes present 
among grain, grass and clover seeds, but they 
are large and readily recognized by' any one 
familiar w ith them. It was in this way that 
that vile pest the Flax Dodder, so destructive 
to the flax crops of Europe, made its way to 
America. 
Our illustration was drawn from a specimen 
brought from the Rural Farm and is known 
as Cuscuta Grouovii. It is confined to our 
lowlands and seems particularly fond of the 
Marsh Elder or Highwater Shrub—Iva fru- 
tescens. 
Often the yellow, string like stems will 
ling the stems which they coil about so closely 
that further growth is impossible. C shows 
the flowers, and B the plant upon which the 
dodder is parasitic. 
ter the vegetable garden, unless, indeed, as is 
sometimes the case, the “ lady of the manor” 
does something more than “overlook” the 
work. Under such circumstances it is a great 
convenience to know just what to select with¬ 
out being bothered to choose from a multi¬ 
tude. 1 have been specially requested to name 
corn, cucumbers, squashes, etc. 
In regard to corn, everybody’s favorite, two 
kinds, or even one, will be enough, if the gar¬ 
den be quite small; but where there is room 
more satisfactory results can be obtained 
from three kinds. The earliest kinds to select 
from are the Dolly Dutton, Tom Thumb, and 
Early Marblehead, the last being a day or 
two the earliest. It really makes but little 
difference which of the three is selected, as 
they all produce small ears, and at best can 
only give us a taste of better things soon to 
come. One can hardly go far astray in select¬ 
ing the Triumph for seoond early. It is in all 
respects excellent, and to be preferred to the 
Concord. Next in order I will name the 
Egyptian (a sad misnomer) or Washington 
Market. I would suggest that &eeAsmen, by 
common consent, drop the name Egyptian and 
retain Washington Market. This is too good 
a corn to be made ridiculous in this way. If 
you have room to spare, add Stowell’s Ever¬ 
green, a very late kind, but of unsurpassed ex¬ 
cellence when pure, and retaining the milky 
state very much longer than any other vari¬ 
ety. Say you select Tom Thumb, Triumph, 
and Washington Market. If you put in a row 
of each of the above at the same time, one will 
follow the other in regular succession to the 
eud of the season. If you select two kinds, 
let them be Triumph and Washington Market. 
If only one kind, let it be the Triumph, and 
as soon as the first row of this is three or four 
inches high, sow another, and repeat the sow¬ 
ings in this way till the first week in July. 
The length of the row or the number of rows 
must be determined by the wants of the fami¬ 
ly. Sow in drills and not in hills, and keep 
the ground level. Com will make a good use 
of all the manure you can spare for it. 
There is a long list of squashes to select 
from, but a choice is not difficult to make. 
Of bush squashes there is none so good, 
for the small garden, when it can be 
obtained pure, as the Green-striped Bergen. 
It is fit to eat when not much larger than a 
black walnut, and continues good for use till 
the following March or later, which cannot be 
said of any other bush squash. It is not, how¬ 
ever, a valuable kind to grow for market, on 
account of its size. Next to this I would name 
the Bush Summer Crook-neck as being of finer 
quality than the Scollop or Patty Pan. The 
Crook-neck and the Patty Pan, however, must 
be eaten while they are young or before the 
shell gets bard. There is seldom any place 
for running; squashes in the small garden; 
where room can be found, however, I would 
grow the Hubbard and the very promising 
Perfect Gem; the latter small, but productive 
and excellent. I think it will become a gen 
eral favorite, it will bear pinching in with 
advantage. 
The pea we must have, no matter how small 
the garden, even if we have to confine our¬ 
selves to the dwarfs, among which Bliss’s 
American Wonder is the best, I think. It is 
very dwarf, may be grown in rows about 
eighteen inches apart, and needs no bush. It 
is very productive for its size, very early, and 
of the best quality. To follow this I would 
select the Alpha, which is scarcely surpassed 
in excellence by any pep, early or late. It 
grows two or three feet high, according to 
richness of soil, and should be bushed. Add 
to these the fine old standard variety, Cham¬ 
pion of England, and for the small garden we 
need nothing more. These three kinds, if sown 
at the same time, will follow each other in 
reg’ilar succession. Later a row or two of the 
Wonder or the Alpha may be sown to succeed 
MYRRH AND BELL-FLOWERS, 
This is a peculiar, conspicuous, fast-grow¬ 
ing, parasitic plant frequently met with in 
patches here and there by the waysides, ram¬ 
bling over grass, weeds and bushes, also in 
Rambling through the woods ami lanes we 
often observe an imposing colony of wild 
and naturalized plants growing up together in 
happy harmony, and while we halt a moment 
to admire it, a query prompts itself at once ; 
Could we not have such a clump of plants at 
home ? Of course we could. See this clump 
of Myrrh with massive, fern-like, fragrant 
leaves and umbellad heads of seed, and Bell¬ 
flowers growing up among it carelessly; how 
pleasant and cosily it nestles there without 
man’s planting to begin with, or care in any¬ 
way, and that too beneath the shading arms 
of those great trees. And when we consider 
the multitude of plants equally appropriate 
for such fine effects we cannot fairly excuse 
ourselves for the bareness and the harshness 
of many of our home grounds. If nature 
formed a happy group, and you can leave it 
undisturbed, please spare it; and if you can 
suggest how such groups may be improved, 
then change the art of nature to suit your 
taste. Encourage and preserve such pretty 
combinations around your home, even on 
the creek or river bank, ihe margin of wood, 
the ditch side, or elsewhere where you will. 
And once established, if you let them grow in 
peace and do not disturb the ground about 
them, they will, year after year, come up 
again and gather to their aid a host of help¬ 
meets in the way of other flowers, that will 
add much to their attraction and your pleas¬ 
ure. The Myrrh in question is a European 
plant, stroug in growth, bold in style, and has 
ample, much-divided leaves. It belongs to the 
umbelliferous family of plants, and is nearly 
allied to the Sweet Cicely, Archangelica and 
Fennel, This is not the plant which yields the 
aromatic gum-resin known as myrrh, and 
which the Ishmaelites were carrying from 
Gilead down to Egypt (Gen, xxxviL 25), and 
also which the wise men of the East brought 
with them as a present unto the infant Jesus 
(Mat. II and 11); that was the produce of 
Balsamodendron Myrrha, a tree of Arabia. 
PETER B. MEAD, 
I had no idea that my brief hints about 
vegetables would lead to requests for some 
Dodder—From Nature.—Fig. 59. 
the meadows, and waste-places, and not infre¬ 
quently in damaging quantity among the cul¬ 
tivated crops in fields. It appears as a tan¬ 
gled mass of yellow or orange-yellow threads 
coiled around, among and over the plants on 
which it grows, and thickly scattered all over 
it are little bunches of waxy, white flowers. 
There are some ten distinct species of Dodder 
indigenous to this country; a few of them, as 
Gronovii, are pretty generally distributed 
MYRRH AND BELL-FLOWERS—AFTER ROBINSON’S WILD GARDEN-Fig. 60, 
reach out for six feet in crossing a ditch or 
in a march from one bush to another. We 
could never satisfy ourselves whether this Dod¬ 
der kills plants by sucking their juices through 
their serial roots, which resemble caterpillar- 
feet, A, and cling to the bark, or by strang¬ 
ling more in the same way, and, much to my 
surprise, more than one from ladies. This is 
encouraging in more ways than one. It must 
be understood that these hints are intended 
for amateurs and for small farm gardens, 
where the “man-of-all-work” has to look af- 
