JUNE 49 
■ 
second year. We received them three years 
ago from Messrs. A. Hance & Son for trial. 
Bassett’s American Plum is again wreathed 
with fruit, which thus far we have found neither 
curcullo-proof nor of any value for eating. 
The latter, however, was never claimed for 
this little plnm. 
Blackberries were never more heavily set. 
We shall have several new sorts to report 
upon. 
Raspberries. —Pride-of-the-Hudson fails en- 
has often been proved true. I mean that 
wide-spread mismanagement and neglect have 
often brought on or increased droughts. The 
destruction of forests notoriously leads to such 
results. Neglect of proper tillage has done 
the same. Palestine was once a land “ flowing 
with milk and honey.” Now, robbed of its 
forests and without proper cultivation, its hills 
once green with vineyards and olives are cov¬ 
ered only with stunted shrubs, and the land 
o longer receives both ‘ ‘ the early and the 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
ui justice, Ulan it be rules by unrea¬ 
soning favoritism, so, it seems to me, a God 
who thus rules is more worthy of our honor* 
and love than one who rules in the way of spe¬ 
cial favoritism. At all events, the God who 
rules the universe seems to rule in the first of 
these ways. Conduct seems to be rewarded or 
punished in its own plane. For instance, the 
farmer who is agriculturally wise and skillful, 
is rewarded by agricultural success, even 
though he be a moral monster, while even the 
veriest saint in temper and moral conduct, if 
he be agriculturally lax or even unskillful, 
shall suffer agriculturally therefor. But I am 
in claDger of forgetting that this is net a the¬ 
ological discussion. I commend this line of 
thought to the clergy. "Whatsoever a man 
soweth that shall he also reap ” is a good text 
to preach from. 
Now, in Kansas the reasons of the change 
were obvious. Generations of buffaloes in 
pasturing its prairies had tramped "The 
Great American Desert” like a floor. The 
rains of even the rainy season fell on such 
earth almost as on a roof, and ran off in tor¬ 
rents down the streams, leaving a dry, compact 
soil and subsoil. From this soil and subsoil 
there was little possibility of evaporation in 
summer, and still less to invite the precipita¬ 
tion of moisture upon it. In fact in summer 
Japanese Judas-Tree.—Oercls Japonica. 
We are indebted to Japan for many beauti¬ 
ful things, some of which, though introduced 
several years, are still rare, and not half as 
well known as they should be. One of the 
most beautiful Is the Cercis Japonica, a verit¬ 
able dwarf among dwarf trees, onr own speci¬ 
men, about seven years old, being less than five 
feet high. It blooms In early spring, before 
the leaves appear, and all the wood, except 
last year's growth, is literally covered with its 
beautiful, pea-shaped flowers. Its picturesque 
form, whether in flower or leaf, would delight 
an artist. Its proper place Is as a specimen on 
the lawn some five or six feet from the edge of 
a walk. It is one of the few trees entirely free 
from insects. Onr own specimen is now for 
the first time abundantly set with fruit; but 
whether it will reproduce itself from seed we 
do not know. It is distinct from C. Siliquas- 
trum and our native species, and is found in few 
catalogues, but is worth a great deal of trouble 
to procure. 
Glaucous Fescue Grass.—Festuen Glauca. 
One of the prettiest objects in our herba¬ 
ceous border just now (and at all times), is the 
Festuca glauca, perhaps the most beautiful of 
all dwarf grasses. Its graceful form and 
unique color are simply charming. It is not a 
new plant, but among us it is yet so rare as to be 
seldom seen. It Is not only beautiful, but very 
useful ana thoroughly hardy. We use it not 
only in the border, but in the greenhouse dur¬ 
ing the winter. It seems never to be out of 
place. In the sun or in the shade ; In the bor¬ 
der or in the Bhrubbery ; aB a plant for filling 
in or placing along the edge of the table in the 
greenhouse, room, or conservatory ; in a hang¬ 
ing basket or on the rim of a vase, it is always 
beautiful and seems to adapt itself to all places 
alike. We would on no account be without it. 
Out of Place. 
People who,travel on the New Haven R. R., 
have their attention arrested at Woodlawn 
Cemetery by a huge anchor laid diagonally on 
the slope of the lawn ; not an anchor of iron, 
but oue of " rib con lines.” There arc doubt¬ 
less those who admire this, but we do not. We 
have no fault to find with its mechanical exe¬ 
cution—and it la purely mechanical. The 
colors are gay and striking, and serve to arrest 
the attention, which was, no doubt, the object 
of those who made it. We object to it. how¬ 
ever, ou the score of propriety and good taste. 
From ihiB point of view it is wretchedly bad, 
anil altogether out of place in Woodlawn Ceme¬ 
tery, the naLural features and furnishings of 
which are very beautiful. Whatever may be 
thought of "carpeting” and "ribbon lines” 
elsewhere, they are altogethei out ot place in a 
cemetery. There, of all places, we should have 
Nature iu her pure and simple forms of which 
flowers constitute a most attractive feature. 
We should not be disappointed if the dead rose 
out of taeir graves some night, and pitched 
that anchor into the Bronx River. 
Lygodiuin acandena hardy. 
It will interest all plant growers to learn that 
the Japanese Climbing Fern (Lygodium scan- 
dens) proved to be hardy last winter. The 
^spores from an old plant came up freely all TWfiTX AA, 
over the house, and some of the young plants 
were, last year, put in a slightly sheltered 111 
border, prepared for hardy Lady-slippers— tirely i 
Cypripediuuis. The plants are now growing Wti8 uc 
freely. The past winter, it is true, was a mild ever sti 
one; but it was very changeable, and more disaont 
in the form of ram or even dew. Every child 
knows how dew forms even in day-time on the 
ontside of a pitcher of cold water. This cold 
surface robs the warmer surrounding atmos¬ 
phere of a portion of its moisture, and the more 
moisture there is in the air, and the greater the 
difference between the temperature of the air 
and of the pitcher, the more will " tfle pitcher 
leak ’ as children express it. 
Now it happens m a similar though not in 
the same way that the cooler surfaces of lakes, 
ponds, swamps, forests and even cultivated 
fields produce rain. Such surfaces increase 
the moisture iu the adjacent atmosphere, 
and make it more likely that cool cur¬ 
rents from below shall mix with the moist, 
warm atmosphere above and produce conden¬ 
sation of vapor in the atmosphere, and pre¬ 
cipitation iu form of rain. Where the physical 
conditions of a region are such as constantly 
to send upward cooler currents into an atmos¬ 
phere constantly fully charged with moisture, 
rains are almost constant, and often immense ; 
cool currents are heavier and hence remain 
below, uuless forced upward by some cause. 
But often a range of hills or mountains will 
send upward cool trade winds and seem to 
wring out all the moisture iu the atmosphere. 
Sometimes the conditions are reversed, and 
warm, moist monsoon winds, rising along the 
mountain sides, meet a cooiei atmosphere and 
precipitate all their own moisture. Such is 
often the ease in the tropics, for example, at 
Cherrapongee. India, where the rainfall from 
this cause is absolutely immense, being 610.3 
inches instead of 30 or 10 as in most parts of 
this country. 
The point I wish to make is this: God, in¬ 
deed, as I have already quoted, "sends His 
rain upon the evil and the good.” But he does 
so because he sends it according to definite 
laws already understood, in part at least. One 
of His laws, briefly stated in Scripture as a 
moral truth, is not less surely a physical one. 
It is this: "He that watereth shall be watered 
also himselfor. in other Scripture language, 
"To him that hath shall be given.” Nor is 
there injustice in the law, but wisdom and 
beneficence. It is the law of accumulation 
and reward. At all events, it obviously is the 
law, both moral and physical, and wisdom 
tells us to shape our course accordingly. In 
regard to rainfall the law seems to bo that if 
any region has its soil in condition to receive 
and retain in proper absorption a large part of 
previous rainfalls, it is more likely to get future 
rainfalls. The Kansas soil is, by cultivation, 
fast coming into that condition, and its farm¬ 
ers are fast receiving their reward iu more 
frequent and abuudaut summer showers. Can¬ 
not we do the same thing on the " Western Re¬ 
serve” of Ohio? Generations of cows have 
tramped our pastures aud even our meadows 
till they have become hard and avid in sum¬ 
mer time. They often become as hot and dry 
almost as the desert of Sahara, and when they 
once become so dry as they often do in May, 
lor reasons given in my last, it is hard for 
showers to begin in June, and so about once in 
five years we have a fearful four months 
drought. Iu other years we have a fo’.r weeks 
drought In May aud often anothm in July or 
August. 
Now I fully believe that concerted action 
WESTERN FARMING.—VII 
Drought No 2. 
W. I. chamberlain 
I closed my last with the question whether 
concerted action in agriculture could so change 
the physical condition of any region subject 
to droughts, as to render them less frequent aud 
B evere. I think it can. The reverse of this 
