► ;, vH L V\ 
v 
Vol. XLIII. No. 1778 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 23, 1884 
PRICE ETVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the 
year 1884, by the Rural New-Yorker In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
ish Bayonet (Aloifolia), which inhabits the 
coast region from North Carolina to Alabama, 
grows from five to 20 feet high. There are other 
fine species, notably, Baccata of S. Colorado 
to Mexico; Schottii of Southern Arizona; Ru- 
picola of Western Texas; and Whipplei of Cali¬ 
fornia and Arizona. Of course these are 
hardy in the respective sections to which they 
belong and in other places as warm; but there 
are not many yuccas that are hardy in the 
Northern States. Adam’s Needle or Bear 
Grass (or some of its many varieties) is the one 
universally planted here. But it is a noble 
plant and well worth extensive cultivation. 
It blossoms in the fii-st fortnight in July, about 
the time Perennial Larkspurs, Yellow Colum¬ 
bines, Trumpet Lilies and Trumpet Vines are 
in bloom. When once it gets established in 
the garden, like Man-of-the-earth Creeper and 
White Milk Weed (Euphorbia corollata), its 
root-stocks or underground stems descend 
deeply into the earth, eveu into the hard-pan, 
and are very difficult to get rid of. When we 
think we have completely rooted it out, 
sprouts spring up for years afterwards. 
Yucca angustifolia, which is found wild 
over the plains beyond the Mississippi, is also 
hardy; it is small and has yellowish-white 
pretty flowers, but it is somewhat hard to es¬ 
tablish, and. therefore, rather uncommon in 
our gardens. The yuccas we cannot use as 
hardy plants we can eujoy as cold-pit, house, 
or conservatory specimens. Grow them in 
pots, boxes, or tubs: plunge them out-of-doors 
in Summer and winter them iu pits or in-doors, 
and there is very little trouble with them. 
Bear in mind that ten degrees of frost will not 
hurt any of them that have not been unduly 
coddled, and twenty degrees will not injure 
Gloriosa. Also bear in mind that frost does 
not do them any good. Although some of the 
more tender sorts assume at maturity gigantic 
proportions, all of them 
whffli quite 
YUCCAS. 
A HESEare among the moststrik- 
and effective of garden 
plants, evergreen and adnu'ra- 
r\ adapfcei1 both for city and 
d'M) I suburban use. In open, shelter- 
^ places they defy the dust and 
sm °k° towns, thrive in sand, 
gravel, and any kind of soil 
that is 
origin¬ 
als, and there are some 
handsome, showy, va¬ 
riegated forms; for in¬ 
stance, the Bear-Grass, 
Gloriosa, and the Span¬ 
ish Bayonet: of the last, 
two called Quadricolor 
and Vereicolor have 
their leaves beautifully 
variegated with mar¬ 
ginal stripes of green, 
yellow, or red. 
As house-plants, for 
keeping in beauty a long 
time in a shady room or 
hallway, yuccas are pe¬ 
culiarly appropriate, 
only don’t come within 
reach of their dagger- 
pointed leaves, else you 
will not forget it. 
All the species are 
easily raised from seeds 
which germinate, every 
one, in eight or nine 
days after sowing, and 
two-year-old seeds are 
quite good; or they may 
be increased from cut¬ 
tings, if you get off¬ 
shoots, or from the un¬ 
derground rhizomes, 
most of them produce 
so freely. Indeed, as 
pot plants, these rhiz¬ 
omes often heave the 
plants out of the pots. 
All garden varieties, in¬ 
cluding the variegated 
forms, must be increas¬ 
ed from cuttings or root¬ 
stocks. 
Yuccas are peculiar¬ 
ly American plants and 
are found wild from 
Virginia, west and 
south, and throughout 
Mexico to Northern 
South America. There 
are several well defined 
species and many varie¬ 
ties. Some of the spe¬ 
cies, as the common 
Bear Grass (Filauieut- 
osa) aud Angustifolia, 
are nearly stemless, aud 
others, as Tveculeaua 
of Southern Texas and 
Mexico, form small 
trees 15 to 25 feet in 
bight, with trunks one 
to two feet in diameter; 
or, like Brevifolia, small 
trees 15 to JO feet high 
with trunks two feet in 
diameter, forming near 
the Mohave River, on 
the desert plateau at 
2,000 to 4,000 feet eleva¬ 
tion, struggling forests. > 
Although yuccas keep 
open their flowers by 
day, the blossoms open 
in the night time. And 
in order to bear seeds, 
they require insect (the 
yucca moth) agency to 
fertilize them. But it 
does not happen that 
yuccas never bear seeds 
without the assistance 
of this moth, which is 
peculiarly an American 
insect, as a few instan¬ 
ces of yuccas in fruit 
have been recorded 
from the Old World. 
The yucca is marked¬ 
ly a fiber-bearing plant; 
but so far it has not been 
put to much accouue 
in this direction. The 
Yucca gloriosa (Fig. 
<>2) is the one we com¬ 
monly sco in the South¬ 
eastern and Gulf States 
and which formaatruuk 
from two to 10 feet high 
branched in the older 
% 
specimens. The Span- 
YUC’CA GLORIOSA. Re-engraved from the Gardeners’ Chronicle. Fig. 
62 . 
fruits of Baccata are 
sweet and edible aud 
