JUNE 23 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
337 
pet of new and choice Century Plants. The 
pcculiur bottle-necked-like C’ereus in that bed i 
which looks so white, is the Old Man Cactus of 
Mexico; the stout lower portion is the part it 
had formed in its native country, and the nar¬ 
row or stopper-like portion, that which it has 
made under artificial cultivation. The hand¬ 
some tree beyond,on the left, is a large Hickory. 
A picture from the same photograph from 
which our engraving was made, appeared in 
the Gardeners’ Chronicle of Jan, 10. Our own 
engraving was made Inst Fall. We mention 
this lest our contemporary might think that 
we copied without due credit. 
smaller ones, was collected in its native wilds 
some years ago by Dr. Edward Palmer, an 
American naturalist, and contributed by him 
to the Cambridge Garden. This specimen, 
which bloomed last Summer, is the ouly one 
that has ever blossomed in cultivation. The 
Cactuses in the larger bed are mostly of the 
Indian Fig, or Leaf Cactus kind, (Opuntia), and 
the great majority of them are tender. They 
are lifted and potted about the first of Octo¬ 
ber, stored ovor Winter on shelves in a dry 
cellar and transplanted outside again the next 
May. At the further end of the Opuntia bed 
is a mass of tall, pillar-like Cactuses, mostly 
Cereuses. They love a warm, sunny outsid“ 
fieri at Ultra l 
far Women 
CONDUCTED BY MISS KAY CLARK. 
VIEW IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN AT 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
This garden, Fig. 244, is the botanical 
garden of Harvard University, and the only 
purely botanical garden in the country. It is 
nearly a mile distant from the “ College Yard,” 
or central mass of college bifildings which are 
at. Harvard Square, some four miles from 
Boston; but the garden is easily reached from 
Boston by the North Avenue or Garden Street 
horse cars which run every few minutes, or by 
the Fitchburg R. R. to Cam¬ 
bridge Station. — — --— 
The garden was established 
early in the present century, 
but for lack of sufficient ^ 
financial support, lias had, all 
along until recently, a strug- w-'.'-m 
gle for existence. For thirty : '7'"'* 
years—namely, from 1842 till S' fc-& 
1872—our veteran botanist, 
Dr. Asa Gray, was its diree- j L i 
tor. He was succeeded in - 
that capacity by Professor XLj 
C. S. Sargent, the eminent “ 
arboriculturist, who, in 187i» 
was succeeded by the present 
incumbent, Dr. Goodale, 
who is also Professor of 
TIME TO ARISE, RETIRE, AND A WAY 
TO SYSTEMATIZE THE DAY’S 
WORK. 
MRS. MARY ELY. 
Home Sweet Home. Who has coined three 
sweeter words than these f How w anting in 
all that makes life most agreeable is home, 
if order, arrangement aud adaptation are 
lacking in the management 
__ of the household! In order 
to secure needed time to 
make “Mi Casa.” (My house. 
The Spanish language has 
no word for home) a home 
requires all the hours of the 
day to be devoted to this end 
directly or indirectly. The 
length of the day is not 
measured by the rising and 
setting of the sun. Weal- 
lot more hours to the work 
of the house than do our 
husbands to the field or shop 
although their work is done 
when they leave for home. 
The time to retire is an 
important matter to the 
weary housewife. May it 
be determined by the time 
we arise in the morning? 
Partly, but not wholly. 
Here comes in the question 
of retiring at a stated hour . 
Is it not important to fix on 
an hour for retiring < I hold 
it to be a matter of great 
importance because of the 
system it brings with it. 
If we are creatures of habit 
it becomes ns all the more 
to be habitual in the time 
w r e retire. Some able writers 
havi> suggested the hour of 
eight o’clock and when that 
time comes duties and work 
are together left until mora- 
• .. . ’ j ing. As a rule neither work 
undone or company should 
a create a reason for violating 
this all important rule. It 
has been well said that one 
hour of sleep before mid- 
night is worth two hours 
l*-. i after that time. The system 
is being recuperated rather 
■i'Vy than exhausted at a time 
when the demand for rest is 
important for refreshing 
sleep. We scarcely need to 
discuss t e question of early 
retiring with the mother 
whose house nnd home 
A iv Lvjflii duties have exhausted so 
J a 8 an8H l S w|| much of her vital force. 
All that is performed after 
the regular hour for retir- 
J ing is a draft upon resour- 
T. ces that should bo held in- 
violate. To retire at the 
horn- fixed for that purpose 
5 awFTfq will give sweet, sound and 
t Ifl refreshing sleep which, will 
enable her to perfonn with 
ease, the labors of the eom- 
ing day, that would be a 
weary task if the needed 
rest had not been secured. 
>•The time to arise will 
r J strike bal'd blows at “a lit- 
tie more sleep a little more 
slumber” habits of some 
lr*. whose late hours have 
sadly interfered with the 
order of nature. A well 
plants that are grown in it. 
The garden is divided into 
two parts by a terrace bank, 
as seen in the illustration. 
On the upper part are the 
buildings—Dr. Grav’s resi¬ 
dence, herbarium, library, 
laboratories, lecture room, 
groen-bousos, etc., the re¬ 
serve garden, and beds of 
Cactuses and other succulent 
plants. 
The lower portion is la id 
out in plots of long, narrow 
beds with intervening grass 
pathways, the plots being 
separated from each other, 
and the whole space conven¬ 
iently disposed with gravel 
walks. The beds are planted 
in strict botanical fashion, 
nnd according to the sequence 
of genera of Hooker and Ben- 
tham. There are clumps of 
trees containing some fine old 
specimens of Oak, Maples, 
Yellow-Wood, Linden, Cu¬ 
cumber-tree and other Mag¬ 
nolias, Beeches, etc. A rock¬ 
ery underneath the trees 
contains a lot of our wild 
wood plants that come up and 
blossom in the Spring time 
aud disappear in Summer. 
In the rockeries in more sun¬ 
ny and exposed places is a 
great miscellaneous collection 
of small plants, many of 
which are too rare, choice or 
tender to be permitted to 
“rough it.” among their 
grosser-growing relatives in 
the “botanical” bods. A 
number of bog and aquatic 
plants are grown hi and by 
the side of two small maids. 
In August, 1879, when the 
last official catalogue of the 
plants cultivated in the gar¬ 
den was made, the garden 
contained 1,M9 genera, in¬ 
cluding 8,901 species. Of 
these 8,641 species were of 
hardy plants, and 2,200 of 
tender ones. Among these 
were 887 kinds of ferns, 217 
sorts of orchids, 420 kinds of 
hardy trees ami shrubs, 112 
of barely hardy ones, us Au- 
ouba, and exceptionally small 
ones, as Epigieft, 8S8 kinds of 
$i§p 
View in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, Mass.—Fig. 344.—From Nature 
Cactuses ami other succu¬ 
lents, aud so ou. 
Referring more immediately to our illustra¬ 
tion, the plant in front, which has the long, 
shaft-like inflorescence, is the Queen Victoria 
Century Plant in bloom. This plant is a 
“new” .and beautiful'species found in the 
mountains near Monterey in Mexic o. .Thi s 
particular specimen, together with some 
place in Summer, aud there they grow well 
aud blossom too; many of them are night- 
blooming. In the center of the circular bed 
on the right is a Chinese Magnolia, and sur- 
I rounding it, a mass of succulent plants from 
the Cape of Good Hope, the Canaries ami 
Mexico. The little circle beyond that, contains 
a few shaft-like Cereuses arising from a car- 
RlCINUS Plants. — It is surprising to what 
; a hight these maybe made to grow by proper 
care. As soon as the second leaves appear, 
they should be watered freely and the soil 
kept mellow about them. Every lateral should 
lie pinched out as soon as it appears. Weak 
manure water should be given every ten days. 
If flower buds are formed pinch them out also. 
must be held nearly unalterable, unless sick¬ 
ness in the family prevents. This is the first 
step to be adopted in the management of 
the home, a farmers home especially. The 
system for to-day is the same for all other days, 
though the work may vary in form. 
gome time before the hour of retiring it w il 
be necessary to make all needed anangemeut 
