164 
AMEfflOJS AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
Xlie Flower Garden and Lawn. 
The earliest work is a general clearing up, re¬ 
moval of rubbish, and the repair of any damage 
caused by winter. All broken branches should 
have the stump sawed off close to the trunk, the 
wound made smooth, and covered with melted 
grafting wax or thick paint. Evergreens form no 
exception to this. 
Lawns. —Give a dressing of some fertilizer or well 
composted manure. Nitrate of soda, 300 pounds 
to the acre, is excellent. Wood ashes, flour of 
bone, or guano may be used. Bare places should 
be scratched with a rake, and seeds sown. 
New Lawns should be made early, giving the soil 
the preparation suggested in February last. Direc¬ 
tions for sowing were given last month. 
Bulbs. —Uncover the beds, but have the litter at 
hand to throw over in case of sudden frost. 
Ornamental Trees and Shrubs should be planted 
early, and the same attention given to cutting back 
the top in proportion to the loss of root, that has 
been advised for fruit trees. Evergreens are moved 
best next month. 
Native Trees and Shrubs are often introduced into 
the grounds. These are poorly supplied with roots, 
and it is safest to cut them back to a single stem. 
Herbaceous Perennials that have been long in one 
place should be taken up, divided, and reset in a 
new spot. 
Annuals. —The hardy kinds may be sown as soon 
as the ground is ready. Seeds of tender annuals 
may be sown under glass or in the house, if the 
weather is still unsettled. 
Climbers add greatly to the beauty and comfort 
of the veranda. Trumpet-creeper, Honeysuckles, 
Wistarias, and Virginia Creeper are all quick- 
growing and easily procured. 
Wind-Breaks, in many localities, are needed to 
break the violence of the prevailing winds. This 
adds greatly to the comfort of the house, and al¬ 
lows many trees and plants to be cultivated which 
would not succeed without it. Willows planted 
first will prepare the way for evergreen and other 
trees for shelter. 
Cxreculioiise and Window Plants. 
The increasing heat will require greater atten¬ 
tion to ventilation. Insects also increase, and the 
demands of out-door work should not cause any 
neglect of the plants within. 
Water will be required more freely than before, 
especially by plants making their growth. 
Bulbs that have bloomed in pots should be cared 
for until the fading of the leaf. Such bulbs may 
be planted in the open ground next fall. 
Bulbs and Boots for planting in the borders, may 
be brought from the cellar or other store-house 
and started. Dahlias, Cannas, Tuberoses, and 
others may be forwarded in this manner. 
Gladiolus bulbs should be planted in succession, 
putting in some as soon as the soil is ready. 
Propagation of plants for use in beds should now 
go on rapidly. Seeds of Drummond’s Phlox, 
Asters, Zinnias, and others may be sown in the 
greenhouse or in window-boxes. All such plants 
are greatly improved by transplanting, and better 
still by potting. 
Times and Seasons. 
In offering hints about work we are constantly 
aware that our readers reside in almost every vari¬ 
ety of climate, and that it is impossible to make 
anything like a “ Calendar of Operations,” which 
would answer for any one section of country. Our 
object is to point out the manner of performing the 
various operations, rather than to indicate the pre¬ 
cise times at which they should be done. Still, 
wherever one may live, there are spring work, and 
work for summer and autumn ; seed time, a sea¬ 
son of growth and one of harvest. In no other 
particular do the widely separated localities differ 
so much as in the time for sowing seeds. While 
in parts of the Southern States some seeds may 
be sown all through the winter, there are localities 
on the northern border when no seeds can besown 
until May. The plants constituting our farm and 
garden crops came originally in part from cold 
countries and in part from tropical or semi-tropical 
sections; and we recognize the first, such as 
wheat, beets, cabbages, etc.., as hardy, while the 
others, (e. g.) beans, corn, squashes, and all their 
class, are tender. In giving directions for sowing 
we can meet the wide differences of climate by 
reference to two well understood periods. The 
hardy seeds are to be sown as soon as the ground 
is in a condition to work. This, in every locality 
means not only that the ground is thawed, but that 
it is 60 far settled and freed of the excess of water, 
that it is in a condition to be properly broken up 
by the plow and spade. The season for sowing the 
seeds of tender plants is fixed by the one so uni¬ 
versally cultivated in this country—Indian corn. 
Every farmer, whether his farm is in Canada or 
Carolina, knows as the result of many observa¬ 
tions, the date upon which it is safe, in his local¬ 
ity, to plant corn and be fairly certain of a crop. 
Hence “ corn-planting time” serves as a guide for 
all other plants of a similar semi-tropical character. 
A Barrel Trap for Rabbits. 
Mr. I. R. McConn, Mo., sends us a sketch of a 
rabbit trap that has served him well. He describes 
it as follows: Set an empty barrel in the ground, 
and put a long box or “ run ” upon it. A “ tilt- 
board ” is fixed in the bottom of the box, as shown 
in the cut. This board should be 60 hinged that 
the short end will strike the top before it reaches 
the perpendicular. Put a small weight on the short 
end, to over-balance the longer end and to return the 
board to its place after the rabbit has passed into 
the barrel. If any one wishes an extra good trap, 
make one like this. 
The Ways of the Clothes-Moth. 
Many a vigilant house-keeper would be spared 
much vexation of spirit, if she understood the do¬ 
mestic arrangements of the moths as well as she 
does her own. She suspects everything Lepidop- 
terous of being “the moth,” and every insect of 
that kind that enters the house, no matter what its 
size or kind, must be killed lest it “ eat holes in the 
clothing.” It will surprise these watchful persons 
to be told that the moth itself is harmless, and eats 
nothing. The proper Clothes-moth has a spread 
of wing of only about half an inch ; it flits about so 
quietly, and is so small, as often to escape notice, 
while insects many times larger are suspected of 
being dangerous. The small size of the true 
Clothes-moth, its delicate buff color, satiny lustre, 
and especially the silky fringe upon the edges of 
the wings, distinguish it from other moths. In 
saying the moth is harmless, we would not be un¬ 
derstood that it is not the cause of mischief. The 
only part assigned to this creature, in its beautiful 
winged state, is to lay eggs. The round of its 
changes is as follows : The egg, from which hatches 
the larva or caterpillar; this does all the feeding, 
and is the destructive form of the insect; the 
chrysalis, in which state it is dormant for about 
three weeks, and finally the winged state or moth, 
just described. Observe that the moth increases 
only from eggs laid by the flying insect. The feed¬ 
ing moth, or caterpillar does not increase its num¬ 
bers. The caterpillars feed upon woolen fabrics 
and furs, and they also use the minute fragments 
of them to make themselves a case or shield, a 
circular roll, which they carry about with them as 
they feed, and enlarge as their growth requires. In 
the Northern States, the moth begins to fly in May, 
but earlier in warmer climates, and their eggs are 
laid in May and June, when the insect dies. It 
will be seen that, to preserve articles from injury, 
we must place them where the parent moth can not 
reach them. The insect is small, and can slip through 
narrow cracks. Whatever will hold liquids will keep 
out moths, hence furs and woolens may be placed 
in whiskey and other barrels. If the articles are 
placed in brown linen and sewed up, or in paper 
and pasted up, they will be perfectly protected. 
There must be no eggs or moths in the articles 
when put away, and the wrapping should be thor¬ 
ough, without any crevice through which the pa¬ 
rent moth can crawl. 
Culture of the Peanut. 
It is not many years since the peanut plant began 
to assume importance as a staple Southern crop, 
and even now the area of its cultivation, though 
annually extending, is confined to comparatively 
narrow limits. In Virginia it is cultivated only in 
portions of five or six counties on the south side of 
James River, the counties of Isle of Wight and 
Surry being the only ones, where it is grown in 
every part. Light sandy lands near the rivers and 
smaller streams of Eastern Virginia are suited to 
this crop ; and as lime and marl are easily procured 
in all this region, the peanut eventually became a 
leading product. The annual crop of Virginia is 
now two million bushels. 
One of the first questions a prudent farmer 
asks, when thinking of a new crop, is, does it 
draw heavily upon the 6oil ? At first, fears were 
entertained that such would be the case with the 
peanut, but a decade’s experience has shown that 
the farms of Tidewater Virginia, where the peanut 
has been grown annually for twelve or fifteen 
years, have improved in fertility, and that many of 
them are worth fifty or one hundred per cent, more 
now than in 1870. This improvement is not due 
to the peanut plant in itself, blit to the fact that 
the grower is obliged to manure his land more and 
till it better. It is a plant that requires the appli¬ 
cation of both vegetable matter and marl or lime, 
when these elements are not amply present. In 
this respect alone the peanut has been of incal¬ 
culable benefit; and as it is now found that it does 
not greatly exhaust the soil, it is fast becoming a 
favorite crop and taking precedence of every other. 
Many growers say that the leaves alone which 
either fall from the plant before digging or are 
then detached, will, for a number of years, com¬ 
pensate for the elements of plant food taken away 
in the peanut itself ; and that if all the vines are 
returned to the land, either before or after going 
to the cattle pen, they will not only restore the 
loss, but leave the soil richer than at first. It is 
found that woods’ litter, applied to the land once 
in four or five years, and small dressings of lime or 
marl, are the best of all manures for the peanut. 
Where these elements are present in liberal quan¬ 
tity, the yield per acre is from fifty to seventy-five 
or one hundred bushels of peanuts. A good deal 
depends upon the mechanical condition of the 
land. A light and dry porous soil is most favor¬ 
able. Standing water and cold wet soils are destruc¬ 
tive. Tenacious lands are not only difficult to 
work, but wasteful in the quantity of peanuts that 
are left in the ground when digging the crop. 
The cultivation of the peanut does not interfere 
seriously with other staple crops, as, with improved 
implements and rapid work, the times of working 
them may be so ordered as to leave intervals for 
attention to other things. In ordinary seasons, 
three weedings with the hoes are amply sufficient, 
and frequently two are enough. The tendency 
now is to cultivate more with the plow and culti¬ 
vator, and less with hoes. As the fertilizer, where 
any is used, is generally applied at planting time, 
there is nothing to do in summer but to plow and 
hoe the crop. As soon as the young peanuts be- 
