1874.] 
63 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
niums the variety called Master Christine is to 
be especially commended. Last spring Mr. 
Chitty, of Bellevue Nursery, Paterson, N. J., 
sent me this, among other novelties in bedding 
Geraniums. The plant bloomed in the border 
all summer; when cold weather approached the 
plant was taken up,severely cut back and potted, 
and the cuttings put in a propagating box. 
The old plant soon recovered, and has flowered 
abundantly, and the rooted cuttings, though 
only two inches high, are showing flower-buds. 
The flowers are of good shape, and of an un¬ 
usual color, being of a bright, lively, and rather 
dark pink. Another good winter-bloomer is 
Jean Sisley. —It is scarcely possible that 
we shall have a more intense scarlet than this 
presents; it is perfectly dazzling, and when we 
add that the flower is almost perfect in shape 
we may regard this as the best of its class. I 
believe that last winter I called attention to the 
great value of the 
Double Chinese Primrose as a window 
plant. If the plants are procured before they 
have been subjected to the heat and atmos¬ 
phere of a greenhouse, and allowed to come on 
gradually in the sitting-room window, they will 
bloom on all winter in the most satisfactory 
manner. But it will be useless to bring plants 
that have been forced at all into window cul¬ 
ture ; the leaves will fade, and the flowers will 
blast in the bud, and be uncomfortable subjects 
altogether. This fall Mr. John Saul sent me 
his new double white, “ Mrs. John Saul.” My 
plant is a small one, but it has flowered enough 
to show its great superiority over the common 
double white. Not only are the flowers more 
double, but the petals are beautifully fringed, 
and they have just the slightest possible tinge 
of pink, a shade so delicate that it can only be 
seen when contrasted with a pure white flower. 
It is a most valuable addition to our winter- 
blooming plants. 
Propagating Echeverias. —When Eche- 
verias like E. secunda glauca get a long stem 
they should be cut off and the rosette of leaves 
put in sand to root. This I did with a lot, and 
intended to set out the stumps for them to 
grow new shoots. Not being ready to plant 
them at once I put them in a flower-pot and 
covered them with damp moss and set near 
the hot-water pipes. Two or three weeks after 
I took them out to plant, and found young- 
shoots had started in the greatest abundance, 
apparently many more than would have come 
had they been planted in the ordinary way. 
-■»-.-—a ®-bs— — -- 
Special Fertilizers for Particular Plants. 
BY PETER HENDERSON. 
A man called at my office last spring with 
some dozen bottles as samples of special man¬ 
ures, indispensable, be said, as fertilizers for 
certain kinds of plants. He had those with 
him that he claimed to be specially prepared 
for cabbage, corn, potatoes,wheat, grass, lawns, 
beets, etc., etc. He even invaded Flora’s realm, 
and declared that nis nostrum for roses was a 
specific for any languid capers of this some¬ 
times rather coquettish queen of flowers. His 
own arguments, which were rather plausible 
and glibly uttered, were backed up by numer¬ 
ous certificates—authentic, I have no doubt— 
where Ms “ potato fertilizer” bad worked won¬ 
ders with some, with others his “ corn manure ” 
had been of undoubted benefit, and so on all 
through the list. 
Now, I have no reason to say that the vendor 
of these fertilizers was a quack, except the 
broad fact, gathered from an experience of 
thirty years, that has shown me that it makes 
but little difference with what fertilizer a crop 
is treated provided the soil is properly pulver¬ 
ized and the fertilizer applied in proper pro¬ 
portions according to its strength. Had all his 
separate kinds of fertilizers been taken from 
the same bag (provided that bag contained a 
good article of bone-dust or guano) the result 
to his patrons would have been the same, whe¬ 
ther he had used it on one or all of the crops 
that he had special prescriptions for. 
There are few market gardeners in the vicin¬ 
ity of New York but who have at one time or 
another been obliged to take anything they 
could get for fertilizing purposes, and the dif¬ 
ference has never been perceptible when man¬ 
ure from horse stables or cow stables has been 
applied, or when $100 per acre of bone-dust or 
Peruvian guano has been expended, and these 
all are used on a dozen different crops without 
any discrimination. Agricultural chemistry 
may be all very well in some respects, but if 
it gets down to such hair-splitting niceties as to 
analyse scores of special plants, and tell us 
that we must feed each witli just such food 
as these parts show it to be composed of, then 
our common sense, horn of practical experi¬ 
ence, must scout and ridicule such nonsense. 
Plants, like animals, are not so much kept in 
good health by the special kind of food given 
as by the proper quantity and the conditions 
surrounding the individual when the food is 
received, and what proper temperature and 
pulverization of soil may be to the plant, air 
and exercise and also proper temperature are 
the corresponding conditions necessary for 
healthy animal life. Who will say that the 
beef-fed English laborer is in any way the 
physical superior of the Irishman or Scotch¬ 
man whose daily food has been only oat-meal 
and potatoes ? You get usually fine and near¬ 
ly equal development in each case, but it is a 
condition due to a natural use of the muscles 
in the open air in an exhilarating climate rather 
than to 'anything special in the food. It 
would be quite as reasonable to tell us that 
a special food, chemically considered, is neces¬ 
sary for each class of our domestic animals as 
for our domestic plants, and none but the 
veriest charlatan or ignoramus will do either. 
- -—w &s...-- »- 
Fruit Growing in Utah. 
Most people who visit Utah territory are 
surprised to see the progress already made in 
the cultivation of fruit. Standing upon the 
roof of the tabernacle which overlooks the 
dwellings and gardens of the Salt Lake City, 
one sees in every direction fine ornamental 
trees in the streets, and apples, pears, peaches, 
plums, apricots, and cherries in the gardens. 
Few cities or rural villages in the East are as 
well supplied with the large and small fruits. 
The city was laid out on a liberal scale, and 
the building lots are large enough to admit of 
a garden and orchard for every family. The 
fresh, virgin soil, the bright sunny skies, the 
absence of insects, and the timely irrigation 
with good cultivation are the causes of this 
almost uniform success in the growing of 
fruits. The grounds of W. Jennings in the 
heart of the city are on a large scale, and more 
neatly kept than many others, but the fruits 
are no fairer than we saw in other gardens and 
in the market. Entering the gate here we see 
a beautiful circular lawn in front of the dwell¬ 
ing, closely shaven, with a fountain kept con¬ 
stantly playing in the center. There is a 
smooth, concrete walk, bordered with a great 
variety of flowers on either side leading to the 
house. To the left we pass into the fruit 
garden and orchard. The walks here are 
bordered with raspberries, gooseberries, red 
currants, and a native black currant of fine 
quality. We do not remember ever to have 
before seen so large gooseberries and raspber¬ 
ries. In a sunny spot is the vegetable garden 
with all the variety of products usually grown 
for the table. Further on are the apple and 
pear trees, and the ground is strewn -with the 
fallen fruit. The apricot trees surprise all be¬ 
holders. The limbs are bending with the 
golden fruit, which is now just ripening. 
There is not a mark of the Curculio or any 
other insect upon the skin. And this fruit is 
so abundant that it retails in the markets for a 
dollar a bushel. Grapes are not always a sure 
crop here, but last year, though retarded by 
late frosts, they were likely to ripen. Straw¬ 
berries grow in the greatest abundance. Some 
of these trees have a tinge of yellow upon the 
foliage and look diseased. This is attributed 
by some to the alkaline soil upon which they 
are planted. It does not seem to be an indica¬ 
tion of disease, for we were informed that 
often the trees which are yellow one season 
have abundant fruit the next. Other cultiva¬ 
tors rival Mr. Jennings in the quality of their 
fruit, though few equal him in the exquisite 
taste of his ornamental grounds. One gentle¬ 
man informed us that a young apple tree nine 
inches through at the butt bad produced an 
average of twenty-five bushels annually for three 
years in succession. He had a peach orchard 
which had yielded five hundred bushels to the 
acre. At a public reception given at the city 
ball there was a display of fruits—peaches, 
pears, apples, grapes, and apricots—that would 
have done credit to any horticultural exhibi¬ 
tion in the land. Salt Lake City being first 
settled has finer gardens and orchards than 
other portions of the territory, but we saw at 
Ogden, American Fork, the villages in Jordan 
Valley, and other places, indications of the 
same careful attention to fruit growing. The 
houses are embowered in trees, and the trees, 
especially the apricots, are loaded with fruit. 
The Japan Pea. 
The Southern seedsmen have advertised and 
Southern journals have had articles in relation 
to the Japan Pea. As we make it a point to 
try all the new things that we can get hold of, 
we last spring obtained from Mark W. Johnson, 
dealer in seeds and agricultural implements, 
Atlanta, Ga., a sample of these peas, among 
other Southern seeds most courteously fur¬ 
nished. We sowed these peas with twenty-three 
other kinds of cow or stock peas. Not being 
aware of their bushy character,we sowed them 
too near together, and for this reason probably 
they failed to ripen. This fall we have re¬ 
ceived a sample of the same pea from L. L. 
Osment, Cleveland, Tenn., who says they are 
“unsurpassed for table use.” Being in this 
manner claimed as a garden product we are 
warranted in the crowded state of the agricul¬ 
tural columns in placing them in the horticul¬ 
tural department of the paper. The seed is 
about the size of a Daniel O’Rourke pea, kre- 
