222 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
■with the formidable name already given above, j 
Echexeria retusa floribunda spiertdens." It 
was so handsome a plant that we had an en¬ 
graving made from it, which is here given; 
after the drawing was made the plant kept in 
flower in our greenhouse for some months.— Ed.] f 
Improved Mignonette. 
Within a few years there has been consider¬ 
able attention given to the improvement of the 
Mignonette, and though some of the new vari¬ 
eties that have been sent out have not proved 
equal to the representations made in their favor, 
yet we have several that are a decided improve¬ 
ment upon the common form of this old-fash¬ 
ioned garden favorite. A few days ago we re¬ 
ceived from Mr. James Fleming, seedsman, 
67 Nassau street, New York, some spikes of 
Mignonette that in size were simply astonish¬ 
ing, and having expressed a desire to know more 
of its history, we are favored with the follow¬ 
ing account by the raiser, Mr. Samuel Henshaw, 
gardener to J. C. Green, Esq., New Brighton, 
Staten Island. Mr. II. says: 
“The Mignonette of which I send you a 
sample is the result of careful selection in sav¬ 
ing the seed, thinning, etc., until it is now quite 
a distinct variety. Three years ago I grew for 
the first time the variety called Reseda ameli- 
on it i, which produced flower-spikes about three 
inches in length ; thinking it might be still fur¬ 
ther improved, I saved seeds of the largest 
flower-spike, and only the seeds that formed 
on its lower half. The year following there 
was a decided improvement, the plants being 
more vigorous and the flowers much finer. I 
continued selecting only the finest for seed, and 
this year the spikes saved for seed for next win¬ 
ter’s flowers measure at this date (April 29th) 
164 inches in length, and are still growing. The 
seeds were sown last fall about the third week 
in August, in the bed of a small span-roofed 
house devoted to violets, and treated the same 
as the violets as to watering, ventilation, 
etc., air being given freely all winter, and the 
temperature never allowed lo rise to more than : 
50° at night,- and oftener it was about 40°. 
When the weather was severe the soil was kept 
rather dry, with occasional doses of weak liquid 
manure; the plants were thinned to about 12 
inches apart, but wctuld have been better if 
allowed twice this room, as they are now very 
crowded. The Mignonette for early winter 
blooming is sown about the end of July in 
boxes about two feet long by one foot wide 
and nine inches deep. About six plants are 
enough to each box. These are placed on the 
greenhouse shelves in October, and yield abun¬ 
dance of flowers until past midwinter.” 
This is a useful bit of information, not only 
to gardeners, but to all who raise flowers or, in 
fact, any plants from seeds. But few who have 
not tried it are aware of the decided improve- I 
ment that may be effected by a proper selection 
of the flowers for seed. It is too frequently ! 
the case that those who intend to save seed I 
wait until the plants have expended their 
strength in blooming before they gather it, or 
wait until near the end of the tomato and melon 
season before they think of next year’s crop. 
It is something to forego the plucking of the 
earliest and finest flowers or the best and soon¬ 
est ripened of the garden products. But who¬ 
ever works in a garden, be it large or small, 
must have faith, and one exercise of this faith 
can be manifested in foregoing present enjoy¬ 
ment for the sake of future good. 
Evergreens from Seed. 
In an article given last March it was stated 
that the difficulties were so great that we could 
not advise farmers in general to undertake to 
raise evergreens from seed. Still the inquiries 
continue to come, and we will give such direc¬ 
tions as can be given, remarking that this is a 
branch of horticulture requiring the greatest 
skill and experience, and those who undertake 
it must expect to meet with disappointment 
and losses, for these fall to the share of those 
who have made evergreen growing the busi¬ 
ness of their lives. One reason why we advise 
farmers to purchase young evergreens rather 
than to undertake to raise them is the fact that 
so few of them like at any time to do what is 
called “ puttering ” work, and unless they are 
willing to give to the evergreens while they are 
young all the care that they demand, it will be 
money and time thrown away. But few plants 
are so “ miffy ” as these the first year, and our 
hardiest evergreens when young are as delicate 
as a tender exotic; and as seedlings two or three 
years old—an age when they are no longer lia¬ 
ble to the troubles of their infancy—can be had 
at very low rates of those who raise them on a 
large scale, we are sure that we do farmers a 
service when we advise them to buy rather than 
to attempt to grow them. Besides getting ser¬ 
viceable trees two or three years sooner, the time 
that would be required to raise these seedlings 
is worth more than the plants will cost. To 
those disposed to try raising their own trees, 
we would say that it is now too late to start 
with any hope of success. The one thing most 
injurious to the young seedlings is the hot sun ; 
hence the seed must be sown at the very earli¬ 
est moment. Some growers even sow when 
only the surface of the earth is thawed, and it 
is still frozen beneath. To guard against the 
injurious effects of the sun, the bed must be 
shaded, and in such a manner as not to prevent 
a free circulation of air. A very good plan for 
those who grow upon a small scale is to raise a 
common hot-bed frame upon bricks or blocks a 
few inches above the bed, and whitewash the 
glass. This gives shade and a free circulation 
of air. On a large scale the beds of convenient 
width have stakes driven along their edges to 
which boards six inches wide are nailed, their 
lower edges being three or four inches above 
the surface of the bed ; upon these boards rest 
screens made of common lath with the laths an 
inch and a half apart. The beds of Messrs. R. 
Douglas & Son, Waukegan, Ill., who are the 
largest growers in the country, are protected 
by screens of brush supported upon posts seven 
feet above (he beds, and they have acres covered 
by this kind of protection ; this has the advan¬ 
tage over the other shading that it allows the 
necessary work to be done without the trouble 
of removing the screen. The seeds are usually 
sown broadcast and raked in, the surface being 
afterwards lightly rolled or pressed. Weeding 
and thinning have to be done, and a constant 
watch kept against “ damping off.” Thousands 
of seedlings will sometimes decay at the sur¬ 
face of the earth, without any warning; the 
only remedy for this is to sift on a covering of 
dry sand kept for the purpose. 
Stocks for Fruit-Trees—Peaches. 
In discussions with fruit-growers as to the 
want of success with this or that variety of 
apple, pear, or other fruit, we have suggested 
that an uncongenial stock might have some¬ 
thing to do with it, but these gentlemen have 
not been disposed to adopt this view. In their 
eyes, one stock is as good as another. Suppose 
a nurseryman buys a lot of imported or home- 
raised apple or pear seed; it would be quite 
within bounds to say that each pound of this 
contained seeds from a dozen trees of quite 
different character, not only in the quality of 
the fruit and its time of ripening, but in the 
habit of the trees. Some may be regular and 
others straggling growers, there may be seeds 
from slow and quick growers, and from those 
which ripen their fruit in August and those 
that mature in December. The nurseryman 
sows his seeds, and when the stocks raised 
from them are of proper size he buds or grafts 
them indiscriminately, throwing out, probably, 
the very unpromising looking ones. To say 
that a dozen Baldwin apple-trees grafted upon 
a dozen stocks of widely differing character 
will, when set in the orchard, all produce fruit 
precisely alike, is to state something that we 
can not agree to. In rapidly maturing trees 
like the peach this matter is more readily 
tested than with a slow tree like the apple. 
Entertaining these views, we were much pleased 
with an article by Col. Edward Wilkins, which 
appeared in the American Farmer (Baltimore) 
for April. Col. Wilkins is the largest peach- 
grower in America, and consequently in the 
world. Having had the pleasure of visiting his 
immense orchards at Riverside, Md., a few 
years ago, we know he brings to fruit-grow¬ 
ing all the intelligence and shrewdness that 
a successful merchant applies to his busi¬ 
ness ; he makes peach-growing a business, and 
a successful one, and has a sharp eye to every¬ 
thing that detracts from or conduces to that 
success. Having found that varieties of the 
peach which should ripen some weeks apart 
would, much to the detriment of the grower, 
mature very nearly at the same time, as well as 
other unfavorable indications in his orchards, 
he has given much thought to the causes of 
these abnormal peculiarities. In the well con¬ 
sidered article to which we have referred he 
attributes these troubles to uncongenial stocks. 
To avoid the yellows the nurserymen try to 
procure for their stock seed from what is called 
the “ native peach,” that is a peach which has 
long been growu in eastern Virginia from the 
seed; a very poor fruit, but the tree is remark¬ 
ably healthy. Col. Wilkins states that there 
are as many bushels of seed sold as coming 
from this native peach as there are bushels of 
the fruit raised. He claims that stocks raised 
from this seed, from a very poor fruit, grown 
on a very light soil, are not suitable subjects 
on which to bud the rich melting varieties 
which need good soil and culture to bring them 
to perfection. Col. Wilkins can not see (nor 
can we) why seeds from healthy budded vari¬ 
eties of the peach should not give more conge¬ 
nial stocks than these miserable “ native ” 
peaches. This is not merely a notion with Col. 
Wilkins, but he gives a bit of experience to 
support his views. The first orchard he ever 
had was budded upon stocks raised from the 
seeds of first-class peaches; this was the best 
orchard he ever had for size, and health of the 
trees, and the quality of the fruit. In Europe, 
where there are no “ native ” Virginia peaches, 
we hear of no difficulty resulting from the use 
of the seeds of good fruit for stock whenever 
the peach stock is used. In Europe, the peach 
is generally budded upon some varieties of the 
plum, which are readily multiplied by layers. 
