1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
459 
Plants Received by Mail.—How to Treat. 
A correspondent, “J. H. M.,” Coldwater, 
Mich., writes: “lama constant reader of the 
tings, instead of watering them daily, as when 
they are growing vigorously, they are not wa¬ 
tered for eight or ten days, and then sparing¬ 
ly, until a growth of leaves and shoots appears. 
If the plants are injured by drying out or by 
where its stems may hang over rocks, or trail 
over banks. There is a white-flowered varie¬ 
ty, which is much more rare than the ordinary 
kind, probably for the reason that it does not 
produce seed so freely. This pea is an excel- 
Agriculturist , and wish to inquire how plants 
should be treated when received by mail.” 
Plants received by mail, or even by express, 
are in the majority of cases killed after their 
arrival by what is believed to be kindness. As 
they have usually been on a long journey, they 
are supposed to be hungry, and are at once 
ever-supplied with food, a kindness they have 
no way of resisting, and can only manifest 
their opinion of it by sickening or dying out¬ 
right. This mistaken hospitality is usually 
manifested in placing the weak and bruised 
roots in a flower-pot several times too large for 
them, and deluging the soil in which they arc 
planted by water. This is the general treat¬ 
ment. The proper one for plants received 
from a distance, particularly if by mail, (when 
the soil is usually shaken from the root,) is to 
place them in a pot only large enough to admit 
the smallest possible portion of soil between 
the roots and the sides of the pot, then keep 
them rather dry than otherwise, until signs of 
new growth begin. Atw ays bear in mind that 
when the roots or leaves of a plant have been 
br used or detached, the vitality of the plant 
hrs been lessened, and it requires less food in 
cocseouence, and has no need of it until the 
roots and leaves are in vigor again. When 
-t?m '.i-v ' , au3e a plant drops its leaves, hold 
Ci, ;;-.e wate • until it again starts into growth. 
When the florists cut down their plants for cut¬ 
heating, as sometimes happens, cut the tops 
back severely, to induce new buds to push. 
-- — I — --- 
The Everlasting Pea. 
While most persons are well acquainted with 
the Sweet Pea, a charmingly fragrant and va¬ 
riously colored garden annual, but few seem to 
know its perennial brother, the so-called Ever¬ 
lasting Pea. Neither the Sweet nor the Ever¬ 
lasting Pea belong to the same genus with our 
common garden pea, ( Pisurn ,) but they are, 
more properly speaking, Yetchlings, 
though the difference between the two depends 
upon points which would only be noticed by a 
botanist. The best known perennial pea is 
Lathyrus latifolius , a native of Europe; the 
stems are 6 feet or more long, and broad¬ 
ly winged; the leaves consist of a pair of oval 
or lanceolate, strongly-veined leaflets, terminat¬ 
ed by a branching tendril; the flowers are on 
stalks longer than the leaves, several in a clus¬ 
ter, large and showy, of a lively purplish-rose 
color. The plant flowers very freely, being in 
bloom nearly all summer. If planted where it 
has room to spread, a single specimen, growing- 
flat upon the ground, is a handsome object; or 
it may be allowed to run upon a low trellis, 
; or even over brush, and it may be introduced 
I with good effect in a wild part of the grounds 
lent plant for cut-flowers for summer bouquets, 
and is worth growing for that purpose alone. 
A related species, L. grandiflorus, has larger 
flowers, but only two or three in a cluster. The 
seeds of the everlasting pea may be sowed in 
spring, or if they can be obtained early in the 
fall, and then sown, they will before winter 
make plants large enough to flower the next 
year. Well established plants may be multi¬ 
plied by dividing the roots. 
-—---aC »— - 
A Hew White Pansy—“ White Treasure.” 
Among all the varied colors presented by 
pansies it is not strange that there should be 
white ones; indeed there are several old named 
sorts of this color—or rather lack of color, but 
there are not so many that a new and meretori- 
ous white variety is not w r elcome. “ White 
Treasure” originated with M. J. W. Morris, a 
florist at Utica, N. Y., who sometime ago sent 
us specimens of the flowers, and more recently 
we have been able to inspect entire plants. The 
strong stocky habit of the plant is its most 
striking characteristic; it is very short-jointed 
and large stemmed without the straggling weak¬ 
ness that often makes these plants unsightly; 
the foliage is of good substance and dense, and 
stands the sun well; a photograph taken of the 
bed in August shows a vigor of growth quite 
