if 
XI 
A beautiful and luxuriant group of Ferns may 
he had for the entire summer by any one who 
lias a large tree under which to plant them. If 
there is a wet or unsightly place under the tree 
that never can be made to look well, all the bet¬ 
ter ; choose that spot for your Ferns. An airy 
place, shaded by the house, will do nearly as 
well. To prepare the bed for the Ferns pro¬ 
ceed in this wise: Choose a bundle of stakes two 
and a half feet long, an inch and a half in di¬ 
ameter, and which still tightly retain the bark ; 
drive these into the ground in a circular or ob¬ 
long form, as you may wish the bed to be; the 
stakes may stand from twelve to eighteen inches 
above the ground ; now weave in and out about 
the stakes, basket fashion, grape-vine until the 
top of the stakes is reached. You then have 
what appears to be a rustic basket. Fill in the 
bottom with sod, or earth rubbish of various 
sorts, but leave room enough in the top for a 
good layer of forest mould, in which plant the 
Ferns, which may be taken from the w oods as 
soon as the fronds begin to peep above the ground. 
It is better to choose the Ferns from a plot 
where they grow thickly, and take them up so 
that they may be as little ■ divided as possible, 
and with plenty of soil unbroken about the 
roots. Fill your basket full of them, and, if you 
water them well, in a few weeks you will have a 
thing of beauty to gladden your eyes for many a 
week to come. The basket may be further or¬ 
namented by slipping seeds of the Cypress vine 
or Morning-glory between the interstices of the 
grape-vine into the soil. They will sometimes 
grow right merrily, and if trained about the 
basket beautify and illuminate it in a very 
dainty and exquisite fashion. 
Red Spider. —An exchange suggests: If 
small plates of bright tin or glass, with a little 
sulphur on them, are placed in the full rays of 
the sun under the plants, no red spiders will trouble 
Tiie Massachusetts Horticultural Report mentions 
a very finely-grown tricolor Pelargonium, ex¬ 
hibited by John Parker, who gave in substance 
the following statement of his treatment: “ In 
summer it is plunged in open ground in the gar¬ 
den ; taken up, severely cut back, and repot¬ 
ted in autumn, the old earth completely shaken 
from the roots. After January it is watered 
with liquid manure once a fortnight, made from 
a pint of hen-droppings in two gallons of water, 
settled, and sediment rejected. The droppings 
are first scalded with boiling w ater to destroy 
any animal germs. Once a w'eek the plant is 
dashed with water, and, if the weather is mild, 
in the open air. The pots are washed once a 
fortnight, and the surface of the earth stirred 
with a fork.” This was the treatment of a plant 
in a dining-room, and the result was a brilliant 
display. Mr. Parker said that it was important 
to keep plants near the glass, in the full blaze 
of the sun, from January to May. 
THE VALUE OF ORNAMENTAL 
TREES. 
Design fob Flower-Stand. 
M. B. Batehaji gives in the Practical Farmer 
an interesting example of the financial value of 
ornament. He says that some thirty years ago 
a neighbor at Columbus planted four Norway 
Spruces in his front yard. The trees cost him 
one dollar each. Ten years afterwards a weal¬ 
thy citizen paid a thousand dollars more for the 
place on account of those trees than he other¬ 
wise would have done. 
LARGE PJEONIA. 
Marshall P. Wilder exhibited last year, 
among other fine flowers, a tree Paionia of the 
variety known as Louis van Houttc, which mea¬ 
sured nine inches in diameter. It is rare that six 
or seven inches are exceeded by the tree Pseonia. 
If 
PjL 
