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I must tell you of my double Petunias, which can 
be kept through the winter, and in spring they will 
send forth an amount of large purple and white 
flowers. I had a cutting of a double pink Petunia 
given me by a friend in March, and now it has three 
stocks a foot high with a dozen and a half buds and 
five beautiful, delicate pink blossoms. I think if I 
had room for only one house plant, that one should 
be a double pink Petunia, they are such fast grow¬ 
ers and free bloomers; they remind me of a blush 
Rose, which I think is the “ queen of Eoses.” 
The Calla should be immersed in a butter-firkin of 
water until the warm weather is over and then re¬ 
potted for the house. I have tried putting them in 
the ground and allowing them to stay uncared for, 
only by Dame Nature ; but when time to pot, they 
have gained such a strong hold upon the soil that 
the transplanting is too severe ; so I think on the 
whole it is a better way to immerse in water ; you 
will have earlier blossoms and a larger quantity. 
One year I had a Tuberose which was perfectly 
beautiful; it shot up nearly six feet and had thirty- 
six blossoms, and their fragrance filled my sleeping- 
room so that I was obliged to carry it to a room 
where there was more air. 
The Sweet Pea I also plant, and this year I in¬ 
tend to bush them like garden Peas, as I think it a 
much better way than to make a trellis of cords. 
I was very much pleased with the way to cultivate 
Candytuft for the house which I have been read¬ 
ing in Tun Cabinet, and this autumn I shall make 
an attempt. 
In making up gardens I hope, mothers, you will 
not forget the children, but allow them a little spot 
they may call their own, where they may plant Sun¬ 
flowers, Marigolds, or Holyhocks, at their own free 
will, and thus early in life they may learn to love 
Nature’s children, and in after years you will feel 
amply repaid for all the trouble they may have 
caused you, as they help to refine and educate the 
mind in the great goodness which God has bestowed 
upon us mortals of earth. 
Hudson, N. H. 
C. 13. II. 
THE CALLA AND THE CACTUS. 
“ 0 neighbor !” said the Calla to a Cactus stand¬ 
ing near, “ I am so thirsty, the life seems nearly all 
gone out of me; if I don’t soon have a good drink 
and a refreshing bath I shall surely die. Even the 
lovely young bud I put out, almost at the expense 
of my life, in hope of attracting pity and attention, 
was cruelly allowed to perish of thirst. For many 
weeks I have been trying to struggle through the 
dry, hot atmosphere of this room and keep up ap¬ 
pearances on one short ration of water a day. But 
see my poor, scant, faded dress, all dusty and full of 
vermin. Once I was a handsome, stately young 
plant, well dressed in a superb suit of fine, large 
green leaves. Now I have but three poor, faded, 
ragged ones, on weakly stems. Oh! me, and how 
they slander me. I am compelled to listen to such 
conversation as, ‘ Did you ever see such a looking 
thing as the Calla is ? It does no good at all, grows 
less instead of larger. I have always been told the 
Calla was a fine plant for window-culture, so easy to 
manage. I give mine the same treatment that I 
give my Geraniums, Begonias, and others, and they 
do well; but I cannot succeed in making the Calla 
bloom —never had one to bloom in my life—and this 
contrary one is four years old.’ 
“ Yes, I am getting old; but what a life for me. 
No rest in all those years; no change; only to be 
dumped from one pot to another about every six 
months—not that I need more room so often, but 
by way of medicine no doubt. If I might suggest a 
remedy for my failing health, it would be—let me 
alone where I am—instead of a new pot to set me 
in, set me in a pan of good warm water every morn¬ 
ing, and let me take all I want; give me plenty of 
light and sunshine; do not crowd me so badly to 
make room for others, and I will surely do all that 
any reasonable mortal would ask. 
“ And, friend Cactus, it strikes me that j’ou too 
are looking poorly. What is wrong with you ?” 
“ Yes, I also have cause for complaint. But I 
am surprised to hear you say that want of water is 
killing you, while it is too much of it that is killing 
me. Why, I get a good drenching every few days, 
when I would be much better without any ; my pom- 
roots are drowned and decaying. And I, as well aJ 
you, am getting on in years—nearly five years old— 
and never bore a flower. Behold me now in a pot 
or box that would hold soil and roots enough for a 
good sized oak-tret). I have been stifled every fall 
and spring since I was torn from the parent stem. 
I have managed to grow some, but it has kept me 
busy and I had no time to bloom. 
“Last summer I was set out in the hot sun and 
left to shift for myself; the weather was dry for 
weeks, and I hoped my troubles were over, when 1 
was beginning to feel so strong and well I took 
courage and put forth buds. But alas ! I was dis¬ 
covered too soon; my keeper was delighted to find 
almost a hundred tiny buds on me; so I was taken 
in to be nursed, and set in a cold, shady room, where 
the evening sun would only shine on me about an 
hour, and the cruel drenchings resorted to with re¬ 
newed vigor. Do you wonder that I was so shock¬ 
ed at the change that I dropped every bud ? 
“ How strange that those who love us will not In¬ 
to understand our wants, that we might repay their 
care.” Mollie S. Meeryman. 
--From Parle's Floral Magazine. 
HOW GRASSES BREED. 
Grasses require to be crossed quite as much as 
the largest and most attractive of true flowers. Sin¬ 
gularly enough, we find that the distinction between 
the showy insect-fertilized flowers and the unattrac¬ 
tive wind-fertilized grasses is carried out even to the 
sizes and shapes of their pollen grains. Those of the 
former are roughened over with surface projections, 
so as to cause them to adhere all the better to the 
hairy bodies of insects. Those of the latter are 
lighter in weight, smoother, and often flatter, so as 
to expose as much of their surface as possible, and 
thus help the wind all the better to blow' the pollen 
about. The anthers or pollen-bags of grasses are 
usually more pendulous than those of large flowers. 
More pollen is also produced—considerably moio 
than can be utilized ; but as its manufacture is of the 
easiest, that does not exhaust the plants. In this 
manner the possibility of some of the discharged and 
blowu-about pollen taking effect is rendered certain. 
The amount of pollen thus poured into the atmos¬ 
phere during June, by the grasses in our meadows, 
is such as literally to surcharge it. This it is which 
produces on sensitive nostrils the annoying com¬ 
plaint known as “ hay fever.” People suffering from 
it hurry to the sea-side or the mountains, somewhere 
where grasses do not grow, and w here the atmos¬ 
phere is freed from their pollen. We may notice in 
the flowers of grasses, also, liow admirably the fila¬ 
ments which bear the anthers or pollen-bags dangle 
outside the glumes, ready for the slightest breeze to 
blow' them about. The filaments have the power of 
suddenly growing very rapidly while the pollen is 
ripening, so that the pollen-bags are thus lifted out¬ 
side the chaffy scales of the flower where they hav G 
hitherto been protected. Not less admirably adapt¬ 
ed to wind-crossing is the pistil in the flowers of all 
grasses. Sometimes it is a living forked net, feather¬ 
ed to its base, and everywhere covered with an ex¬ 
ceedingly sticky fluid. Any stray pollen grain blown 
by the wind must inevitably be arrested by this sub¬ 
tle contrivance. Once made prisoner, the pollen 
begins to put forth a tube which ultimately reaches 
the base of the, pistil. Fertilization is then effected, 
the seed grain begins to develop, and after this man¬ 
ner the world gets its “ daily bread.” 
THE AUTUMN" CROCUS. 
For those unfortunate people who cannot make 
plants grow, no matter how much care they take, we 
recommend the autumn Crocus as a plant that has 
such an unconquerable desire to do its duty that no 
amount of ill-treatment can suppress its flowers. It 
will bloom anywhere and under almost any circum¬ 
stances, only it prefers to wait until its pretty conge¬ 
ners, the young Crocuses, have had their day, arid 
during the spring it grows only leaves; but when 
autumn comes each bulb sends up not one but many 
flower-buds, generally six or eight, which open bright¬ 
ly when the spring bulbs are sleeping quietly in tho 
cellar, but do not perfect their seed until the follow¬ 
ing midsummer. 
They bloom well in a comfortable bed in the ear- 
den, but do not object to being tucked into a basket 
of damp moss and being hung in the veranda, or 
brought into the house; indeed, if they are laid 
away on a shelf they sustain that last in lignity with 
perfect equanimity and continue to flower, though 
not quite so brilliantly as if kindly treated. If any 
one fails to have flowers in abundance from the 
autumn Crocus, it would be as well to bow to the 
decrees of fate, and abandon the cultivation of plan's 
altogether. 
Those who do not possess this pretty and curious 
plant already, may plant it the latter part of this 
month and in a short time it will send up buds and 
be ready for removal to the house before frost. 
P 
$ 
7 
