H?(ie tlies’ Iflorwl XVu In net uni! Pictorial Some 
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FLORIDA, THE LAND OF FLOWERS. 
While Florida is celebrated as the queen-palace of 
Flora, and is termed the Italy of America for climate, 
it has other features, which make it a very remarkable 
country. The country is filled with lakes, the most 
remarkable of which we have visited. There is a vast 
plain where the general level gradually descends into 
an oblong basin with irregular upheavals upon one side. 
This is approached through the “ Hammock,” (so 
called, I suppose, from the pendant moss of which beds 
are made,) where the fertility produced by the wash of 
the water causes the densest growth of tree and shrub, 
whose every branch and twig is so heavily draped in 
long gray moss, amidst whose swaying fringes the 
serpent-like Muscadine writhes and twists from the 
Jessamine-carpeted earth to the at once budding and 
bearing tree tops, that the view is entirely obstructed; 
till suddenly emerging from this chaos of tropical 
growth, the astonished vision is greeted by one silvery 
expanse of tranquil water fifteen miles in extent and 
bordered by moss-clad trees, which, seen in the dis¬ 
tance beneath the oblique rays of a white morning 
sun, look like marshaled hosts of mermaids emerging 
from the sea to flaunt and air their dripping garments 
and ringleted tresses mid the glistening sheen of water 
and sunshine. 
A visitor at Gainesville will wonder at the thousands 
of opaque, milk and cream-colored bottles, so numerous 
everywhere that, in scarcity of stone, they are much 
used for bordering flower-beds. These, in all the 
fanciful designs of stars, hearts, diamonds, crosses, 
circles, semi-circles, triangles and other geometrical 
figures, are beautifully defined by the milk-white bot¬ 
toms of these bottles driven, mouth downward, into the 
sand up to the light shade. These contrast beautifully 
as a dividing line between the verdure and bloom of 
the beds and the silvery sand of the yards which never 
have a sprig of grass. This idea of barrenness will 
not be so appalling to the verdure-loving when they 
learn that the designs are so artistically arranged as to 
include all space save that left for walks, which are 
all the better for being dry and sandy, instead of 
grassy, muddy and dewy. Here, as a background to 
these petite parterres, luxuriates perpetual-blooming 
Oleanders, Cape-Jessamine and Japonieas of enormous 
size, budding and blooming Orange and Lemon trees, 
still laden with the golden burden of last year’s bear¬ 
ing ; and the grand old Century plant actually becomes 
a nuisance, so wonderfully does it increase in this 
genial clime. The leafless trunks of immense Crape- 
Myrtle and Pomegranate trees stand living witnesses 
of the fuller gayety of spring and summer. 
I never lose an opportunity of adding to my stock 
of tropical plants and Florida curiosities, and perhaps 
my mode of securing and preserving will benefit others 
similarly situated. I politely beg cuttings (or offer to 
exchange seed for them through the mail after my re¬ 
turn home), wrap each in cotton sufficient to prevent 
evaporation from the bottles (colored glass or opaque, 
to exclude light), two-thirds full of rain water. Allow 
the slips to touch the water, and hang by a cord in a 
southern window. When they have thrown out roots 
an inch long, transfer them to oyster cans punctured 
at the bottom, drained by pieces of charcoal and moss, 
filled with sandy loam. To lessen weight I shall 
shake off the dirt, wrap in damp cotton, pack in boxes 
in my trunk, and transfer to my Virginia home, where 
I shall place the shrubs in boxes convenient for win¬ 
tering in the pit, and set the Geraniums in pots to be 
sunk for the summer in a rustic basket; to make which 
obtain twelve long Grape vines, about an inch thick 
at the base, drive a foot deep 15 stakes 3 feet long 
equidistant in a circumference of 16.1 feet, causing 
them to lean out sufficiently to produce a circumference 
at the top of 18 feet. Stand inside, take a vine, and 
place the large end inside a stake, then wind out and 
in till the vine is used up, when splice in another, and 
so on to the top, drawing the vine tightly and pressing- 
down with the foot; wrap the last round closely with 
the small off-shoots, and twist three large vines to¬ 
gether, sharpen the different ends, stick them into the 
apertures beside the stakes at opposite sides for a 
handle; fill with two bushels stable manure, two 
bushels ashes (throw in old shoes and bones among 
the ashes), two bushels hen manure, two bushels sand, 
two bushels leaf mold, with a top dressing of rich gar¬ 
den soil; sink the pots, beginning with tallest and 
gayest in centre, then a circle of llose, Lemon, Oak 
and Pennyroyal Geraniums^ another of Phlox, another 
of Zonale Geraniums, finishing with Verbenas, and 
Petunias to trail down the sides, with parlor Jvv, 
Smilax, or running Cypress at opposite sides to run 
over the handle. 
The mosses brought from the lake, after being 
pressed according to directions in November number 
! of Floral Cabinet, I shall glue around an oblong- 
strip of mirror (representing a lake) on the lower 
margin of sky-blue paper, with split twigs bearing 
graceful bunches of the pendant moss protruding from 
under the upper corners of a deep frame ornamented 
with the skulls of birds, fish-jaws and shells found 
upon the margin of the lake. The tree foliage I shall 
frame with the cones, burs and nuts which they bear, 
thus causing picture and frame to harmonize in a 
natural manner, and secure my curiosities from danger 
of being injured or misplaced by handling. With the 
pieces of melted glass picked up on the site of Judge 
King’s burnt house, I shall represell an ice-bound 
scene, by gluing these pendants to a foundation, 
sprinkled with white cinder. Miniature caves might 
be constructed of stalactites from celebrated caverns. 
At any rate, a miniature Florida will brighten some 
nook in my Virginia home next summer. 
Mrs. M. L. Sayers. 
tub, so I cut it down, turned the roots out, took off 
some of the smaller clusters of tubers (as you divide 
Asparagus) just as an experiment, and this summer 
these tubers have put up shoots longer than the seed¬ 
ling, but not better. I sowed the seed (from the seed 
vessels described above) the same day on which I 
planted the tubers, which promise to do as well as the 
original plant. The original plant, which had grown 
as described and was then cut down, was re-potted 
(the roots) in a 6-inch pot, and was put on the south 
piazza every bright day. It has grown luxuriantly, 
and, having been trained for convenience, is now an 
arch 3 feet high, 1J wide, and about 1 foot thick 
through, of the glossiest green, with forty-four clus¬ 
ters of flowers, three or four in a cluster, with a 
delicious orange-flower perfume. During the winter 
my treatment was, in very sold weather, to keep it 
in my own room, warmed by a wood fire, to syringe 
the leaves once a week with rain-water, also, to 
water it whenever the surface looked at all dry. 
While growing it requires watering at least once a 
week, and I used, say, five drops ammonia to a half- 
pint of water, tailing care that the mixture should not 
touch the leaves, but be poured on the earth, as even 
that dilution will destroy the foliage. Its culture 
seems of the easiest, and it is peculiarly desirable for 
ornamentation, as it takes the light as well by night 
as day. Every seed planted has germinated, and I 
have now half a dozen seedlings, each making a little 
bush about 6 inches high. Natalia. 
SMILAX. 
Seeing in the Cabinet a communication from one of 
your contributors, in reference to her failure to get the 
Smilax to bloom, I have thought that a simple state¬ 
ment of my mode of culture might assist some lover of 
flowers to be as successful as myself. 
I received from Mr. Henderson, in the winter of 
’72, a small seedling of about 3 inches high, which I 
planted in a small tub about 4 inches wide and of same 
depth, in fresh earth from the woods, sifted, with a 
little coarse earth at the bottom, just over the broken 
china which covered the hole in the tub. In the early 
autumn it put up half a dozen little shoots (very simi¬ 
lar to small Asparagus at that stage of its growth) 
which, when a foot high, began to put out leaves. I 
trained it to a frame about 2J feet high and 11 wide, 
all around the frame and then over it, not knowing 
when it would attain its growth, so that it became a 
fan of bright glossy green. About the end of Febru¬ 
ary very small green balls began to appear under the 
little leaves, generally three, but sometimesfour, which, 
by March, opened into very fragrant little white flowers, 
which, fading and falling, left the seed vessels to grow 
to the size of an English pea, just one shade lighter 
green than the leaves, and by August, when ripe, to 
become a pinkish red. 
By that time the tuberous roots had entirely filled the 
COBEA SCANDENS AND CALAMPELIS 
SCABRA. 
HOW TO MAKE THE SEEDS COME UP. 
We had tried all-sorts of ways we could devise to 
get the seeds of these most desirable climbers to germ¬ 
inate, but without avail, until this last, which we 
learned from a practical florist. 
We had thought we must begin early ; that was our 
mistake. Warmth was needed, and we could com¬ 
mand any amount of it in February. Warm, fresh 
air, circulating freely, was essential. For that we 
have to wait until June. 
A rough box, slanting at top toward the south, cov¬ 
ered—not tightly — with a small old window sash, and 
! set in a sunny angle of the house wall, where the shade 
of a Larch tree fell at the warmest hour of the day, 
answered for a cold frame. 
The seeds were sown in shallow boxes, filled with 
light rich earth, and these set on the sand, with which 
the frame was half filled, to raise them up near the 
glass. In due time the minute seedlings of the Calam- 
pelis, and, a little later, the broad cotyledons of the 
Cobea broke the soil, and when the third leaves ap¬ 
peared were pricked out into small pots and left in 
these, in the uncovered frame, on purpose to keep 
them dwarf, until time to bring them into the house in 
the autumn. 
They were admirable for their fresh foliage and 
graceful sprays and exquisite tendrils in winter, on a 
light wire trellis, framing a library bay window, and 
blossomed freely towards spring. 
The next summer the Calampelis mingled its pale 
green fine-cut leaves and clusters of orange-colored 
flowers with a dozen other vines—Clematis, Tweedia, 
Cerulea, Adlumia, C’irrhosa, Chinese Yam, Ivy, Sweet 
Pea, etc., to make a verandah screen ; and the Cobea 
mounted in the snug, sunny angle of a two-storv bay 
window to the eaves, and hung out its large purple 
bells as bravely and reached out its long purple green 
j tendrils as tender and perfect on the 12th of November 
i as in midsummer. F. B. J. 
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