304 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
cisms. Perhaps we were wrong, but we did not think 
so when we wrote, nor do we think so now, as we were 
giving our opinion of it as a garden flower, to be seen 
in the day-time. As a night-blooming plant, it is quite a 
success, and we must say it rather improves as the 
season advances. For the naturalist, this plant has 
many attractions, but it is not for scientific purposes 
that flowers are grown. Flowers are grown to please 
the eye, rather than the understanding, and for that 
purpose the Nicotiana is a failure, as it is a sorry sight 
from 9 a.m. until about 7 p.m., however beautiful and 
fragrant its flowers may be in the night, when they are 
admired only by tire insect tribe. 
* 
* *• 
Tritoma Grandiflora is this year a truly magnificent 
plant; we have never before seen it so luxuriant. It is 
usually considered an autumnal flowering plant, but 
this year, owing to great heat in June, and wet weather 
ever since, has been in flower since the first of July, and 
now the spikes of orange-scarlet flowers are mostly 
from four to five feet high, and produced most abun¬ 
dantly. We noticed, a few days since, several thousand 
plants in full bloom, and a more imposing sight we 
never beheld. For a large mass on the lawn, it is a 
most desirable object. If clumps of the Eulalia Zebrina 
and E. Japonica were near it the effect would be 
charming. 
* 
* * 
It has always seemed to me, says a correspondent of 
the Chronicle , that much valuable time is wasted in 
gardens over Rose pruning. A Scotch friend lately 
told me that he should have no time next week for 
other gardening work, as he should be pruning his 
Roses. I recommended him to adopt my plan of pruning 
them with hedging shears—a plan by which two or 
three hundred may be pruned in an afternoon, and 
since the adoption of which I have found them flower 
quite as well as when each shoot was pruned sep¬ 
arately with a knife. He wrote to say that he had 
adopted my recommendation, which reminded him of 
the following local anecdote : A. Scotch minister could 
never persuade his old-fashioned gardener to under¬ 
stand hybrid perpetuals ; much time was wasted every 
year in pruning, but the flowering was indifferent. 
One year, just before pruning time, the minister's 
donkey got into the garden, and finding these new- 
fashioned thistles to his liking, ate them off nearly to the 
ground. That year they flowered splendidly, and, on a 
friend congratulating him on his fine Roses, the minister 
drily remarked : ‘ ‘ Formerly I had a gardener who was 
an ass, but now I have found an ass that is a gardener. ” 
* 
* * 
Milla Biflora. This beautiful liliaceous plant from 
Mexico should no longer be a stranger in our bulb gar¬ 
dens, as there is none that takes to open air culture more 
kindly than this. The writer planted several thousand 
of these bulbs about June first, in a row prepared for 
Gladioli. They have been given the same care and 
attention, and for a month have been in full bloom. 
B. Roezel. the celebrated collector of Mexican plants, 
says of it: “ The flowers are nearly as large as those 
of a Eucharis and snowy white. They last a long time 
in perfection, and in a cut state cannot easily be 
superseded. The plant grows naturally near the City 
of Mexico, together with Bouvardia longiflora and 
Tigridia Pavonia, and the natives gather the flowers in 
the same way as we do Primroses, and bring them to 
market where they are much appreciated. The bulbs 
resemble those of a Crocus. In autumn they should be 
taken out of the ground and kept dry, and planted out 
again in the spring. Milla Biflora delights in sandy, 
loamy soil; it should have full sunlight and abundance 
of water. Under this simple treatment it might be made 
to succeed in every garden, and its beauty is so great it 
will repay any little trouble growers may take with it. 
We have among bulbous plants nothing to be compared 
with it.” 
Catalogue?, etc,, Received. 
Ellwanger & Barry, Rochester, N.Y. Descriptive 
Price List of Pot-grown Strawberry plants for present 
planting, with complete cultural instructions. 
Raising Small Fruits. A paper read before the 
Trumbull Co. O. Horticultural Society, by M. Craw¬ 
ford, Esq. Also Hints on Fall Planting of Strawberries, 
by same. We consider these valuable papers useful 
to all that are, or expect to be engaged in small fruit 
culture. They are sent free to all applicants by M. 
Crawford, Cuyahoga Falls, O. 
Peter Henderson & Go’s. Pot-Layer System of 
Strawberry Culture. A simple and comprehensive 
treatise on an important branch of'horticulture, and 
one but little understood. Also a colored plate of the 
“Henderson” Strawberry, a faithful likeness of this 
“novelty.” Address, 35 Cortlandt Street, New York. 
Drugs and Medicines of North America. A quar¬ 
terly journal devoted to the historical and scientific 
discussion of the botany, pharmacy, chemistry and thera- 
putics of the medicinal plants of North America. This 
is a new publication which we gladly welcome, as it 
tells us all about a plant, instead of simply describing 
its beauty, which is, to the true lover of the plant, 
about the least interesting part of it. The beauty of a 
plant does not consist in the size, form, color, or fra¬ 
grance of its flowers, they are mere accidents. It is 
what the plant does, that makes it beautiful and inter- * 
esting. Each and every plant lias its alloted task to 
perform in the economy of nature, and right well it 
knows, and does its work. No two perform precisely 
the same work, yet they all work together in the most 
perfect harmony. The occupations of the family of 
plants are far more varied than those of the family of 
man, and the one cannot exist without the other. 
The value of this Journal, in giving the history, de¬ 
scription, occupation and uses of the various medicinal 
plants indigenous to our country, cannot be over esti¬ 
mated. The article on the Clematis, in the first number, 
alone, is worth far more than a year’s subscription. 
After reading the article, one knows what the Clematis 
is, as well as how it looks. 
The typographical appearance of this journal is ex¬ 
cellent ; fine paper, neatly printed, and in all respects a 
handsome publication. Price $1.00 per annum. Ad¬ 
dress, J. U. & C. G. Lloyd, 180 Elm St., Cincinnati, O. 
Transactions of the Mississippi Valley Horti¬ 
cultural Society, for the year 1884, being a report of 
the fifth annual meeting, held at Kansas City in Jan¬ 
uary, 1884, containing all the papers prepared for that 
meeting and the discussions on their contents. W. H. 
Regan, Secretary, Greencastle, Ind. This is a valuable 
publication to all that are interested in horticultural pur- 
