CURRENT NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
Our New Premiums for iSS_|. 
The announcements below of our new premiums for 
faU and winter of ‘So and ’Si wiU doubtless gratify our 
subscribers as much as they do ourselves. To get such 
as would give the greatest satisfaction has been a study 
with us, and with the result we are weU pleased. The 
two Everblooming Roses are truly gems which will de¬ 
light enthusiastic rosarians: the flower seeds, fresh, vig¬ 
orous, and of pronounced value for any city or country 
home, will, in bloom, be, with the Roses, pleasant re¬ 
minders of the Ladies’ Floral Cabinet. 
Remember, every yearly subscriber coming direct or 
through a club agent, is entitled to the two Everbloom¬ 
ing Roses or the ten packets of Flower Seeds, as they 
may select at time of subscribing or renewing. 
Premium No. I. 
TWO EVERBLOOSHNG ROSES, 
White, red, yeUow or pink, as the subscriber may se¬ 
lect. If no choice of color is made, we wiU send Bon 
Silene and Perle des Jardins. 
The Rose premium wiU be given in aU cases where 
seeds are not preferred. 
Premium No. 2 . 
SEEDS. 
Gaillardia Picta Lorenziana. —Novelty, one of the most 
desirable annuals ever introduced. 
Petunia Nana Compacta Multifora. —New. 
Coreopsis Lanceolata. —A perennial and constant-bloom¬ 
ing variety. 
Pansy. —All the fancy varieties mixed. 
Balsams. —New and rare colors. 
Mignonette. —Miles spiral. 
Zinnia Haageana. —A beautiful novelty; deep orange 
yellow, keeping its color when dried. 
Phlox Drummondii Grandiflora Splendens. —Mixed. 
Gladiolus. —Allen’s hybrid. 
Morning Glories. —Fine varieties. 
Premiums for Clubs. 
To any subscriber sending us a new subscription and 
§1.25, we will send one of either of the following as a 
premium for getting a new subscriber, or to any one 
sending us five new subscribers we will send six of the 
following numbers, as they may select, post free. 
1. One large bulb, Lilium Auratum. 
2. One root, Eulalia Japonica. Fig. in No. 97 Cabinet. 
3. One Platycodon Grandiflorum. Fig. in No. 106 
Cabinet. 
4. Six best Gladiolus in six sorts. 
5. Four best Double Tuberose. Common or Pearl. 
G. One plant, Spiraea Japonica. 
7. One variegated Day-Lily. 
8. One bulb, Lilium Lancifolium Praecox, the best 
White-Lily under cultivation. 
9. Two roots. New Japan Iris. 
10. Three Lilies in three distinct sorts. 
Edgar Sanders says, “There is probably no city iu 
the United States, with any pretension to the nnmo of 
city, that has so little of the nursery business around it 
as Chicago.” The first intimation we have had that 
there was a deficit of any kind in Chicago, and what is 
wonderfully strange, one of her citizens makes tho 
assertion. 
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Ip not already too late, seeds of choice varieties of 
annuals should be saved. Unless very choice, and it is 
folly to grow others, save no seed. Buying from re¬ 
spectable seedsmen, who get their seeds grown in cli¬ 
mates best adapted to their perfect development, we are 
almost sure to have better strains than when we save 
our own. unless we give special attention to their cul¬ 
ture. There is no easier way of ruining your gardens 
than by filling them with plants raised from very ordi¬ 
nary seed of your own saving. 
* a 
The vapor of tobacco juice, says the Scientific Ameri¬ 
can. has beeu tested in France as an insectide in green¬ 
houses with great success. Instead of burning or 
smoking the tobacco, which is a very offensive process to 
some persons, the tobacco is made into an extract by 
soaking or boiling, and the juice is then placed over a 
chafing dish, a fire, or the flame of an ordinary lamp, 
and deposited in the green-house or conservatory. 
Delicate plants which are very sensitive to smoke are 
not injured by this vapor, and it leaves no offensive 
atmosphere, while it effectually disposes of thrips, lice, 
scale insects and slugs. One quart of tobacco juice 
vaporized in a house containing 350 cubic feet is an 
ample amount. 
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A. L. Siler, Hillsdale, Utah, writes to the Gardener's 
Monthly: “You may say to your Canadian correspond¬ 
ent that Clematis Montana is the plant that he wants for a 
bedding plant; it is not a climber, but a trailing plant, 
with large purple flowers, produced in May and June. 
It prefers a rocky or gravely poor soil, and grows when 
it gets but little moisture. It is hardier than the oak, 
and is the plant that a Canadian would naturally want. 
Clematis Douglasii might give him some satisfaction, 
but it is a herbaceous perennial. 
* * 
* 
A gardener in Baltimore who has a number of large 
hot-houses for growing early cucumbers, keeps a hive of 
bees in each house for the purpose of distributing the 
pollen. 
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Lieutenant Houghton, who has recently visited New 
Guinea and several other groups of islands in the Pacific, 
says the Scientific American, reports the existence of a 
prehensile tree. It appears to be a species of ficus, al¬ 
lied to the well-known Banyan Tree, which throws out 
from its branches air-roots, that eventually reach the 
ground, and take root there, and in their turn beqorne 
new stems, which perform the same function; so that a 
single tree will eventually extend so far as to form a 
complete forest, in which the stems are united by the 
