GRAFTING Orange-TreeS. From the middle of March to the end of April is a good time to graft orange-trees. The most eligible method is inarching; but whip-grafting will also answer. In the latter case, the stocks should be plunged in a hot-bed of about 70° in the middle of March, and in ten days they will be ready for grafting. It is not necessary to pot the stocks, as doing so only makes them take up more room. The atmospheric heat should be from 50° to 55° at night, and the atmosphere close and moist. Leave on the stalk a few eyes above the graft to draw the sap into the scion. Employ whip or side grafting with a tongue; and, in addition to covering with clay, cover with moss over the clay to keep it moist. The best soil for orange-trees is loam from rotted turfs a year old, with one-fourth well - rotted manure; adding sand according as the soil is light or heavy, so as to render it friable. Keep in heat until the grafts begin to grow; then cut the head off the stock down to the graft, and loosen the matting, covering, however, again with moss ; and, after the growth has fairly commenced, remove the plants to an airy greenhouse.

DESTROYING Weeds on GraVEL-WALKS. Dissolve one pound of powdered arsenic in two gallons of cold rain-water; put it in an iron pan over a fire, and stir until the liquid boil; then add nine gallons of cold water and two pounds of crushed soda, stirring all the while until the whole boil; and then keep boiling slowly, and stirring briskly, for half an hour. Apply the hot liquor to the walks in dry weather by a watering-pot with a rose that will allow of its equal distribution. A good soaking is necessary; but the liquid should not be poured on so long as to run to the grass or box-edgings. The quantity named is sufficient for thirty square yards. It should be applied before the weeds have grown much, — in April or May. To keep it from the box-edging, a board should be laid against this, and inclined, so as to throw any water that may fall upon the board on to the gravel; and the same on the other side next the grass, the boards being supported from behind. Where the walks are wide and extensive, a waterbarrel with a tap behind may be used, and a perforated tube to distribute the water; and in this way the work is expeditiously performed. Care should be taken to protect the edging, as already directed. Those employing this liquid should be careful to keep it beyond the reach of animals.

DAPHNE INDICA CULTURE. Provide good drainage; for, if that is not secured, the plant soon loses its roots, assumes a sickly appearance, and eventually dies. In potting, use a compost of turfy sandy peat and turfy yellow loam in equal parts, with one-sixth of sand intermixed. Care should be taken not to over-pot; for the plant seems to thrive best if rather under-potted: and it should not be over-watered; for, if the soil be kept too wet, it will perish. Allowing the soil to become dry is equally injurious. Do not place the plant in a moist growing heat after blooming, but in front of the greenhouse, where it can have plenty of air, which all the Daphnes require. Placing the plants out of doors in a shady position to ripen the wood is wrong; for plants in the shade can never have the wood ripened; and, the pots being exposed, the evaporation from their sides will dry up the roots, and destroy the delicate fibres of these.

If the pots are plunged, the soil is apt to become too wet at times. For the plant to bloom well, it requires a temperature of from 50° to 55°, and an abundance of air and light after the growths have been made, in order to ripen them thoroughly.

"Salt and Lime as Manures. To garden soil of the usual staple, about fifty bushels of lime per acre are a sufficient quantity. If the soil be clayey, the quantity may be doubled. A very excellent manure is formed by mixing one bushel of salt with every two bushels of lime. Lime cannot be applied to the soil too fresh from the kiln; for, if allowed to absorb carbonic acid from the air, it is rapidly converted into chalk.

"When crops are devastated by the slug, dress them some evening, so as to render the surface of the soil quite white, with caustic lime, during the promise of a few days' dry weather. It is instant destruction to every slug it falls upon; and those that it misses are destroyed by their coming in contact with it when moving in search of food.

"Mixed in the proportion of one bushel of salt to two bushels of lime, it is an excellent manure for potatoes, dug into the soil at planting-time. Twenty bushels of lime and ten of salt would be enough for an acre sown over the surface.

"Salt, applied in the spring at the rate of twenty bushels per acre, has been found very beneficial to asparagus, broad-beans, lettuces, onions, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and beets. Indeed, its properties are so generally useful, not only as promoting fertility, but as destroying slugs, that it is a good plan to sow the whole garden every April with this manure, at the rate above specified. The flower-garden is included in this recommendation; for some of the best practical gardeners recommend it for the stock, hyacinth, amaryllis, ixia, anemone, colchicum, narcissus, and ranunculus; and in the fruit-garden it has been found beneficial to almost every one of its tenants, especially the cherry and apple. On lawns and walks, it helps to drive away worms and to destroy moss."

GOODYERA DIScolor Culture. The pot ought to be one-third filled with crocks; and the compost should consist of turfy or fibrous peat and chopped sphagnum, with a free admixture of silver sand and broken charcoal from which the dust has been sifted out. The sand and charcoal together may form onethird of the compost. If cocoa-nut refuse can be had, it may be used in place of the sphagnum. The goodyera should be potted when it recommences growth; and water must be somewhat sparingly given at first, but increased with the growth, abundance being afforded both at the root and in the atmosphere when the plant is growing freely. In potting, press the compost firmly. Free ventilation should be given day and night; and a temperature of from 60° to 85° in summer, and from 45° to 50° in winter, will suit it. It should be shaded from bright sun. When at rest, but little water is needed; yet the plant should not be allowed to suffer it should have a little now and then over the pot, a gentle bedewing to keep it plump and fresh. Avoid cold currents of air; and do not allow cold air to come in contact with the leaves whilst wet, as they may thus become discolored.

DWARF POINSETTIAS.

There is, perhaps, no inhabitant of a stove, in winter, of such striking beauty as Poinsettia pulcherrima, with its terminal disk of spreading bracts of the most glowing scarlet; but it has one great drawback,

the shoots always grow to an unsightly length before the bracts are formed. Having kept the store-plants in a greenhouse during the summer that the growing wood might be hardened, cut off, at the beginning of August, about six inches of the tip of each shoot; thrust the cut end into dry silver sand to stop the bleeding; and immediately strike them in silver sand, taking special care to prevent the leaves from flagging. Bottom heat may be used, but is not necessary. By the first week in November, when they have attained from eight to fifteen inches in height, they will begin to display the scarlet bracts.

Of course, the best tops must be selected for striking; and the process might, perhaps with advantage, be delayed to the middle of August.

MESSRS. EDITORS, In reply to 'your question in the June number of the Journal, "Can any nursery-man furnish trees of this beautiful species?" (Celtis occidentalis,) I would say that "I am the man," and can supply a reasonable demand. There is such a slight difference in the two species, that I am inclined to think they are generally confounded.* The C. occidentalis, with us, hardly makes a tree; whilst the C. crassifolia makes a low, very spreading one, —often reaching sixteen inches diameter of trunk. Probably Mr. Fuller does not know the latter, when he says of the former, page 136 "Forest-tree Culturist," "A small tree, of no particular value or beauty."

I have noticed the large annual deposit of wood to be sometimes as much as a half-inch in thickness.

I was under the impression I had inserted it in my catalogue sent you in May, but, on reference thereto, find I was mistaken. It is, however, in the Edward Tatnall. Yours truly, &c.,

nursery.

WILMINGTON, DEL.

CURCULIOS AND COAL-TAR. Having read a statement some time since, that corn-cobs saturated with coal-tar, and suspended from the branches of plumtrees, would keep the "little Turk" away from the plums, I resolved to try the experiment. By the way, is he or she a Turk because his or her device is always a crescent? But, leaving the question of ethnology for the present, I will give the result of my experiment.

I procured a keg of coal-tar, and a quantity of cobs, and, after tying a string around each, put them into the tar, and repaired to a favorite plum-tree, prepared to carry the war directly into the enemy's dominions. I first spread sheets under the tree, hammered and shook the rascals out, and gave them the most affectionate treatment. Then, after much tribulation, arising from the fact that the vile stuff would keep dripping from the cobs, and would get upon the strings, reducing my hands and person to much the condition of the cobs, I got them suspended: I mean the cobs, not the hands or the person. I also tied a newspaper loosely around the body of the tree, and smeared it also with the tar; then set the keg at the foot of the tree, to heighten, as far as possible, the effect

* Prof. Gray considers them only varieties, and is doubtless correct.

of the performance; and retired from the field, feeling in several respects as though I had been and done it!

After some hours, I concluded again to visit the scene of operations, and found the whole region suggestive to the olfactories of as vile an odor as it was ever the lot of man to inhale; and, while noticing the artistic effect of the dripping tar upon the leaves and fruit, I observed a queer-looking gray excrescence upon one of the half-grown plums. A nearer view revealed the appalling fact that it was a CURCULIO, "pegging away" at his favorite pursuit, as much at home in the vile atmosphere around him as if it were the spicy breezes wafted from "Araby the Blest"! Need I say, I left the scene in disgust, feeling that coal-tar as a remedy against curculios was a failure?

DELAWARE, O.

WINTERING CANNA-ROOTS.

George W. Campbell.

· After a frost, take up the roots, and store them in sand in a place secure from frost. Pot them in February, and bring them forward in a gentle hot-bed. Harden them off in May, and plant out in June. If you have a greenhouse, and can find room for them, take up the plants, and pot them in sandy loam; but do not cut off the tops until they decay. A temperature of from 45° to 50° is suitable. They may also be kept dry until the middle of April; then planted in a frame, started into growth, and planted out about June 1. The different species differ much in hardiness. None will bear frost ; but some perish if chilled: of these we may mention C. Nepalensis, Anneii, and discolor, which need the warmest part of the cellar, and even then are preserved with difficulty.

C. Indica, Acheras, gigantea, and limbata are among the hardiest and most easily kept.

There is little dependence to be placed on the names given to any cannas by florists. Imported species are very often wrongly named, and the error is perpetuated. An article from some one familiar with the subject, describing the different species, would be a public benefit.

No reliance can be placed on imported seed.

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Many of the Eupatoriums — North-American, European, and tropical — have been employed as medical agents for ages, and at one time were alleged to be gifted with marvellous powers of healing. Swartz found a species, which he named Eupatorium nervosum, in the highest mountains of Jamaica, where it is locally known as "bitter-bush," and was there employed, it is said, with great success as an antidote against cholera. The physicians on the island consider it a most reliable medicine in cases of typhus-fever and small-pox. This, and another plant from the same island, are about to be tried in this country as medical agents. The other plant is Croton humile, which Endlicher mentions is used in the West Indies in medicating bottles for nervous weaknesses. Its sap is pungent, and pieces of the shoots are sometimes masticated to remove relaxations of the throat.

Our common thoroughwort (E. perfoliatum) is a well-known remedial agent, and is in much repute as a domestic simple.

Return of VARIETIES TO THE ORIGINAL TYPE. A growing interest is noticeable in tracing the changes in varieties of plants, and in determining the influence of the stock, of culture, climate, age, and other conditions, upon the character of individual plants. As a rule, seedling varieties perpetuate their character with surprising uniformity. The Bartlett Pear may be grafted on the thorn or mountain-ash or quince or apple or wild-pear stock; yet, in all the intermingling, it will preserve its true type. It is a common remark, that the St. Michael Pear has deteriorated. The expression is incorrect. Give the St. Michael its required conditions, and it will to-day prove that there is no taint in its royal blood. Climates change, soils become exhausted, diseases creep in, and varieties may languish; yet they do in these varying conditions, to a remarkable degree, though not invariably, preserve their individuality. Many kinds of plants are noticed as sending out sporting branches. The habit of growth, the foliage, the fruit, of a particular branch, may be peculiar. A single limb of a scarlet maple may preserve a remarkable brilliancy year after year. Some shoots of the variegated geraniums, euonymus, sycamore-maple, or horse-chestnut. are unusually distinct. In many instances, this sport of the parts of a plant may be perpetuated; yet the rule is, to return the sport to the general character of the parent variety.

A sporting branch differs in principle from a sporting seedling, and we may reasonably expect the history of the two will be different. It is desirable that facts in regard to changes of varieties should be recorded until sufficient data are collected to guide us in our reasonings.

I notice a marked case of variation in the ring-leaf willow (Salix annularis), on a tree now standing on the estate of L. Baldwin, Esq., in Brighton, Mass. The tree may be twenty years old, thirty feet high, and twenty inches in diameter. With a single exception, it in no way differs from the usual and very peculiar appearance of the ring-leaved willow. Twenty feet from the ground, a single branch starts from the under side of a large limb, which, on account of its peculiarity, has been allowed to develop beyond the proportion of the rest of the tree. This branch has sported clear back to the original type, the Salix Babylonica. In looking at the tree, one would say it has been budded; but Mr. Baldwin's testimony, and also an examination, make it clear that this is not true. Though this branch, which is now from twelve to fifteen feet long, and from two to three inches in diameter, has not a trace of the peculiar characteristic of the ring-leaf, but is in all respects like the common weeping variety, yet I cannot doubt it is a sporting branch, which, though drawing its life from its mother trunk, has, notwithstanding, lost its own nature, and regained the characteristics of its grandparent. I shall be interested to learn whether cuttings from this branch will show any disposition to revert to the true type.

At present, no part of the branch, though quite extended, shows any variation from the Babylonica. W. C. Strong.