a fifteen-inch pot, and it will make a large specimen by August, and it may remain good a year or two longer. — Cottage Gardener.

Culture of GASTERIAS.— The gasterias belong to the aloe section of the lily-worts. They are very nice plants for a succulent collection. They will do well in a house kept from 45° in winter to 60° and more in summer. They flourish best in sandy loam with a little peat and very rotten dry cow-dung, and some lime rubbish and broken bricks, — say two parts sandy loam, half a part of cow-dung, and half a part of broken bricks and lime rubbish. The chief care they require is to keep them nearly or almost dry, when in a state of rest in winter. If the pots stand on a damp stone or damp gravel, they will absorb enough of moisture in the dark months.

Selaginella (Club-moss) CÆSIA CULTURE.-The plants growing in wirebaskets become brown because exposed to too strong a light. At best, it is not a very good basket-plant; for it does not continue sufficiently long in foliage. For a few months, it is rather handsome; but, when the frond-like foliage loses its fresh appearance, it becomes of a brown, dingy hue, losing its metallic lustre, and is then the reverse of ornamental. The way we grow it is in pans eighteen inches wide and six inches deep. After placing at the bottom a couple of inches of broken pots for drainage, the pan is filled to the rim with turfy brown peat two-thirds, and one-third chopped sphagnum and charcoal from the size of a hazel up to that of walnut. The plants are then taken from the store-pans and laid on the surface in pieces two or three inches square, and six inches apart, the first row three inches from the rim of the pan. The spaces between the tufts are filled with a compost of turfy sandy peat two-thirds, and one-third loam, broken and made fine, and sifted through an inch sieve, adding one-sixth of silver sand. This compost is put in high enough to slightly cover the tufts; and, the surface being pressed gently, a good watering settles all nicely around the tufts. Placed in a warm and rather dark or slightly-shaded house, such as a vinery at work, if the atmosphere is kept moist, and watering well attended to, this selaginella quickly covers the surface, and hangs over the sides of the pan. Throughout the summer, it forms a fine object in a cool, shaded house; to which it should be removed from heat after a good growth has been made. We pot in spring, when the young growths are an inch or so long. In winter, the foliage is allowed to remain until it dies down, when it is cut off close. We keep it in winter in a house having a temperature of from 45° to 50°, giving no more water than a little now and then to prevent the soil from becoming very dry it is best kept just moist. We repot every other year. Cottage Gardener.

PROPAGATING BEGONIAS AND GLOXINIAS FROM LEAVES. - Fill a welldrained pot or pan (the latter is best for begonias) to the rim with a compost of sandy peat and loam and silver sand in equal parts, and cover the surface with a thin layer of silver sand. Take a begonia-leaf which is about half or three parts developed, cut away the leaf-stalk to within half an inch of the blade, and insert the remainder of the leaf-stalk close to the rim of the pot or pan. Lay

the leaf flat on the surface, and peg it down closely, so that its nervures may be slightly embedded in the soil, and the whole under-surface lie flat. For gloxinias, ▾ the pots should be prepared in the same manner; only the leaves must be put in around the sides of the pots like cuttings, and with their lower ends from threequarters of an inch to an inch in the soil. Give a gentle watering, and place in a mild hot-bed of from 70° to 75°, and a proportionate top-heat. Maintain a close and moist atmosphere, and shade from bright sun; keeping the soil moist, Lut not wet. The begonias will form little plants along the midribs of the leaves; and, when of sufficient size, the young plants may be taken with their roots, cutting the midribs on both sides, potted singly, and retained in heat until established. The gloxinias will form tubers beneath the soil, and be well rooted in six weeks. They should then be treated as old plants, and dried off towards autumn. In spring, they may be potted off singly, and shoots will come from the crown of the roots; and, if grown on, flowers will follow in due season.

SULPHUR AND SNUFF FOR DESTROYING Red Spider AND GREEN FLY. Dust the leaves and young shoots with the sulphur and snuff mixed: only the foliage must be dry when the snuff is dusted over the young shoots; or, if wet, the snuff will be converted into tobacco-water; and this, if too strong, will injure the tender shoots. The sulphur will not injure the leaves or young shoots in the least; but it will not kill red spider by being brought into contact with the insect: it is the fumes that are destructive to it. A weak solution of soft-soap is the best of all remedies we have tried for red spider; and for peaches, whilst the shoots are young, it should not be stronger than an ounce to the gallon of water: but, after the leaves have attained their full size, a good syringing of soft-soap solution, at the rate of two ounces to the gallon of boiling water, allowed to stand until cool before use, will mostly keep the leaves free, and clear them, if necessary, of red spider. The safest and most certain means of preventing red spider is to proceed against it with its natural enemy, — water, — syringing the plants or trees subject to it freely.

TO DESTROY GREEN FLY ON Rose-Trees.-Syringe the heads of the trees forcibly with water in which soft-soap has been dissolved, at the rate of an ounce to a gallon of water. Continue to do this every evening, wet or dry, for a week; and, on the aphis disappearing, syringe with clear soft water until the blooms open but, if the aphides do not disappear, syringe the heads in the evening of a dry day with tobacco-water, made by adding five gallons of soft water to every gallon of the tobacco liquor sold by the tobacco manufacturers, wetting the leaves and shoots thoroughly in every part. On the following morning, syringe the trees with clear water. If this should not clear off the aphis, repeat the application next night but one. If tobacco liquor cannot be had from the manufacturer, take the strongest shag tobacco, and over two ounces of it pour one gallon of boiling water; cover with a cloth; let the whole stand until cool; then strain, and apply the liquor to the trees by means of a fine-rosed watering-pot or syringe. The same liquid will answer for the destruction of aphis on all kinds of trees, as the peach, cherry, and plum.

GROWING MIGNONETTE IN POTS. For early flowering, sow the seed in June or July, in pans in a compost of equal parts loam and leaf-mould; place the pans out of doors in an open situation, and keep the soil moist. When about two inches high, prick off the young plants singly into small pots in the same compost, with the addition of one-third well-reduced hot-bed manure; place them in a cold frame, and keep them close and shaded until established; then expose them to air and light; and, to insure growth, choose a place shaded from the sun between nine, A.M., and four, P.M. An occasional watering is all that will be necessary up to August; and, until then, the flowers should be pinched off as they appear. In August, shift into six-inch pots; and, if the shoots are close together, peg them down and out so as to keep them open. The plants will now grow rapidly, and require frequent stopping, and occasional waterings. Early in October, shift them into eight or nine inch pots; but still keep them out of doors, and continue stopping. House the plants when it becomes unsafe to leave them out longer, and then place them as near the glass as possible, and where they can have plenty of fresh air. They do best in a cool, dry, airy greenhouse. Stop them up to December, and then allow them to go to bloom. Avoid keeping the soil wet, and give air abundantly. In midwinter, you will have nice compact specimens covered with bloom, and in a convenient size of pot. If you wish for later-blooming plants, though these will continue in flower for a long time, you may sow the seed towards the end of July, as before, in pans, placing them on an airy shelf in the greenhouse, where they are to remain until the plants are two inches high; then prick them off in eight-inch pots, four plants in each, in the compost already mentioned. The plants must be kept on the shelf until they show flower, when they may be removed to the brackets or stands where they can have an abundance of light and air. At this stage, clear and weak liquid manure may be given at every alternate watering; remembering always that it and all water should be of the same temperature as the house. As the flowers begin to develop themselves, liquid manure is given whenever moisture is required by the roots. Afterwards the plants are not further potted if the drainage acts well, and watering is not necessary so long as the soil retains sufficient moisture to prevent flagging. It is essential to keep the plants near the glass.

AZALEA CUTTINGS. Take cuttings three or four inches in length from the growing points when the wood is about half ripe. Cut them transversely below a joint, and remove the leaves from the lower two-thirds of the cutting. Prepare a pot by filling it to two-thirds of its depth with crocks; on these place a thin layer of moss, and then such a quantity of sandy peat, that, when the cuttings are inserted, their base will be the least possible distance above it. Fill the pot to the rim with silver sand, and then insert the cuttings around the sides, putting them in up to the leaves. Give a gentle watering, and plunge in moss, sawdust, sifted tan, or some such material, over a mild bottom-heat of 75°. A close frame is best, and the cuttings are better inserted singly in pots. If there is not the convenience of a close frame, the cutting-pot may be placed in one of larger size, and the interval between the pots filled to within an inch of the rim with

broken pots, and the remaining space with silver sand. The rims of both pots should be on the same level, and a bell-glass put on must rest on the sand between the pots. In this case, the cuttings may be placed in a shady part of a house having a heat of from 65° to 75° or 80°. In either case, keep the soil just moist, and the cuttings close, and shaded from bright sun. When they begin to grow, admit air by tilting the bell-glass or light, and gradually harden off. They will be fit to pot off in six weeks.

ALOCASIA METALLICA CULTURE. Turfy peat and loam in equal parts, broken up with the hand two-thirds, well reduced leaf-mould and charcoal broken to the size of a pea, and not larger than a hazel-nut, in equal parts one-third, along with one-sixth of silver sand, make a compost that suits this plant well. The drainage must be good; and there should be a thin layer of moss or the most fibrous parts of the compost over it. It will do with a shift from a six to a nine inch, or from a nine to a twelve inch pot. In potting, be careful to preserve the thick fleshy roots, and keep the base of the bulb-like part rather high. When growing, it requires abundance of water, and should have a very humid atmosphere. This, however, should not be created by constantly syringing the foliage, which is impatient of that. Shade should be given from bright sun from the end of March to October. The plant requires plenty of room, and to be kept near the glass. A temperature of from 70° to 75° by night is essential, and the thermometer may rise to 90° by day in summer: in winter, the plant will do in a temperature of from 60° to 65°. It should not be very firmly potted: the soil should be left free, but not too open.

As soon as the shoots

PROPAGATING AND GROWING DAPHNE INDICA. are two or three inches long, slip them off with a bit of heel, and plunge in a stove or cucumber-bed: they will soon take root. Then pot them off, and keep close for a few days; and, when the plants are well rooted in their pots, pinch out the top of each, and place them in a house, or, better, a pit. They will soon shoot out; and, when they have grown three or four inches, pinch off the leading bud of each shoot. By doing this twice or thrice, nice bushy plants can be secured the first season; and these will always bloom in the following year, if the wood be properly ripened. By following the same plan a second year, the plants will be quite large. This system does not seem to weaken them, as their leathery leaves and strong shoots indicate that they are in good health.

CRANBERRY CULTURE. — Very few fruits so well repay the enterprise of the skilful farmer as the cranberry: certainly none will bear for a long term of years with so little manure; in fact, none is ever given them except what they get by the annual inundation which their culture requires.

The land best fitted for the culture of cranberries is a peat-meadow. It must be so located that it can be drained eighteen inches below the surface, and flooded the same depth above the surface. If not situated so that these conditions can be attained, it would be useless to expend money on any attempt to reduce it to a cranberry-meadow. But where these conditions can be com

manded, and a good supply of fine gravel, or sharp, flinty sand, is near at hand, we have the necessary conditions; and operations may safely be commenced. The first thing to be done is to prepare the land for the crop, which is done by draining by ditches about two feet deep, running entirely around the land to be used. The surface must be broken up, and made mellow: if covered with grass and hassocks or bushes, they must be thoroughly eradicated by one or two years' cropping with potato or cabbage, or by carting off the sod and bushes. The land must then be graded to a uniform slope from the middle of the field towards the ditches, just sufficient to allow the surface-water to run off without standing in pools. Any slope greater than this will require increased depth of water in flooding, and should be avoided. The sand is spread on in depth of from two to six inches, the deeper the peat, the deeper should be the sand, and the land is ready for the plants, which should be planted in May, or early in June.

The land is marked out with a common garden-marker in rows a foot and a half asunder, and the cuttings stuck in by hand about three or four inches apart; the water is kept eighteen inches below the surface until November; the sand is frequently hoed meanwhile, and kept scrupulously clean of all weeds. In November, the sluice in the dam is shut, and the water raised to at least eighteen inches over the surface. If less depth of water is used, there is danger that the ice will freeze into the plants; and a freshet might lift the whole bed up by the roots, ice and all together. The water is drawn off in May the following year, and the hoeing and weeding followed up industriously through the summer. No crop need be looked for this season, the vines having hardly taken hold of the peat. Flooding is repeated in the same way as the first winter; and, on the third year from planting, we may expect the vines to have made considerable growth, and a small crop to be taken. Some weeding will be needed, as the vines do not get full possession of the land until the fourth year; after which they need no labor and no manure, and no care except to flow and drain the meadow as above mentioned. The reason for flowing the meadow in winter is to protect the vines from severe weather; and it is kept on in spring to drown out the cranberryworm, which makes its appearance in May. Where the meadow is so situated that it can be flowed suddenly, it is a great advantage, as it enables the owner to draw off the water early in spring to give the vines a good start; and then, if the worm should appear in May, it can be drowned out by raising the water for a few days, which does no harm to the vine. Another great advantage in being able to command sudden flowage is the control which it gives us over the harvesting of the crop. Sharp frosts often occur in October just as the fruit ripens, which render the berry soft, and almost worthless. Where we cannot cover our meadow with water at short notice on a frosty evening, we must pick the crop before frost comes, even if not quite ripe; but, where sudden flowage can be attained, the meadow is put under water on the approach of frost, and drained the next day, to allow the berries to ripen, and the pickers to go to their work. Cranberry-meadows, once established, continue fruitful almost indefinitely: some on Cape Cod have been in constant bearing for over twenty years. After several years' growth, the vines need pruning, which is done with a sharp, long knife;