State ^pialturat Burnal
VOL. 1.
RALEIGH, N. C, SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1873.
NO. 15.
B. T. FULGHUM, Conducting Editor and Prop’r.
OFFICE IN FISHER BUILDING
TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM.
TERMS CASH, INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE.
HATES OF ADVERTISING:
1 square, 1 week,
1 “ 2‘-
1
2
3
3
3
1 month,
2 “
3 “
6 “
1 year,
1 month,
4 u
6 “
1 year,
1 month,
8 1.001
3 squares,
1 year, $
150,
4 “
1 month,
2 50
4 “
3 “
5;00:
4 n
1 year,
6 00
10.00;
18.00
X column
1 month,
6 “
5.00;
X
1 year,
12.00;
X column
1 month,
16.00
b
30.00.
X “
1 year,
7.50
1 column,
1 mon'li,
12.00;
1
3 “
14 00
1
6 “
. 20.00
1
1 year,
9.00
18.00
45.00
10.50
23,00
30.00
50.00
20 00
55.00
100.00
38.00
75 00
100 00
150.00
g^° The above
rates are for Single Columns.„^3
gqwimnrt of ^bdcultutf.
. C. B. DENSON,
Editor.
Note.—Letter of inquiry as to Osage Or
ange received. Answer next week with pleas
ure.
I with one bewildering shower, but with a little
patience, let us follow nature.
The watering pots, brought from the North,
are often flimsey things, with a single-bottom
of thin tin, that soon rusts out, and when they
begin to leak, to the discomfiture of cambric
and percales, the watering is discarded and
the plants “go to grass.’ 5 Suppose you get a
good honest watering pot, with double bottom,
of XXX tin, and a couple of roses, for heavy
and light showers. Our friend Mr. L., of
Raleigh, has the right article manufactured
upon short notice. To stir the ground; the
best thing is a strong steel digging fork, with
polished handle, suitable for the use ol ama
teurs, light and pleasant to handle, but effec
tive.
Now for the plants. In the centre, there
may be Arundo Donax Variegata, one of the
loveliest foliage plants in the world. It will
reach eight feet in height, and with its tall
spikes of purple in the fall, far exceed that,
the leaves growing from one and a half to
three feet long, and brilliantly striated in lines
of white and green,with usually a heavy bor
der of white toward the edge. It preserves the
variegation all the year in cooler climates, but
turns entirely green here in the late autumn
especially if in a very dry spot. But it isera-
inently attractive for the greater part of the
season, and only needs cutting off and cover-
ing with a slight mound of earth.
If planted
Semi-Tropical Plants.
We ha’ve now fairly reached the season
for
the employment of the class of plants which
requiring some protection in winter, for the
most part, yet repay that little care with the
most brilliant effects on the. lawn during the
long summer days, revelling in the heat so de
structive to the delicate bloom and foliage of
our spring growing plants of the temperate
zones. Very few years have passed since it
became plain that to keep up a brilliant dis
play in our long hot summers, it would be nec
essary to draw upon the resources of the green
houses, or the cold pits. As the taste for or
namental gardening grew, people were not
-content to pass the Lot months without some
thing.fresh and bright to cheer the eyes, and
so experiment after experiment resulted in
giving us a choice catalogue of flowers for out
door bedding, that were formerly never re
moved from the greenhouse, and where there
was no greenhouse kept, they were abandoned
altogether.
Now what is necessary to make up a fine
tropical group ? Select a circumscribed spot,
small enough to be well eared for, and near
enough to the house to receive abundant sup
plies of water. If rich enough already, so
much the better. If not, let it be dug deeply,
and well enriched with old and very thorough
ly rotted manure; also woods mould, or leaves
that have been composted and reduced to utter
dust—half decayed leaves will do harm.
You will begin planting on a cloudy day, but
ifbright and sunny wait until an hour or so
before sunset. Your plants are in pots, or
you have received them per express, and they
are bound in moss, or the earth in which they
grew wrapped in thick paper and tied. Gen
tly remove the moss or paper, and plant a lit
tle deeper than they grew before, breaking
the earth gently away from the roots, and
mixing with the new fresh—let the new damp
soil cover the old ball lightly to the stem.
Be sure to press the soil firmly. You will of
course begin at the centre of your bed in
planting, placing the tallest plants there, un
less you are planting a narrow strip against
a fence or wall, when you will put the tallest
specimens against the back.
When all is over, water liberally, and if you
will continue to afford liberal supplies of water
every evening after the heat of the day has
passed (whenever it is not sufficiently moist of
itself from the rains), you will surely succeed.
Old planters will excuse the details for the
benefit of those whose experience is yet to be
gained. The question of the water supply is
important. If the, ground is dark and moist
on the surface, and the particles are easily
impacted by the fingers, do not water. You
may induce rot, mildew, damping off, as it is
called. If the ground is dry, burned, crack
ed, or there is no dampness at the depth of
the finger, lose no time in watering, but first
break up the soil, and do not deluge the plants
in rich soil, it branches heavily from root
stocks under ground, and grows, finer each
succeeding year. The brilliancy of its white
affords a fine relief, to the colored plants,
massed with it.
Or yon may make your central plant the
Pampas Grass, (Gynerium Argenteum,) a very
fountain of green, shooting up tall stems, sur
mounted by glittering plumes, which continue
attractive for weeks. In three years we have
grown a comparatively small plant to a splen
did specimen with thirty seven plumes.
These are not only beautiful in their natural
estate, but afford exquisite ornaments when
properly colored. This fact was taken advant-,
age of by the eminent horticulturists from
France who paid us outside barbarians of the
South a kindly visit not a great while ago.
They sold some of our friends in Raleigh
strawberry trees that produce the famous St.
Petersburg berries in great profusion of the
sige of hens’ eggs, and invitingly set upon
branches that did away with the necessity, a
la Warner, of a cast-iron back, when picking
season came on. Yes, and a great many other
curiosities which some of our friends the pur
chasers, are now modestly hiding away.
Well, these gay and gallant Frenchmen be
took themselves to Savannah, Ga., and filled
their pocket-books pretty rapidly with ten
dollar and twenty dollar notes for plants war
ranted to produce plumes of the gold, scarlet,
mauve, blue, and purple plumes of Pampas
Grass, most scientifically dyed. Indeed they
could furnish any required shade, so that a
fair lady might have a parterre to suit her
complexion. How should florists of the back-
woods in the South know as much as these
elegant gentlemen of Orleans (possibly ofTou-
lenj who really spoke French, and were so in
teresting when they tried to explain their
brilliant pictures in English, but unfortunate
ly could not make their explanations intelligi
ble. Georgia awoke at last, but by the time
some of her far famed militia had reached the
scene of action, exeunt Frenchmen, swindle,
dollars and all, ‘over the water to Charlie.’
And since we have wandered from plants to
pedlers, and especially those of the Gallic
style, we will simply state that the writer of
this veritable chronicle, chanced when looking
up the novelties in the floral world, to come
upon these very Frenchmen, with their stock
newly landed from a steamer, ensconced in a
costly store, upon Broadway itself, where the
glittering brass of the modern policeman is
seen at noonday, and his rapping doth resound
by night- There did they brazenly open their
stock of blue roses, and yellow lilacs, and im
possible wonders, until the room looked like
the retreat of a botanical maniac. Lilies of
portentous size and color, amaryllis that look
ed like a Turner in his wildest freaks had
spread his glowing tints, cemetery plants,
depicted with funereal darkness of aDore in
short all that the pure revels of the imagina
tion could shadow forth. Sundry roots and
bulbs, and dry stocks and seeds, were to bring
into existence these imaginary wonders, and
only a few hundred dollars would be the
‘open sesame!
“Joost vif huntart tollare, sare, and you sail
ave the choix premiere of each von !” Poor
“Caroline du Nord”—any man who ac
knowledges himself from that barbaric region
was of necessity a fool, to put it mildly.
It appeared straightway what manner of
men they were, and we not long after ascer
tained that immediately on their arrival, the
distinguished Mr. Wilson, of Astoria, offered
these men ten thousand dollars cash if they
could produce a growing plant with a single
bloom of their blue rose, and yet these philan
thropists who said they had plenty at home,
within twelve days steam, insisted upon post
poning the sending for the blooming plant,
and-gave away, absolutely threw away the
dormant stocks of it that they had with them,
for only five and ten dollars apiece.
If anybody would compare the floral knowl
edge of our people to their discredit, we will
simply remark that these very swindlers sold
an immense amount of this false stock both at
private sale and at auction, in the very heart
of the city of Philadelphia, where florists are
as plenty as blackberries, and horticultural
societies do most abound, and absolutely wound
up their enterprise to their satisfaction in the
very neighborhood of such men of honorable
fame and future as Buist, Dreer, Dick, Meehan
and the rest.
We have gone so far from our plants, that
we shall simply return to mention a few more
central sorts, for the bed.
Erianthus Ravennse may be used in place of
the Pampas; it is rarer in cultivation. The
plant is taller than the Pampas, with feathery
plumes of silvery white, exceedingly graceful.
Cyperus Papyrus, the famous old.paper plant
of Egypt, may sometimes be obtained, though
it is scarce. It is only five feet high, but has
some twenty-five stalks to a good clump, each
terminates in a mass of light green filaments
a foot high and a foot through the light ball,
much, like o many rising balloons at a dis-
taiwb. Ai .rant!, us Tricolor Gigaiteus, will
reach five feet in good soil, and in the fall as
sumes a variegation of bronzy crimson and or
ange, with some brilliant scarlet. The sun
should strike it freely, as it abhors shade. Let
us remember too, Gymnothrix Latifolia, (there
is no common name that we know of, for the
plant is a recent one,) an ornamental grass,
which attains nine feet, and in our climate fa
vorably situated, would doubtless hardly stop
short of twelve ; the mature plant furnishes
thirty or more stems, with leaves reed like a
foot long, and a couple of inches, wide. It
may be treated precisely as the Canhas.
Cannas make a fine Centre to the bed of
semi-tropical plants. They have been so im
proved that the flowers have reached the size
and brilliancy of a fine Gladiolus, while the
different styles of foliage some of dark purple,
others deep green, or brilliantly variegated,
and as elegant and rich in effect as those of a
large hothouse Maranta. Canna ne plus ul
tra has very large foliage of the most splendid
purple and bronze,with flowers of bright scar
let. Nigricans, Bihorelli, Wareewiezii and
others are good. Give ample supply of water.
You may take it up in the winter like a Tube
rose or a Dahlia, but if you plant in a spot
that is high enough to be dry in winter, you
can preserve in our climate with a mound.
When Mr. Barnes reached the culminating
point in describing the initiation of an Odd
Fellow, in his charming lecture a few nights
ago, he remarked that they opened the closet
door, and took down , well,he really did’nt
have time to say what. Which is our case, as
the space is full, and we must wait for next
week.
[ From Macmillan’s Magazine.]
Plant Migrations.
(concluded.)
Taste became less severe under the Empire,
and flower-pots were introduced in windows,
and even the houses of the poor in Rome had
little gardens in front for ornamental plants—
equivalent to our window gardens—while the
villas had highly decorated gardens attached
to them, and there were parks and pleasure
grounds in the heart of the city.
The favorite garden trees were the pine, for
its refreshing odor, the[bay;[for its beauty arid
fame, and the box for its shade. Trees were
regarded as the temples of the gods. The
simple peasants, savoring of antiquity, do still,
says Pliny,consecrate to one god or another the
fairest trees, and we ourselves worship the
same gods in the silent groves with not less
devotion than we adore their image’s of gold
and ivory in our stately temples.
We proceed to notice a few of the plants in
their passage westward in different ages,
without attempting to fix the exact date of
their arrival at different stages, or to settle
disputed dates. Cassar found in Britain the
apple, hazel, elder, bullace, sloe, raspberry
and blackberry; and his successors left us the
vine, cherry, peach, pear, mulberry, fig, dam
son, medlar, walnut, &c.
In all probability, some of the trees culti
vated in the gardens of Roman Generals, or
Governors, in Britain, were afterwards lost, as
would necessarily be the case with neglected
plants, especially in the case of those whose
seeds do not ripen in our climate; and they
were reintroduced in the monastic age. The
sweet chestnut, for example, had long passed
from Sardis to Tarentum and Naples, where it
was cultivated with much care and success,
and the Romans would bring such a rapid
growing and favorite tree to ornament their
English villas, as surely as they brought the
rose herself; and the disputants who denied
us the chestnut until late in the middle ages,
are refuted by common sense as well as by
Giraldus Cambrensis, who, writing in the
twelfth century of the trees of Britain which
Ireland wanted, mentioned the chestnut and
the beech.
As to the sorbus, or true service tree, there
is no dispute; and it is singular that one of
the few habitats where it is still found wild in
England is in Wyre forest in Worcestershire,
near the remainsofa Roman villa, and of the
orchard attached, in which, perhaps, it was
first planted. The same orchard may have
ripened the first of many of our fruits, shelter
ed perhaps by the first nursery of the narrow-
leaved “English Elin,” and in the garden near
may have been planted the first rosemary and
thyme that had lately blossomed on Mount
Hymettus.
The plane passed from Asia to Sicily, thence
into Italy, and, as Pliny informs us, had reach
ed the northern shores of Gaul before the year
A. D., 79. The peach was common in Gaul
in the time of Agricola, so that these, with the
box and poplar, followed the cherry which
came here within five years of the settlement
of the Romans. The apple, though not per
haps native, preceded them by some German
route, and had given a name to the British
Avalonia, afterwards called Glastonbury ; but
it profited by the rural industry of the Ro
mans, and soon spread over the whole island
to Ultima Thule. Early among the fruits
came the walnut, called Jugfans, Jovis glans,
in remembrance of that golden age when the
gods eat walnuts, and men lived on acorns.
I—♦—«gw —
[From Chamber’s Journal.
On the sides of the steepest rocks in the
Pyrenees, the traveller sees with surprise a
large tuft of leaves with a pretty bunch of blue
flowers in the centre. The roots of this plant
(Ramondia Pyrenaica) penetrate into the
smallest fissures of the stone, and grow vigor
ously without any other nourishment than the
water they absorb, and the air they breathe.
It is curious to find that, limited as it is to •
these mountains, and to those of Mont S^ii.-c
in Catalonia, it is the only representative in
Western Europe of the exotic family of Oyr-
tandacae.
The two kinds nearest to it grow in the
mountains of Roumelia and in those of Japan;
all the other species are spread over Nepaul
and the Indian Archipelago. It is evidently ■
a stranger in the midst of its surrounding veg
etation. In the same mountains, botanists
discovered a few years ago, at a height of from
six to eight thousand feet, a low-growing plant
with a very strong stem, which turned out to
be one of the family Dioscorea, to which be-
longs the Ignama of China and other kinds
which are spread over tropical Asia and Ame
nia. This is the only European representa
tive; and it is no less surprising that it should
[CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE.]