purity as to be able to appreciate his gifts. To day I would give a few hints, gathered from a long experience, to show that with economy of money, if not of time and labor, all may enjoy the luxury of plants, both foliage and flower, now supposed by many to belong exclusively to those able to pay for them.

That it is a pleasure thoroughly to be enjoyed and to be truly grateful for, when we may reap for ourselves a harvest of beauty, fragrance and grace, from the labor of others, I will not deny. It is very delightful to go into a greenhouse and select therefrom, with taste and appreciation, the gathered floral treasures of every clime; and it is well that there are those who may do so, rewarding from weil-filled purses the efforts of the florist, who adds so much to the artistic beauty of their homes. While plants are, as we all know, an expensive luxury, if we indulge our desire for them, seeds are to be purchased at a trifling expense, and the whole growth from the tiny leaflet, appearing just as we are giving them up, to the vigorous plant and perfect flower, is a perpetual source of interest and delight. There is a sort of loving pride, a self conscious ownership in plants which we have watched from the time when we dropped the little seeds into the wellprepared earth, and we almost forget that sun and soil, air and water have had any part in bringing this hidden beauty to light. In May most of us regularly plant in our flower beds, mignonette, petunias, phlox drummondii, pinks, and a host of other annuals too innumerable to mention; and in our northwestern climate, with its long winters, tardy springs and short summers, the complaint is invariable made, it is so long to wait for flowers, but with a little forethought and considerable care we may fill our gardens with plants ready to bloom in June, leaving no interval between the bulbs of May and the annuals of July. Many kinds considered strictly house plants, and carefully stored away in the summer to rest, retaining around the roots earth exhausted by the winter's efforts, and kept from light and moisture, would be very grateful for the privilege of rooting a while in the fresh earth, and will furnish enough young vigorous plants to be potted in August to make up for their own loss if, after blooming all sammer, they are abandoned to the mercies of frost.

Many flowers which bloom in our gardens will do equally well in our parlors, bringing brilliance and cheerfulness to the dullest room. Salvia, which has the most gorgeous coloring of any plant raised from seed, may easily be cultivated. Plant the seeds in June. Select strong, healthy plants, and pot in small pots in August. The first of October remove to pots two sizes larger, and they will bloom soon, continuing through the winter. Transplanted to the flower-bed in June, and well cut back, they will last all summer. Carnations, ageratum, heliotrope and many others will do equally well. Petunias, selected as soon as they have bloomed, that you may choose the finest varieties, potted in small

pots, and not allowed to show any flowers until the first of November, will fill a window with brightness, and require very little care. The graceful blue Lobelia is a great favorite with many, and is generally purchased at a florists. It is very easy to have a large number of plants from seed, always remembering that these fine seed must never be drowned with water or choked with earth. The soil, with one-third at least of sand, should be sifted, and the seed sprinkled on it while damp, slightly pressed down, and a little more earth lightly sifted over. The young plants may be treated the same as the salvia, with the difference that salvia requires half shade, and pinching back constantly to keep it from blooming until winter. Treated in this way, you may have it in all its varieties, fringing hanging baskets, rustic stands, falling from brackets, always fresh, graceful and pretty; ten cents paying for a paper of mixed seed, which will give every variety.

Geraniums raised from seed are very fine; by carefully watching them while in bloom, cutting off all but the finest clusters before they begin to fade, and gathering the seed just as it is ready to blow away (it is well to tie a bag over it), you may have the satisfaction of raising plants which will be as fine or finer than those you buy; and if you have room for a large bed of them you may have it for a little trouble and no expense. They may be sown in the open ground the first of July, potted by the middle of September, keep through the winter in a cool room or cellar, where they may retain their leaves but not grow, and then they may be placed in the garden the first of June, and will keep a succession of bloom through the summer. The favorite pansy may be raised from seed with very gratifying results; for if slightly covered they will live in the garden all winter, and in the spring their bright, little, saucy, laughing faces, each with a different expression, will thank us for our care. It is a good arrangement to plant the seed about the first of August in verbena beds. Then they will be ready to bloom there the next spring, and by the time the verbenas are ready for blooming, their finest flowering season is over, and the plants may be taken up. Verbenas may also be raised from seed. My way is to plant in the open ground, but with a glass over to protect from chilling at night.

There are many seeds adapted to bedding purposes. The different varieties of coleus and amaranthus can be cultivated easily, transplanted, and arranged so as to make a fine show. A bed with a few plants of "amaranthus salicifolia " in the centre, euphoebia marginata next, amaranthus bicolor between that, and an edging of white candy tuft or lobelia, would, in August, be a radiant sight, and the seeds would cost just twenty-five cents for the whole. Some of the vines which seem expensive may be had for a mere trifle. The maurandya, with its delicate leaves and wealth of flowers, may be as easily cultivated as morning glories. For stands, hanging baskets and vases it is unequalled, and its

hardiness makes it invaluable for the house. A few plants kept through the winter will cover porches, trellis or fence in the ensu ing summer with great rapidity. Cobea Scandens and the trop. solum, especially the popular canary flower, are well worth planting.

What is more delightful than to fill our rooms with plants and flowers? They seem to welcome our visitors and brighten their reception. Perhaps you say, "but flowers require so much heat, the rooms where they are must be kept so warm, that it is a care and trouble." And this is true of some varieties. If a fine show of begonias is desired, they must have an even heat, not over sixty-five at night or less than seventy by day, and you cannot convince them to the contrary; but roses, fuschias, geraniums, petunias, lobelias, mignonettes, German ivy and maurandya will live in good condition and bloom too, where the mercury never rises over sixty, except by the heat of the sun. One of the great troubles in keeping flowers through the winter is, that as soon as the parlor stove is in place, the plants are put in place too. Water they get, and sun, but not the fresh, cool air, which is just what they want. They bloom awhile, their leaves turn yellow, they are roasted brown; and to mend matters the fire is kept a little hotter, and they get roasted a little more. Our seedlings must not be treated thus. Give them water, not only at the roots but on the leaves. Shower them at least every other day; the leaves drink the water as they would dew. It keeps them fresh, and they do not draw so hard on the roots. When the sun shines on them, give them at the same time, if possible, air. Do not let them crowd each other. Plants desire an individual life. Their almost animate natures will not amalgamate readily. One or the other must suffer through the crowding process. If placed in a stand, each plant should be potted separately. The pots may be placed in position and the interstices filled with earth, which can receive other seedlings.

Perhaps it will be said: "many of these flowers we may as well propagate from slips, and be saved much of the trouble, and it would be no more expensive." A genuine lover of flowers and the cultivation of them, will not object to the trouble, and no others will take it. The process of raising from the seed is necessarily slow, perhaps tedious, to one who does not find a new pleasure in each opening leaf; but there is a variety in it which the mere buying of a plant, however fine it may be, must lack. In propagating from slips you simply reproduce, and have no right to look for anything new or especially interesting. In planting seeds, you have a never-failing source of pleasure in watching for the flowers, there being always a chance of finding some new variety. If we care not for this, of course there would be little object in planting from seeds. It is far preferable to purchase fine varieties from our most reliable florists, who will furnish

none but the best. From these seeds, at ten, twenty-five, or even fifty cents a paper, you may have dozens of plants which would cost at least twenty-five cents; many of them double that price. And in the cultivation of them, I feel sure, many would find pleasure, profit and economy.

HORTICULTURAL PROGRESS.

GEO. P. PEFFER, PEWAUKEE.

As we meet here year after year to relate our industrial experience, and take counsel on the general interest of horticulture in our state, it is a very pertinent question for us to consider, "Do we make any progress." If we base our judgment on the length of the lists of fruit recommended by the early Fruit Growers' Association and our own list, or on the number of varieties exhibited at the fairs then and now, and even in the membership of the societies, we must admit that the advantage is with them. At the winter meeting of the Association, held December 15th, 1855, the list of apples recommended for general cultivation was as follows: Northern Spy, Vandervere, Esopus Spitzenburg, Red Canada, Rhode Island Greening, Yellow Bellflower, Perry Russet, English Golden Russet, English Russet, Swaar, Baldwin; for further trial, Herefordshire, Pearmain, Jonathan, Talman Sweet, Rawles Janet, Fameuse, Rambo, Belmont, Bailey Sweet, White Winter Pearmain, Ribston Pippin, Fall Wine, Westfield Seek no Further, twentythree varieties; and also the following as worthy of cultivation in some localities. Dominie, Red Romanite, Canfield's Sweet, Broadwell Sweet, Green Sweet, Limber Twig, Peck's Pleasant, Newtown Pippin, Roxbury Russet, Sweet Pear, Autumn Swaar, Autumn Strawberry, Dyer, Fall Pippin, Early Harvest, Summer Rose, American Summer Pearmain, Early Strawberry, Red Astrachan, Sweet June, Summer Queen, William's Favorite, twentytwo varieties.

Of pears, they recommended five varieties, the Bartlett, Flemish Beauty, White Doyenne, Belle Lucrative, Louise Bonne de Jersey. Sixteen other varieties were considered, but not recommended. Of plums, they recommended Washington, Imperial Gage, Smiths Orleans, Lombard, Red Gage, McLaughlin, Coe's Golden Top, Yellow Egg, Green Gage and Columbia. On the other hand, we have no pears or plums to recommend, and only fourteen varieties of apples, and but three of these are found in their early list, Westfield Seek-no-further, Talman Sweet and Fameuse. The Red Astrachan mentioned in their second list, we have placed in the first. Looking at the exhibitions of fruit in 1852, we find that

F. K. Phenix exhibited forty named varieties of apples; Mr. Bell forty-six varieties; in 1853, Mr. Bell exhibited eighty-two varieties; in 1855, J. Starin had sixty varieties on exhibition, and Mr. Brayton, sixty-one. Of all these varieties, we find but very few that are now on our lists. Our Tetofsky, Duchess of Oldenburg, Haas, Plumb's Cider, Walbridge, Utter, Ben Davis, and Pewaukee are not mentioned in their lists, and were but little known, if at all. I would here state that the Walbridge I recognize as then given under the name of Redling, and Royal Pearmain, and that this last fall I found it in Ohio and eastern Pennsylvania under the name of Western Redling; but it was not on exhibition with the fruits at Baltimore.

Why this difference? Did the fruit growers of twenty years ago know more of the capabilities of the northwest for fruit-raising than those of to-day?" A few of their members are yet with us, and they can testify that these twenty-two years of experience have fully demonstrated that but few of the varieties known then are suitable for general cultivation. Many of them will thrive in certain localities and under certain conditions now, perhaps as well as then, but having been tried under different conditions from those in which they were first judged by, they have been found wanting. If we are not gaining in the number of varieties, we surely are in respect to hardiness of tree and quality of fruit; for our experience has clearly proved that in these respect, the fourteen varieties now recommended are much more profitable and are adapted to a much larger territory, and will succeed under a greater variety of conditions than all the others recommended by the early fruit-growers. We are certainly making progress in adapting ourselves to our conditions, and developing that hardiness of growth which will endure the sudden changes and great extremes of our climate.

ADVICE ON FRUIT-GROWING TO THE FARMERS OF THE NORTHWEST.

A. J. PHILIPS, WEst Salem.

After seeing the title of my paper to be read before the society printed in the programme, notwithstanding I made choice of that subject myself, I felt that it was assuming too much for me to undertake to give advice to persons much older in the business of fruit growing and other branches of farming than myself, and desired to change my subject to one that would be of more interest to the society than the old and oft-repeated stories of fruit growing, already worn threadbare; and when I saw the subject chosen by my friend Kellogg, I concluded that one of the principal