LUGUBRIOUS, our neighbor across the way, to whom we read this last burst of emotion, shrugged his shoulders and said : "That's all very well for you fine chaps, but by the time you peg away all day I guess you will think otherwise. I can't see any fun in hoeing." To this astute remark we could only reply by saying that we get tired of pic-nics and fire-crackers, and that the man who can see some fun in hoeing has the advantage. "That will do very well to talk about," he retorted, "but if you had to keep up your row all day, I guess you would be tired at night." Now this is just the remark which we wanted him to make. Have we not been obliged to keep up our row in many hot and dusty days when every clod burned our bare feet ? And do we not remember how the boss used to call out, "Come, Bub, come along; keep up your row ?" And have we not gone home at noon and night too tired to eat, too tired even to throw stones at the squirrels in the old log fence ? But why should a man become a pessimist simply because he has to labor and gets tired ? It does one good to get tired. The man who never gets tired never accomplishes enough to pay for living. It is not the tiresomeness but the thoughtlessness which snatches away the happiness.

How many of us work in a tread mill all day, or pull the sweep of a brick mill, not thinking that we can do or think anything else ! Put life into the hoe, put determination into it, put thoughtfulness into it - then tell us next year if hoeing has not become easier to you ! You will see what it is to hoe " in the spirit," and to live.

BUT there are some people who try to put too much thought into their hoeing, or they put in the wrong kind of thought. These peo-catch old thoughts with their fingers and crowd them into their brains, and when they pull them out again they call them original! Biblius, our next door neighbor, is one of these men. He cannot cut off a daisy without calling out Chrysanthemum Leucanthetnutn ! During all the day he is full of metaphors and Latin names and scientific digressions. Now, Philip, our gardener, takes a great delight in making sly remarks about Biblius' hoeing. When we had been away a few days and wrote to Philip we got a characteristic reply, and we knew that he had just been looking over the fence into Biblius' geranium bed.

"Writing and talking are not in my line," he wrote ; " and perhaps it is just as well, for I might then feel that I could write and some one else should work. I would then call the potato Solanum tuberosum and the carnation Dianthus Caryophyllus ; but I prefer a well grown potato of good flavor when cooked, and a large good-shaped carnation. I would then belong to a class who seem to have a monopoly of all the ideas about gardening. Nor do I belong to the artistic or romantic class of gardeners. I will not promise you great things in the grand future. I would rather prove as I go along".

Now, all this pleased us greatly. It somehow seems to us that Philip thinks more than Biblius does after all. Philip knows big Latin names, but he does not hoe with them.

*

THE Society of American Florists meets late in this month in Boston. If there is any industry nearer heaven than another, it must be the florists'. A man who is always with flowers and who knows them intimately ought to be the sunniest and best of men. So we shall count upon being in Boston. We have met before with the florists, but we have been disappointed. We found ourselves in sympathetic company, after a fashion, for we were " hale fellows well met." Members went to the convention hall, sometimes - the faithful few went always - but the majority oftener went elsewhere. We found the convention an unwieldy mass, prone to clap-trap. The "excursions" have sometimes been disgraceful. Who recalls with pleasure a certain junketing up the Hudson?

Our heart is in this society, for we love all that it legitimately represents and we admire many of its men ; but let us purify it, give it definiteness, straightforwardness and dignity. Its work is too noble to be slighted.

Raisin culture is beginning in parts of Arizona.

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The prune crop in France promises to be very large.

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Tasmanian apples have been selling as high as $12 per barrel in London this season.

The importation of "castaneas" or Brazil nuts has been light this year owing to a short crop.

The continued late rains in Florida are improving orange crop prospects.

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The acreage devoted to melons in Missouri is said to be somewhat less than last year.

Hot and heavy winds have seriously damaged the lemon crop of Sicily.

The March freeze in the South not only destroyed fruit buds, but it seriously injured trees in many places.

The first shipment of deciduous-leaved fruit from California to the east this year was a car-load of Black Tartarian cherries sent on May 17th from Sacramento to Chicago.

A Chicago firm has recently contracted for the entire crop of fruit on the famous Ranco Chicho in California, owned by General Bidwell. There are about 200 acres of grapes and 1,250 of orchards.

Captain John Donnel Smith, of Baltimore, who has explored Guatemala in the interest of botanical science, declares that the regions between Guatemala and Mexico are probably the least explored of any on the North American continent.

The Illinois State Horticultural Society holds its next annual meeting at Cairo in December, opening on the 9th. The Ohio and Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society holds its annual meeting on the preceding day in the same place.

Ge of tomatoes in before, the vines ties are ripening.

A strike on the mpletely shut us out of the market for a time. - Fruit-Growers' Journal.

The Increase of the exportation of apples from Nova Scotia to England is something quite remarkable. According to Mr. Johnson, statistician of the Dominion of Canada, this export, which in 1868 was but $44,000, reached in 1888, $700,000. At the same time the increase in the quantity of apples annually sent to the United States was from $35,000 to $400,000.

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The Extension of grape growing in Canada is quite remarkable. Not only in Ontario, but down the St. Lawrence river on both banks, as far as Montreal, and below, grape-growing as a business is extending itself, and fruit is being produced which is preferred to that brought from the southward. It is a fact that on the upper St. Lawrence and about the north end of Lake Champlain, better grapes are produced, and the fruit is a surer crop, than in western Massachusetts.

The American Seed Trade Association met at Saratoga Springs, June 10th and nth. Eighteen states were represented among the delegates. A committee was appointed to visit Washington in the interest of the tariff on seeds and supplies, and another to take into consideration the matter of a horticultural exhibition at the World's Fair. The following are the officers for the eusuing year : Albert McCullough, Cincinnati, president ; W. A. Burpee, Philadelphia, vice president; Z. DeForest Ely, Philadelphia, second vice president; John Fottler, Boston, secretary and treasurer ; W. W. Rawson, Boston, assistant secretary ; H. W. Johnson. William Meggat, J. C. Vaughan, J. H. Allen and T. W. Wood, executive committee.

The present census enumeration is particularly complete in agricultural and horticultural matters. Some topics of horticultural interest are to be made the subject of special reports, but the general schedules contain the following questions, which have been asked of every commercial grower before this time, but which are equally interesting to all others; Onions : Field crop - number of acres, bushels produced and sold, and value. Potatoes : Sweet and Irish, bushels produced and sold. Market gardens and small fruits : Number of acres in vegetables, blackberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries and other small fruits, and total value of products in 1889. Vegetables and fruits for canning : Number of acres and products, in bushels, of peas and beans, green corn, tomatoes, other vegetables and fruits. Orchards : Apples, apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, plums and prunes, and other orchard fruits ; in each the number of acres, crop in 1889, number of bearing trees, number of young trees not bearing, and value of all orchard products sold.

Vineyards : Number of acres in vines bearing and in young vines not bearing; products of grapes and raisins, and value in 1889.

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