Six Ways Of Setting Strawberry Plants

Fig. 1. "A Header".

Fig. 2. Too Near the Sun.

Fig. 3. Too Near China.

Fig. 4. Tight Shoes.

Fig. 5. Too Shallow.

Fig. 6. Good !

Skunk Cabbage ( Symplocarpus Fatidus)

This despised native plant has a prominent place in English gardens, not in every flower-garden, but in large borders and shaded places; and why should it not ? If there is a more beautiful or interesting flower than this, we have not seen it. Besides, its flowers are among the first in the spring, and of a color rarely met - a bronzy purple marbled with green. To be appreciated these must be examined closely, then they present attractions not possessed by the more showy and popular sorts. For a wet situation we should say, by all means introduce one of these noble plants. If it only had a foreign air everybody would grow it. It would not be " Skunk Cabbage " then.

Skunk Cabbage Vs. Rhubarb

In the last issue of The American Garden (p. 315), the skunk cabbage is suggested as an ornamental plant. Let me suggest in its place the common rhubarb. In European cities this is often seen in the yards, where it is both ornamental and useful. The dark green color of the leaves is quite ornamental, and all know how appetizing the stalks are in the early spring, the plant being the very earliest which we can utilize for food. Where there is no garden, let it be planted on the lawn ; and in the same place, as a plant both ornamental and useful, the asparagus might appear. - G. G. Groff, Pennsylvania.

Small Onions

A small place in my garden had, a few years ago, a pile of hog-hair placed upon it. This pile was the accumulation of several years drainage from a packing house. When I removed the pile I found the ground very hard. Yellow Danvers onion was sown upon the land. The onions upon this area came up like needles, good in color, but very thin and small. The bulbs formed fully two weeks earlier than others from the same sowing. They came so early that it seemed useless to have grown sets for early bunch onions. They kept over winter well, and were good when other onions were gone in the spring. Each year, as the ground becomes looser, my onions grow larger upon this area. - Richard Branson.

Soil For Plums

As a rule, the clay loams are best for plums. Sometimes the soil has a great influence upon the quality of the fruit. George T. Powell relates a remarkable instance of this. The Lombards sent to the New York market from the west shore of the Hudson "stand up" better, and bring a better price, than those from the east side, because the soil is clay on the west and sandy or gravelly on the east.