Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-05-22
FARM AND FIRESlDE.


most all garden works of the present time
have great deal to say about pretty flow
ers and continuous blooming flowers, and
harmonies of color andfoliage which shall
make garden look tastefully gay through
all the season. This is all very well, and
yet we have often wondered why more at
tention was not given to sweet things,
which are at least as deserving Of our re-
gard as pretty ones.
We notice that we are not alone in our
wonder at this neglect, for the Pennsyl-
vania horticultural Society, ever on the
lookout for novel points of attraction, and
for meritorious garden objects to encour-
age, has offered handsome premium for
collection of odoriferous plants to be shown
at the Autumnal exhibition. This is prob
ably the first time that any premium of
that sort has been offered, and it is step
in the right direction, for surely next to
the charms which every garden affords
there is none more pleasing than an early
morning OF an evening atmosphere laden
with fragrance from delicious flowers.
Most kinds of gardening requires some
expenditure A beautiful lawn requires
constant labor to make and keep it so !;
much cultivated taste is required to ar
range trees and shrubs so that what are
called superior landscape effects shall be
produced and arrange Towering plants so
that each color shall harmonic with the
other and gorgeous effects be produced, re-
quired the employment of numerous plants
and a cultivated taste in arrangement that
few are able to command. But it costs
little to have few sweet flowers. Even a
child knows how to sow mignonette and
alyssum seeds which soon come up and
make fragrant blooming plants with little
care OF trouble for the rest of the year.
The lemon verbena, or lemon ''Napoleon,n
as it is often called, is raised from cuttings,
and with some difficulty, but after being
once raised it is plant very easily grown,
and takes care of itself with very little
trouble. There are few plants which emit
more grateful fragrance agreeable to
most persons than this old fashioned bushy
plant.
And then the delicious fragrance of the
various honeysuckles, what can be more
delightful ? Some of them to be sure are
of no account. The yellow and scarlet
coral have no perfume, but the Belgian
monthly and the several varieties of Japan
honeysuckles are among the sweetest
things that blow.
All these are very hardy and very easily
handled /; but besides these are the white,
hardy jasmine, which, however, is not
quite hardy, and which seems very liable
to suffer from small insect plant pests, but
is an admirable plant to have when it does
WELL
If one has a clump of old trees which
are not particularly desirable for their own
sakes, but because a clump of something
green in Summer is desirable, strong
growing grape vines may be allowed to
grow over them which will not only add
to the loneliness of the tangled bewilder-
ment of the foliaceous mass, but will emit
a most grateful odor in early summer eve
ming when the grapes are in flower. 1t
may not have been observed by others, but
it is likely that some kinds Of grape flow
ers are more fragrant than others. Some
twenty years ago there was a variety
known as the sweet scented grape, which
never bore fruit, and was valued solely for
its exceedingly sweetsiowers, but which
seems unfortunately to have gone out of
cultivation-at least we cannot find it in
any nurseryman's catalogue.
For a cheap bed of delicate evening per-
fume, there is perhaps nothing that will
afford more satisfaction than one of old
fashioned perfumes. The large night
moths know this and hover around the
flowers all night long .-Gernaantown 1ele-
graph.
FARMING IN VIRGINIA-A Northern
gentleman, who four years ago purchased
what he calls one-thousand-two-h hundred
acre-run-down plantation in the Piedmont
region of Virginia, thus speaks of what
he is doing in the farming line in letter
to 1.-THE Country Gentleman: C have
to-day in the way of crops one hundred
and thirty acres of Fultz wheat, fifty of
which, judging from last years yield,
ought to thresh out thirty bushels and the
remaining, twenty bushels per acre; one
hundred and thirty acres of clover and
timothy on low land eight thousand
grape vines, mostly in bearing. have
yet to put in one hundred acres OF corn
and twenty acres of tobacco. I have
brought up my land chiefly by the free use
of bone and plaster" and we can doubt
less add liberal use of brains and muscle.
CURE FOR CORNS.-A French medical
journal reports the cure of the most refrac-
tory corns by the morning and evening APP
plication, with brush, of a drop of So
luton of the perchloride of iron. Itstates
that, after fortnight IS continued applica-
ton, without pain, patient who had suf-
fered martyrdom for nearly forty years
from most painful corn on the inner side
of each little toe was entirely relieved );
pressure was no longer painful, and the
cure seemed to be radical. Other and SIM
liar cases are reported as equally successful
under this treatment.
CHANGE OF SEED. The American Ag-
riculturist answers a correspondent by
saying; ''With all other grains than corn
a change of seed now and then is consid-
cred advisable. Potatoes are especially
improved from different locality and soil.
But corn has not generally been found to
deteriorate by long planting; on the other
hand, there are many farmers who are now
planting seedproduced from the corn their
fathers planted a generation ago. Running
out of the corn is more likely to be the result
of impoverished soil, and the best method
of improvement would probably be crop