This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V20", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
Populus Trichocarpa, Torrey, is western, found in Truckee Valley.
Michigan poplar of nurserymen is a much finer tree, also northern in habitat. On account of its rapid growth, this had received considerable attention by Western planters, and though only a poplar, merit is claimed for it as a fencing material;* the poles cut in early Summer and peeled have been found to last well as rails nailed to posts for fencing.
In some tropical countries hedges of the prickly pear have been recommended in order to check the progress of forest fires. But there seems to be no blessing without its attendant evils, and so it is here. The birds scatter the seeds, and the plant spreads so that it is one of the worst possible of weeds. Being a succulent kind of cactus, hoeing and cutting up, of course, only increases the pest.
Often reports get into the papers of injury from plants that are evidently apocryphal: but an account in a Southern paper of injury to a lady at Macon, Ga., from the juice of the Euphorbia is no doubt correct. The juice is extremely acrid, and is used to burn out warts.
This is figured in a recent number of the Garden, and Pinus contorta is said to be synonymous with it. We have no knowledge as to the priority or history of this name or who is its author.
Among the plagues of Egypt mentioned in Genesis, was a blight on the flax fields, and this trouble has continued more or less to our time. At the late meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, it was announced that the disease was caused by a species of thrip, and which is so very small that it can be readily transported by the wind.
With a badly bored stem of a Rhododendron, a Philadelphia correspondent sends the following note :
" Can anything be done to prevent an insect from killing the branches of the Azaleas and Rhododendrons? I enclose you a bit of the wood. Even those in pots have suffered".
Most persons know that the editor has no relation to the advertisements, or to any business matter. On all these affairs letters should be addressed to Mr. Chas. H. Marot. When people write to the editor to notice this or that advertisement, it is time and labor thrown away, for he does not see the advertisements until the magazine is issued. Occasional letters make this notice necessary. The publisher looks after the business; the editor the pleasure of the concern.
 
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