A Japan Quince

Pyrus Japonica - picked on the ground of the writer was three inches long, eight and three-quarter inches in circumference, and weighed nearly seven ounces. It is not often that they are found with such dimensions as this. The fruit has a grateful fragrance, but in view of the ordinary garden quince, has only an ornamental value. The plant makes a good and beautiful live fence.

Training Geraniums

In San Francisco, where Geraniums live out all winter, they make beautiful specimens of great size, which surprise those who have seen only specimens under Eastern greenhouse culture. In some places they train them. We know of one which was trained to a flat trellis about twelve feet long and four feet high, and was a dense mass of flowers. The ivy geranium is much used for trellis work in San Francisco, and is very beautiful indeed.

A Large American Arbor Vitae

On the grounds of Mr. Rex Hinkle, at Mount Airy, Philadelphia, is a tree of Arbor Vitas which has a trunk eight feet in circumference, and which rises nine feet to the first branch.

Acer Schweidleri

The Broad-leaved Norway Maple Prof. Budd says the original tree is still growing near Proskau, in Northern Silesia.

Gladiolus, Stuart Wortley

This was regarded as the best gladiolus at the September meeting of the New York Horticultural Society, to which the certificate of merit was awarded - a noble spike of grand, bold flowers, brilliant cherry with pure white throat and white band in center of petals. It would seem as if perfection in hybridizing the gladiolus had been reached.

Improving The Coleus

With a box of leaves of striking and very varied beauty, Mr. Berkmans writes : " I have within the past three years worked upon improving a few strains of Coleus, and select a few leaves from this year's seedlings. I believe some are quite good; at any rate, I have nothing in the new or old kinds that are as desirable for our hot climate."

Disease In Winter Flowering Carnations

These are very liable to the attack of a root fungus. The plants show the effects in a yellowish-green tint to the leaves for some time before final death. So far as we know, no certain remedy is known. Some Carnation growers lose large numbers of plants during the winter.

Heliotrope Roi Des Noirs

This is, we think, the deepest colored variety we have yet seen. Its dense heads of bloom are of an intensely deep purple, and their perfume also seems to be intensified compared with that of paler kinds. It is a most desirable plant to have in the conservatory at this season if only for its perfume. It is now in great beauty in the Royal Exotic Nursery, Chelsea, where we saw it a few days since. - The Garden.