Bricks Of Cork

The waste cuttings of cork are now being employed in England for making bricks, which can be used for walls, impervious alike to heat or damp. The cork cuttings are reduced to powder in a mortar, and mixed with lime or clay; and from this composition the bricks are made in the usual way.

Roses For Winter Cut Flowers

English rose-growers look on aghast at the growing American practice of taking but a single crop from rose plants in forcing houses, and then throwing away the plants for new ones. They still cling to the cut-back system with old plants.

An Early-Flowering Winter Carnation

It is said that a kind known among florists as the Philadelphia dwarf, a red variety, will be in full bloom before many other kinds have well developed buds.

Flowers For Parisian Bouquets

In Paris the stock flowers for bouquets are Lily of the Val-lies, White Lilac, Pinks, Violets, Paeonies, Daffodils, Narcissus, Forget-me-not, Honeysuckles, Pansies, Pyrethrum, Horsechestnut, Roses, Tulips, Poppies, Corn-flower, Asters, Grasses, Daisies and the Hawthorn.

New Roses

The Journal des Roses notes that of the many hundreds of roses proclaimed each year as new and magnificent, all but one or two soon enter into rest and are gathered into the tombs of their forefathers.

It thinks that an insurance company that will guarantee the novelty and superiority of new roses might do as much business as an insurance company against hail.

How To Keep Seeds

I hardly suppose any reader of the Monthly is not aware that in seeds containing oil - and all fruit and nut tree seeds are rich in oil - the principal reason of failure to germinate, is due to the oil becoming rancid. Seeds kept from air and moisture, and cool, willgerminate nearly as well the second year as the first. The plan I refer to above I found a very good one.

Fruit Crop In Western New York

I have recently been through the apple counties, and the crop seems good in quality, and quantity. All crops are fully half a month ahead of the average season, due to hot and dry weather.

Rochester, N. Y

Friendly Birds

Mr. Dudley W. Adams wields his trenchant pen against the West Chester ornithologists who want to save the birds that kill chickens, because they kill mice also. He writes to the Florida Agriculturist that on the same argument we should encourage sheep-killing dogs, because they are decidedly useful as scavengers in cleaning up old bones and bread.