Madeleine Pear

Rev. E. P. Powell, Clinton, N. Y., writes: "I was compelled to discard Madeleine as being incomparably the worst fire-blight subject among my pears. Onondaga is bad enough but I can fight it out on that line. Belle Lucrative is also inclined that way and occasionally a tree will go. Clapp's Favorite is with me one of the subjects. Those include my unre-liables".

The English Oak

This grows to a large size in the British Isles. An old trunk was taken out of the bed of the river Dee at Aberdeen in Scotland, recently, that was twenty-nine feet round. The piece was thirty feet in length.

Storms And Atmospheric Currents

No class of the community is more interested in the study of the attendant phenomena of storms and air currents than the gardening world. The articles in Scribners Monthly from the pen of such an enthusiastic student of the subject as Professor Shaler, will be welcome reading.

Formation Of Cells

The protoplasm or material out of which cells are formed, can, according to the experiments of Mr. Gardener, pass from cell to cell, through minute apertures in the cell wall. It is regarded as a very important discovery in connection with vegetable physiology.

Why Birds Sing

In Scribners Magazine for September, " The Motif of Bird Song " is an out-of-doors paper by Maurice Thompson, in which he sets forth some fruits of his close observation of the songs of our American birds, as to their quality, melody, etc. He arrives at the conclusion that bird-song is the instinctive expression of pleasure, and that the absence of true rhythm in it is probably significant of the want of power to appreciate genuine music.

Hay Fever

It has now been proved incon-testably that pollen has nothing whatever to do with hay fever - but comes from minute organisms germinating in the atmosphere, and which might readily be mistaken for pollen by microscopists with an imperfect knowledge of the lower forms in the vegetable kingdom.

Poisonous Plants And Flowers

It would really seem that the old saw that what is one man's meat is another man's poison, has a much wider application than is generally supposed. Once in a while we see the most innocent plants reported poisonous. Now it is the Magnolia flower. Some one in the Old World has discovered that the grateful odor of this beautiful flower is poisonous. It is nonsense.

A Luscious Wild Plum, Prunus Occident-Alis

Mr. W. G. Lyon tells the Botanical Gazette that on Catalina Island, off the coast of California, Prunus occidentalis makes a beautiful tree as large as an orange, and that the plum is large and luscious. Our California friends should endeavor to introduce such a desirable wild fruit to cultivation.