The runners were kept down, and yet before fruiting the plants covered the ground so that no mulching was necessary." How much money this crop of 5,874 quarts produced was not stated, but at prices realized in this market it would have yielded $1,174. "With such returns the grower can afford to keep the hoe continually going.

A winter of exterminating severity has tested the endurance of numerous horticultural novelties, and shown some of them liable to be killed by excessive cold. Even standard favorites, never previously injured, were found unable to withstand its rigor. Such casualties, though really exceptional incidents, have their value in teaching us what varieties are perishable and what are not. The lesson of that winter is, that we should reject the former and adopt the later. At a time when the horticultural public is pressed on every side to purchase the novelties which swarm before it from every quarter, a test winter of this trying character is not without its uses. Two years ago a raspberry was shown me by a gentleman in whose garden it came up as a volunteer. He had been struck with its great size and productiveness, and had multiplied it up to nearly a hundred plants. It exceeded the best I had ever seen or tasted, the berries being an inch long, by ray own measurement, of light red color, fine flavor, and so thickly strung upon the canes as almost to exceed belief. I showed the fruit to a dozen experienced raspberry growers, who were also powerfully impressed with its value. They agreed with the owner of the plants that there was money in such a raspberry.

I also felt sure that if properly managed, a small fortune could be realized from it. As we could not patent the discovery, we resolved to quietly propagate it until a large* stock had been produced. It had already passed unharmed through three winters, and we had no suspicion of its being only a half hardy plant. But the last one killed the entire stock, root and branch, thus literally blotting out the most remarkable raspberry I have ever seen or heard described. But its brief term of existence teaches that nature has yet in store for us a better raspberry than has hitherto been publicly known, and that perseverance in propagating seedlings will be certain to develop it.

The year has also brought its lessons touching grape culture, some useful and encouraging, with others sadly the reverse. Old localities in which the vine had been long and successfully established, have given token of declension. Old favorites have also shown signs of ceasing to be productive. Some of the modern and highly popular varieties have died in various localities by wholesale, while in others they have proved utterly unthrifty. The general experience has been full of antagonisms, such as the crowd of grape growers at numerous conventions have been unable to reconcile. Yet the grape culture goes on, and is continually enlarging its area. New varieties are being constantly produced. Hybridization has become a mania, but with sane results. It has made its mark on floriculture also, and in some instances has unsettled the accepted formulas of our botanical patriarchs. Mr. Wilder announces that species can be made to cross. He has crossed the Japan lily with the Tiger, and has produced "all shades, and between red and white, from the softest blending to the darkest spots of crimson." Such discoveries open "a field whose boundaries are lost in the horizon, and will still be receding as we advance." Mr. Meehan, from his own careful experiments in hybridization, thinks that enough is being developed to show that instead of the old doctrine, that like produces like, being the law, nature takes peculiar pains to prevent the like producing its like, by making special efforts to prevent self - impregnation.

Thus, says Mr. Wilder, "change and variation, in the plant world, seem to be the order of the day".

But in this world there is no unmixed good. The year ju9t closing has taught to some the bitter lesson that with certain commodities it is really possible to glut the market. Seven years ago the people of Wisconsin went largely into the cultivation of hops. This extension of a small business was stimulated by the heavy whisky tax of 1861. Malt liquors came suddenly into extensive demand, as there were indications that Americans were likely to become a beer-drinking people. New York, the then headquarters of the hop culture, was showing a diminished production; the demand was rapidly increasing; prices went up to a highly remunerating figure, and the prospect was that the demand for hops would be unlimited. The soil of Wisconsin had been proved to be favorable for hop growing, and land was cheap. Then the crop in England had been failing, and our importations had ceased, thus throwing our great army of prospective beer drinkers on our own resources. From small beginnings in 1862, the Wisconsin crop yielded, in 1865, over 4,200 bales of 200 pounds each. In 1867 it rose to 31,000 bales, of which two-thirds were produced in one county. This immense crop sold at sixty cents per pound, the production costing only twenty cents, in many cases even less.

Of this profit the county of Sauk received $2,000,000. The hop growers became wild with excitement over their success, and the infection spread to others, hundreds of whom prepared to embark in the business. Poor folks with only an acre of land - in fact, all classes - took to hop growing, many of them staking all they were worth, and abandon-: ing all other occupation.

The infatuation of the multicaulis speculation of thirty years ago was repeated. The vast profits of preceding years did not satisfy the men who had secured them - they were not enough - they wanted more. These invested them in extending the business, in buying more land, planting new hop yards, building more houses. Farms were purchased at high prices, and mortgages given for a portion of the cost. Such land as could not be got into hops was allowed to grow up in weeds. As to grain, not enough was raised for home consumption. These enthusiasts lived well in the mean time, for money was flush, and to be more so the coming season. Its profits were readily discounted by the merchants in the shape of generous supplies of merchandise, to be paid for when the hop harvest had been secured, as no one dreamed of diminished crops or falling prices. But the results of this year have disappointed all these brilliant expectations, covering the scenes where hop growing was most active, with pecuniary wrecks. Congress reduced the whisky tax so low as to bring into active use the millions of toddy sticks which a two-dollar tax had made idle, and our people abandoning lager, returned with new fervor to their ancient favorite stimulant.

Worse than even this depravity of taste, the hop louse and the mold attacked the crop, destroying half. Whatever remained was saved in a damaged condition. This small remainder overstocked the market. Prices fell from sixty to seventeen cents. Multitudes of small adventurers were ruined. Owners of mortgaged farms pleaded to be released, by re-conveying to the mortgagees, content to lose all they had paid upon them. The merchants could collect nothing for the supplies they had advanced, for payment had been dependent on the hop harvest. It was the complete counterpart of the multicaulis mania.

The lesson of the year to such as have suffered from the hop disaster, should be moderation in the future. It is really a difficult one to learn, for this country is full of hobbies. Many such are annually started on their travels. All of us are impatient for a ride, not only on our own, but on our neighbor's. We mount this or that hobby in platoons, our impulses, rather than our judgment, sometimes our ignorance, governing the choice. Every hobby has a gold mine of some description in the distance, toward which he is galloping. As no hobby can carry a burden of unlimited weight, this one upon whose back all hands have mounted will in time break down. If it be a high horse on which we have been riding on the road to fortune, the fall will be disastrous, and our pecuniary bruises and dislocations will be in proportion to the height which we may have mounted. But there are always riders who do not choose to wait until the break down comes. Though everything looks lovely, they still feel misgivings as to wind and bottom, and slip off safely and sound, satisfied that their gallop has been long enough. The crowd sweeps onward, some too exultant to notice the deserters, some pitying their timidity, others greeting it with ridicule.

But as the multitude of riders is constantly increasing, the places left vacant by deserters are quickly filled by others.

These hobbies have been almost numberless during many generations. They travel on every race-course to fortune, not only here, but in all other countries. Hobbies are corollaries of a high civilization. Neither Hottentot nor Esquimaux has ever been exhilarated by their advent, or cast down by their collapse. But no highway in American horticulture has been long without beholding some of them. Even the quiet byways of agriculture have lively recollections of their ephemeral existence. They are paraded through the press in captivating leaders; they are heralded in great conventions and at annual fairs; they draw out the highest touches of advertising eloquence. Their circle of attraction is apparently unlimited, making common property of the rarest exotic and the latest new potato. Nothing is so lowly or so lofty that it can not be converted into a hobby. Doubtless there are other hobbies now stabled and in training for a start; for hobbies are munificent paymasters to the shrewd men who first trot them out for the admiration of a people ever ready to bestride them. Yet hobbies may be counted good things. We Americans need a succession of excitements, and most of these may be so driven as to be comparatively innocent and safe, if ridden in moderation.

The lesson of the year is that if hobbies in horticulture are to be continually trotted out, tempting us to mount and ride, we should be careful not to climb so high among the crowd as to be unable to slip off safely before the inevitable break down comes.