Battle Creek (Michigan) Agricultural Society

President, Jeremiah Brown. Treasurer, John Meacham. Secretary, D. B. Burnham. There is also a Board of Directors.

Be Careful Of The Roots Of Newly Dug Trees

No newly-dug tree should have its roots exposed to the sun or drying winds for a single hour. We have seen instances of ill success where roots dug from the moist, cool earth, are exposed to the sun and drying winds for a full half day, or even two days ; and it seemed as if all the arts of the planter could not coax life and energy into the tree. In transplanting trees the roots should be kept cool and moist, or as near the original temperature or condition of the soil they formerly occupied; otherwise evaporation takes place, which is hard to restore, and life gradually dies out. It is safe, then, for any one to refuse to take trees from any peddler or nurseryman which have been exposed to the air for over a half day.

A Beautiful Bed Of Geraniums

According to The American Rural Home there was this summer in Rochester, a geranium bed, approaching perfection as near as any ever seen. This bed undoubtedly owes its great success to the care exercised in propagating the plants, in assorting and transplanting them, and in the care which they receive all through the season. Cuttings of the finest plants of the Gen. Grant variety are made during the latter part of summer. These are kept in the greenhouse until the latter part of May, when they are assorted, and the most vigorous ones used. The bed is oval, or palm-leaf shaped, highest in the middle, and well manured with rotten stable manure, nd decayed leaves. The bed is kept clean and mellow all through the season, and the fading flowers removed. The result is a mass of brilliant scarlet bloom from June to October.

A Beautiful Conceit

Some author - we remember not who - informs us how we became indebted for the red rose. They were all of a pure and spotless white when in Eden they first spread out their leaves to the morning sunlight of creation. Eve, as she gazed upon the tint-less gem, could not suppress her admiration of its beauty, but stooped down and imprinted a warm kiss on its snowy bosom. The rose stole the scarlet tinge from her velvet lip, and yet wears it.

Beautiful Evergreen

One of the most beautiful of our hardy evergreens is Picea Nordmainana. It is upright, spreading in habit, and with the most beautiful silvery character of foliage of any evergreen in our knowledge.

Beautiful Floral Plate

The new Catalogue of Mr. John Saul, of Washington, D. C., contains a colored plate of two new Geraniums, Lady Edith and Coleshill. The plate is superbly colored and printed, and is by far the finest specimen of floral lithograph work we have ever seen in this country.

Beautiful Picture

Macaulay, who paints everything in strong colors, gives the following picture in his new volume: "In the southwestern part of Kerry, on the rare days when the sun shines out in all his glory, the landscape has a freshness and warmth of coloring seldom found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better than ever on the sunny shore of Calabria. The turf is of livelier hue than elsewhere; the hills glow with a richer purple; the varnish of the holly and ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a brighter green. But during the greater part of the seventeenth century this paradise was as little known to the civilized world as Spitzbergen or Greenland".