ised. The caustic wash is much safer than
a petroleum wrap. The eggs are often laid high up on the trunk or even
on the branches. Nothing is better for the borers than the soap and
carbolic acid mixture.

[Illustration]

FLORICULTURE.

Gleanings by an Old Florist.

SMILAX AND ITS USES.

Smilax, as now used by florists, is but a very recent affair. Although
introduced first into Europe from the Cape of Good Hope as early as
1702, it remained for the florist of our time to find out its great
adaptability for decoration and other uses in his art or calling. To
Boston florists belong the credit of its first extensive culture and
use, and for several years they may be said to have had the monopoly of
its trade, and Boston smilax, along with Boston tea roses, which was
pre-eminently the variety called the Bon Silene, was, for years, shipped
to this and other cities. It is scarcely a decade of years ago, in this
city, when a batch of one hundred strings could not be bought here,
home-grown; now there would be no difficulty in getting thousands. Like
everything else of like character, the first introducers reaped a golden
harvest, so far as price is concerned, having often obtained a dollar a
string; while now, the standard price, even in mid winter, is $2 per
dozen, and often in quantity, it can be obtained at less. But where
there was one string used then, there are now thousands. In olden times
the florist was often put to his wits to find material to go around his
made-up pieces and for relief as a green; now, everything green is
smilax, and it must be confessed, that with the choice ferns, begonia
leaves, and the like, that he used to have to prepare with, his work
then was really often in better taste, so far as relief to flowers is
concerned, with the old material than the new.

But for the purpose of festooning buildings, churches, and the like,
smilax is by all odds the very thing wanted, and as much ahead of the
old-time evergreen wreathing, that we had to use, as the methods now in
use for obtaining cut flowers are ahead of the old. It is hard to say
what the florist could do without smilax, so indispensable has it
become. There are now probably twenty of the principal growers of this
city that have at least one house in smilax, who will cut not less than
three thousand strings in a winter, while of the balance of smaller fry
enough to make up the total to 100,000 strings per year. In times of
scarcit