Madeira Vine.
Will you kindly inform me through your “Letter Box” how to treat a Madeira vine so it will produce blossoms? I have a vine four years old, has never done very well until this winter, but the foliage is beautiful and it seems strange that it does not blossom. I have got it in a tin wash basin hung with strings in the window, the sun shines on it from early in the morning until three o’clock in the afternoon. It is trained out each side of basin with strings and measures three feet across, and hangs about one foot from the glass. I have trained it back and forth from the basin to the curtain and it has locked itself through the lace of the curtain. I want to know what I shall do with it in the spring. I shall have to take down the curtain, and will it injure the vine to cut it? I have been told that I ought to clip this winter’s growth in the spring. I should like to know why it does not blossom. Please let me know and confer a favor.
A Constant Reader.
Baldwinsville, N. Y.
The Madeira vine is so easily raised it is not necessary to be particularly careful of a plant which has already fulfilled its mission. The atmospheric and root conditions under house culture are not favorable to the blooming of this plant. If the tubers are placed in a rich, warm soil early in spring the plant will make a great growth and bloom in autumn. When the particular plant in question is to be moved, in the spring, a portion of its top growth can be cut away and then the whole plant slipped out of the pan into the open ground outside.
A FARM OF FOWLS.
In the whole West there’s not to be found another such collection of fancy poultry as that of C. C. Shoemaker, Freeport, Ill. He invites correspondence or a visit. It is said that Mr. Shoemaker’s business has trebled itself every year since he began business.
How He Got the Best of Hard Times.
Mrs. Jones wanted an Organ and as Mr. Jones was one of those good husbands he wanted to please his wife, but in this case with the hard times staring him in the face he did not see how he could spare the money. Anyway he thought he would see what he could do with the dealers and agents in his neighboring town, but after looking over their stock he found the cheapest Organ he could get would cost him $65.00, and it didn’t amount to much at that.
This was more than Mr. Jones could afford and he told his wife so. Although a great disappointment to them both, they decided they would have to give up the idea.
A few days after this, Mr. Jones in looking over Vick’s Magazine saw the advertisement of the “Beethoven Piano and Organ Co.,” of Washington, N. J., stating that they sold a first-class Organ for only $27.50, with stool and book. He sent for their catalogue which they send free to all who write.
Mr. Jones now has the organ in his parlor, for which he paid $27.50, and says it is even better than the agents offered him at $65.00.
He beat the hard times by purchasing direct from the factory, thus saving the profits of the dealers and agents.
The Company offers the same good bargains on Pianos.