HANGING BASKETS.
Only certain kinds of plants are suitable for hanging baskets; such as are of low compact growth, to cover the surface, and such as are of drooping or trailing habit, to hang over the sides, are best for the purpose. For the center use some graceful plant of upright growth. In setting the plants in hanging baskets a layer of moss at least one inch in depth should be spread over the bottom and sides, so that the water may be held and prevented from washing through. To have the plants bloom freely they should be hung where they will be exposed to the sun at least two hours every day, and in dry weather they need copious watering. A good plan is to dip the whole basket in water until it is thoroughly soaked. It can be allowed to drip before being again hung up. Watered in this way the soil retains the moisture much better than when the water is only poured on the plants.
Panicum variegatum is one of the most valuable plants I have tried for baskets or vases. It is a species of grass from New Caledonia, of very graceful habit of growth, with beautiful variegated foliage striped, white, carmine and green. The ivy-leaved geraniums are excellent climbing or trailing plants adapted to hanging baskets. They have a fine, thick, glossy foliage, which of itself would warrant their cultivation, but they also have the charming attraction of possessing beautiful flowers as well as foliage. Any one who once succeeds in getting a good variety started in a basket will never allow their window garden to be without a plant of this kind, as they all bloom with the greatest freedom. Chas. Turner is my favorite variety of the ivy-leaved geraniums.
Nasturtiums are lovely in a “rustic” hanging basket, that is, one made of rough and gnarled roots and limbs of trees. All the varieties of oxalis are pretty grown in earthenware baskets, and wire baskets lined with bright green moss are especially suitable for the different varieties of tradescantia, or “wandering jew.” There is a drooping variety of cactus, Cereus flagelliformis, admirably suited for hanging baskets. I have seen this planted in a large ox horn suspended by chains, and it made a most unique ornament.
Prudence Plain.
The Unemployed in England.—The sufferings of the unemployed in England, if not greater, are at least more vocal than ever, and remarkably various are the remedies proposed. Besides the project already named, Mr. Keir Hardie suggested to Parliament the establishment of an eight hours day and the prohibition of overtime in Government factories, the reclamation of waste lands and foreshores, the reafforesting of the country, and the provision of suitable accommodation for the aged poor. The Daily Chronicle revives an old scheme for reclaiming the Wash, and so adding a “new country” to England. Mr. Chamberlain’s hope is for extended markets for national trade. A conference of vestries, presided over by Lord Onslow, proposed to Mr. Gladstone the formation of light railways, made and worked as in Ireland, to carry away the refuse of London. The gravity of this problem throughout the United Kingdom can hardly be overestimated, and its conditions are not so transient as those in the United States. There is no such “army of unemployed” in Chicago or New York as in London.—From the “Progress of the World,” in the February Review of Reviews.
TO CATARRH SUFFERERS
A clergyman, after years of suffering, from that loathsome disease, Catarrh, and vainly trying every known remedy, at last found a medicine which completely cured and saved him from death. Any sufferer from this dreadful disease sending his name and address to Prof. Lawrence, 88 Warren Street, New York, will receive the means of cure free and postpaid.