The American Gardener's Assistant: In Three Parts Containing Complete Practical Directions for the Cultivation of Vegetables, Flowers, Fruit Trees and Grape Vines

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W. Wood, 1869 - Floriculture - 529 pages

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Page 23 - ... and the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew of music so delicate, soft, and intense, it was felt like an odour within the sense...
Page 20 - Cross fertilisation is effected, as every one knows, by the action of the pollen of one plant upon the stigma of another. The nature of this action is highly curious. Pollen consists of extremely minute hollow balls or bodies ; their cavity is filled with fluid, in which swim particles of a figure varying from spherical to oblong, and having an apparently spontaneous motion. The stigma is composed of very lax tissue, the intercellular passages of which have a greater diameter than the moving particles...
Page 17 - OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISEASES, DEFECTS, AND INJURIES, | IN ALL KINDS OF FRUIT AND FOREST TREES." WITH AN ACCOUNT OF | A PARTICULAR METHOD OF CURE, | PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF GOVERNMENT.
Page 20 - It seems that cross fertilisation will not take place at all, or very rarely, between different species, unless these species are nearly related to each other ; and that the offspring of the two distinct species is itself sterile, or if it possesses the power of multiplying itself by seed, its progeny returns back to the state of one or other of its parents.
Page 186 - Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace ; Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first ; The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes ; The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown, And lavish stock, that scents the garden round...
Page 185 - If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.— That strain again;— it had a dying fall; O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour.— Enough; no more; 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
Page 132 - ... to insure a good crop of barley and a kind plant of clover, and that this clover is found a most excellent preparative for wheat, it will appear that the subsequent advantages derived from a crop of turnips must infinitely exceed its estimated value as fodder for cattle.
Page 12 - GRAFTING. Grafting is the taking a shoot from one tree and inserting it into another in such a manner that both may unite closely and become one tree. These shoots are called scions or grafts, and in the choice of them and the mode of preparing some Descriptions of stocks, the following hints...
Page 22 - Its stripes are so glowing, its contrasts so strong, and the arrangement of them both so elegant and artful, that it may, with propriety, be denominated the reigning beauty of the garden in its season. The Hyacinth is also an estimable flower for its blooming complexion, as well as for its most agreeable perfume and variety.
Page 18 - ... shake the powder on the surface of the plaster till the whole is covered with it, letting it remain for half an hour, to absorb the moisture ; then apply more powder, rubbing it on gently with the hand, and repeating the application of the powder till the whole plaster becomes a dry smooth surface. " If any of the composition be left for a future occasion, it should be kept in a tub or other vessel, and urine poured on it so as to cover the surface, otherwise the atmosphere will greatly hurt...

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