I have just harvested my Ricinus or Castor Bean, which I raised from the
seed you sent me last spring. It was of mammoth growth, attaining a
height of fourteen and a half feet, and sixteen feet across the branches
of which there were seventeen after cutting off five during the summer.
Each of the branches contained a cluster of burs, the center one having
one hundred and thirty-four burs, the other branches not so many. Many
of the leaves measured from thirty to thirty-two inches across from tip
to tip or point of leaves. When sawed off at the ground, the body
measured five inches and a half of wood in diameter, inside of the bark,
which was one-fourth of an inch thick. This is a big bean story but
nevertheless a true one.--T. G. T. in _Vick's Magazine_.
A Talk About Primroses.
It is an old adage that one must take Time by the forelock. In the
culture of flowers, we must certainly do so, planning and preparing in
spring for the coming winter, if we would secure for ourselves plants
that can be relied on for blooming. We know of none equal to