The question as to the cause of the handsome corollas of the trumpet creeper (Tecoma radicans) being so often split and torn has been accounted for in various ways in published notes on the subject.  Humming birds and ants have been blamed, the humming birds being such constant visitors of these flowers that it really seemed as though they must be the authors of the mischief.  I have often watched them when they appeared as though they were pecking at the blossoms, but careful examinations, both before and after their visits, always failed to show any trace of injury.  Finally, on July 26, 1890, I was rewarded by seeing a number of Baltimore orioles vigorously pecking at and tearing open a lot of fresh blossoms, and this observation was afterward repeated.  That the oriole should do this was not surprising, considering its known habits in relation to some other flowers.  J.G.  JACK.

[Mr. Jack adds a list of sixteen plants whose flowers he has seen punctured by the carpenter bee and seventeen others whose flowers were punctured by the humble bee.  He names more than thirty other flowers which he has found perforated without having seen or identified the authors of the mischief.—­ED.]—­Garden and Forest.

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ELECTRICITY IN HORTICULTURE.

The influence of electricity upon vegetation has been the subject of numerous investigations.  Some have been made to ascertain the effects of the electric current through the soil; others to ascertain the effect of the electric light upon growth through the air.  Among the latter are those of Prof.  L.H.  Bailey of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station.  In Bulletin No. 30 of the Horticultural Department is given an account of experiments with the electric light upon the growth of certain vegetables, like endive, spinach, and radish; and upon certain flowers like the heliotrope, petunia, verbena primula, etc.  The results are interesting and somewhat variable.  The forcing house where the experiments were carried on was 20 x 60 ft., and was divided into two portions by a partition.  In one of these the plants received light from the sun by day and were in darkness at night.  In the other they received the sunlight and in addition had the benefit of an arc light the whole or a part of the night.  The experiment lasted from January until April during two years, six weeks of the time the first year with a naked light and the balance of the time with the light protected by an ordinary white globe.  It is not the purpose here to enter into any great details, but to give the general conclusions.

The effect of the naked light running all night was to hasten maturity, the nearer the plants being to the light the greater being the acceleration.  The lettuce, spinach, etc., “ran to seed” in the “light” house long before similar plants in the dark.  An examination of the spinach leaves with the microscope showed the same amount of starch in each, but in the electric light plants the grains were larger, had more distinct markings and gave a deeper color with iodine.