184 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



plant respecting which you make inquiries, and 

 our nearest guess is Salvia fuchsoides. We do 

 not know any salvia so named. Will you kindly 

 write again and put down the name in legible 

 printing characters with a stumpy pen ? Some 

 of our letters take longer to read than to re- 

 ply to. 

 Camellias to be Planted out. — iVor/ce.— Ca- 

 mellias may be potted or planted out in a con- 

 servatory border at any season, except when 

 they are in bloom. When done flowering and 

 when done growing are the seasons usually 

 chosen by gardeners. As yours are poor and 

 lanky, and the season is very tar advanced, we 

 advise you to plant them out at once, and not 

 to cut them at all. Next season let them bloom 

 but moderately, that is, thin away the buds if 

 they make many, and leave only a few to ex- 

 pand, and as soon as the blooni is over prune 

 them into shape and keep them warm, shaded, 

 and moist, and you will get breaks to fill up the 

 blanks. It is too late now to get new growth, 

 but if turned out their roots will go to work to 

 prepare them for growth next season. Your 

 letter came to hand on the 15th of July. 

 CYttings op Roses.— (?. St. J. B., Gosport.— 

 Your sketch 1 is better than 2, and the incision 

 b better thau the incision a. There is no abso- 

 lute necessity for compelling roots from a bud, 

 though a bud will give them quickest. Any 

 part of the stem will produce roots, whether 

 close under a bud or midway between two 

 buds. Fig. 2, at p. 152, needs no amendment 

 or correction ; there is only the thickness of a 

 knife-blade between the bas 3 of the cutting and 

 the lowest of the buds, and it is better to leave 

 as much than to cut so close to the buds as vou 

 propose, because by your plan the bud would 

 be in danger of injury from the splitting of the 

 base. Short ripe shoots taken off with a heel 

 strike quickly ; but the shoots of the year, which 

 make the best plants, are generally too plump 

 and too long to be used as cuttings in their 

 entirety. 

 Tomatoes in Pots.— A. B.— You need not fix on 

 any arbitrary number of fruit. If the plants 

 are strong in eight-inch pots, they may be 

 allowed to ripen twenty each ; if in five-inch 

 pots, eight or nine are as many as they will 

 produce to be good. The only advantage of 

 growing them in pot3 is to insure their ripen- 

 ing, which in many places would be doubtful if 

 in the open ground such a cold season as this. 

 If in pots, you make sure of them, and they 

 take up less room. By "no succession of 

 blooms" is meant, that when as many as are 

 required have sot their fruit, all succeeding 

 blossoms are piuched off to throw the strength 

 of the plant into those that are swelling. Give 

 them plenty of manure-water. 

 Melons Failing.— Constant Header.— The. fail- 

 ing of the fruit may be through deficiency of 

 bottom-heat, or through want of moisture at 

 the root. Strange to say, melons are generally 

 good this season. We 'saw the other day, in 

 the garden of Mr. Hodgkiuson, at Sydenham, 

 Scarlet Gem and Scarlet Flesh well-covered 

 with fruit, in a frame where the heat failed 

 altogether. At the last show at the Royal 

 Botanic they were good. You must always 

 secure good foliage, or you cannot have fruit ; 

 see if yours are infested with green spider, or if 

 the plants are half-starved. 

 Emigration to Nkw Zealand.— R. R.— We be- 

 lieve that New Zealand will hereafter be the 

 most flourishing of the offshoots of the old 

 country. Here is an extract from a private 

 letter from a young man (a sailor) who has 

 seen every country in the world, and is now 

 settled in New Zealand. He says :— "I have 

 got a good situation as cook at the Roval Hotel, 

 wages £76 a-year, with board and lodging, and 



a nice little cottage for us to live in. I shall 

 be able to make about £3 to £t per week also. 

 Most of our passengers have got employment, 

 and the country is a splendid one. I was on a 

 beautiful farm yesterday, and the master toll 

 me he landed with only £10 in his pocket nine 

 years ago. He has now fifty acres of land, for 

 which he gave £15 an acre; he would not take 

 £200 per acre for it now. Plenty of money to 

 be made, and should advis? anyone to come 

 out. I was told yesterday by a gentleman that 

 a fortune might be made by opening a store at 

 a place called Salt-Water Creek." * * * The 

 latter is dated March 29, 1880. 

 Oxalis lobata. — N. ,S".— You do not say if the 

 plants are in pots or the open ground. We sus- 

 pect they are doing badly through ill-treatment 

 the previous season. They ought to have a com- 

 post of equal parts peat and ioam from rotted 

 turves, and a half part each of old cow-dung and 

 silver sand, started in a mild dung-bed in March, 

 and after that treated the same as primulas till 

 they flower, then to go dry, and not to be turned 

 out of their pots till the March following, when 

 they must be repotted, and set growing again. 

 Your selaginellas want more moisture, more 

 shade, and are probably in too dry an atmo- 

 sphere. In a draughty place they are sure to 

 lose their beauty ; a close, moist, warm air is 

 what they all r quire. When grown in dwelling- 

 houses, it should be under bell-glasses. 

 Names of Plants. — A. B. — Yours is the true 

 Allyssum saxatile. — M. Jaelcson, Sydenham. — 

 Your beautiful white flower isSpirea filipendula 

 flore-pleno. — E. IV. II., Wisbeach. — 1 is Weigelia 

 rosea ; 2, a Capritolium, perhaps Douglasii, but 

 too much shrivelled for us to determine; 3, 

 Berberis i'ascieularis. — M. E. A. — Digitalis fer- 

 ruginea. — II. S. — Your fern is Polysdchium 

 lobatum. — Subscriber, Enniscorthy. — Lychnis 

 maritima pleno. — G. St. J. B , Gosport. — A is 

 Spergula saginoides ; B, Sagina procumbens. 

 The true Spergula pilifera is not a native of 

 Britain. 

 Four Queries. — Horia. — 1. Beine de la Guil- 

 lotiere rose, is a hybrid perpetual, flowers dark 

 purple crimson, large and full, a vigorous grower, 

 and forces well. It is rarely good out of doors, 

 and is not entered in any of the modern rose 

 catalogues. Madame Guillot is a hybrid per- 

 petual, flowers deep rosy pink, and quite dis- 

 tinct from the first-named. 2. Princess Augusta 

 is a hybrid of Bosa Gallica and Bosa Indica, 

 and is commonly known as a hybrid China. It 

 is a free grower in climates that suit it, and 

 makes a fine pillar rose. 3. Ants do not injure 

 pbints directly, but indirectly ; by mining the 

 soil, and making intricate galleries, they often 

 cause considerable annoyance. Earthworms 

 do not feed on living vegetable substances. As 

 a rule, they are very beneficial to the soil, and 

 should be destroyed only when an exceptional 

 case occurs. 4. Wireworms and woodlice are 

 among the most destructive of all garden pests. 

 Where they abound, no safe progress can be 

 mads iu horticulture. It is rarely they injure 

 the roots of trees, as their proper food is pulpy 

 vegetable matter, such as carrots, potatoes, etc. 

 The worms you describe are small specimens of 

 ■wireworm. 5. We have never used Cuero guano, 

 but have heard many favourable accounts of it. 

 The best way to use all such preparations to 

 roses, is to mix them with wood-ashes, as a top- 

 dressiug. 

 Various.— P. S., North Devon. — There would not 

 be sufficient dem md to justify it. — H. M. G. — 

 Some day we may attempt it, but not at pre- 

 sent. Your second request we have complied 

 with . — F. S. — Any of the strawberries named in 

 Madame Yilmorin's list can be had of the nur- 

 serymen who advertise in this work. M. Yil- 

 morin's nursery is at Paris, 



