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TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



Newly Planted Peaches — Greenhouse I 

 Climbers. — Polly. — If your peach trees ] 



j Lave been well planted in retentive and 

 well prepared soil, you may leave the 

 shoots nearly fall-length, cutting them 

 back to the first double fruit bud. Marl 

 has a consolidating effect upon light soils, 

 and consequently a beneficial .one, en- 

 abling it to retain moisture upon which 

 plants can be sustained for a long period 

 during prolonged drought. Passiflora 

 rubro coerulea and Tacsonia pinnatisti- 

 pula will be good plants for covering the 

 ends of your greenhouse. We imagine 

 that any greenhouse plants, for which 

 you may have a special liking, will suc- 

 ceed with you, and may be introduced. 



Tuberoses.— T. B. — It is by no means 

 surprising you did not succeed in obtain- 

 ing bloom from your tuberoses last 

 year ; you did not give them a chance 

 of doing so. You must give them kinder 

 treatment if you do really wish to enjoy 

 the delicate waxy appearance of the 

 flowers, and their luscious scent. When 

 you have procured your roots, which 

 should be in January, put one into as 

 small a pot as it will go into, using the 

 same soil (sandy loam) as you used last 

 year, and place in bottom-heat, giving 

 no water, or but very sparingly, until 

 they have made growth, when increase 

 the quantity as their necessities require; 

 when they have filled their pots with 

 roots, shift into thirty-two sized pots, and 

 replunge into bottom-heat, and encou- 

 rage them to grow until they are coming 

 into bloom, when remove them into the 

 greenhouse to develop their blooms, 

 where they will continue for two months 

 to load the atmosphere with their deli- 

 cious fragrance. 

 Peculiariti es of C erastium tomentosum. 

 — I see that a correspondent said, some 

 months ago, that he had not succeeded 

 with Cerastium tomentosum. lean under- 

 stand this. It has got some peculiarities. 

 One is that though it grows rampantly 

 with me in the open ground, I cannot keep 

 it alive in a pot. My first plant of it, ob- 

 tained a year or two ago, was, from being 

 small and got late in autumn, kept over 

 the winterinacoldpit ; waiting, in spring 

 till it showed signs of growth to plant it 

 out. It died by the end of March, or 

 the beginning of April, in a most unac- 

 countable way. Then I got a lot of 

 cuttings in July, and having potted them 

 and just struck them by autumn, I kept 

 them too in a pit over the winter. In 



spring they began to go like the plant, 

 when, warned by experience, I planted 

 out the remainder, and they soon flou- 

 rished. There is a phlox, a beautiful 

 bright crimson one, that has the same 

 peculiarity. Strike them in a pot, and 

 keep them over the winter in a frame or 

 pit, and though other kinds will make 

 growth in spring in their pots beside it, 

 yet if the cuttings of this crimson one 

 are not planted out immediately in the 

 beginning of March, every one will die. 

 This spring I took up carelessly a hand- 

 full or two of the cerastium, stuck them 

 in any way in the full sun without cut- 

 ting or shortening them to a joint, 

 watered them in once, and almost 

 every one grew well. This looks as if 

 Cerastium tomentosum will not stand 

 any coddling, and makes me think that 

 perhaps it is the same way with the 

 variegated balm. — A. B. 

 Wireworm and American Blight. — I ob- 

 serve, in your Floral World, Nov. 1, 

 a correspondent is inquiring for an effec- 

 tual method of killing wireworms. I 

 can tell him of a most effectual one. 

 Some years ago these disgusting little 

 animals infested my seakale to such an 

 extent that all my finest roots were eaten 

 through and snapped off. What was to 

 he done ? No one could tell me. Well, 

 it struck me it was worth while to try a 

 remedy which once saved my celery from 

 being destroyed by a grub which had 

 fixed on its roots, and that was a good 

 steeping of soapsuds ; and an admirable 

 remedy it was, acting two ways — killing 

 the grub and benefiting as a manure. I 

 therefore tried it on the seakale, and found 

 it most effectual, completely clearing the 

 plantof the wireworm, andmakingit grow 

 and flourish. I have now followed out 

 this plan for years, and have a barrel 

 fixed on wheels, into which the laundry- 

 maids pour the suds, and the gardener 

 takes them into the garden, and applies 

 them where wanted; for a gardener has 

 many enemies. Sometimes a grub at- 

 tacks the roots of his cauliflowers, and 

 again the wireworm attacks the roots of 

 his pinks and carnations. The slugs too 

 attack a variety of things, but the suds 

 are effectual in destroying all these 

 enemies, and, as I have already ob- 

 served, are useful as a manure. Sir, I 

 think this is a cheap and useful piece of 

 information for gardener*. You may 

 apply suds also with a paint-brush to 

 your apple trees when infested with 

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