APRIL. 115 



Miss Sainsbury ( ). — Light-edged Rose. A good useful flower, much in 



the way of 3Irs. Barnard^ but not so smooth on the edge of the petals. The 

 marginal colour is also different ; a fiery salmon. Grows well. 



Derby. E. S. Dodwell. 



NOTES ON THE MONTH. 



The dry weather during the early part of the month, and indeed of 

 the two previous months, has brought the land into a first-rate con- 

 dition for all spring crops, even stiff' retentive clays giving indication 

 of falling to pieces under the influence of the dry winds which prevailed 

 up to the third week ; while all ordinary soils which have been exposed 

 by rough digging or ploughing, are, as a farmer told me the other day, 

 as dry as ashes. This, to the gardener and farmer, is the primary 

 element of success for the coming crops ; as getting seed well in is the 

 crop half saved, as the old adage informs us. Swedes and Turnips 

 have stood well — as have Winter Greens and Broccolies — as a glance at 

 our own and neighbouring gardens testify. And as Potatoes are abun- 

 dant, good, and cheap, and the labouring population in full work and 

 earning good wages, there is a spirit of contentment and good feeling 

 among them very different from what we have met with in former 

 years, and, as it is so, we are very happy indeed to record the fact. 



The season has not been so propitious to the forcing gardener. For 

 several weeks past we have experienced easterly winds — as usual, cold, 

 black, and dreary — with little sun. This has compelled them to make 

 fires do the work of sunshine ; a very sorry and expensive substitute — 

 one that neither satisfies the gardener nor his employer. Inferior 

 produce is no satisfaction to our brethren, no more than large bills are 

 to his employer, and we therefore always sympathise — feelingly, per- 

 haps — when such adverse incidents arise in the cultivation of fruits — 

 I will say plants too — for plant-growing, and especially plant-forcing, 

 is influenced largely by the cost of production. The frost which com- 

 menced on the evening of the 10th, and increased in severity on the 11th 

 and 12th, caught some of us napping, no doubt — myself in some degree, 

 as well as others. Those who have not taken precautions to protect 

 their Apricot blossoms would suffer, as the trees were in full bloom, and 

 10° of frost — dry though it was — is not easily kept from coming in 

 contact with the moist stigma of the Apricot bl om, which, clever men 

 tell us, is the cause of mischief, in which we are strongly disposed to 

 coincide. Peaches would escape, as they were not in flower ; but young 

 vegetables just transferred from the frames and shelters where they 

 have been kept through the winter, look miserable, even when partially 

 protected by branches, &c., stuck around them. We, in our day, are 

 unfortunate, to what we remember the gardeners of twenty years 

 back were, when we could keep this kind of stuff" in frames long enough 

 to harden them completely before turning out ; but now-a-days room 

 is wanted for bedding -stujf, and of course, as the beds on the parterres 

 must be filled, out must go, the first days of March, the Cauliflowers, 

 Lettuce, Peas, and a host of things brought forvaardfor early supply 



I 2 



