60 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



the miscellaneous fruit exhibited, occurred a dish of the Fairy Apple, 

 a showy variety of the Siberian Crab, of which it is difficult to say 

 too much. The fruit is rather small, very highly coloured, and as 

 the trees are very productive, a few specimens placed in prominent 

 parts of the shrubbery would have a very beautiful appearance during 

 the summer and autumn. 



It will no doubt interest many to know that grapes can be cut 

 from the vine, and kept for several months, with the end of the 

 branch inserted in water. Mr. Cole, the head gardener at Ealing 

 Park, and one of the best grape-growers in the country, keeps a 

 portion of his last crop in this way, and was able, last summer, 

 to send fine plump samples of Lady Downe's Seedliug to table as 

 late as the middle of May. Soon after Christmas the bunches are 

 cut with about nine inches of wood below the bunch, and the ends of 

 the branches inserted in bottles filled with water, and suspended in 

 the fruit room, where the berries remain plump until long after the 

 crop in the first house is ready for table. The flavour does not suffer 

 the slightest deterioration because of the wood being placed in 

 water. The advantages of keeping grapes in this way are manifold ; 

 but the most important consists in enabling the cultivator to prune 

 the vines before the sap is in active circulation, and avoid the evils 

 arising from the loss of sap, which always occurs when the vines are 

 pruned late. Grapes grown in a ground vinery may also be kept in 

 the same way for a lengthened period. E. G. 



THE GAEDEN" GUIDE EOE FEBRUAEY. 



Flower Garden. — The unoccupied beds should be trenched or 

 dug up deeply, and have a liberal dressing of manure. Shallow 

 digging and want of food are the principal causes of such subjects 

 as verbenas and calceolarias failing in dry, hot summers. Any altera- 

 tions that may be on hand should be completed without delay, for the 

 ordinary routine of garden work will be quite sufficient to occupy 

 the hands and head for the next two months. New turf should be 

 laid down as speedily as possible, to enable it to get rooted before 

 the dry, hot weather is upon us. This is a suitable season for 

 making gravel walks and new box-edgings, as it gives the one time 

 to get consolidated, and the other rooted, before summer. Com- 

 plete the planting of deciduous trees and shrubs, towards the end of 

 the month, if the weather should be mild and open, unless the 

 situation is low and wet — in that case, it must be deferred until the 

 soil gets into favourable condition. 



Kitchen Garden. — Continue to prepare the ground ready for 

 the summer crops, so that there may be no delay in getting each 

 crop in at its proper season. With this object in view, every plot 

 of ground should be manured and dug directly it becomes vacant. 

 It evinces a great want of neatness and order to see whole quarters 

 covered with old stumps of broccoli and winter greens until the 



