AUGUST. 249 



NOTES ON THE MONTH. 



The present month has perhaps been the hottest on record, taken alto- 

 gether — remarkable, too, for the constant repetition of thunderstorms, 

 attended with violent storms of rain and hail, which in many districts 

 have done great damage to crops of all descriptions, and will seriously 

 affect the Wheat returns. The connection between the Potato disease 

 and electrical storms has been verified this present season. Early in 

 the month a district near where I write was visited by a thunderstorm, 

 accompanied with rain and hail, confined to a small district. Within 

 a day or two the disease made its appearance, and increased most 

 rapidly, while in those fields which the storm did not reach they have 

 continued without being attacked, until they, in their turn, were visited 

 by a storm, since which they, too, have gone. Of the former, most of 

 them are now quite rotten, and are now being dug up, to be replaced 

 by Turnips. We may remark that the crop, taken altogether, has a 

 worse appearance than for the last ten years, the appearance of the 

 disease having been much earlier than of late years, and is almost 

 universal over the whole country. In many places forcing houses and 

 flower gardens have been converted into a complete wreck by hail- 

 storms, as have also many hundred acres of field crops by the same 

 means and the floods. 



A writer some time since in the Gardeners Chronicle astonished 

 English planters by affirming that French planters entirely denuded 

 unhealthy trees of the whole of their bark, as a way of recovering them. 

 Surely such absurd nonsense required no confutation. It is now dis- 

 covered that the outer or rough portion only is taken away before 

 planting. There was a very good description of the French mode of 

 transplanting the large trees employed to replace the dead Elms in the 

 Champs Elysees and the Boulevards, I think, in the September number 

 of last year's Florist ; and having seen the process carried out myself 

 this season, I beg to say I saw nothing like barking the trees. A few 

 of them had the loose bark shaved off, before enveloping the stems in 

 their mossy bandage. I could not help noticing the care with which 

 the minutest details were conducted as to planting the trees and 

 attending to them afterwards. Those noticed by your correspondent 

 last year, as being then planted near the Palais de l'lndustrie, are 

 growing well and look healthy ; indeed it is marvellous to see how they 

 grow at all in some situations where they are planted. The trans- 

 planting of large evergreen and deciduous trees in spring, notwithstanding 

 all that has been said to the contrary, is yet far too prevalent ; probably 

 as regards old places, from the fact that during the autumn the " family " 

 are generally located at their country seats, and much work of this 

 description would be inconvenient, and all is postponed till the removal 

 of the family to town the following spring. If we could impress on the 

 minds of those having planting to do what trouble and annoyance they 

 would save themselves and their employers by planting during Sep- 

 tember and October (or even August), we should do a good service to 

 all ; but we despair. However, let those who can do so prepare at 

 once. G. F. 



