122 THE FLORIST. 



Apple Orcuards on the St. John. — We travelled thirty 

 miles down the river from Woodstock, before we escaped from the stony, 

 pine-clad country. As we approached the little river Koak, we were 

 greeted by a change in the foliage ; some hardwood ridges stretched along 

 the upland, and the St. John rich intervales appeared. We stopped 

 at Henstie's farm, on this intervale, chiefly because he is one of the 

 most extensive Apple-growers on the river. 



In the orchard of this gentleman were 1,550 Apple trees, for the 

 most part young, but in full bearing. The fruit was in general small, 

 but of pleasant agreeable flavour. The large delicate Apples of the 

 Hudson River, of western New York, and of the Ohio River, are not 

 to be expected, I suppose, in New Brunswick, though the summers are 

 hot enough ; yet fruit of good quality may evidently be raised, and the 

 cultivation for home consumption carried on, with a profit. 



It is probable, I think, that the great heat of the sun is, in reality, a 

 chief cause of the smallness of the fruit, hastening the ripening process 

 before the Apple has had time to swell. Its scorching effect was seen 

 upon the fallen fruit, which was dried and altered, as if by artificial 

 heat, on the side which had been exposed to its rays. The ten o' clock 

 sun has the effect also of scorching the young trees, burning a strip all 

 the way down the stem, and finally killing them. The preventive is 

 to wind a straw rope round the stem, and to let all the branches grow 

 till it has got a rough bark. It is an interesting fact that part of the 

 stem thus protected will thicken faster than the uncovered portion, and, 

 when the straw is detached, will be sensibly of greater girth. 



For those who are curious in such recipes, I may state that Mr. 

 Henstie kills caterpillars on his Apple trees by boring a hole half-way 

 through the stem, filling with sulphur, and plugging it with wood. 

 The caterpillars disappear, he says, in twenty-four hours. For lice 

 and other small vermin, he opens a piece of the bark, introduces a few 

 drops of turpentine, and then ties it up again. Both remedies he 

 pronounced to be infallible. 



GLOXINIAS, GESNERAS, AND ACHIMENES. 

 These beautiful flowers have most frequently been treated as stove 

 plants. In the observations I am desirous to make, I wish to show 

 that they are better cultivated in a greenhouse. If the bulbs be 

 placed in heat either in March or April, either in a Melon frame or a 

 dung or tan bed, until they have started, they may be brought into the 

 greenhouse and will succeed the Geraniums. They will continue in 

 flower during four or five months ; this is the treatment recommended 

 by the well-known horticulturist, Mr. Louis Van Houtte, of Ghent, — 

 and for the last ten years I have treated them thus. In the stove their 

 beauty is soon over, in the greenhouse it continues for months. 



Those who are desirous to hybridise these plants should sow their 

 seed very early in the spring, and they will flower very freely in 

 August. The winter care of the plant is this : allow them to die down, 

 and never cut away leaves or stem until this be the case, and let the 



