90 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



practice, and will not be done twice by any experimenter. The plants 

 sliould only be allowed to remain five minutes after syringing them 

 with the oil and water, after which they should undergo a thorough 

 drenching with clean water sharply applied by the syringe. After the 

 operation is completed, it will be necessary to keep the top ventilators 

 of the house open to allow the oily vapour to escape, as the oil evap- 

 orating from the floor and other places where it has been spilt during 

 the operation can in no way be conducive to the health of the plants. 



If the affected plants in any house are carefully treated in this 

 way three or four times during the winter season, when they are at 

 rest and young growing shoots few in number, little trouble will be 

 experienced with the enemy the following season. 



There are doubtless other correspondents of wider experience in tbe 

 use of paraffin-oil as an insecticide, and the results of their experience 

 would be gladly hailed by many who are as yet unacquainted with its 

 use. A. Dewar. 



CHICORY. 



Of all winter salad plants, there are none more useful than this. Let- 

 tuce may " bolt " or fail to heart, and Endive decay before the winter 

 has well set in, but Chicory may be had daily from October to May. 

 A batch of plants of it should be raised annually. Seed sown in drills 

 1 foot apart, in moderately rich ground, in April, will soon produce 

 plants, which must be thinned out to 6 inches apart as soon as they are 

 large enough to handle ; and if the ground is kept free from weeds after 

 this, good carrot-like roots will have been produced by September. 

 Any number of them may be lifted from that time onwards ; and if they 

 are covered up with any kind of soil and placed in mushroom-house, 

 cellar, or any other dark place where the temperature is from 50° to 

 60°, there will soon be produced as great a quantity of beautiful crisp 

 blanched salad leaves as anybody could possibly desire to handle or eat. 



J. MuiR. 



DUNDEE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



The ordinary monthly meeting of this Association was held in the Imperial 

 Hotel, Dundee, on Friday evening the 7th ult. — the President in the chair. 

 There was a large attendance of the members. Mr William Stewart, Cedarlea, 

 read a paper entitled *' Recollections of a Tour in the United States of America 

 and Canada." His account of his travels was both instructive and amusing, 

 and was listened to with great relish by the meeting. Mr T. H. Miln, 

 Linlathen Gardens, read an able and highly interesting paper on "Hardy 

 Border Flowers." This subject, he said, might embrace annuals, biennials, 

 herbaceous perennials, and alpines ; but it was chiefly herbaceous perennials 

 and alpines he meant to speak of to-night. He then pointed out the difficulty 

 of deciding what was actually a hardy herbaceous plant : in common usage the 



