1879.] NOTES FROM THE PAPERS. 505 



was widely predicted that we were to be nearly frizzled up by scorching heat 

 some time in June or July, whereas we were, on the contrary, nearly drowned 

 and starved. About the same period the lower orders in London and elsewhere 

 were much disquieted by another prediction of our old friend " Mother Shipton " 

 — who is always turning up periodically — to the effect that all the young 

 and the old were to perish off the face of the earth during the present year. 

 Up till the present time the dreadful visitation has not happened, and health 

 statistics lead us to hope we shall escape finally. One of your contemporaries 

 of the daily press tells us: "Many people have concluded that the weather 

 of the past twelve months has been unwholesome so far as the public health 

 is concerned ; but this is not so. The metropolitan death-rate has been con- 

 siderably less than the average, and has not been so low since 1860, when, as 

 now, there was an excessive rainfall. Therefore, although the summer has 

 not been an enjoyable one — indeed it was one in which many classes of the 

 community suffered heavy loss — it was one of the healthiest we have had for 

 nearly twenty years." "We are pleased to have something good to say about 

 the weather. 



A correspondent of ' The Farmer ' asks a very pertinent question: "Why 

 do pot-plants die? " We persume he means those pot-plants that do not die 

 a natural death, or get pitched to the rubbish heap. It is a wide question, 

 and might be answered shortly, that plants die from being kept too hot and 

 too cold, too wet and too dry ; from being prunned too much and too little, 

 and from being mismanaged in a number of ways that will readily suggest 

 themselves to gardeners. The question might be discussed, and discussed 

 instructively, for a twelvemonth ; and we commend the subject to those who are 

 short of one. 



Mr C. P. Pead states, in the ' Journal of Horticulture,' that he has thoroughly 

 proved the fallacy of the assertion that Grapes cannot be grow r n in the same 

 house with plants. It says a good deal for Mr Pead's ability that he has been 

 able to prove the fallacy of an assertion that we are sure was never made by 

 any gardener worthy of the name. We know a good many gardens, great 

 and small, but none where plants are not grown more or less extensively along 

 with Vines — in plenty of instances all the year round. Gardeners do not 

 approve of the practice, but they are, in the majority of cases, compelled to 

 follow it. 



The present time being rather a barren one for the newspapers, they have 

 turned their attention to rural matters, and we extract the following from the 

 ' Globe,' on Bees : — 



" It has always been a matter for regret to all thoughtful persons that the 

 keeping of Bees in this country is more systematically neglected than any 

 other industry, and that, in consequence a most valuable gift of nature to man 

 is ruthlessly and persistently wasted. In 1874, when the British Bee-keepers' 

 Association was formed, Mr John Hunter declared that for every hive at pres- 

 ent in this country there ought to be a thousand, and that for every pound 

 of honey gathered a ton was lost. But an argument in favour of an industry 

 requires something more than a statement of its advantages to the individual 

 engaged in it and to the community at large. It is also necessary to show 

 clearly that it can be conducted profitably, and here we have no difficulty. 

 According to all authorities, there can be no doubt in the world but that in a 

 good season the profit is large enough to tempt the most usurious, or that in 

 the worst possible year the loss — at the most a few pounds of brown sugar — 

 is so small that the most miserly need not be afraid of the risk. Mr Pettigrew 



2 M 



