1871.] CULTIVATION OF HARDY FRUITS. 223 



attention through the summer in keeping it clean. If a long time of 

 dry weather sets in, a good watering with manure-water will be found 

 beneficial. As soon as the foliage has faded in autumn a quantity- 

 may be lifted, all the large full crowns taken and put into a box, pack- 

 ing them close together in light sandy loam and watering well. AVe 

 find, by placing them in our Mushroom-house, which ranges about 60°, 

 they come sooner and better than some we had in a light house with 

 the same temperature. We let them stand until the flotvers are nearly 

 full grown before removing them to a shelf close to the glass with 

 the same temperature. They soon lose the blanched appearance 

 assumed in the Mushroom-house. By keeping some in pots from 

 year to year, and treating them in the same way, they make fine plants 

 for the conservatory. They should never be neglected in watering; it 

 is a good plan to stand them in saucers of water all the time of bloom- 

 ing. Nothing is more handsome for button-holes than two or three 

 spikes put into one of their own leaves. Those grown in pots should 

 have a good rich soil, with plenty of old cow-dung amongst it. When 

 done flowering, care should be taken that they get no check by taking 

 them from the greenhouse and exposing them in cold frosty weather. 

 After the severe weather is past, plunge them outside and attend well 

 to them through the summer, when they will make fine plants for 

 another season. A. H. 



Thoresby Gardens. 



{To he continued.) 



'THE CULTIVATION OF HARDY FRUITS. 



{Continued from 'page 175.) 



THE ALMOND. 



In a treatise upon the cultivation of hardy fruits it is necessary that all the hardy 

 fruits known and grown — it matters not to how small an extent — should have a 

 place. In this position stands the Almond. For there is perhaps none of all 

 the fruits of which we have already spoken which is cultivated on a more limited 

 scale. In some favoured localities the Almond is grown for the sake of its fruit ; 

 but even in these localities the crops are very irregular, and the fruit often of 

 very doubtful quality. The tree is more generally cultivated for the sake of its 

 flowering properties than for its fruit-producing qualities. In many places in the 

 south of England the Almond is one of the finest early spring- flowering ornamen- 

 tal trees grown. Its beautiful flowers, rivalling the Peach in its modest colouring, 

 leap to loveliness and life at the early dawn of spring, spreading a freshness and 

 beauty on the barrenness cf the landscape, and making nature to rejoice at the 

 early birth of her favoured child. We never have seen the Almond in cultiva- 



