372 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



{December, 



oides in full blossom since the first of Ma}^ ; my 

 plant is about thirty feet long. "Where room 

 can be~spared, this is a most magnificent green- 

 house climbing plant. 



I am delighted to hear that the beautiful Cis- 

 sus discolor can be planted outside during the 

 Summer, and I regret I did not know the fact 

 sooner, so that I could have planted some out- 

 side this season. 



On page 237, August number, I noticed a 

 remedy for the Colorado potato beetle. I think 

 the potato beetle must be very scarce in "A. 

 H's." vicinity if he can go over his potatoes and 

 touch each beetle with a drop of kerosene oil. 

 If we should try this remedy here I do not think 

 that we would get over many plants in the 

 course of a day. After a trial of many remedies 

 I am satisfied that there is nothing better than 

 Paris green. If care be taken there is not the 

 least danger in its use. I understand however, 

 that London purple is said to answer all the | 

 purposes of Paris green. It is said to be soluble j 

 in water, and is cheaper than Paris green. If; 

 any of the readers of the Monthly have experi- 

 mented with it, I hope they will report the re- 

 sults. 



Is Pritchardia filifera distinct from P. fila- 

 mentosa? If so, in what respect do they differ? 

 Is the violet Belle de Chatenay a good double 

 white variety, and how does it compare in size 

 of flower and prolificacy of bloom with the 

 Neapolitan ? 



In the July number, page 212, I noticed an 

 article on "Fertilization by Bees," which proved 

 very interesting to me. I enclose an extract 

 from an article by Professor Gray, in the Ameri- 

 can Agriculturist^ for August, 1876, which might 

 prove of interest to some of your readers : 



" Kow as to red clover, the arrangement is es- 

 sentially the same as in Baptisia and the rest of 

 the pulse family, except that the flowers are 

 crowded in a dense head, the petals are all 

 united below into a prolonged tube, honey-bear- 

 ing at bottom, and the filaments of the stamens 

 are united. That some pollen reaches the stig- 

 ma from contiguous anthers, at least when the 

 flowers are jostled, is certain, and some self-fer- 

 tilization must thus be efi'ected if its own pollen 

 acts. Yet Mr. Darwin found long ago, in Eng- 

 land, that while 100 unprotected heads of red clo- 

 ver matured 2,700 seeds, the same number of 

 heads protected from bumble-bees produced not a 

 single seed. And in this country it is generally 



understood that the first red clover crop, which 

 is in blossom before our bumble-bees abound, 

 seeds sparingly, while the second produces seed 

 freely. This is attributed either to the abund- 

 ance of bumble-bees in the latter part of Sum- 

 mer, or partly to the shorter tube of the later 

 flowers, which makes their honey more accessi- 

 ble, and therefore more attractive to other bees 

 and species of insects. In Germany, according 

 to Herman Miiller, other insects than bumble- 

 bees take part in the fertilization of red clover, 

 so that Darwin's well-known chain of causation, 

 which reads like a chapter from ' The House that 

 Jack Built,' must be taken with some qualifica- 

 tion,— at least out of England. Concluding that 

 red clover in that country is fertilized only by 

 bumble-bees, he remarks that the number of 

 bumble-bees depends on the number of field 

 mice, which destroy their combs and nests, and 

 that the number of mice depends on the number 

 of cats in the neighborhood, so that an increase 

 in the number of cats which catch the mice, 

 which destroy the nests of the bumble-bees, 



i which fertilize the red clover blossoms from 

 which they suck honey, might diminish the 

 amount or tend to terminate the existence of red 

 clover in any district. Some one, we believe in 

 New England, added another link to this chain by 



] suggesting that, as the number of cats kept de- 

 pends on the number of old maids, these worthy 

 members of the community might in certain 

 cases be unwittingly the cause of the failure of 

 the clover crop. But, coming down to sober 

 facts, it is obvious that our early red clover sets 

 a fair quantity of seed before bumblg^-bees are 

 abundant, and some of this seed is likely to 

 come from self-fertilization. Yet we do not learn 

 that our critical correspondent has tested this, 

 as Mr. Darwin did, by shielding clover-heads 

 from all insects, and noting the result. On the 

 other hand, the fuller fertility later in the sea- 

 son, when the clover-heads are largely visited 

 by bees, goes to show that cross-fertilization 

 takes place and is advantageous, if not abso- 

 lutely necessary. To show that these fiowers 

 and all others of the pulse family, are con- 

 structed for crossing by means of flying insects, 

 and that while some may be, others cannot be 

 self-fertilized, will be my task in the next 

 article." 



The enclosed notes occurred to me while read- 

 ing the July and August numbers of the 

 Monthly, and if they are of any value they 

 are at your disposal. 



