118 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



I Aujnst li, 1873. 



of StrawbeiTies were put on the table, I never in one single 

 case knew the Vicomtesse preferred. It is a good, useful, 

 hardy sort, a free bearer and early, but only fit for the cook. 

 La Constante is another sort very highly praised which does 

 not do well with me, and I do not think it suitable for light 

 lands. I do not pass sentence on it, as I do on the Vicomtesse, 

 because in the case of the latter it does not fail from want of 

 growth or crop, but La Constaute, though bearing freely, does 

 not yield any fine fruit, at least not to compare with others. I 

 have not suffered from damp as Mr. Luckhurst has, but Lucas 

 has still been as good with me as last year, when we had too 

 much wet. Filbert Pine, though a fine-flavoured Strawberry, 

 han not liked the dry season as well as the wet. Bonne 

 Bouehe, Triomphe de Paris, and Princess , Dagmar have been 

 remarkably good ; but for all general good qualities Sir Joseph 

 Paxton is still my favourite. I forgot to mention Dr. Hogg, 

 which is an undoubtedly fine fruit ; and here I can fully en- 

 dorse Mr. Luckhm-sfs opinion, though Frogmore Late Pine 

 proved a failure. 



I do not, by the way, like crinoline wires and other supports 

 for Strawberries ; the stem on which the Strawberry grows is 

 easily injured, and the bend it often gets over a wire support 

 checks the growth of the fruit. If plenty of chopped straw is 

 used Strawberries will not suffer either from dirt or damp. 

 Nothing to my mind injures Strawberries more than the direct 

 action of the sun. We had thousands of berries injured here 

 during the extreme heat of the 19th and 20th of July, when 

 the heat in the shade was 87° and 92°, and wherever the fruit 

 was not shaded by the leaves, it was burnt by the sun or 

 turned a dull colour, all the freshness and brightness taken 

 from it. We had, however, so much fruit that wo could easily 

 spare some. I think, however, the season might be prolonged 

 and the quality of the fruit improved, if either tiffany shading 

 or thin ciilico were used during very sunny weather. 



I am, I fear, rather an unbeliever in recognised theories, and 

 I do not believe that firm well-trodden soil evaporates quicker 

 than loose and porous soil that has been forked-up and dug 

 deeply. My experience has been, in light land especially, that 

 if you dig into a piece of firm land, or land that has been 

 trodden, it will be found more moist 2 or 3 inches from the 

 surface than land that has been hoed and stirred. I know 

 that it is the general custom to state otherwise, and to say that 

 surface-stirring checks radiation. If air were always charged 

 with moistui'e, then pulverised soil would be more capable 

 of absorbing the moisture tbau a trodden surface, but then 

 air is not always charged with moisture. On the contrary, 

 the air that permeates the ground will generally oftener 

 extract moisture than give it ; and if this theory were true, 

 why toss hay about and leave it as light as possible, instead of 

 leaving it flat and pressed ? Many a Turnip crop is permanently 

 injured fi"om the soil being worked and pulverised, and left too 

 loose when sown. If wet weather follows no harm is done, 

 but as a grneral rule Turnip land should be ready three weeks 

 before sowing, and should be allowed to s t'le, when it will re- 

 tain the moisture longer, and will be a better seed bed for the 

 young plants than one which is worked and harrowed up to the 

 time of sowing. I do not pretend this is an invariable rule on 

 all lands, but I do mean to question, and that seriously, the 

 statement so often made that surface-stirred land retains its 

 moisture longer than that which is unhoed. 



I am led to these remarks partly from thinking Mr. Luck- 

 hurst's plan of very deep digging for Strawberries unnecessary, 

 and also from the extract in the last Journal from the New 

 Enpland Fai-mer. If, as Mr. Luckhurst says, he put 6 to 8 inches 

 of manure on the top of his light soil, he thereby added more 

 surface soil than many of our poorer soils above the chalk rock 

 contain ; this alone, without digging 18 inches deep, would in- 

 sure a prolific crop of Strawberries. — C. P. Peach. 



THE HABIT OF THE RATA (Metrosideros koeitsta). 



It will be as well, perhaps, and I hope not out of place, to 

 record the opinions of others besides those of Dr. Kirk, which 

 appeared in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," 

 and were given by you on pages 66 and 67 of the present 

 volume of the Journal. 



About the Rata tree in New Zealand Mr. Edward Jerning- 

 ham, Wakefield, writes in his "Adventures in New Zealand" 

 at page 33G, vol. ii., as follows: — " Our method of assignation 

 had been one peculiar to the natives — we were to start when 

 the Rata should be in bloom. This is a curious but very 

 common plant, which is at first a parasite, winding round large 



trees of the forest tUl it encircles and destroys them, when its 

 numerous coils join together in one hollow trunk, leaving the 

 victim to rot inside. The Rata thus full grown is certainly the 

 monarch of the New Zealand forest. In the gnarled form and 

 tough contortions of its limbs it much resembles the Oak„ 

 and is therefore highly valued by ship-buUders for knees and 

 timbers. The foliage has also the noble appearance at a dis- 

 tance of the English forest king ; but the plant is of the Myrtle- 

 kind, and bears a bright crimson blossom in such abundance 

 that, at its time of flowering, the forests look as though some 

 playful giant had dipped every other tree in crimson dye and 

 stuck them up again. This tree is somewhat irregular in its 

 flowering, and earlier in some parts of the country than in 

 others ; but tliis fauy hue is generally thrown over the wooded 

 steejis about the middle of summer, near harvest time." 



In respect to what Mr. Wakefield says above about the 

 natives, they are just the same up to the present day. On the- 

 subject of winds the natives are practically even more obser- 

 vant than Europeans; their notice of physical phenomena is 

 also acute and discerning, and I find them in this part of New 

 Zealand, contrary to the hastily-formed opinion of a few 

 writers about New Zealand, a very industrious class. One 

 word about Mr. Wakefield : he is one of our colonial M.P.'s,. 

 now representing the east portion of the city of Christchurch. 



Mr. J. C. Bidwell, in his "Rambles in New Zealand," says 

 about the Rata — "The Rata (Metrosideros robusta), in my 

 opinion the monarch of the New Zealand forest, is occasionally 

 found very large in the woods, but prefers a more clayey and 

 hilly soil. It is often GO feet high without a branch, and from 

 4 to 5 feet in diameter. The wood is a fine pale brown, equal 

 to mahogany in beauty and African Oak in hardness and 

 durability. It is a first-rate ship-building wood, but on the 

 east coast is rai'e ; as you approach the west coast it becomes 

 common. It belongs to the Myrtle famUy, and is very closely 

 leaved, with small brilliantly green oval leaves growing by 

 threes around the stem ; the flowers are very numerous, small^ 

 and scarlet (I am told). I have climbed many trees, but never 

 succeeded in finding any seed nor seed-vessels in any state of 

 decay, but once found three young plants; they were growing 

 in a rotten branch high from the ground, and had roots very 

 much like potatoes, and as large in one instance as a walnut. 

 This accounts for the natives saying there are never any young 

 Ratas. I have no doubt that, like many trees of tropical 

 climates, they never grow from the ground, but to it — that is,, 

 they strike root in the branches of another tree, and afterwards 

 send roots down to the soil through the trunk of their supporter 

 as it decays. It would be a magnificent ornamental tree in 

 England if it would grow (which I think possible), as it would 

 be utterly unlike any tree at present known in Europe. The 

 foliage being very dense at the extremities of the branches, but 

 nowhei'e else, it looks like a number of small trees, such as 

 Box, growing out of one another, or out of the gigantic stem 

 of an Oak." 



" Metrosideros lucida, a beautiful tree of this order, occurs 

 as far to the south as Lord Auckland's Island, in lat. SOJ" 

 south." — J. Hooker. — [Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom.) 



" The Ake-Ake, a New Zealand plant of this order, the Me- 

 trosideros buxifolia of Allan Cunningham, is described by that 

 botanist as being a rambling shrub, adhering to trees, and by 

 its lateral roots climbing to the summit of the loftiest timber 

 in the forests of Wangaroa, Bay of Islands, iSic." — (Ibid.) 



" The wood of Myrtleblooms is said by De CandoUe to be 

 generally white and compact ; but the heavy, hard, dark brown 

 timber which furnishes the South Sea islanders with tlieir 

 clubs and other weapons is said to come from Metrosideros- 

 polymorpha or some allied species. The Ake-Ake or Lignum 

 Vitffi of New Zealand, the Rata, and Pohutukawa of the same 

 country, are all hardwooded trees belonging to the genus Me- 

 trosideros." — [Hid.) 



Hursthouse, in his " Britain of the South," says about tho 

 Rata (Metrosideros robusta) — " There are several varieties of 

 this tree. One grows as fast as a parasite, creeping in nume- 

 rous stems like ropes up the trunks of the other forest trees, 

 gradually enclosing them till they perish, and then uniting to 

 form a noble tree taller than that which it has destroyed, with 

 an enormous trunk, but hollow within. The leaf and the 

 flower resemble those of the Myrtlo, but the flower is of a deep 

 crimson colour with golden stamina. In December and January 

 these giants of the forest give the hillsides a fairy-like ap- 

 pearance from the profusion of this beautiful blossom. Tho 

 branches are gnarled like those of the Oak ; and the trunk also, 

 from its formation, is a series of strange contortions ; so that 



