AngsBt W, 1867. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTURB AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



150 



OREENHODSE AND CONSERVATORY. 



Continue to look over climbers, borders, &c. Large speci- 

 mena which had been removed out of doors to give room will 

 soon require moving back to these structures ; indeed, during 

 the whole month of September, attention to this matter will be 

 occasionally necessary. The earthworm is a greater enemy in 

 general to pot plants than low temperature ; every precaution 

 must be taken to avoid its depredations. In the mixed 

 greenhouse look well after late-flowering plauts. The late He- 

 liotropes, Scarlet Pelargoniums, Petunias, &o., if proceeded 

 with as recommended weeks since, will now be somewhat pot- 

 bound, and will in that state, with the application of weak 

 liquid manure, produce abundance of bloom on a light shelf 

 until the beginning of December. Lachenalias should be in- 

 stantly repotted ; and the Persian Cyclamens, if planted out as 

 recommended in spring, will now be fine bushy plauts full of 

 young leaves. They must be taken up forthwith with all the 

 soil possible, potted carefully, and placed in a close frame or 

 propagating-house. A bottom heat of 75^ with a very moderate 

 atmospheric temperature would be an advantage. After three 

 weeks of this treatment they may be introduced into the green- 

 house, whore they will produce their fragrant blossoms in 

 abundance from November till April. The different kinds of 

 shading on plant-houses and pits may now be removed, espe- 

 cially as we have had little bright sunshine during summer. 

 Light is now more than usually important to elaborate and 

 consolidate the juices before the winter arrives, for unless every 

 means is taken to accomplish this, we may expect sad failures 

 during the next winter among our tender and more valuable 

 exotics. To protect them from rain and to expose them to 

 light sliould now more than ever be our earnest study in regard 

 to choice specimens, especially those which have been recently 

 shifted, and which are in vigorous growth. Pelargoniums in- 

 tended for specimens should have their wood well ripened by 

 thorough exposure to sun and air ; their strength will thereby 

 be husbanded, and their constitution improved by this practice. 

 The foliage will not be so likely to damp off during winter, and 

 they will thus bo better prepared for their spring work. Now 

 that dry weather has set in we should immediately turn our 

 attention to the compost-yard ; this on no account should be 

 neglected, for it is the magazine that must supply the principal 

 munitions of gardening, and it is always best to obtain loam, 

 peat, and all kinds of composts in a dry mellow state. — W. 

 Keane. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



KITCHEN garde:?. 



Sliifls and Snaik. — From several quarters wo hear sad ac- 

 counts of the ravages of slugs and snails this season. Some 

 gardeners, hitherto distinguished for their fine quarters of vege- 

 tables, are quite at a loss, for nothing will grow freely. One 

 of the most successful, generally, that we know says the num- 

 bers of slugs were quite unprecedented, and even now they seem 

 not much thinned, though he picked them up in pecks, with 

 a lantern at night, and was out again early in the morning 

 using brewers" grains as traps, and lime and soot sprinklings, 

 with but little avail. We did not, however, notice a single 

 blackbird or thrush about the place, though informed that they, 

 too, made their appearance. We began to think, though we 

 had our share of slugs, that the less quantity with us might be 

 greatly owing to the numbers of these larger birds. In dull 

 mornings we noticed they preferred the fresh-stirred soil and 

 what they found there, to Currants and Raspberries. One 

 morning lately, at four o'clock, wo saw six fine cock blackbirds 

 walk up and down every row of a fresh-planted piece of Lettuce, 

 and making short work of every moderate-sized mollusc. The 

 same morning we noticed a family of tomtits twittering and 

 peering with their little eyes and heads under almost every 

 leaf on a Peach wall. We have hitherto had too much of the 

 feathered famihes, but we might fare worse if we had none 

 at all. 



There being such a number of slugs is rather perplexing after 

 such a winter, when the frost at times was so severe as to be 

 too much for such pests if near the surface ; so our old men 

 say; but, then, we never recollect meeting with a snail killed 

 by frost. They must either endure it, or go beyond its reach. 

 On one subject we should like to have our opinions confirmed or 

 completely disproved. Thinking that a severe frost does some- 

 thing to thin snails, as well as birds, we have come to the con- 

 clusion, from repeated observation, that uudug ground is most 

 inimical to the slag in severe winters. So much do we believe 



this to be the case, that, but for other practical and cultural con- 

 siderations, we would prefer the ground to be well frosted, before, 

 on its thawing again, wo would trench or ridge it. We certainly 

 should like to do this with a piece of ground peculiarly slug- 

 infested in summer. Our readers are aware that en such 

 smooth-surfaced ground the frost will penetrate much more 

 deeply than in that which is rough and open from ridging and 

 trenching. Do our most severe frosts, however, actually kill 

 the slug and snail ? and that we would like the experience of 

 others to decide, otherwise it would be of no use waiting for the 

 undug soil to be frosted. Wo can only say we think that when 

 we have had a piece of ground slug-infested one year, having 

 the surface well frosted before turning it down by trenching 

 or ridging, afforded comparative freedom from such visitois 

 next season ; but then that might bo only a thought — a 

 mere coincidence instead of a result from the supposed cause. 

 Even as such it may be worth trying by those who have 

 had an unusual number of these slimy devourers this 

 season. 



ir.f5/)s'. — We directed attention to these quite soon enough ; 

 for, writing on the Saturday evening, we had quite a cloud of 

 them on the Monday, but very small and weak, yet such an 

 inroad did they make on Cherries, that we were forced to 

 gather Florence and other kinds, though not ripe, as not one 

 would have been left untouched. We began to be alarmed for 

 Plums, Peaches, and .Apricots, and collected a lot of common 

 bottles supplied with stale beer, and bruised faulty fruit, to 

 entice them to go there for refreshment, instead of to our 

 ripening fruit, and a goodly number of them kindly drowned 

 themselves. We were thinking of setting up our hand-light 

 traps — referred to in previous volumes — when the storm of 

 Monday and the rains of Tuesday week again cleared us from 

 them, but for how long it would be impossible to say. Besides 

 trapping and killing, thin muslin or Nottingham lace netting 

 will prove the most effectual protection, and for single fruit, as 

 Peaches, a very thin coating of cotton wadding fastened round 

 them. If done thinly and neatly this will not much injure 

 ! either colour or flavour, and the wasps will not venture on the 

 i dry woolly matter ; and if wet they are less likely to be moving 

 i about. These unwelcome insects can fly but little when their 

 1 wings are wet, and this we have several times taken advantage 

 of in clearing them from a fruit tree by a free use of the syringe 

 I or engine over the tree and fruit, and another person ready 

 with a spade or flat trowel to settle thera on the ground as soon 

 as they dropped. We have had few nests in our neighbour- 

 hood this season. 



Potatoes. — As we dreaded, the wet and the heat combined 

 brought on the disease, and in a virulent form. A fine piece left 

 undug proved a most wonderful crop, fine tubers, and so plen- 

 tiful that the ground could scarcely hold them when turned 

 out, but more than half are tainted, and we fear th.it most of 

 those which appear sound now will go. Until this incompre- 

 hensible disease shall leave us, the only lesson to be learned 

 as yet, so far as our observation and experience go, is to plant 

 only early kinds, and no great quantity of them in small con- 

 fined gardens, and to have the chief crops grown iu open fields, 

 in well tilled, open, but not over-rich land. In most small 

 gardens where the ground is continuously cropped, this con- 

 tinuous cropping at length makes the soil too rich for Pota- 

 toes, for it is of no use to try constant cropping without ma- 

 nuring. In small gardens, too, no great open space can be 

 given to Potatoes, but every few yards there must be a row of 

 Peas or something tall, which confines the sweep of the air, 

 already too confined in dull, sultry, close, damp weather. We 

 have noticed that Potatoes in close cottage gardens, near the 

 cottage, proved almost wholly unsound, whilst at no great dis- 

 tance those grown iu a field of allotments would mostly escape, 

 and in the same district those grown in open fields, and in well- 

 tilled soil, scarcely at all manured, escaped almost altogether. 

 Again, as a general result of observation and inquiry, it ap- 

 peared that Potatoes grown in fields, ridged up in the old- 

 fashioned way, were more exempt from the disease than those 

 grown on the flat, where they were more subject to be thoroughly 

 moistened in the ground, tlian those earthed-np in the old way. 

 The frequency of the disease in close, hard-cropped gardens, 

 may lead to relieving such gardens, by growing the principal 

 crop of Potatoes in the open field, a plan which also might well 

 be followed with Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips, and Beet, aU of 

 which would be richer and sweeter if grown every year on fresh 

 soil, an approach to which in an old garden can only be given 

 by trenching. It is quite mouraful to witness the effects of 

 the Potato disease in cottage gardens. 



