October 10, 1987. I 



JOURNAL OP HOBTIOULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



275 



per box. Grapes in season now (19th of September) "jliiefly 

 consist of Concord, selling at 10c. per lb. Apples bring from 

 aOc. to l.tlO per bushel. Potatoes aro very light from ravages 

 of a vile new pest, the Colerado Potato bug (Doryphera 

 10-lineatii). This is their second year here, and they have 

 brought up the price from, say, 00c. , usually at this season, 

 to 1.50 per bushel. — F. K. Phoksix, Bloominyton Surstrij, llli- 

 noU, X. AiiHiica. 



PROrAGATING MllS. POLLOCK PKLAKGONIUM. 



Many and various are the plana which from time to time 

 have been advanced as necessary for the successful culture of 

 Mrs. Polloclc Pelargonium, and, doubtless, nil of those plans 

 possess more or less of merit, and will prove successful in a 

 greater or leas degree in proportion as they are supported by 

 that perseverance which invariably commands success sooner 

 or later. 



A short time ago n recommendation appeared in a contem- 

 porary not to attempt tlie propagation of cuttings of this variety 

 in the autumn, but to take up the plants from the beds, pot 

 them, and luako cuttings in the spring. The reasons advanced 

 in support of this plsin wore, that the plants would not he so 

 likely to die off duiing tho winter, they would take up less 

 space, and would also be very ornamental in their unpruned 

 state. Doubtless tho object of most persons becoming the 

 possessor of such a bedding gem as Mrs. Pollock is not simply 

 to take a cutting or two for specimens, hut rather to increase 

 the stock as largely and as quickly us possible. Keepiig this 

 in view, I think it will bo found that the plan quoted above is 

 not nt all an advance but rather a retrogression. I may here 

 state, as illustrative of tho fact that this variety is not more 

 diflicult to manage than any other if fairly treated, that I have 

 now upwards of four hundred plants, all descendants of one 

 small plant received in the autumn of 18G;i. A slight account 

 of the mode of culture which is followed at this place may, 

 perhaps, prove acceptable to some of the readers of " our 

 Journal." 



Tho cuttings are taken off as early in the autumn as they 

 can be spared — i. <•., as soon as tho chief beauty of the garden 

 is over. They are generally struck in pots fully exposed to the 

 air, and they are not housed sooner than any other sort, but 

 are kept out as late in the autumn as the weather permits. At 

 the time of taking cuttings the plants are pruned closely, and 

 allowed to remain in the bels till they have again started into 

 growth, which they will do quickly; they are then taken up 

 and potted in a rich sandy loam, and, until the time of housing, 

 are placed in a cold pit, the lights of which are taken off during 

 the day. The autumn growth made is short and sturdy, and 

 the plants generally keep well through the winter. They are 

 afforded as much light and air as possible, and great care is 

 taken in the watering. 



Early in the spring, as soon as the autumn-struck plants 

 have m;ido a slight growth, and present a somewhat more 

 animated appearance than they did during the \>"iter, the tops 

 of all that aro strong enough are cut off, and struck in a moist 

 growing atmosphere with a lively bottom heat. The plants 

 from which these cuttings are taken will then appear like so 

 many naked stumps. The soil these plants are in is kept rather 

 dry for a few days, and the wounds caused by cutting off the 

 tops are carefully sealed over with a little of Thomson's styptic. 

 In a short time the plants will break all down the naked stems 

 to the soil ; a slight shift now into a somewhat richer soil 

 •anses them to grow freely, and to form good plants by the time 

 they are wanted for the beds. — Edwaiu) IjCckhvbst, Kjirtori 

 II\)Uie Gardens, Kgiiton, Kent. 



Imagine any living creature getting into such a trap as this 

 — why, a shark's mouth is a mild kind of painless trap when 

 compared with this slow-moving slug's. If unacquainted with 

 this mollusk's habits, an examination of the mouth would at 

 once lead us to infer the carnivorous propen^-isies of the crea- 

 ture, and a closer intight into its ways and habits would show 

 our judgment to be founded upon correct premises. The Testa- 

 cella is exclusively a destroyer of living things, the earthworm 

 being the game that it hunts with untiring assiduity. It follows 

 the earthworm through its underground tunnels, us the mole 

 hunts grubs. A very slight inspection of this curious slug will 

 serve to show us how aomirably its organisation in every way 

 adapts it to follow out its earthworm-hunting propensities. The 

 body is extremely slender, and when stretched to its extreme 

 point of attenuation, becomes so small and wire-like, that pro- 

 gression through tiny holes in the soil is rendered easy in the 

 extreme. It creeps stealthily upon a worm, seizes it with its 

 terrible toothed trap, and slowly swallows it, much after the 

 fashion of a snake when bolting a frog, the victim being sucked, 

 so to speak, by a steady introversive action of the armed tongue 

 into the gullet. I found the remains of several earthworms in 

 the slug 1 captured in my garden. Dr. Bull, in describing the 

 habits of the Testacella, says, •' I first became aware of the 

 Testacella preying on worms, by putting some of them in spirits, 

 when they disgorged more of these animals tlian I thought they 

 could possibly have contained. Each worm was cut, but not 

 divided, at regular intervals. I afterwards caught them in the 

 act of swallowing worms four and five times their own length." 

 — J. K. LoKi) (in Land and Water). 



The Wor.M-F.ATiNO Sr.ca.— All slugs are not injurious. The 

 Testacella is by no means rare or uncommon, but is seldom 

 observed or captured, in consequence of its subterranean habits. 

 To find it, you must either rise at the dawn of day, or make 

 nocturnal explorations equipped with a powerful lauthorn. It 

 may be discovered, if thus sought for, in most of the market 

 gardens round about the metropolis, and it is distributed gene- 

 ally throughout all the western counties. It has been taken at 

 Youghal and Bandon, in Ireland, and at iladeira, the Canaries, 

 and in Western Europe. The lingual ribbon of the Testacella 

 is extremely large and wide, and made up of over fifty rows of 

 minute teeth, fifty-one in each row. The teeth are conical, 

 evenly curved, and barbed at the point ; each tooth has a pro- 

 Mtion on the middle, from whi«h the posterior end thickens. 



EFFECTS OF ALTITUDE AS REG.mDS FKOST. 



TRAINING FIinT TKF.F.S NE.*R THE OROUND. 



As the frost of October ."Jrd-lth was no doubt general, it would 

 be useful to know how it affected tender plants in different 

 positions. We suffer very much from cold winds, and that 

 makes the garden late without help artificiolly given ; but our 

 elevated position has often enabled us to have Dahlias and 

 other tender plants a month or six weeks after they have been 

 killed in the valleys. Taken as a whole, our fiower gardens on 

 the Friday and Saturday afternoons showed no traces of the 

 frost of the mornings, and even the Perilla came well out of 

 the ordeal. The sharpness of the frost may be judged from the 

 fact that Spinach, Strawberry, and Pelargonium leaves broke 

 when I attempted to bend them. 



Such a visitation might also be made nseful in leading to a 

 comparison as to how the frost affected plants, even when 

 placed at slightly different altitudes from the ground. I am 

 not so niMch alluding to altitude in general as to mere lowness, 

 or rathe nearness to the ground and greater distance from it, 

 in the sumo locality. No one who has trodden the snows on 

 mountain tops, or even looked up to these snows, and yet has 



j suffered from heat at their base in summer, but would have the 

 conviction forced upon him as a mere matter of fact, that the 



I nearer the great bulk of the earth he was the warmer it was ; 

 and the higher he wos in the atmosphere the colder it was. 

 It is not necessary here to enter into the question as to how 

 this must be the case, if we give due prominence to the heat of 



I the sun being reflected and radiated from the surface of the 

 earth, nor as to how that may again be affected by the nature 

 of the soil and the covering which nature or cultivation gives to 

 it. Granting the truth of the proposition that the higher W9 

 go tho colder it is, what puzzled me many years ago, and set 

 me to make notes on the temperature close to the ground and 

 for several feet above it — from 1 foot to 30 feet and more from 

 the surface — were not only the exceptions in a limited space 

 that come against the general proposition, but the wont of 

 uniformity even in these exceptions. 



I have long lost the notes of these observations, but the 

 next-to-uniform results were these ; — In a warm snnny day 

 the air was warmest within a foot of the ground, and all the 

 wormer in proportion to the bareness and hardness of that sur- 

 face. If such a day was followed by a wann cloudy night, the 

 air near the surface was still the warmest, as the clouds 

 arrested the free radiation of heat ; and in such a night there 

 would be scarcely a dew drop deposited, as no stratum of air 

 became sufficiently cool to condense the vapour contained in it. 

 But let us have such a cold breeze as that on Thursday, sweep- 

 ing away beat from the surface almost as fast or faster than 

 the sun "added to it, and let that be followed by the clear cold 

 sky of Thursday night, the stars shining with a Christmas 



