January 21, 1867. ] 



JOUBNAIi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



69 



rather have a mng of beer, or a cup of strong tea any time ; 

 and after all, Martha, '•! don't believe they are all right, for 

 they 'ave left more than half on their platee, maybe they are 

 mouldy as Master Walter said." 



" Oh ! no," said the housemaid, " quality never eat the 

 skins." 



" I eat all," said Mary, with a glowing face, " both skins 

 and stones, they have cost too much to waste." 



So we came to the end of the third year, and the day of our 

 great fruit-cutting was the anniversary of the planting. We 

 left many bunches to hang until Christmas, until the new year, 

 if they would keep so long. We sent many bunches away to 

 friends near and distant, and the packing up with great care of 

 those little fruit-baskets was a real pleasure to us, as great, 

 nay, I think, almost greater than the receiving of such would 

 be to us. 



" That is right, Kate dear," said Aunt Margaret, coming in 

 as we ticketed our last basket to a lame boy lying ill, "never 

 forget the old, the poor, the sick, nor the unfortunate, gifts to 

 Buch come back to the giver with a blessing." — iLvuD. 



OLD ORCHARDS IN KENT. 



I HAVE been expecting some one to say more respecting the 

 Flemish Apples and Clierries, and the subject so much the 

 more interests me because I came from the very parish Mr. 

 Eobson names (Teynham). 



I will take as my station Frognell Farm, in the parish of 

 Teynham. When I was a boy I well remember some old 

 Flemish Cherries there iu an orchard adjoining the homestead, 

 called the Cherry Orchai-d ; but the Flemish Pippin was chiefly 

 in an orchard called Siller HiU, iu Green Street, in the parish 

 of Linsted, adjoining that of Teynham, and on the other side 

 of the road in orchards belonging to F. Barling, Esq., who 

 grows, I believe, all the sorts of Apples, Pears, and Cherries 

 worth cultivating, but the age of the trees I am not at present 

 able to give. My father says when he first went to live on the 

 Frognell estate, about sixty years ago, there were some old 

 Flemish Cherries there then, and I believe, if not recently 

 removed, they are there now ; but we must not expect to find 

 trees in places where they are grown for profit after they cease 

 to bear a good crop. At some tiiture time I will give a more 

 Batisfaelory note on them, after writing to the managers of the 

 orchards of the above-named places. 



I cannot but think that the place spoken of by Mr. Robson 

 must be Frognell. or somewhere thereabouts. I will state my 

 reasons for thinking so. In a little orchard on the other side 

 of the road from the Cherry orchard used to stand the ruins of 

 a building called the Moat House. It had a moat round it, 

 but this moat was partly filled up about forty years since. A 

 few years ago the railway went through this little orchard, and 

 I do not know whether ,iny traces of it are left. Not more 

 than 100 yards from the Moat House stood another old build- 

 ing called the Old Bedlam : this building was pulled down 

 about sixty or seventy years ago. The oldest building that I 

 know of standing there now is what is called Frognell Great 

 Bam. I forget the date of it, but I believe it is two or three 

 hundred years old. Another field near Teynham church, about 

 a mile from this place, is all foundations, and iu one place is 

 a well, which is now arched over. It appears to me that cen- 

 turies ago these plaoes must have been of some note. — G. 

 Holmes, Stroud, Gloucestershire. 



JOURN.VL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



The fourth part, just published, completes the first volume 

 of the New Series, and, hke its predecessors, is deserving of 

 high commendation. We have heard a complaint that the con- 

 tents do not embrace a due proportion of practical gardening ; 

 but we cannot assent to that complaint. There are abundance 

 of sources whence information on practical gardening may be 

 derived, and the pages of the Society's Journal are better occu- 

 pied with such relative information as is afforded in the present 

 part by Mr. Berkeley's notes on Orchid Fungi ; Professor 

 Goeppert on the Breslau Botanic Garden ; Mr. Hadwen's ex- 

 periments on Temperature, and Dr. Masters on Double Flowers 

 of Primula sinensis. 



Mr. Bateman contributes a brief note upon an Orchid-pot, 

 made of earthenware, in the form of a tree's branch, on which 



he finds Orchids grow as well as on a natural branch, while 

 the disadvantages consequent on the decay of the wood are 

 avoided. 



CjVLIfornlin items. 



At the recent State fair at Sacramento, J. Q. A. Warren, of 

 Sacramento, who has travelled extensively among the Sandwich 

 Islands, showed " a collection of Sandwich Island Ferns and 

 flowers, embracing over five hundred specimens of beautiful 

 texture ; cabinet woods of the Islands highly polished ; seed 

 and seed-pods, very curious ; Sandwich Island Cotton in the 

 boll and loose ; samples of Sandwich Island Rice in the paddy, 

 cleansed and polished ; Poi Calabash and Water Calabash ; silk 

 cocoons of immense size, raised by himself at the Islands from 

 eggs furnished by L. Prevost ; Coffee, Castor-oil Bean, Bread- 

 fruit, Ginger, land shells of one hundred varieties, and a large 

 collection of Island curiosities." 



We also learn from copious reports in our San Francisco and 

 Sacramento exchanges that the fair in most respects was a 

 great success. The wondeifidgrowthandyieldof all the cereals, 

 fruit, and vegetables, has ceftsed to be a wonder and topic of 

 remark, and all attention is being turned to new topics. The 

 state is already becoming famous for wool and wine, as we see 

 the wool quoted in all our eastern markets, and meet the wine 

 at all our principal fairs and on the shelves of the druggists. 

 Cotton and silk are now attracting much attention iu California. 

 We take from the Sacramento Union the following items of 

 objects at the fair. 



" L. Prevost, of San Jose, has a large collection of silkworms 

 on exhibition. In fact, silk culture, from the early stage of 

 the worms feeding on the Mulberry leaf to reels of sQk itself, is 

 represented in this gentleman's exhibit ; and the following 

 extract from a private letter to him will show that a still more 

 advanced stage will soon be added. Under date of San Fran- 

 cisco, September 17th, 1866, Meyer i- Neumann say : ' Per- 

 haps you wLU perceive in to-day's ^i(a, that we finished a small 

 piece of rep, but the machinery not being in proper working 

 order yet it is not of that quality which we intended to exhibit 

 at the State Fair. Nevertheless, one of us will come to Sacra- 

 mento the day after to-morrow, and bring the sample along 

 with him.' Many of the cocoons exhibited by Prevost were 

 raised from eggs furnished to him by different parties." 



The Oakland Manufacturing Company exhibit two pieces of 

 cotton sheeting as samples of the first hundred pieces, two as 

 samples of the first thousand pieces of 40 yards each, and 

 two of cotton shirting as samples of the first hundred pieces of 

 •10 yards each, manufactured in this State. The mill of this 

 company wove its first yard of goods on the 1st of December, 

 18G.5, and has beeu in active operation the most of the time 

 since. The company have paid from twenty-five to thu-ty cents, 

 per pound for cotton, and manufactured it into goods at an ex- 

 pense of fifteen cents, per pound. The mill is located in the 

 village of CHnton, Alameda county. Among other cotton they 

 have worked up a small lot of the variety known as the green 

 seed, which they found to be equal, if not superior, to the Ten- 

 nessee and Georgia upland cotton. With the experience of the 

 past for a guide, a great improvement is expected in the pre- 

 sent and future crops. They confidently expect that the cotton- 

 growers of this State wiU be able to furnish thtm with sufficient 

 raw material to keep their manufactory in constant operation. 

 They have just entered into a contract to furnish twenty thou- 

 sand yards of manufactirred cotton for exportation to Mexico." 



Hop Culture. — The Alta's correspondent says :— " No branch 

 of agriculture pays better than Hops. For brewers' use the 

 Hops of CaUforuia have double the strength of any imported. 

 We visited the Hop vineyard of Fhnt & Haynie, on the flats of 

 Norris' ranch, American river, near Sacramento, recently. It 

 covers twenty-five acres, and was planted iu February and 

 March of this year. The vines stand 8 feet apart. It is well 

 demonstrated that short poles and cross-traUing on connecting 

 cords, produce better crops than high poles. The crop for this 

 first year is 24,000 lbs., worth at seventy cents, per lb., 16,800 

 dollars. Next year the plant starts from fixed roots of one 

 year's growth, and the crops will double. It will be seven 

 years, probably, before the plant will show deterioration." 



Castok-oil Beaxs. — The Castor-oil Bean has been grown the 

 present year (1866), to a much greater extent than is generally 

 understood, and from the success of the present year we think 

 the growing of the Bean and the manufacture of the oil from 

 it may be said to be successfully begun. 



The Northern District Fair of the present year, can claim 



