January 20, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



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pollen may not be too much in advance of the female flowers. 

 All that is necessary is to place the male plant in flower by 

 the side of the female. One male will be sufficient for a 

 good-sized houseful of female plants. It will not, however, be 

 unwise, though not absolutely necessary, to fertilise the female 

 flowers with those of the male. To do this the pollen of the 

 male should be collected on a dry day, as it ripens, on sheets 

 of clean white paper, and the fertilisation of the female flowers 

 may be effected with a eamel's-hair pencil. This ought not to 

 be attempted until the flowers are fully expanded. After fer- 

 tilisation, when danger from frost is past, the plants should be 

 plunged out of doors in an open, sheltered situation, returning 

 them to the greenhouse or other cool house if wanted for orna- 

 mental purposes, say in the beginning of November. 



If the female plants are not in flower when the pollen 

 is ripe, all we have to do is to collect the pollen on clean white 

 paper, place it in the sun for a few hours, keep it in a cool, dry 

 place until the female flowers expand, and then use it. The 

 pollen will keep for twelve months at least, if not longer ; prac- 

 tically, thus males flowering in the greenhouse or out of doors 

 in December, or early in the year, may be kept for the purpose 

 of fertilisation until the females in the open ground are flower- 

 ing in April or later. — G. Abbe*. 



POTATOES FOE SETS. 



[" L. W." must forgive us for not answering his question 

 before, but we waited for a reply from a good authority, and 

 the following is his answer.] 



I advise." L. W." to adopt a preparation for his seed Pota- 

 toes which I strictly follow myself, and have for many years 

 and many times recommended in these pages — namely, at 

 lifting-time let him select medium-sized tubers of the sorts. 

 Those we may consider as being scarcely arrived at their per- 

 fectly mealy ripeness I have proved answer best as sets. Let 

 them lay exposed on dry ground (in the shade preferably, for a 

 hot sun will bake and blotch them as if with disease), till they 

 become slightly greened ; and during this process, if they be 

 turned once they will become greened equally all over. They 

 should then be stored away, from that time till the day on which 

 they are to be planted, npon wooden slabs formed into plat- 

 forms. These may consist of old doors with laths nailed round 

 their edges to secure the tubers from rolling off, as they are 

 placed upon them in single layer3. These slabs, or doors, 

 should be placed in a dry cellar, outhouse, or loft secure from 

 frost, where a subdued light can gain admittance, and in a 

 temperature averaging about 40°, the cooler the better, pro- 

 vided it is kept above the freezing-point. When frosts prevail 

 the tubers should be covered with matting, straw, or some- 

 thing to insure their safety. 



About three weeks before planting time, possibly sooner, a3 

 that will depend entirely on the lowest degree of temperature, 

 with light, in which the Potatoes have been kept, every eye or 

 shoot, excepting the most prominent one situated nearest the 

 crown of each tuber, should be carved out to the very base 

 with a penknife, which will not only prevent an injurious 

 amount of foliage afterwards, but will meet the very old- 

 fashioned idea, still much resorted to in the north, of " snick- 

 ing " off a piece from the base of each set before planting. If 

 this be done the tubers when placed in the soil will already have 

 healthy young shoots, almost as sturdy as one's little finger, as 

 firmly attached as the limpet to the rock, and incapable of be- 

 coming detached, unless by the roughest treatment. From this 

 single sprout three or four sturdy stems will branch out, and 

 bear a fine and an even-sized abundant crop, with a flourishing 

 though not an over-luxuriant foliage; thus amply compensating 

 for the extra care and trouble, besides the advantage of insuring 

 the maturity of the crop some three weeks sooner than the 

 usual enervated sets can be made to do. Common sense, one 

 would hope, must show almost anyone that the seed-sets treated 

 as above are far more to be depended upon than those usually 

 committed to the soil, after having been tumbled about any- 

 where, probably from the time they were taken up till they 

 are " chucked " into the soil again with scarcely a tithe of their 

 natural stamina, on account of the " sproutings " they have 

 undergone, and possibly to be then slashed into pieces, and 

 placed in furrows with raw dung. 



The seed Potatoes prepared as above may be planted later 

 by fully three weeks, as no time is lost, in consequence of their 

 having young shoots which are ready to begin to cater with the 

 roots at once. The young shoots begin seeking for the light of 



day immediately after the sets are planted, which is not the 

 case with sets placed in the soil without shoots, and by so 

 much we avoid the evil of planting too early in cold, wet, back- 

 ward soils, situations, and seasons. Further, by reason of the 

 shoots which we know of, we avoid altogether the possibility of 

 the " club ". on shootless tubers. We must not, however, shut 

 our eyes to extensive breadths, or to where circumstances alter 

 cases. The motto of one of our best Potato cultivators, the 

 Rev. W. K Radclyffe, is repeated to me in a letter which I 

 have just received from him—" Early planting, early ripeners, 

 and late keepers,'' than which no advice could be better if 

 tbe frosts in the ides of May could be warded off. " Ah ! 

 there's the rub." If I were to plant my main crop of Potatoes 

 about the 17th of the present month ^January), which Mr. 

 Radclyffe informs me he intends doing, there would be nine 

 chances out of ten of my crop being killed down by frost in the 

 " lap of May." Sevenfold irijury would thus be done to me in 

 consequence of the forwardness of the haulm arising from 

 early planting. Thrice I have had my Potato tops killed 

 "black down" in June. In southern counties, warm situa- 

 tions, and light and sandy soils, and in a climate, such as Mr. 

 Radclyfie's beautiful Dorsetshire, plant early by all means, 

 and then, of course, previously germinated sets in the way 

 that I have stated above could not be ready, nor would it 

 matter ; but even in this case I would leave but a couple of 

 eye3 to each tuber, and pull away one of the shoots as soon as 

 it appeared above ground, provided both of them pushed 

 healthy and strong. No, I dare not plant till the first or 

 second week in April, nor eventually let the foliage take its 

 chance uncovered from soil, without great anxiety, until the 

 second week in May is past, and then they grow rapidly. 

 Therefore, I say, Plant early if you can or dare do so, and 

 always " early ripeners and late keepers ;" and from what many 

 people have seen, and others have heard, I do not think I may 

 be called an unsuccessful cultivator of the Potato. — Koberi 

 Fehn. 



PITMASTON DUCHESS PEAR. 



I have frequently been tempted to write to you with reference 

 to a most excellent Pear which I met with quite by accident, 

 and which, I think, is not generally known, but I read in 

 your paper of January Cth an account of the Pitmaston 

 Duchess, and I believe it to be the same Pear. I was staying 

 at Malvern some three or four years ago in November, and 

 I bought some Pears of unusual size and flavour ; they had 

 tender melting flesh, and, indeed, possessed all the good qua- 

 lities of a Pear of the highest class. I inquired the name of it 

 from the fruiterer, and he replied that it had no name, but as 

 it had been raised by Mr. Williams, he himself distinguished 

 it as " Williams's Goliath." I was so well satisfied with the 

 qualities of the Pear, which resembled Marie Louise more 

 than any other, that I asked the owner of the trees to sell me 

 some. I bought two, for which I paid rather highly ; but one 

 was a large tree — a standard, at least 8 feet high. They were 

 planted very late in spring, but the large tree, to my delight, 

 broke out in one large sheet of bloom. It was impossible the 

 tree could carry many Pears that year, but four came to ma- 

 turity. The next year it bore a few, and they were very large, 

 and of exquisite flavour. This last season the tree was covered 

 with bloom, but the late frosts in this county (Cheshire), 

 killed the bloom on most of the standard Pear trees. This 

 suffered badly, but matured a few Pears, and I considered 

 them quite equal to Marie Louise, and far better than any 

 other Pear I can grow in this climate. I tried to buy more 

 trees, but my correspondent at Malvern told me he had sold 

 all his stock to Messrs. Smith, of Worcester, and J. believe 

 they have named the Pear " Duchess Improved," or Pitmaston 

 Duchess. I have given away hundreds of grafts, and believe 

 growers of it will agree with me that it quite justifies all the 

 encomiums you have passed upon it. — F. H. C. 



A HINT FOR YOUNG GARDENERS. 

 I was very much pleased to read the chapter for young 

 gardeners in your issue of the 30th ult., when I saw the ques- 

 tion, "What are you doing these winter evenings'?" Allow 

 me to add that one thing is not properly looked after by young 

 men, and that is keeping an account of their work. Doing so 

 I find very useful. One of Blackwood's " Scribbling Diaries " 

 costs only Is., and I would advise every young man to have 

 one, and keep it properly, writing down every night the work 



