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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ March 17, 1870. 



firmly along the bottom of the drill. This keeps the Peas on 

 the same level, and they certainly hold all the more firmly from 

 the resistance given to the free descent of the roots. In 

 Bowing on ridges, and even on the level, it is desirable to draw 

 the drill wider and fully double the requisite depth, but only 

 covering the Peas about 2 inches, leaving a little furrow or 

 trench above them. When that is neatly beaten on the sides 

 it is a great protection against slugs and snails, and rough 

 ashes may be strewed along if needed ; and in a dry season it 

 is an easier matter to water the Peas, if that should be deemed 

 necessary. 



The weather is still so uncertain and cold, and the ground so 

 cold, that nothing is gained in sowing much, unless where less 

 or more protection can be given. Radishes on beds and banks 

 need protection, and good early crops can be obtained by sowing 

 now, and, if the ground is rather wet, covering with dry soil, 

 rising a little litter until the seed leaves appear, when they 

 should have all the sun and air possible. Quick returns, how- 

 ever, will much depend on covering up early in cold weather, 

 and not uncovering too early in the morning. 



Where protection can be given, Turnips may be sown in the 

 same way, but generally the middle of the month is early 

 enough where neither glass nor light calico can be had as a 

 covering. We use in these cold uights a little litter over our 

 Cauliflowers under hand-lights, to bring them on more rapidly, 

 giving them and early Potatoes plenty of air and full light in 

 mild days. 



We hear from so many quarters forebodings because so little 

 can be done — " the ground is so wet, or i3 so cold, that the 

 season will be lost." Not at all. Seed time, and harvest too, 

 will come; but there can be no doubt that in such seasons as 

 this, take the country as a whole, a week or a fortnight later 

 than usual in sowing will tell the best in the end. In all 

 seeds, the time of the greatest danger is just after germination 

 has commenced. Then extra dryness, extra wet, or extra cold, 

 may ruin the plant, even before it appears above the surface. 

 The more quickly germination takes place, the more safe will 

 the crop in general be, and to insure rapid growth it is worth 

 while to wait until the soil is in a nicely pulverised state, and 

 moderately heated. 



We have turned and re-turned the ground we intend for '■ 

 Onions and Carrots, but we shall not sow just yet. We do j 

 not often suffer from the exercise of a little patience. 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



The frequent falls of snow and heavy rain have taken as ! 

 much of the lime-washing off our fruit-tree bushes as to make ' 

 many of the fruit buds again conspicuous. We question if we 

 must not give them a little more. Before this washing, one or 

 two bush Pear trees, beautifully set with fruit buds, and some 

 nice Plums, suffered very severely ; many of the fruit buds 

 were picked out and eaten, many thrown down as if in sport, 

 so far militating against the insect-in-the-bud theory, as, 

 on closely examining with a microscope some scores of those 

 buds thrown dowD, as well as the remains of those partly | 

 picked, we could not observe a trace of an insect, or the egg of 

 an insect. We have a few dwarf Cherry trees beautifully | 

 studded with clusters of bloom buds, and though we did not I 

 see a bird at them, we found that a good many buds were I 

 going, but after the whitening not one has been touched, and 

 we have seen no birds at them until to-day, when we noticed 

 some house sparrows, hedge sparrows, green linnets, and tom- 

 tits examining and trying the buds, from which the action of 

 the weather had removed the whitewashing. When we go to 

 other places we can see that the grower is allowed the results 

 of his careful culture, as birds do but little damage. We can 

 see fine trees any day left to themselves and untouched, whilst 

 here they would soon, if left to themselves, be nothing better 

 than faggots. Only the other year dwarf Plums bristling with 

 fruit buds were next to destroyed, fruit buds, and wood buds 

 too, being remorselessly picked out. 



Strawberries in Pots. — Since we last referred to these we 

 have not lost many more by mice, &c. Something depends on 

 the position ; when we could place these pots in the orchard 

 house we seldom lost many, but their presence there kept 

 other things out, and they were rather in the way when wash- 

 ing woodwork, glass, &c. In every other place we have put 

 them we lost a lot of crowns every year. 



We see sometimes much stress laid, that an orchard house, 

 like every other house, should be kept to its one legitimate use, 

 and such may be the case here and there, where the gardener 

 can give a place for everything, and keep everything in its 

 place, but nine gardeners out of ten, if not nineteen out of 



twenty, are obliged to put every honse to many purposes, and 

 we have been glad to put our orchard house to many uses be- 

 sides growing fruit trees, though making these the prfticipal 

 object. 



orchard Houses. — We are shutting-np one a little earlier, and 

 that will help us soon with bedding plants, &c. The other we 

 only shut up in cold nights, and leave it open whenever the 

 weather is favourable, so as to make it as late as we can before 

 the trees open their buds. Both houses have been watered 

 where too dry, but the soil will not be much watered until the 

 weather and the water are warmer. Bear in mind, that if the 

 roots become very dry the buds, as they swell, will be apt to 

 drop, and a very heavy watering under such circumstances will 

 very likely produce the same result. It is best in such cases 

 to moisten the earth by degrees. 



One fruitful source of disappointment as respects small 

 orchard houses (unheated glass cases), arises from keeping the 

 trees too warm in winter and early in spring. Hence we always 

 regret to hear or read of enthusiastic amateurs having their 

 Peach trees in unheated houses in full bloom in February and 

 the first days of March. We should like better if the trees 

 were merely swelling their buds in the beginning of March, 

 and were not in full bloom until the middle or end of the 

 month. Let it be laid down, then, as a general rule, that the 

 later the trees bloom in unheated houses the less will be the 

 risk, the greater the likelihood of the success, and the smaller 

 the chance of a combined appearance of checks and insects. 

 Iu our own case, we do not keep our orchard houses so cool in 

 winter as we should like owing to having other things in them, 

 but had we only the fruit trees we would never shut the houses 

 up entirely in winter, except during storms and severe frost. 

 As respects the latter, it will require to be severe indeed to 

 hurt Peach trees in a cold house, where, from beirvg shut up, 

 the enclosed atmosphere is comparatively close and still — % v« ry 

 different affair from a full exposure to a north or east wind far 

 below the freezing point. Although orchard houses, properly 

 speaking, should have no artificial heat, yet when used for 

 many purposes, a little heat is very desirable, but if that heat 

 is merely trifling it will always be wise not to use it so as to 

 forward the trees prematurely. Of course, much depends on 

 the position. Keeping the trees back a little instead of forward- 

 ing them, might not be of so much consequence in Devonshire 

 and Cornwall (where a fall of snow — at least, one that will lie 

 a little, is something like an alarming wonder), as it wonld be 

 in our midland and northern counties. One cause of failure, 

 and a prominent one too, is keeping the trees too warm and 

 carefully in winter and early in spring. 



ORNAMENTAL DEPARTMENT. 



As previously stated, we have been going on, but, owing to 

 repairs, not so quickly as we wish, with potting, cutting- 

 making, and pricking-out the earliest sown annuals. FreBh- 

 arranged corridors and conservatory, taking Azaleas, Cine- 

 rarias, Wallflowers, Primroses, &c, into the former. We have 

 been delayed in turfing owing to the weather, and also from 

 having a chance presented to us of securing some very rough 

 turf for making compost, from what formed a grass roadway 

 between fields, but which was to be ploughed up. Taking off 

 this, especially that on the ridges raised above the furrows left 

 by the cart wheels, would be a benefit to others as well as to 

 us. The soil, though good and fair for fibre, was well snpplied 

 with Couch roots, which, if not taken out and burned, might 

 have spread over the adjacent fields. Even taken off only 

 li inch thick, and built neatly in a stack, this will be fine ma- 

 terial for the best purposes in less than a twelvemonth. We 

 previously stated that we generally build in stacks from 3 to 

 ■1 feet wide, and when some 4, 5, or more feet iu height, we 

 make a span-roof 3 or i feet higher, by gradually drawing it in 

 until a single turf forms the apex. So treated, we can always 

 have soil tolerably dry. The narrower the stack the sweeter 

 and the more mellow it will be, without losing its fibre. We 

 expect that from the air and dryness alone, all the Couch will 

 be dead in a few months. The grass on the roadway is rough 

 and long, and that will do something to let the air pass freely 

 through the mass, so as to sweeten without decomposing the 

 fibre. To assist this still more, we might have used some 

 rough faggots in layers in the stack ; the only objection to the 

 free use of these is to be found when we cut such a nice heap 

 down with the spade. Instead of the faggots, we used two 

 rows of round cylindrical tiles 2 inches in diameter, from end to 

 end of the stack, placing these layers of tiles, as respects depth, 

 18 inches apart, so that we should have four or more double 

 rows in the stack. These were placed end to end, but leaving 



