228 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ March 94, IsTO. 



are thoeo of Cauliflowers (Colleyflorey9), and Artichokes, but 

 they had only just been introduced, and were considered as 

 great rarities, which, in a general way, were only found on 

 royal or noble tables. Potatoes were equally considered as de- 

 licacies, not to be obtained by the vulgar herd. The same 

 thing may bo said of the sugar, whieh at Is. per lb. would not 

 be in general use. As early as the fourteenth century it is 

 mentioned, but only as a luxury, which it continued to be 

 down to the reign of King James. — (The Food Journal.) 



LEVELLING AND DRAINING. 



For ascertaining the depth to which an elevation of earth has 

 to be removed ; or for determining how drains must bo directed, 

 an instrument must be employed. The simplest that can be 

 devised, and the ono most readily presenting itself, is tho horning 

 rod. Two pieces of board, 3 or 4 inches 



broad and half an inch thick, are nailed | 



together in tho shape of the letter T, care [_ 

 being taken to have the head perfectly 

 square to the body, which is usually about 

 3 feet long. Down the centre of the body 

 a black line is drawn, and near tho bottom 

 a hole is cut to allow a plummet to hang. 

 When the string of the plummet cuts the 

 line, and the bob hangs freely — that is, is 

 not resting on the body of the T, the head 

 being plated at right angles to trie body 

 makes a perfectly level line, as level as it 

 could be made by a carpenter's spirit level. 

 It is not easy to sight along the top edge of 



the T, so it is well to have a sight nailtd on to each end, and 

 made to project from the side about 2 inches. They ought to be 

 exactly level with the head of the T, or else, when a sight is 

 taken on the presumed level line, it will in reality be on a grade. 

 The operator having brought his bornmg rod into adjustment, 

 can easily hold it quite straight, so as to keep the string of the 

 plumb bob on the centre line. He then has only to 

 send his assistant with a staff to any point, the level 

 of whieh he wants to know. By looking along the 

 sights, he can see where the line will cut the staff, 

 and taking the difference in height of the reading 

 on the staff and the height of his eye, or the top of 

 the T, above the ground, he can find out whether 

 the land rises or falls in that distance, and how 

 much. It is very convenient, however, to have a 

 rod graduated with feet and inches, of any con- 

 venient length, say 6 or 8 feet, with a large target 

 to slide on it, coloured in opposite quarters red and 

 white. This can easily be seen by the eye, and 

 with very little practice any one will be able to 

 work with considerable accuracy. When the cor- 

 rect level has been obtained, the target is tightened by means of 

 a thumb screw at the back of the staff, and it can be kept in that 

 position until the operator comes up to measure the difference in 

 height. 



This is the readiest and simplest form of a levelling instru- 

 ment. Any one can get this level, to give it a dignified name, 

 made by any carpenter, or, indeed, make it for himself, and if it 

 is broken, the cost of repairing it is trifling. — (Toronto Globe.) 



1= 



THE PEAE FLY. 

 I have a large garden on the borders of Essex and Suffolk, 

 with soil of the richest friable loam, not sandy, and not an 

 atom of clay for yards down beneath it. Being a short dis- 

 tance from the village, it stands out almost surrounded by 

 arable land, and there is no othor garden near it. The kitchen 

 garden is nearly an acre in extent, walled on three sides, with 

 only a hedge on the south side. On the other side of the east 

 wall is an orchard of half an acre, filled with old Apple trees 

 and one very fine standard Marie Louise Pear nearly forty 

 years old. This tree, the only Pear tree in this orchard, used 

 to bear fine crops of fruit. In 1865 I gathered about four 

 hundred Pears off it, the greater part of which I sold well in 

 Covent Garden, but since then I have not gathered one, owing 

 to the ravages of the Pear fly. In the kitchen garden, near 

 the wall separating it from this orchard, was an espalier Beurre 

 Diel, about forty years old, and the first symptoms of the 

 " Pear-fly disease " appeared on this tree in 1860, and from 

 this tree it has seemed to spread to other trees in the kitchen 



garden, as well as to the Marie Louise mentioned, in the or- 

 chard ; and from that time I have never been able to get rid of it. 



The loss occasioned has been most serious, for I have about 

 eighty Pear trees, of all forms and sizes, all of which are now 

 regularly every year attacked by this intolerable pest. In your 

 Journal for July 9th, 1861, there is a short notice of this fly, 

 but I have not seen anything else about it since then. In that 

 article the only remedy mentioned was picking off and burning 

 instantly all the diseased Pears, so that the maggots, being 

 killed, could not fall out and quietly repose in the ground till 

 the next spring, to turn up again as flies and Bettle in the 

 bloom to lay their mischievous eggs. The year before last I 

 burned hundreds of fruit this way, going round the garden 

 with a basket or flower-pot, and picking off or picking up all I 

 could find diseased. They can easily be detected, owing to a 

 nasty, unhealthy-looking, whitish swelling halfway down the 

 Pear when the fruit is about an inch and a half long. Left to 

 itself, this turns black and bursts, and the Pear falls off. But 

 this heavy picking of 1868 seemed totally ineffectual, for last 

 year the insect made its appearance just the same, although I 

 bought eight bushels of lime, which I laid down slaked under 

 every tree, thinking that this would destroy the maggots, or 

 prevent their flies rising through it. I must have picked off 

 and burned at least a thousand last year. Off one very old 

 espalier alone of Kirke's BeurrS I must have taken three hun- 

 dred, and instead of a crop of at least four hundred (about six 

 hundred set), I only gathered about seven dozen. 



The insect seems to be spreading in this part of the country. 

 A friend about eight miles off has had it for the last two years 

 in his garden, and another about fifty miles off. In the latter 

 case the gardener told me laBt year that it commenced, the 

 same as with me, on an old Beurre Diel. I have cut down and 

 burnt my old tree by way of making an examplo of it, but, of 

 course, I cannot do this to the other eighty. I think, per- 

 haps, by promoting discussion on the subject in your pages, 

 some remedy may at last be found. As flies appear to hate 

 sulphur, I have thought of syringing the pyramids and espa- 

 liers with a solution of that, soot, and soft soap, just as the 

 case of the fruit bud expands, which will be in about a week's 

 time. The trees are all a picture of health, covered with 

 bloom buds ; some are on the Quince stock, and others on the 

 Pear stock, some of the latter 10 feet high. — CENTTjr.iON. 



[We shall be obliged by communications on this subject, for 

 it is a spreading evil. The notes we published in 1861 were 

 communicated by F. J. Graham, Esq., of Cranford ; they were 

 communicated to the Fruit Committee of the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society. We now extract the description there given of 

 the insects. 



" To Henry Webb, Esq., of Redstone Manor, Reigate, I am 

 indebted for several specimens of Catillac Pears, which he sent 

 me on the 25th of June, 1860, in which he had discovered 

 several small maggots, which caused the fruit to fall off even 

 at that early period. I at once placed them in a glass and 

 covered them over, and on opening it in February last I found 

 two flies had been produced, a mule and female, which I will 

 endeavour briefly to describe. 



" The female is about three-eighths of an inch long, appear- 

 ing to the naked eye of a pale grey colour, and in general form- 

 ation like a common house-fly ; but under a lens its distinc- 

 tive characters are at once perceptible. Head semi-orbicular, 

 dingy white, with a black velvety mark in front reaching down 

 to the antennas, and terminating at the back in form of a cres- 

 cent ; antennas dark, set with short spines, and slightly curved 

 inwards; eyes rich brown, oval, widely separated ; thorax ovate, 

 angular at the base, with five remarkable black spots, one on 

 each shoulder and three below, divided by a scarcely perceptible 

 suture ; several small black dots between the larger spots, out 

 of which stiff seta; issue, the whole bearing a close resemblance 

 to ermine ; scutellum semi-ovate, centre white, with an angular 

 black spot on each side, ending in a point with a stiff seta ; 

 abdomen four-jointed, dingy white, with three black spots on 

 each joint, the centre one angular ; wings dusky, long oval, with 

 five principal nervures and several transverse ; legs black. 

 Under a lens this is a very pretty fly, belonging to the family 

 Musoidn?, of which Mr. Curtis enumerates forty-nine species in 

 ' British Entomology ' ; but in the absence of figures and descrip- 

 tion I cannot identify it with any of them. It appears, how- 

 ever, to correspond with ' Dexia nigripes,' figured by Walker, 

 ' Diptera,' pi. 12, fig. 11, although he describes the thorax as 

 quadrimaculata, yet shows five spots upon it exactly according 

 with my specimen. The male is smaller, of a more common 

 dingy colour, and not handsomely spotted. The maggots are 



