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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



enemy, with penknife and sharp-pointed sticks, he waged a 

 terrible war of extermination against the parasites, launching 

 bitter and often unjust words against them all the time. Ah ! 

 they never visited me in the glad healthy days of growth and 

 bloom- Now I had sunk eo low I did not care for them— did 

 not care to exist ; better not to be than such a life as mine. 

 Bobbed of the glorious sunshine, the beauty-giving light, and 

 the strengthening air we all love so well and need so much, 

 what was there left worth living for? 'There.it is your last 

 chance,' said the man, as he put me back to my old position 

 on the wall, behind Camellias, Azaleas, and a world of other 

 plants I had lived pleasantly with for years. ' A poor chance 

 at best,' I heard a neighbouring florist reply, ' you might as 

 well bring the Heath from the breezy common to bloom in 

 your stove ; it can never make anything in that sunless 

 corner. Better to throw it away and make space for something 

 that will not be all day quarrelling with the damp, dark at- 

 mosphere. It will never flower beneath the shade of that thick 

 strong Vine.' The mystery was solved. Two thick canes had 

 found their way in from the adjoining vinery, had grown and 

 spread, and spread and grown, until they had covered all 

 the roof. No wonder I could not breathe, no wonder I had 

 thrown out long, soft, slender, useless shoots, in a vain en- 

 deavour to find sun, or light, or air. I knew it was all over 

 with me. They had turned the conservatory into a vinery, 

 changed beauty into usefulness — such beauty as mine, too ; had 

 driven away the long-gratifying and ever-refining pleasure of 

 sight for the short-lived one of taste. I shall not strive again ; 

 too unequal would the contest be — a slender Clematis againBt a 

 muscular Black Hamburgh. So I am slowly dying for want of 

 sun, and light, and air, sacrificed, as Flora's charms too often 

 are, to the wishes and requirements of Pomona." — Maud. 



NEW BOOK. 



Alpine Flowers for English Gardens. By W. Robinson, F.L.S. 

 With Illustrations. London : John Murray. 



If there was one book more than another wanted in horti- 

 culture that book was one on Alpine plants, and if there was 

 one person more than another competent to write it that person 

 is the author of the work before us. It has been too much the 

 fashion of late years to neglect the cultivation of those small 

 but exceedingly beautiful plants popularly known as Alpines. 

 The taste for gaudy glare in our flower gardens has predomi- 

 nated so long that many of the loveliest flowers have been 

 forgotten or neglected, and to many of the present generation 

 of gardeners they are wholly unknown. It is with pleasure, 

 therefore, that we find one who has made a speciality of the 

 study of this class of plants coming forward and reviving, or 

 attempting at least to revive, among us a love and a knowledge 

 of objects so worthy of our attention. 



The work before U3 is a goodly volume of 400 pages, very 

 nicely illustrated with Alpine scenery, rockwork arrangements, 

 and beds as places adapted for the cultivation of Alpine plants. 

 It is divided into two parts. The first, which occupies about 

 one-third of the volume, treats on the Culture of Alpine Flowers, 

 and embraces the Bock Garden, Ruin and Wall Gardens, Alpine 

 Flowers in Borders, the Wild Rock Garden in Woods, the 

 Window Rock Garden, and a most interesting sketch of " A 

 Little Tour in the Alps." The second part is an enumeration 

 of the choicest Alpine plants alphabetically arranged, com- 

 prising descriptions and full directions for the culture of each, 

 the positions best suited for it in the gardens, &c, and concludes 

 with capital selections of Alpine plants for different purposes. 



This is a most useful book, carefully prepared, well written, 

 and a valuable addition to our gardening literature. The fol- 

 lowing is an example of the way in which each subject is 

 treated : — 



Primula scotica. — Scotch Bird's-eye Primrose. 



" This, one of the most lovely of its family and of the choicest little 

 gems in the British Flora, is a near ally of the Bird's-eye Primrose of 

 the moi6t and boggy mountain sides of the North of England. Its 

 rich purple flowers, with large yellowish eye, open in the end of April, 

 supported on stems from half an inch to an inch high, growing an inch 

 or two taller as the season advances. It is said by some botanists to 

 be simply a variety of the Bird's-eye Primrose, bnt the seedlings Bhow 

 no tendency to approach the larger and looser P. farinosa, and Mr. 

 Syme, who has carefully observed the living plant both in a wild state 

 and cultivated in his own garden, declares it to be 'perfectly distinct.' 

 The leaves are very powdery on the under side, broadest near the 

 middle, shorter and less indented than those of P. farinosa, which are 

 broadest near the end ; and the whole plant is about large enough to 

 associate with a dwarf moss or lichen. It is rather difficult to obtain, 



unless one has an opportunity of getting it from its native localities 

 in Scotland ; bnt it can be had from several English and Scotch 

 nurserymen who cultivate such subjects. A native of the counties of 

 Sutherland and Caithness, and of the Orkney Isles, growing in damp 

 pastures. The best place to select for its cultivation is on a properly 

 made rockwork in some spot where it would have perfect drainage, 

 and not be injured by strong-growing subjects shading it. The soil 

 should be a friable loam, mixed with sandy peat or a little cocoa-fibre, 

 and made perfectly firm. If placed on the level ground or on a raised 

 border, a few pieces of broken porous rock should be placed firmly in 

 the ground around it, so as to show half their size above the surface, 

 prevent evaporation, and also act as a guard to the very diminutive 

 plant ; and the same plan might be followed to some extent on a rock- 

 work. If a coating of dwarf moss is spread over the earth after a time, 

 I should not remove it, believing the tiny plant to enjoy such a carpet, 

 whether grown in pots or the open air. Although so small, it is, when 

 in health, a vigorous Lilliputian, and seeds very freely, the self-Bown 

 seedlings having often formed with me good plants on the mossy sur- 

 face of the ground or pots. I have grown it in the open air in the 

 suburbs of London ; but as a rule it is best for all who do not try it in 

 a pure atmosphere to grow it in well-drained pots or panB, using the 

 same kind of soil, and protecting the plants in a cool shallow frame in 

 winter, placing the pots out of doors in summer plunged in coal ashes 

 or sand. In all cases the plant should be abundantly watered in dry 

 weather, whether in spring, summer, or autumn. Easily propagated 

 by seeds, which should be sown soon after they are ripe in shallow 

 pans of sandy peat or fibrous loam mixed with cocoa-fibre, and placed 

 in an open pit or shallow cold frame." 



Pruning Raspberries. — At a recent meeting of the Wisconsin 

 Horticultural Society, Mr. McAffee gave the following as his 

 method of pruning Raspberries : — When the young Raspberry 

 shoots are 8 inches high, pinch out the terminal buds, leaving 

 only three or four shoots to each stool. When the laterals are 

 grown 1 foot, pinch in again, then allow them to grow the rest 

 of the season. Next spring cut to within 1 foot of the last 

 pinching, and stake with small stakes. The pinching and 

 pruning make the stalk woody and lusty, and the plants yield 

 about twice as much as if treated in the common way. 



LADY COWS. 

 To-day (March 30th), being bright and sunny, I was quite 

 surprised to see the multitudes of these pretty insects on some 

 of the shrubs on my lawn. They literally almost covered some 

 of the bushes. The first plant on which I observed them was 

 a Thuja aurea, and, as it was almost covered by them, I went 

 round to see if they were equally numerous on the other trees. 

 I was very much interested to find that there were few to be 

 seen on the green shrubs, whilst all the Golden Yews and 

 Golden Arbor- Vitoss were almost scarlet with them, and a good 

 many were to be seen on a gold-edged Box. Is this not an 

 instance of that instinct which induces a hare to make her seat 

 in a brown tussock ? I never remember to have seen so many 

 of these useful insects before, though they were very numerous 

 laBt season. It ib to be hoped the green aphis will have a bad 

 time of it this summer. — J. R. Pearson, Chilwell. 



MAKING CHARCOAL FOR FUEL. 



[In answer to " Supremely Ignorant " (a confession of self- 

 knowledge rarely made), we reprint the following.] 



My practice is to commence by taking a sufficient quantity of 

 split wood that will easily ignite on the application of fire, and 

 with a sharp instrument cut it into lengths varying from about 

 3 to 9 inches. I then place it in a dry shed until I have pre- 

 pared the whole of the wood which is to be burnt into charcoal 

 at one time, and to preserve it from being wet ; for the drier it 

 is kept the sooner it will take fire when the whole is piled for 

 burning. Attention to this will save much trouble, and probably 

 partial failure in the operation. 



The quantity of dry wood to be prepared will depend upon 

 the size of the heap when ready for being set lire to. A heap 

 that measures about 4 feet in diameter at the base, and from 

 4J to 5 feet high in the centre, will require a quantity sufficient 

 to form in the centre of it a circular heap about 18 inches 

 through at the base, and 12 inches high in the centre. 



Charcoal is generally made, on a large scale, of the boughs 

 of trees that have been cut down for sale, or of the underwood 

 and prunings of trees that abound occasionally on the estates 

 of landed proprietors. The wood should be as firm as can be 

 obtained, and as free from sap as possible ; but if it cannot be 

 had of this kind, take the best at command, and cut it also 



