June 16, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



429 



Roses and Strawberries (Upper Mill).— If your new field plot is in ■ fell into a greater error. ] 

 graaa,Jiave the top inch or two of sward pared off and pnt into a heap to | discussion upon a subject 



d written, as there is sufficient evidence t 

 The Pearmaiu, which is the oldest English App) 



roi. Earlier yon might have planted Potatoes without tho trouble of 

 paring. Your plan is very good. If yon can obtain Strawberry plants 

 now true to sort, plant them at once, destroy the blossoms, keep the string 

 cnt off, and water and attend to them throughout the summer, ami great 

 will be your reward. Ee careful never to destroy the surface rants; merely 

 scuffle the surface weed 3. The beet three in ray judgment aro Rivers's 

 Eliza, Frogniore Pine, and Dr. Hogg. These are very good—Wonderful, 

 Cockscomb, and Bicton White Pine. When I speak of a Rose or Straw- 

 berry as being the best, I mean taking all points into consideration. I 

 lay great stress on habit as well as flavour and crop. If you cannot obtain 

 the runners now, procure them as early as von can in the autumn. I 

 recommend you to hive Walnut Green and Whitesmith Gooseberries; 

 Fill-basket Red Raspberry ; Ogden's Black Currant ; Cox's < >ranue Pippin 

 Apple; Cherries— Early Lvous. Guigne ttes precoce, Earlv Fmguiore 

 Bigarreau, Bigoxreau Napoleon, Governor Wood, and the late Lirge Black 

 Bigarreau. Have them on the llahaleb stock ; they take up little more 

 room than a walking- stick. I will add a few of the best Pears :— Marie 

 Louise, Doyenne du Cornice, Bennv Superhu, Josephine de Alalines, 

 Dana's Hovey, Mario Louise d'Uccle, Benrre Hirdr, Beurre Diel, Berga- 

 motte d'Esperen, and Bourre d'Aremberg. The best earlv Pear is the 

 Summer Beurre d'Aremberg. The four climbing Roses at vour corners 

 should be Gloire de Dijon, Jules Margnttin, Baronne Prevost or Anna 

 Alexieff, and for dark crimson Pierre Notting or Empereur de Maroc. 

 Have them on the Manotti stock.— W. F. Radclvffe. 



Treatment of Pot Roses (Caroline).— We advise you to have the 

 pot Roses placed in an open situation, but not exposed, and plunged to 

 the rim in coal ashes, keeping them weU supplied with water, but not 

 very excessively, so as to make the soil sodden : and a sprinkling over- 

 head in the evenings of hot days will do good. This will be all the wash- 

 ing they will reqmre ; but should they be infested with green aphis, dust 

 them with snuff or tobacco powder, syringing them previously, and also 

 within, twenty- four hours after applying the snuff or tobacco powder. If 

 they have mildew, dust with flowers of sulphur. At the end of Septem- 

 ber have them fresh potted and placed in a warm, sunny situation, and 

 in November remove them to a cold pit, keeping them near the glass, and 

 admitting abundance of air, protecting, however, from frost. In January 

 they may be placed in the greenhouse— a position near the glass, light 

 and airy. Any pruning thev may need should be done when the plants 

 are taken into the house. Thev will grow and flower in due time, being 

 sprinkled overhead with water morning and evening on fine days, and 

 watered so as to keep the soil moist, none being given until the soil 

 becomes dry, then enough to show itself at the drainage. The waterings 

 ought to be done before the leaves flag. 



Roses (Flora 1 .— Ah you say Messrs. Backhouse introduced Rosa alpina 

 pyrenaica, you had better write to them. We do not know where it can 

 be had in London. The " blight " on your Scotch Rose is an orange-red 

 parasitic fungus, Uredo effusa. Flowers of sulphur kiU it. 



Double White Pelargonium (J. A*.).— We have never seen a double 

 white Pelargonium, and there is none soch in commerce. 



Vine Leaves Browned (G.J/.).— We can offer no further solution of the 

 cause of the scalded appearance of the leaves. Perhaps leaving the Vine 

 so exposed at night might have something to do with it, if the sun was 

 bright early in the morning. We are unwilling to ascribe such things to 

 a disease we know nothing about, as in the case of the Cucumber and 

 the Potato, until forced to do so. It is impossible to name the hardy 

 Pine3 by a sprig and a couple of leaves. From the leaves we should 

 judge your plant to be Pinua Mitis or Pinaster. The mass of catkin-like 

 inflorescence on the young shoot are the male flowers. The females are 

 open ovules collected in cones, which generally appear near the points of 

 last year's shoots. The female part will always be found in the cones. 



Removing Strawberry Runners (St. Bridget}.— -When runners of 

 Strawberry plants are not wanted, and there is plenty of root-growth, and 

 time can be given, it is preferable to cut them away as they appear. You 

 are so far fortunate in having them come when the plants are in bloom. 

 We have plenty taking their last swelling, and yet showing no runners. 



Peaches Spotted (Doncatter).— The fruit is spotted with mildew 

 Your best plan will be to give a gentle syringing, and whilst the fruit and 

 leaves are wet dust them with flowers of sulphur ; and we would advise a 

 good watering to be jjiven at the roots, and a go j.l syringing on the even- 

 ings of hot days until the fruit begins to ripen. If the mildew reappear, 

 dust with flowers of sulphur, omiuing the syringing for a few days. 



Grubs in Onions (A Constant Reader. Worabro*).— They are the maggots 

 produced from the eggs of the Onion fly, Anthomyia ceparum. There is 

 no cure. Every young Onion as it turns yellow should be pulled up and 

 burnt. The grub varies from about a quarter to half an inch long, is 

 fleshy, shining, whitish, cylindrical, tapering from the head to the tail, 

 and divided into twelve segments. The pores through which it breathes 

 are yellow, and in the first segment. In about three weeks from the 

 time of being hatched it changes into a chestnut-coloured, oval pupa- 

 rium, or case, within which is the real pupa. From this, in about a fort- 

 night, the perfect fly comes forth. This is the female, and is entirely of 

 a pale ashy colour, covered with black bristles. The male has a black 

 line down the middle of the abdomen. The antennae and legs are black ; 

 the wings are transparent, almost colourless, but irridescent pink and 

 green. The female inserts her eggs within the leaf sheaths of the Onion, 

 close to the ground. She continues to lay her eggs from May to Septem- 

 ber, producing several broods during that period. The latest brood 

 remains in the pupa state through the winter, so that all old, decaying 

 store Onions should be burnt as spring advances. The best preventive 

 of this grub is to sprinkle gas-lime between the rows of seedling Onions, 

 its fumes being offensive to the fly. It may be well, also, to try spread- 

 ing powdered charcoal among them in a similar way, for the fly is said to 

 deposit her eggs in this powder as readily as in the Onion plants. 



Do Varieties of the Apple Degenerate and Die out? (C. A. C). 

 — This is a disputed point. We will give extracts from works by advocates 

 of the opposite opinions. "The late President of tho London Horti- 

 cultural Society, T A. Knight, Esq., considered that the Golden Pippin, 

 and all the old varieties of English Apples, were in the last ^tage of decay, 

 and that a few years would witness their total extinction. This belief he 

 founded upon the degenerate state of these varieties in the Herefordshire 

 orchards, and also upon his theory that no variety of Apple will continue 

 to exist more than two hundred years. But that illustrious man never 



1 question will 

 i the allotted 

 Gulden Pippin of 



ould be needless to enter into any further 

 hich so much has already been 

 oufute that theory. 

 n record, shows no 

 of decay, neither does the Catshead". "London Pippin, Winter 

 Quoiuing, or any other variety; those only having been allowed to dis- 

 appear from our orchards which were not worth perpetuating, and their 

 places supplied by others infinitely superior. It is now considerably 

 upwards of half a century since this doctrine was first promulgated, and 

 though the old, exhausted, and diseased trees of the Herefordshire or- 

 chards, of which Mr. Knight spoke, together with their diseased progeny — 

 now that they have performed theirpnrt.and fulfilled the end of theirexist- 

 ence — may ere this have passed away, we have the Golden Pippin stiB, in 

 all the luxuriance of early youth, where it is found in a soil congenial to its 

 growth ; and exhibiting as little symptoms of decay as any of the varieties 

 which Mr.- Knight raised to supply the vacancy he expeeted it to create. 

 In tho Bromptou Park Xursery, where the same Golden Pippin has been 

 cultivated for nearly two centuries, and continued from year to year by 

 grafts taken from young trees in the nursery quarters, I never saw the 

 leaBt disposition to disease, canker, or decay of any kind ; but, on the 

 contrary, a free, vigorous, and healthy growth "—(Hogg's Pomology). "A 

 Pearmain Apple is mentioned in records as old as King John ia.d. 1205); 

 but the Pippin is not noticed by any authority earlier than the reign of 

 Henry VIII. (1509). Lambard mentions that Tenham in Kent, famous 

 for its Cherry gardens and Apple orchards, was the place where that 

 king's fruiterer first planted Cherries, Pippins, and the Golden Reinette. 

 Supposing, then, that the Golden Pippin of our davs is a genuine portion 

 of the Tenham trees, handed down to us by successive graftings, yet still, 

 it has not exceeded the age assigned by naturalists as that beyond which 

 I the life of tbe Apple does not extend. But then an 

 | arise — Supposing our Golden Pipp*n does appear to i 

 period, who will undertake to demonstrate that the 

 Tenham still exists ? It is quite certain that a majority of the Apple 

 which the title of Golden Pippin is claimed have no pretensions to the 

 | distinction, and more than ono old person with wboui it was once a 

 I favourite fruit, now declare that it is no longer obtainable. Be this as it 

 may, even if the variety in question has not departed, yet no organised 

 creature shall endure through all time. Grafting may postpone the 

 1 arrival of death, as the transfusion of blood will revive for a while the 

 sinking animal, but the postponement cannot be for a time indefinite : 

 the day must come in both the animal and the scion when its vessels 

 shall be without the energy to propel or to assimilate the vital fluid, 

 though afforded to it freni the most youthful and most vigorous source. 

 The scion maybe made to grow vigorously, but who will venture to assert 

 that the parent from which that scion was taken is existing, and can be 

 made to exist on its own roots through an infinity of years ? " — (Science 

 and Practice of Gardening.) 



Liliusi auratum (R. Walkinton).— We consider no time to be wrong 

 for purchasing this splendid Lily, as it can be had in a pot, but it can be 

 sent moresately from October to April than at any othertime, beinc then 

 inactive, or having no shoots liable to be broken. You may purchase a 

 flowering bulb for about 8s. Gd. 



Melons Infested with Insects (A. 0.).— We think it maybe thrips* 

 If so, fumigation with tobacco is the best remedy, and it will not injure 

 the plants if care be taken to deliver the smoke cool and to have the 

 foliage dry. Do not smoke excessively, and yet so effectually that a leaf 

 cannot be seen through the glass. Cover the lights with mats, so as to 

 keep in the smoke. 



Stopping Pot Vines (Idem).— The canes being now 12 feet long, we 

 should stop them, that being considerably more erne than you will re- 

 quire. The laterals may grow, stopping them, however, at the third 

 joint half way up the cane, then to two, and tho upper two or three we 

 would stop, and keep stopped, to one joint. The laterals may be reduced 

 when the growth ceases, taking them awny by degrees, but it must not 

 be done until the canes are beginning to ripen, or the principal buds may 

 start. The two Vines in the vinery with leaves scorched so that they 

 fall, will not, we think, afford fruit from the buds, the leaves of which 

 have fallen at this early season. 



SEsrpERvrvuii arboreum and tabul^forme Propagation (Fulleri)» 

 —They may be propagated from cuttings, these being laid by several days 

 until the cut parts heal, and then potted in sand, and placed in a house 

 a few degrees warmer than that in which they were grown. You may 

 divide the length of the -terns into as many parts as there can be with two 

 or three joints each, and if dried before insertion, so as to have the 

 wounds healed, they will root freely. But why not keep them until they 

 flower? You may then, probably, insure seed, and have some hundreds 

 of plants, besides a number of offsets, these affording the beat and safest 

 mode of increase. 



Cabbages Open or Heabted (Robert G.].— Sometimes an open-hearted 

 Cabbage—;' e., Colewort, is preferred for gentlemen's tables, but as a rule 

 a young, small, firm-hearted Cabbage is preferred, and such only in most 

 families are cared for, but we never knew an open-hearted, flabby-leaved 

 Cabbage meet with any favour from the cook. We agree with your con- 

 clusions— a crisp, close-hearted little Cabbage is far better than one that 

 is nothing but green leaves. 



Erratum.— In page 408, first column, eighth line, tho word " seldom" 

 is omitted before "escaping," the meaning **eing that the glandless- 

 leaved Peaches are much more liable to mildew than those with glands. 

 Although the context shows this, and the fact has been several times 

 noticed in our columns, this correction may prevent misapprehension. 



Australian Ferns (J. E. H.).— Grammitis heterophylla, Polypodium 

 attenuatum and Billardieri, N'otbochbeua MaraDUc, Niphobolns rupestris, 

 Loniariit falcata, Blechnuin striatum, Doodia. three species, Asple- 

 nium flabellifolium, C:enopteris, two species; Pteris tremula, Lindsaea, 

 several; Davallia, four or five; and several Gleicnenias. 



Insects (J. F. Sinclair).— Although we found no insects on your Beech 

 leaves, we believe that the small holes with which they aro riddled have 

 been gnawed by some small beetle, either a Haltica (allied to the Turnip 

 flea beetle), or Orchestes, a genus of small hopping weevils. The dis- 

 coloration of the leaves is caused by their having been mined by a 

 minute lepidopterous larva, which has eaten the parenchyma, and so 

 caused the two surfaces of the leaf to wither.— I. O. W. (Inquirer).— It 

 is the Privet hawk-moth, Sphinx Ligustii, not uncommon. 

 Names of Plants (J. F. S.).— Crataegus purpurea. (Kate).— Philadel- 



