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JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Jane 30, 1870. 



should be allowed to dry off gradually, under the influence of 

 the sun, for the space of two or three months, so that the 

 roots may get well ripened. Early in autumn they should be 

 shaken out of the pots, removing all the small stems and saving 

 only the larger ones for potting as occasion may require. When 

 they have been thus prepared, they may be potted singly or 

 otherwise, as before mentioned. A compost of decomposed 

 turfy loam, with a good proportion of cow dung and a little 

 sand, will be found to answer well. Before they have been 

 potted, they may be removed to a frame or pit to be gradually 

 kept moving in growth till the season of flowering comes [again 

 in the early spring. The Richardia should not be potted too 

 firmly, and care should be taken to have the plants secured 

 from injury by frost. If it is required to bloom earlier than 

 usual, it may be subjected to a gentle heat. — (The Gardener.) 



DESTROYING INSECTS BY SOFT SOAP. 



In reference to the letter on the virtues of soft soap in your 

 last number, it may interest your readers to learn my ex- 

 perience of them. On setting-up an orchard house last year, I 

 was immediately invaded by a swarm of aphide3 whilst the 

 trees were yet in bloom. I employed in succession all the 

 orthodox nostrums. I smoked the house, I smoked the plants 

 nnder little tents, I used quassia water a la Rivers, then most 

 deadly of all (to the plants) Gishurst, and lastly I smothered 

 everything in hellebore. The enemy thriving under this per- 

 secution, I began to despair of Peaches, and to think of falling 

 back upon Pears ; but as a last chance, I laid in a stock of 

 Poole's insecticide and Clarke's compound, but in a lucky mo- 

 ment before 1 had time to broach these abominations, I got a 

 hint that soft soap well diluted and laid on with a syringe 

 would prove effectual. I tried it hopelessly, and the effect was 

 magical ; in three days the green fly vanished from the Peaches 

 for ever, and in a week the Plums, every leaf of which was 

 curled into a little fortress, strongly garrisoned by the blue 

 aphid, were thoroughly purified. During the rest of the season, 

 whenever an occasional brown or black aphid made its appear- 

 ance it was easily suppressed, and I even saved a part of the 

 crop of Peaches, though several trees had suffered terribly 

 from the medicines. This year it was not till a few days ago, 

 after discontinuing the soft soap for many weeks, that I dis- 

 covered on a Peach a single specimen of the green fly. My 

 custom is to keep a pail (unpainted) of the solution, 2 ozs. to 

 the gallon, standing in the house, and on the first appearance 

 of honeydew, or other indication of danger, to apply a syringe- 

 full to each side of the tree, taking care to wet every leaf. 

 Nothing more is needed. When the enemy has been allowed 

 to occupy a tree in force, syringe strongly with clean water to 

 wash off the adults, and then apply the soft soap gently as 

 before ; this do three days in succession. In winter I dispense 

 with all paintings and sulphurings, and simply apply the soft 

 soap as before, but of double strength, as soon as the leaf has 

 fallen, and again shortly before blooming; and as soon as the 

 fruit is set, a good washing with the weak solution will make 

 all safe, and greatly improve the look of the foliage. The 

 solution used by the Hop-growers would destroy Peaches, 

 whose leaves are apt to fall under the influence of even 4 ozs. to 

 the gallon, and for delicate Pelargonium cuttings, half rooted, 

 2 oza. is too strong, unless soon washed off with fresh water. 

 After all, I am not sure that the soft soap has any poisonous 

 virtue. I half think that the enemy is rather drowned than 

 poisoned, the soft soap insuring the thorough wetting of every 

 leaf, from which clean water runs as off a duck's back. 



Now can you tell me how to sow Peach stones next month 

 nnder glass ? In what sized pots ? How deep ? Will they come 

 up this season ? What winter treatment should they have ? 

 Should they be planted out in the spring ? or potted in the 

 orchard house ? Also, is there any objection, and what, to 

 planting young Vines in an inside border in September ? [No 

 objection. ] — Annandale . 



Edible Fungi. — The Woolhope Naturalists' Club, which has 

 its head quarters at Hereford, is doing, amongst other valuable 

 scientific work, real good to the country, by investigating the 

 edible fungi of Herefordshire and the neighbouring counties. 

 An annual dinner is held at the proper season, when every 

 possible variety of fungus is experimented on, from the fungus 

 pure and simple to the fungus hashed, curried, or dressed with 

 sauce a Vagarious. Bach member is bound by the oath of the 

 club to taste every specimen ; and it is a point of honour with 



them that, whatever untoward consequences may have arisen 

 from too incautious feeding on Fistulina hepatica, they must 

 endure their indisposition with Spartan fortitude. At a recent 

 meeting at Hereford, four new specimens were recorded, one of 

 which, discovered by Dr. Bull, was entirely new to Britain. 

 Although harmless, the new arrivals are no great acquisitions 

 to the fungus cookery book, being exceedingly woody in taste. 

 — (Food Journal.) 



RED-LEADING SEEDS. 



In your number of June 2nd I read in " Doings of Last 

 Week " the following : — " Something better than a monument 

 should be awarded to the man who first practised red-leading 

 seeds." If any honour can be attached to that discovery, I 

 think I can fairly and honestly claim it. It is now sixteen 

 years since, after having sown a quantity of Beans in the 

 neighbourhood of a rookery, I was much annoyed by the 

 gentlemen in black abstracting the seeds even before these had 

 vegetated. Knowing the poisonous nature of red lead, I re- 

 placed those taken by some treated as follows : — A quantity of 

 seed was put into a box with just as much linseed oil as, when 

 the Beans were well shaken together, gave them a slight coating 

 of oil ; I then added] a quantity of dry red lead, gave another 

 good shaking, and the process was complete. The rooks tried 

 a few, but left them on the surface. I have ever since dressed 

 Beans, Peas, Cabbages, Radishes, and other seeds usually taken 

 by birds and mice. 



I see you recommend the seed to be wetted, in order that the 

 red lead may adhere, but oil is far preferable, inasmuch as 

 under some circumstances Beans and Peas decay before they 

 vegetate, which the oil prevents. — Joseph Bukgess, Knutsford, 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 



The June meeting f the Society -was held at Burlington House on 

 the Gth inst., the President Mr. A. R. Wallace, in the cbair. An 

 extensive series of donations of entomological publications to the 

 Society's library from the Royal, Linnean, Zoological, and other 

 Societies was announced, including also a fine work by Professor 

 Thorell, published at Upsala, in the English language, containing a 

 very valuable memoir on the Spiders of Scandinavia. 



Mr. MacLachlan exhibited a curious specimen of Brachycentris 

 subnubilus (ono of the Ephemeridfe), having the head and left an- 

 terior wing of the female, whilst the whole of the remainder of tho 

 body was male. Mr. Dunning exhibited a small silk cocoon, from 

 North China, the caterpillar of which had fed on the Evergreen Oak, 

 although it proved to be very close to tho Ailanthns species (Satuxnia 

 Cynthia), of which it was probably a geographical or phytophagic 

 variety. Dr. Wallace mentioned the curious fact that a male hybrid 

 silk moth between Yama-mai and Pernyi, had paired with a female 

 Yania-niai. He also stated that an interesting series of experiments 

 on silk culture, especially with Bombyx Mori, were now in progress 

 at the South Kensington Museum. 



Mr. Warwick King exhibited a collection of insects from Tndela, 

 and the Drachenborg Mountain, Natal ; and two cases of Butterflies, 

 sent to the Society by Mr. Henry Ausell, from Kinsembo, South-west 

 Africa, were also exhibited. Mr. S. Stevens exhibited some living 

 specimens of Scaraba-ns semipunctatns, one of the species of Sacred 

 Beetles, from Venice. Mr. A. Miiller exhibited some stems of 

 Juniper bushes with large swellings, supposed to have been caused 

 either by a Sesia or Grapholitha, two genera of Moths. 



Major Mann exhibited an extensive series of drawings and speci- 

 mens illustrating tho economy of the common hive Bee, which he 

 described at great length, contending that many of the statements put 

 forward on the subject in popular works, such as Samuelson's " Honey 

 Bee," and Dr. Cumming's work on the same subject, were fallacious, 

 and considering amongst various other matters, that the queen bee ig 

 impregnated more than once ; that the larva? are not fed by the mouth, 

 but increase in size by endosmosis ; and that the queen larva grows by 

 absorption of honey poured over its body, and on which its back rests, 

 as upon a hotbed ; that the food of the larv:e consists of digested pollen 

 and saccharine matter ; that there is no anal opening in the larva until 

 the last day of its existence in that state, and that the caps by which 

 the cells are covered on the larva assuming the pupa state, are made 

 by the larva) and not by the worker bees. 



Mr. A. G. Butler read some notes on the possible identity of 

 Argynnis Niobo and Arlippe ; and the continuation of a Memoir by 

 Mr. Crotch, on " The Genera of Coleoptera studied chronologically, '* 

 was also read. 



SONG BIRDS IN FRANCE. 



I can most fully endorse what your correspondent " C." 

 says about the absence of song birds in France, for during a 

 sojourn of about three months in spring in various parts of that 

 country, the pleasure of my journey was greatly lessened by 



