14 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t January 7, 1869. 



choose one Dutch Sweetwater, cue Bockland Sweetwater, one Royal 

 Muscadine, one White FrontiKnan, one Golden Champion, one Muscat 

 Hamburgh, two Trentbam Bbick, and four Black Hamburgbs. For the 

 late house— two Muscat of Alexandria, two Bowood Muscat, one Groa 

 Guillaume, two Lady Downe's, two Trebbiano, ono Weat'a St. Peter's, 

 one Morocco, and one Mrs. Pince's Black Muscat. 



M09CAT OF Alexandhia Vine in a Pot (Novice).— We would plant 

 the Vine in the inside border at once, taking the ball out of the pot, 

 breaking the ball carefully so as to disentangle the roots, and spread 

 them out carefully 8 inches or so from the surface. We would supply 

 with water at 120-, mulch the surface to keep the heat in, cut back the 

 rod to within 2 or S feet of the ground, and as soon as the buds swell 

 remove them all except the two nearest the point. As these push, shortsn 

 one and allow the other to gi-ow. By allowing your strong cane, with 

 Hue buds near the point, to remain at nearly its present length, you 

 might have some bunches nest season, but most likely these would tell 

 on the Vine injuriously afterwards. 



Vines for Vinery and in Pots (Experimenter).— Yotit two small 

 Golden Champion Vines we would plant now. provided you can keep the 

 p-ound warm and rather dry afterwards; if not, defyr it until March. 

 See advice to another correspondent. Prune back the Vine, so as to 

 have the necessary height inside the house, and after cutting rub off 

 the buds beneath the cut. except one or two to take the whole of the 

 vigour of the Vine. The Vines in 12 -inch pots, which you wish to fruit 

 next summer, should not be repotted now, but you can top-dross the soil 

 in the pots, and may also widen the hole in the bottom, and set the pots 

 in a border, or on another pot filled with good soil. Those you are to 

 plant in a vinery may be cut down at the necessary height, and you can 

 take what shoots from them you consider necessary. 



Boiler (Miss If.).— Have the saddlc-boilcr of cast iron, it is more 

 durable than wrought iron. 



Culture of Ginger {J. X.).— Grow Ginger much as you would do ono 

 of the Cannas. A shallow box, about 6 inches deep, we should approve 

 of, placing the roots about 3 inches beneath the surface, and givint,' a 

 rough sweettop-dressiug when the shoots were 6 inches in height. Plenty 

 of heat and moisture are necessary when the plant is growing, and the 

 water must be lessened as the leaves exhibit signs of decay. The roots 

 make a very excellent preserve, and are best kept in a dry dormant state 

 in the box, and much cooler, until fresh planted about February. We 

 cannot say where you can find roots for planting ; most likely our prin- 

 cipal nurserymen could supply you. A late friend of ours used to grow 

 it largely for presei-ving, but we cannot recollect of one who does so now. 

 We have tasted the preserved Ginger, and it seemed to us an almost un- 

 approftched luxury, but wo do not know the details of placing in syrup, Ac. 



Glazing a Greenhouse with 3-iNcn Laps (Nel8on).~'We know no 

 remedy except reglaziug. We do not thiuU, however, that you will have 

 a greater chance of breakage if your laps are rather close. You object 

 to puttying the laps, but ere long" the dust, (fee, will accumulate, and will 

 thus makeaS-inch dark place at every lap. One-eighth of an inch is a 

 general lap. Ere long we shall have sheet-glazing and no lap. Have we 

 read your writing aright ? Even a 1-inch lap wo should consider quite 

 out of the way. 



Various (J<ifm) —The bit of plant is, we presume, the Veronica spe- 

 ciosa variegata. It is easily cultivated in peat and loam, and will need a 

 cool greenhouse from October to April. The piece marked B is an 

 Azalea, as far as we can judge of the Variegata section, and is troubled, 

 we fear, with thripa. for which you must smoke and syringe. C looks 

 lilie the leaf of a Maranta, but a scrap of leaf will not enable us to 

 name plants. D, the CameUia leaf, is blotched and burned either by 



soars in the glass, by drip from rusty iron, or from condensed moisture 

 and a powerful sun. You need not thin the buds if they have room to 

 expand. Weak manure water will help them. 



Width of Fruit Wall Coping (A Subirriber}.—A\l copings to walls 

 that project more than 3 or 4 inches are injurious in summer. We have 

 little faith in copings alone as a protection against frost in spring, unless 

 from 15 to 18 inches wide, and these should be removed when all danger 

 from frost is over. Iron brackets, with screws to fasten the wooden 

 copings to, answer well, and the copiags will last many years if put away 

 when not needed. 



Flus-heating a Greenhouse (County Cork).— For a house 20 by 

 12, by 12, a flue 9 inches wide, outside measure, and formed at the sides 

 with two bricks on edge, and covered with a 9-iQch tile, would do. If 

 you use 9-inch earthenware tiles instead of brick, use brick for 2 yards 

 from the furnace. The bars of the furnace should be from 18 to 

 20 inches below the bottom of the flue. We should like the flue round, 

 as you propose. A furnace 2i feet long would be ample ; the half of that 

 length in the middle would do for the bars. As your house is small it 

 might be as well to use all brick, but the earthenware pipes answer well 

 enough when it is not required to make them very hot, so as to incur the 

 risk of cracking them. 



Csbysanthemcjis this Season (A Lady in Cheshire).— Tho Chrysan- 

 themums generally have lasted in bloom a sliort-^r time than usual. 

 Such dull wet weather is provocative of mildew. The chief preventives 

 are plenty of free air, good drainage, and enough of water. 



Liliobi aubatum (W. a. O.). — We would top-dress the soil in the pot 

 of LUium with rich compost, and not repot for another year. If your 

 Gesnera is fibrous-rooted it wants similar treatment. 



Peziza coccinea.— *' J. E., Tivifford" wishes for some information 

 about the pretty scarlet fungus, *' Peziza coccinoi,"' which grows on dead 

 sticks. Sticks with the fungus growing on them have been put in pots, 

 and kept damp and in a shady place all the summer, in hopes of its 

 appearing in great beauty next winter, but with bad saccesa. Any in- 

 formation will oblige. 



Notice of Discharge {D. M.). — If you were paid your wages weekly 

 you could not legally claim more than a wi^ek's notice. You would be 

 liable to legal penalties if you cut down trees which you bail planted. An 

 employer refusing to give a character has an aspect so damaging that 

 you had better state the fact to your previous employer, perhaps ho will 

 again write what he said of you. Leave your place quietly, and^ stifle all 

 suggestions of resentment. 



Various (X.X.X.).~li is quite impossible for us to answer such a 

 multitude of questions. For twenty postage stamps sent with your 

 address you can have the " Garden Manual " free by post fr^jm our office. 

 It contains the information you need about Onions, Laeks, Gooseberries, 

 &r. Rivers' " Miniature Fruit Garden," Pearson '■ On the Orchard House," 

 " Plans of Flower Gardens," &c., can all be had from our oai:e,and ooq* 

 tain most of what you require. 



Names of Plants (Anxious).— Youx Fern i3 Adiantum cuneatnm.or 

 Wedge-leaved Maiden-hair. (W. Moornian,). — We cannot i'dentify plants 

 merely by their leaves. (A Young Bfjinner}. — Phal.X'QOpsis 8chilleriaaa. 

 Your plant must be very beautiful, but in number of flowers has been 

 surpassed. (■/. S. 8 , NantuHch}.—The P in sounded. Your Fern is Phy- 

 matodes Billardieri. (N. E. .4.).— Pteris tretnul;v. /•/. H. r.).~l, Cym- 

 bidium sineose ; 2, Maxillaria, apparently allied to M. picta. (.H. B.). — 

 Seeds of a Baubinta, the species not c jrtiia. S iw in a stove. (Anna 

 Harrison). — A garden variety of Bouvardia, wj belieye B. delicata. 

 [J. Lister). — Sedum carneum variegatum of gardens. 



METEOROLOGICAIi OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the week ending January 5th. 



POTJITRY, BEE. AND PIGEON CHRONICLE. 



WHAT HAS BEEN AND IS TO BE DONE. 



TnEKE was sometbiug kiudly and hearty in the old style nf 

 beginning an epistle of any kind by sending "greeting." We 

 cannot do better than imitate it. 



We this day issue our first number in 1869. Friends— 

 Bubscribers, readers, advertisers, contributors — we greet you 

 heartily. After, in accordance with our usual custom, ex- 

 pressing our gratitude that we have been spared to offer again 

 our remarks on the past twelve months to an increasing num- 

 ber of readers, we have to congratulate ourselves that when we 

 address our friends we believe we leave out none with whom 

 we have to do. We desire to augment the number. Wherever 

 two parties are concerned we have always made it our study to 

 hold the balance evenly. In the words of some of our old 

 City charters, " To be biassed neither by fear, favour, or 



affection ; to present no man from malice, but to do our duty 

 as good and faithful " journalists "should do." We are glad 

 to say we believe we have succeeded — %n increased, and in- 

 creasing, circulation is our test and reward. We can sit down 

 and speak gratefully to all ; we are reaping the reward for no 

 small anxiety and labour, and are gliding along the smooth 

 waters of ease, having long left the turbulent and agitated 

 waves of our early years behind us. We do not write thus 

 without recollecting we owe this to those whom we are ad- 

 dressing, and we mention it that we miy thank them for it. 



Shows have increased in number in the past year. An 

 agricultural meeting is hardly complete without poultry. T bis 

 fact affords us great pleasure. It is as it should be. _ The 

 surplus stock of amateurs will not do much towards feeding a 

 nation, but if all the available redOu^l;e^ for breeding poultry 

 possessed by the agriculturists were put in action, an amount 

 of food would be produced that would create astonishment. 

 Not only would the food be increased, bat the capital of the 

 country would be similarly acted upon. It is not our province 



