Jifiy 2S, 186a 1 



JOUBNAIi OF HOBTICULTUKB AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



87 



the best dish of PreaiJent and Sir .). Paxton at the same time. 

 The plantB were grown under exactly the same circumstances. 



Aa I detailed fully my method of culture in the Number for 

 July ISth, 1307, I will only add, that I liave Lmnd Black 

 Priuco to he the best for early forcing up to the lat of February, 

 at which date I introdiioo Sir J. Paxton, followed by any of the 

 other varieties which I iiave named, and this season I had not 

 a single " blind" plant. I commence to pick from the orchard 

 house and ground vineries three weeks before any berries are 

 gathered out of doors. 



The following varieties are well adapted for orohard-honge 

 cultivation, and rijiened their fruit in the order in which they 

 are named— viz.. First, Sir J. Paxton, President, one of the 

 best for pot culture in the orchard hou?e ; Premier, Sir Harry, 

 British Q neeu, Li Constante, and Dr. Hogg. The last named 

 was the last to ripen, but La Constante continued longest. I 

 gathered a dish of that variety after all the others were done. 

 -1 would again recommend ground vineries for obtaining a few 

 dishes of early fruit. They are of the simplest construction 

 and any carpenter could make them from a pattern, or from 

 information which has already appeared in your columns. — 



J. DOOGLAS. 



APRICOTS. 



Juhl IGlh. — For the last fortnight we have been quite satiated 

 with Apricots, the crop being so abundant, and the hot weather 

 ripening them so rapidly, for even the Peach Apricot is now 

 ripe. Besides my old trees, which have been crowded with 

 fmit, I have had pome twenty or thirty seedling trees five or 

 six years old full of fruit. As many of these are from early 

 kinds much interest was felt in them; but although no two are 

 alike, and all liave given rich and juicy fruit, no very early 

 sort, except, perhaps, one, has proved superior to such sorts as 

 the Early Moorpark and the Oullins Early Peach. It seems, 

 indeed, as if the very early Apricots produce from seed sorts of 

 fk contrary nature, for the Sardinian, the earliest of all, the 

 Mnsch Musch, nearly as early and of the same race, having 

 nearly white flesh, and the St. Ambroise, have all produced 

 seedlings giving fruit inclined to ripen later than any other 

 kinds. lu particular, a seedling from the Sardinian has fruit 

 four times the size of those given by the parent tree, of the 

 same cream colour with white flesh, and, stranger than all, 

 ripening from four to five weeks later than its parent. 



Another variation from the usual routine of nice juicy Apri- 

 OOts, which all the seedlings seem to give, is one about the size 

 of a medium-sized Orleans Plum — a lump of sugar and delicious 

 mouthful, with a slight pine-apple flavour. It will, I think, 

 require long perseverance to raise valuable kinds of Apricots 

 from seed and a sort of breeding in continuation, by which I 

 mean taking a variety and sowing the stones from generation 

 to generation till some kind distinct in its character is pro- 

 duced ; which I may exemplify by stating that I shall continue 

 the race of my late seedling Sardinian Apricot, and when the 

 trees raised from it produce fruit I will sow their stones, and so 

 on from eaih generation. This I am inclined to call breeding 

 in continuation (perhaiis a better term may be found) ; and 

 from an inclination I have seen in varieties of fruit raised from 

 seed to revert partially to the characters of the first parent, 

 I have some hope of raising a very distinct kind of Apricot 

 with large fruit ripening very early in the season, and in other 

 instances producing a very late variety. There is no hope of 

 raising better midseason varieties than the Peach and Moor- 

 PArk, because they are perfect. 



I may, perhaps, be excused for stating how to eat these sorts 

 in perfection. When gathered from trees under glass they 

 should be suffered to hang on the tree till the skin is slightly 

 puckered and ihe fruit drooping from thestalk — if then gathered, 

 and, to quote old Izaak Walton, " handled gently as if you | 

 Ipyed " it, a Peach Apricot is the most perfect of all fruits, 

 BO rich, so melting, and so juicy. 



In addition to the large crop of Apricots from trees in pots, 

 Xha^e had such an abundant one from two trees planted out 

 in the hard unstirred border of one of my orchard houses, that 

 it has led me into n little speculation of what can be done in 

 Apiioot culture. One of these trees is the lloyal Apricot, a 

 half-standard, the other the Peach Apricot, with a stem a little 

 nnder 6 feet in height. The former ripened its fruit about the 

 10th inst., the latter is just now ripening its crop of fine fruit. 

 The first produced a peck, the latter will give a peck and a 

 garter or thereabouts. A house of the size in which these 

 trees are growing, 100 feet by 24, will hold three rows of trees 

 — one row of standards in the centre, and two rows of half- 



standards in the side borders at .5 feet apart— a total of sixt^r 

 trees. The heads of snch trees will recjuire careful summer- 

 pincbing, or their branches will become nuked at foot and apt 

 to be broken down with the weiglit of fruit. The trees thus 

 managed will have sufficinnt room at !> feet apart for eight or 

 ten years, till they are cajiablo of bearing from three to five 

 pecks each. Every alternate tree may then be rernnved, and 

 the others still under summer-piaching will bear from one to 

 two bushels per tree. 1 should add that till the standard trees 

 come into full bearing large quantities of fruit may bo grown 

 on trees in pots placed among the standards. 



A house for Apricot culture on standards and halfstandjirda 

 planted in the borders should be C feet high at the sides and 

 15 feet high in the centre. If any of your readers would like 

 to see the commencement of a method of Apricot culture likely 

 to be very profitable they are most welcome. — T. Eivjsks. 



THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY'S 

 LEICESTER SHOW.— July 16tu to 22nd. 



The great provincial Show of this Society, held in conjunc- 

 tion with that of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 

 had this year for its scene the ancient and busy town of Luices- 

 ter. On the south side of the town a space of five iierts adjoining 

 the Agricultural showyard was set apart for the Horticultural 

 Show, and on it five immense tents served to contain one of the 

 most extensive displays of flowers and fruit ever witnessed ia 

 this country ; for although some of the suhjeots of exhibition 

 were not so fino as we have seen them before, it mutt be re- 

 membered that the extreme heat of the season has necessarily 

 shortened the duration, and detracted much from the freshness 

 of floral beauty. To compensate for this drawback, however, 

 there were magnificent fine-foliaged plants in abuudanoe, and- 

 multitudes of graceful Ferns, most refreshing to the eye,, 

 wearied by the constant glare of a burning sun. Leaving^. 

 however, the details of exhibition to the subjoined full reports, 

 and in the absence of precise information as to the number of 

 visitors which thronged the Show in the latter days, we cat? 

 only state our belief that the great Show which has just closed 

 will prove one of the greatest successes financially, as it was 

 horticultnrally, that the Society has yet obtained, and that it 

 will demonstrate that the holding of provincial exhibitions 

 from year to year is one of the best mod^s of increasing the 

 love of horticulture, and extending the Society's i.ifluence and 

 benefits. 



Stovf,, Greenhouse, and Fine-folliged Plants. — Many of th.e 

 iine-tlowering specimeng usually exhibited earlier in tho snmioer are 

 now ont of bloom, and those not 60 could not, after snch a long con- 

 tinuance of hot dry weather, be expected to po:?sess that freshness 

 which uudi-T other circuuistnnces they would bayo doun ; still these, 

 with some reinforcements from later-tlowering plants, made an e.^cellent 

 tlisplay, which was all tlie more effective from then* being for. the most 

 part gi'onped with fine-foliaged plants. 



The two collections which competed for the principal prize in tihif? 

 division — namely, the Koy.al Horticultural Society's special prize ,of 

 £'25 for the beat and most eiTective group of ten iiue-futiiigcd and ten 

 flowering plants, were arranged in the centre of the large round tent. 

 They came from Mr. Baiues, gardener to H. Micholls, Esq.. BowJon, 

 Cheshire, and i\Ir. Wilhams, of HoUoway. the former being the prize- 

 taker. Of tioweriug plants Mr. Baines bad very good examples of 

 Genetyllis tuhpifera, Ixora coccinea, Phcenocoma prolifera Barnesii^ 

 Apheleses, a Dipladenia and Allamanda, aud Erica tricolor Holfordii, 

 Caudolleana, aud Fairrieaua, all three in very good bloom, but exhi- 

 bitiu.g much tyiusj. His tine-foliaged plants cousist^l of handsome 

 specimens of Gleichenia flabellata, libopala corcovatlense, and Croton, 

 angnstifohnm, a tnbfol of Sarraceuia purpurea, probably puequalled 

 in this country, and certainly such as only Mr. Baiues has eshibitedi 

 Sarraccnia tlava, Verscbaffcltia splemlida, one of the noblest of all the 

 Palms, Diclisonia autarctica. witb a thick trunk and peudnlons head, . 

 Cordyline indivisa, Basyliriou acrotrichum, aud TUeophrasta imppri- 

 alis. The collection of Mr. Williams, which was awarded a secoQds 

 prize, contained, many remarkably tine specimens, and ran that o/'" 

 Mr. Baines closely. In it were AUamauda Aubletia with lar,'?e flower* 

 of a more inteuse yellow thau those of either A. ScLottii or grandiHora, 

 the large- flowered Allamnuda Ileudersoni, Diplatituia iras-sinoda, Ka- 

 losauthea Phoenix, a showy mass of rosy ecarlet bloom ; a finejyi 

 bloomed plant of the white-flowered Erica obbata, Pheenoijoma pr6- 

 lifera, Statice imbricata. Erica Cavendisbii, Dracopbvlluin gracile, 

 dingy, like all the other specimens of the same plant which were exhi- 

 bited. The fiue-foliaged jilauts in tliis collection consisted of noble 

 specimens of Dr.icffina iudivisa, Caladium Lowii with its metallic- 

 looking leaves beantifally veiued witb white, the variegated New Zea- 

 land Flax, Dasybrion plumosura, the leaves of which are shred at • 

 their extremities into a sort of small plume; Croton fiu.iznstifolinai.s 

 and Tari«gatnm, Dion ednle, Pandanus atilis, a|;d-the larjeg^tefl Aloe- .: 



