August IS, 1866. 1 



JOOfiNAL or HOBTIODLTOBE AND COTTAGE GAfiDENER. 



119 



appears. To have efised the tree the fruit should have been removed 

 when the stoning was complete. The syriuRing may he ct)Dtinued until 

 the Pouches begin to ripen, and a good watering should then lie given, 

 and watering must ho coutiunod until tho fruit is ripe, then syringe for 

 a few days, but di^contimie doing so by tho middle of September. The 

 watering may cease when tho fruit is ripe. 



Protecting Peaches i-noM Wasps (Ki'w Forr.^t). — We have not found 

 anything etiual to tlio old plan of trapping thcMii iu soda-water bottles 

 about half lilled with boor sweotuned with troaclo. A nunil>fr of those 

 bottles suspended from tho wall by a string tied round the neck, will keep 

 th» wasps from the fruit, and Iho destruction of the nests is the best of 

 all reraed'es. You arc quite right as to covering the trees with hexagon 

 netting ; it docs impair to some degree the flavour of the fruit. 



Compost fou Fuchsias and Pelarooniums iA Lover of Flowern}.—A 

 compost of two-thirds loam from rotted turves, and one-third old cow 

 dang and leaf mould in cfjual iiuantitics, with a free admixture of shar]) 

 sand, will grow them well. The plants now in small pots should be potted 

 as soon as they reach tho sides of tho pots, and before they become 

 closely matted. Tho Pelargoniums should be repotted up to December, 

 and then shifted into their blooming pots if for an early bloom ; but if 

 intended for flowering in Juno the final shift may be given in February. 

 The shoots should be Ktoppcd and tied out, so as to produce good speci- 

 mens. The Fuchsias should be potted and kept slowly growing over the 

 winter, and be stopped frequently as required to secure good habit. 



Select Fuchsias (Wcih).— Queen of Whites, Diadem, Laurient Pal- 

 maerts, Hercules, Sunshine, War Eagle, Elegantissima, Rose of Denmark, 

 Enoch Arden, Banks's Beauty, Catherine Parr, Conquest, and Blanchette. 

 Select Pelargoniums (Idrm). — Show Faj-iefies— Belle of the Ball. 

 Charles Turner, William Hoyle, Selina, Mary Hoyle, Elegans, Lady of 

 Quality. Marian, Lord Canning, Conqueror, Beauty of Reading, and Golden 

 Hue. Fa/iL'!/— Clytie, Eleanor. Silver Mantle, ' Undine, Lndy Towers, 

 Enlalie, Godfrey Turner, Roi des Fantaisies, The Rover, Mrs. Turner, 

 First Favourite, and Delrcatum. French and English Spotted — Calypso, 

 Egarie, Gustave JIalet. Rubens, Margaret, Madame Charles Keteleer, 

 Victorine Pinguard, Numa, General Fleury, Celine Malet, Duchesse de 

 Momy, and Bert-nice. 



Pelabgoniums and Fuchsias Unhealthy {R. A. S.).— Yonr pump 

 water with which the drains communicate would have done no harm to 

 the plants if exposed for some hours in a tub before using it. The want 

 of water is, we presume, what has injured your plants on stands out of 

 doors. If the drought continue, we would advise taking them from the 

 stands and plunging the pots in earth and shading. 



Heating a Ssi^ll House Within a Conservatoet (S. J. B.). — There 

 is no objection whatever to the small house which you propose erecting 

 for Ferns, ^c, inside the lofty one, only we would advise you to have a 

 span-roof, if a foot or two higher, instead of the flat one, as the latter 

 will bo more apt to shower down condensed moisture on the plants. The 

 lamp will do for extra heat if the products of combustion go off. Are 

 there no other modes of securing additional heat ? How is the house 

 heated now, the large one? 



Floe-heated Pit fox Beddikg Plants (H. T.).— Ab a means of 

 lessening damp in winter it will be well to have tho bottom of your pit on 

 the level, or rather a little above the level of the surrounding ground. It 

 will be most convenient to have shding frame sashes. A good pitch for 

 lights, 7 feet by 4, would be to have the back wall Si feet in height, and 

 the front wall from 20 to 24 inches high. Tho above size would be good 

 for sashes. In such a pit we would like the flue round the wall instead 

 of along the centre of the pit, as that would interfere with your setting 

 the i>lants. X small flue, say 5 inches clear inside, would be sufficient. 

 We would say in addition, that if you wished your pit to be used for 

 many purposes, and for taller plants than would stand in the above, you 

 might have the outside heights the same, but you could sink the pit from 

 18 to 24 inches— say 20 inches, and then at 24 inches from the sunk level, 

 leave a ledge of bricks inside the walls, and on these ledges, back and 

 front, you could have boards laid across, so as to permit of shorter plants 

 standing on them, nnd when the boards were removed the pit would do 

 for taller plants. For general bedding plants, however, it will he best 

 that the groimd should not be sunk at all. The walls will form one side 

 of the flue. We have had the flue formed in the wall, but then there was 

 heat lost outside. 



Manures fob Roses (IT. 2T. M.). — "If you have decayed manure I 

 advise you to put it to the depth of 2 inches over the roots. All my 

 Roses were so served some time ago ; the operation was costly, but it 

 was absolutelv necessary to prevent the snrfiice roots from being burnt 

 up. This, with a gallon of water to each Rose (1700) every pther day, has 

 preserved my Roses. Mildew, and red fungus, and black bhght have 

 been prevalent, but tho foliage of my Roses is quite clean. I began early 

 in the year cutting out with scissors every sign of fungus, which spreads 

 rapidly. .\s regards salt, 4 cwt. an acre would be a dressing. Three cwt. 

 of gnano would be a good dressing Nitrate of soda at the rate of 3 cwt. 

 per acre is better than salt, it produces healthy foliage. The best time 

 to put on guano, salt, and nitrate of soda is during stormy weather in 

 winter or spring. When guano (sifted) is put on it should be mixed with 

 three or four times its quantity of sifted coal ashes. If sown by itself 

 the person should take up small bandfuls and sow it thinly. A clod- 

 hopper has no idea of its power. It is the cheapest of all m;inures. If 

 you have no decayed manure, perhaps you have wood ashes ; these are a 

 good manure and attract and retain moisture. I gave my Roses some 

 guano water some time back, at the rate of one handful of Peruvian 

 guano to three gallons of water. Yon had better put it on in like manner 

 during dry weather.— W. F. Radclyffe." 



Roses and their Merits (Dcvonievxis}.—'' Y'ou are quite right in sup- 

 posing that I am * always ready and willing to benefit the public by my 

 experience in the cultivation of the Rose — that most beautiful flower ' 

 Duchesse de Caylus here is on the Manetti, and grows well and blooms 

 abundantly. It is a first-class Rose of medium size. Briar hoses here 

 bear no relation to Manetti Roses, except the Tea-scented Noisettes, 

 which do well on the Briar, also on the Manetti stock, and on their own 

 roots. I would not accept oue hundred Hybrid Perpeluals on a Briar if 

 they were ofl"ered to me. I am persuaded that the days of the Briar are 

 over 'D., Dciii' in his last letter says the same. Still it is useful for 

 unctuous clays, where the plant is watered by capillary attraction, and 

 also for sncli sorts as do not flourish on a Manetti stock, or such as are 

 too delicate to do woU near the ground. This summer one nurseryman 



has lost 27,000 Briars out of 40,000 ; another, I hoar, has lost 20 per cent. 

 I am not quite sure it was not 80 per cent. If many saw my Roses, 

 about 170O ground plants, in full health, and now blooming in their 

 second series, I am persuaded that they would soon discard their poor 

 Briar Roses. It is impossible to conceive or describe the grandeur of tho 

 flr.st series here, and in a little time they will be nearly as good, and will 

 go on till frost stops them : hut observe, they have had all fungi cut out, 

 and have been mulched, watered, and had the ground around them 

 moved with Parkes's fork. Unless people will take these pnins, which so 

 well repay, the sooner thev give up Roses the better. With regard tu 

 Mrs. George Paul and Monsieur Uoll, 1 saw thdn lately in a garden where 

 they had had no water, and the flowers were bad. Chiirles Verdier is a 

 full and fine Rose, and blooms freely here ; but I saw a line of it last week 

 in another place, where from want of water all the blooms appeared to 

 have stood still. I bought four of them, and brought them home ; and I 

 shall buy twelve more, as it is a very good Rose, and of a light colour, 

 I also bought at the same time all the plants of Monsienr Nonian, seven 

 plants of Abel Grand, which I thought good, ten of Merveillc d' Anjou, 

 twelve of Reine du Midi, twelve of Madame Cirodde, besides a few others 

 in smaller quantities lor trial. Thirty-seven of them were iu dormant 

 bud, budded six weeks before ; tho others were plants. I cut those in 

 dormant bud down to near the point of union at once, and expect to 

 bloom the greater part of them this season. Last year I planted a large 

 number— now splendid plants- on the 7th of August. This year I have 

 planted on the 6th of August the above fifty-three plants. Most of my 

 satirical visitors ask, as soon as they come, ' Where are the plants of the 

 7th of August :' ' expecting to find them dead. I may observe, in passing, 

 that August, September, and October, if yon are near tho nursery and 

 take care of the plants for a few days, are the best times to plant Manetti 

 Roses ; hut I do not advise inexperienced or inattentive persons to do so. 

 Any time from November till May, when the ground is open, will do lor 

 planting Manetti Roses. I see one writer talks of the ' inuch-vaunled 

 Manetti Rose ! It is utterly impossible to overvalue it. With regard to 

 Thorin, a robust grower on the Manetti, it has not yet been quite full. It is, 

 however, a fine Rose, and promises well. I shall know more of it before the 

 year is ont. I have seven strong plants of it. With regard to Miss 

 Ingram, it is growing very freelv, and has narrow but hard fungus-resist- 

 ing leaves. In respect to the habit of Roses and general excellence, I 

 know of none superior to Charles Lefebvre and Jules Margottin among 

 Hybrid Perpetual kinds : nor anv superior for habit and general excel- 

 lence in any family to Gloire de Dijon, Triomphe de Rennes, and CeUne 

 Forestier. ' When my plants are stronger, I shall be able to add glorious 

 Mar.ohal Niel. which is bv far the best of the yellow Roses. The Briar 

 suits it well. I have some on Manetti, growing finely and beginning to 

 bloom. I believe I have now answered all the queries of 'Devoniensis. 

 W. F. Radclyffe." 



Influence of Charcoal in Heightening the Colour of Roses 

 (G H M ' — " I wrote to an old friend, a distinguished chemist, for an 

 opinion. He replies—' There is no doubt of tho favourable influence of 

 charcoal on the vigour, and. therefore, on the colour of aU flowers ; so 

 marvellous is the power it possesses of condensing atmospheric gases m 

 its pores. ' Nitrate of soda or saltpetre tend to produce good green 

 foliage.— W. F. R.ydclyffe." 



A Reader of the Jocknal.— There can be no question that what you 

 enclosed is an advertisement of a medicine. We know nothmg of it. 



MouLE's Earth Closets I.A. Pane).— Apply at 29, Bedford Street, 

 Covent Garden, Loudon, W.C. 



Obtaining Bottom Heat fob Forwaedingand Peopagating (Amateur). 

 —As von have two vineries and a greenhouse, the simplest plan, in a small 

 way 'for propagating would be to have in your greenhouse a small box 

 covered with glass, and an iron or tin box below it 2 inches deep, which 

 vou could All with hot water, and empty when cold as desired. A good 

 second mode— if vou had a fire nearly constantly in one furnace— would 

 be to place a small boiler over the furnace, or a bent pipe of iron m the 

 furnace, and take the two ends into a smaU tank in one of the houses, 

 over which you would have your propagating place. You could do aU 

 your work more easilv than in a pit out of doors. A third mode has been 

 carried ont several times successfully. In a greenhouse heated by a 

 flue the flue entered at one end, and went round at least a part of the 

 house • but as heat was only wanted at times, the flue as constructed 

 would not do for bottom heat". At the end where the flue entered, a close 

 damper was inserted in the flue 6 feet from the end, and the flue turned 

 upon itself there, and communicated with the chimney, without going 

 round the house. On the flue, partly double at the end, stones, &c.. 

 were placed, and then sand, covered with a box and light, and this place 

 could be heated without much heating the rest of the greenhouse. In 

 cold weather the damper was pulled partly out, and the rest of the house 

 heated For the purposes you want, we have no faith m either a garden 

 frame or a pigeon-holed brick pit heated by dung hnings. You can only 

 manage such a pit in winter by having ample command of dung, and the 

 means of preventing any steam or vaponr from the dung finding its way 

 into vour pit. In such a case, we would either have a solid bottom, with 

 a chamber below, or a solid wall and no pigeon holes. We think a brick 

 pit heated by hot water or flues would suit you best, ^e need not say 

 anything about heating, bottom and top. by hot water, as that is so often 

 adverted to. As vou seem to have flues for your other houses there is no 

 insuperable objection to have flues for this also. Suppose, then, we had 

 a pit from 5 to 6 feet in width, from 8* to4 feet high at back and from 2 to 

 2.Ueet in front, we would run a flue and return it, sav 5 or 6 niches inside 

 m-easure, building it above the level of the floor. Then as to the bed the 

 best would be one bottomed with slate, going from back to front 3 inches 

 above the top of the flue. If three-fourths of the width formed a bed 

 and one-fourth of the slate were left exposed the latter in general would 

 be enough for top heat. Various other modes "^ covering with slates 

 could be resorted to, but far enough above the flues to be safe. The 

 most economical plan of all, would be to flU the places between the f^nes, 

 and flues and wall, as roughly and openly as possible with stones bricks 

 &c., making them almost as open as a chamber, raising them to a height 

 of o inches over the flues, next adding small washed gravel, and then 

 some inches of sand or ashes for plunging in. By inserting some smaH 

 upright pipes in the stones, you may pour water down "moOB "'e'^ 

 without touching the flue, and if these pipes are supphed "-tb '""f™ 

 nlnus vou can let heat into the air of the pit when you hkc. With all out 

 1 Fovefo'r hot waterT we would wish nothing better than such a flue-heated 



