406 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ NoTemb«r 26, 1868. 



onr present race of Apricots. As to the flavour of this carious 

 fruit, it is difficult to describe ; it was acrid, acid, and nauseous, 

 with hard tough flesh. As compared with our Apricots, it was 

 something worse than an Enghsh Crab to a Eibston Pippin. It 

 is just possible that this tree may be employed by the Japanese 

 merely for ornament, and it is also possible that they may 

 have a peculiar taste in Apricots, and enjoy the flavour of 

 'Mume'.'" 



. The Tangierine Orange.—" This delicious little fruit 



IS most worthy of culture for this reason : it ripens in October, 

 and thus gives a succession of soft fruits when late Peaches 

 nave passed away. It requires constant gentle beat except in 

 the hot weather of summer, and seems to succeed better if ihe 

 pots are plunged in tan while it is in a state of fermentation, 

 or placed on a heated surface in cocoa nut fibre. The trees bear 

 much more abundantly when planted in a raised border in a 

 house kept warm. In a border that is heated they bear still 

 more freely. I have one little tree only 3 feet high, on which 

 are six dozen of fruit. This is planted in a border 5 feet wide, 

 in the centre of which are two 4-iuch hot-water pipes Iving on 

 the ground nearly close together, and the border filled" with a 

 compost of two- thirds loam and one-third rotten manure from an 

 old hotbed. The gentle warmth given to the border by these 

 two pipes is most favourable to their growth and fertility of the 

 trees, for they seem to grow all the year. 

 _ " A house 30 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 6 feet high at its 

 sides, with two borders 5 feet wide, heated as above described, 

 and two additional 4-inch pipes on each side to warm the sur- 

 face air in autumn, winter, and spring, as in my house, would 

 give bushels of Orpnges, not only of Tangierines, but of Mal- 

 tese Blood, and St. Michael's. My trees of these sorts are 

 loaded with fine fruit, which, owing to the hot summer, are fast 

 ripening. The trees stand on slates over the two 4-iDch hot- 

 water pipes, the pots plunged in cocoa-nut fibre. They bear 

 very large fruit even in 8 or 10-inch pots.— T. R." 



DoTENNlf DU CoMicE Peab.— Out of twenty-three dishes 



of Pears exhibited at the meeting of the Fruit Committee on 

 the 17th inst, many of them of great excellence, this new va- 

 riety carried off the highest honour, the first prize being 

 unanimously awarded to it as the best-flavoured Pear exhibited, 

 beating in that respect all our well-known good Pears which 

 were pitted against it, such as Winter Nelis, Passe Colmar, 

 Glou Morcjeau, &c. This is the third season in succession that 

 this handsome variety has received the same signal honour. 

 Twice, the present season and the last, it has been exhibited 

 by the same cultivator, Mr. John Garlaud, gardener to Sir 

 T. D. Acland, Bart., Killerton, near Exeter, and the year pre- 

 vious from the Society's Garden, Chiswick. This is sufficient 

 distinction to stamp Doyenne du Comice as a first-rate late 

 autumnal Pear. It is of large size, one of Mr. Garland's speci- 

 mens weighing 15i ozs. The flesh is beautifully white, delicate, 

 and buttery, of a very rich and pleasant flavour. We do not 

 know of any Pear that can be more highly recommended for 

 general cultivation than this. It succeeds admirably as a 

 pyramid on the Quince stock, in the neighbourhoud of London, 

 and it appears to do equally well in Devonshire, a county not 

 very celebrated for the production of fine Pears. The fruit 

 which Mr. Garland exhibited were grown on a pyramidal tree 

 on the Quince stock, in a border much exposed to the south- 

 west winds, which are very powerful in that part of the county. 

 The soil, a heavy fresh loam, was specially prepared by Mr. 

 Garland, the ordinary soil of the garden being of a worn-out 

 character : subsoil loam, slightly mixed with gravel. Winter 

 Nelis from the same exhibitor, grown on a south wall, in the 

 same sort of soil, and equally exposed, was likewise of remark- 

 ably fine quality, and was awarded a special certificate. 



CAMPANULA PYRAMIDALIS. 

 For a long time this was a fashionable plant, and adorned 

 the halls of the nobility, and was frequently trained (as we 

 have seen it in the north of Scotland) to cover the tire- place 

 in summer. This Campanula is hardy, but its greatest beauty 

 is developed in pot culture under glass; in greenhouse culture 

 the flowers expand in such a marked degree compared with 

 plants grown in the open border, that many assert that what 

 is grown here in pots is a distinct variety from that grown in 

 the open border ; yet the plants are taken from the same stools, 

 and the difference of flower is simply brought out by culture 

 under glass. The outside plants have been in fuil flower for 

 at least three months, and are now (Oct. 13) fairly covered with 



fresh flowers from the ground to the height of 7 feet. The 

 plants are sheltered by Rhododendrons, and growing in rich 

 light earth. 



The white variety of this Campanula we find rather more 

 tender than the blue, but it is equally ornamental, perhaps 

 more so, in pots. At Kothie, in Aberdeenshire, we remember 

 having seen a border planted with the blue and white Cam- 

 panula, and the effect was grand. This fine old plant is easily 

 propagated by seed, or by division of the root ; for common 

 practice, division of the old stools will be found the most con- 

 venient. Stronger-flowering plants will be got from seedlings, 

 but then it takes much longer time to get the plants into 

 flower ; it is generally the third year before good flower-stalkg 

 appear from seedlings. Suckers taken early in autumn, or good 

 crowns, with ordinary care, will flower the following summer; 

 every inch of the fleshy roots will grow into plants if put into 

 a pot in light sandy soil ; but seedlings are to be preferred to 

 dormant eyes for good plants. To raise seedlings of this Cam- 

 panula the seed should be sown under the same treatment 

 that is given to half-hardy annuals, taking care that the seed 

 is sown on the surface of the soil ; the seed will grow in a 

 cold frame, but not so surely. No finer old plant can be found 

 for frame gardening ; the young plants always do best in 

 frames, and a frame is the best winter quarters for plants 

 to flower the coming season ; it is the previous season's grow- 

 ing that makes the fine pyramid of flowers. For pot culture 

 small shifts are the best in the summer previous to flower- 

 ing; flowering plants we shift early in spring into the pots in 

 which they will flower, and water freely with liquid manure. 

 A 12-inch pot will be sufficient for the largest-sized plant it can 

 be wished to grow for greenhouse or conservatory. A free light 

 rich soil should always be used in potting ; in stiff soil the 

 plants are apt to rot in pot culture.— Chas. M'Donald (in Tlte 

 Gardener.) 



THE COMMON BERBERRY. 



I AM pleased that Mr. Kobson has directed attention to this 

 much-neglected shrub. I find from experience that it merits 

 all he has said in its favour. Be.sides this there are many 

 other berry-bearing shrubs — such as Pernettyas, Berbeiis Dar- 

 winii, and other kinds. Arbutus, &o., which are far too little 

 planted. Considering the ornamental character of most of 

 them, it is painful to the lover of beautiful shrubs to see the 

 miserable specimens struggling for an existetsce in the most 

 awkward positions it is possible to assign them, often over- 

 grown by other shrubs and trees, and where there is not the 

 shadow of a chance of their admirers ever seeing them in 

 perfection. 



We have the common Berberry largely planted here, and no 

 shrub is better suited for a place in the front of shrubbery 

 beds or borders, the pendent habit it acquires in this position 

 is in pleasant contrast to the long-legged objects sometimes 

 met with. Apart from its ornamental character, it is likewise 

 used for garnishing fish and other viands where Parnley is 

 u^ed, and quantities of its fruit are here annually gathered 

 and preserved for that purpose. I also use it daily for garnish- 

 ing the dessert, small twigs of foliage and fruit mixed with 

 dark green leaves have a lively appearance on the dinner-table. 



like most other plants the Berberry requires its favourite 

 soil to bring it to perfection, and that soil appears to be a 

 heavy rich loam, but if such does not naturally fall to its lot, 

 it will accommodate itself to circumstances, and do fairly in 

 any soil. 



The Arbutus, too, is a highly ornamental evergreen shrub at 

 this time of the year; it has fruited so abundantly with me 

 that I could have gathered gallons of its berries this autumn. 

 I sent a bunch of flowers and fruit to the Royal Horticultural 

 Society's meeting on the 17th of this month, but no notice was 

 taken of it, so I presume its fruiting is so general this season 

 as not to be worth mention. — Thomas Record, Lillesden, 

 Hawklntrst. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 



We regret, and all who knew him will regret, to hear of the 

 death of the Rev. Robert Pullein, Rector of Kirby Wisk, near 

 Thir.sk. He has for many years acted ably as one of the Judges 

 at the Birmingham Poultry Show. 



Her Ma.testt has presented to the Lindley Library of 



the Royal Horticultural Society, Dr. Roxburgh's " Piants of the 



