208 



JOUENAL OP HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ September 12, 1865. 



fi-uit be stored in sound condition it will liccji just as well as if 

 every fruit were overhauled daily. This not intermeddling with 

 fruit is not to interfere with that supervision necessary to learn 

 when it ought to lie placed in a warmer and lighter room, for 

 fruit does not always keep the same length of time. There is 

 this advantage in having the fruit on shelves, that it is easy to 

 pick out the ripest or most forward ; and there is a still greater 

 advantage in placing it on sand — that it will keep longer, and a 

 decaying fruit not contaminate those next to it, for shut out 

 to a great extent from atmospheric changes, there is no fluid 

 exuded. 



In addition to examining a friiit-room to ascertain the keeping 

 and matming of the respective kinds, it shoixldbe opened every 

 dry day to dry up damp, if there he any, and to keep the room 

 cool, nothing contributing to this more than a thorough draught. 

 If the room be not damp, then keep closed, and when opened 

 admit no more light than is really unavoidable, and what air 

 it is necessary to give let it be with a dry atmosphere outside, 

 and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During damp weather the room may 

 be so damp that it is reaDy imperative to give air-, and to get 

 the air in motion a gentle lire may be lighted, and what heat is 

 given be only during the midday hours, allowing the heated 

 siu'face to become cool before the room is closed at night. Fire 

 heat applied for the purpose of promoting a circulation of air 

 Bhoiild not upon any consideration be so great as to raise the 

 temi^erature. During severe frosty weather a little free heat 

 may be needed to prevent the temperature faUing to or below 

 freezing. The nearer the temperature to, and yet above, freezing, 

 the longer and better the fruit will keep. From fire heat the 

 temperature should never exceed -lO". Very few, if any kinds 

 of Apples and Pears, will ripen perfectly in so low a tempe- 

 rature ; above 4.0" they are more or less advancing towards 

 ripening. 



For autumn Pears, which do not keep for any length of time, 

 no place answers so well as a cool orchard-house or vinery. 

 The light, the air, and the moderate temperatme render the 

 fruit very highly flavoured, and to have them melting they 

 should be taken from the trees before they are so matui'e as to 

 . drop of their own accord. Such maturity renders melting Pears 

 ■when stored either woody and juiceless, or mealy and insipid, 

 which is the case with Beurre Superfin very often from a wall, 

 when gathered quite mature, and an example of the mealiness 

 may be found in the Bon Chretien. Of the late Pears, I only 

 know of one instance, and that is the Easter Beurre, which 

 from a wall is very often mealy, and from an espalier melting 

 and perfimied, as it always is when in perfection. 



It very often happens that the crop of some autumn Pears is 

 BO great that it is a question what to do with them, as they all 

 jipen together. Now, by gathering those that are the most 

 mature a fortnight to three weeks earlier than the general crop, 

 or by making two or thi-ee gatherings from a tree instead of one, 

 their season will be considerably lengthened ; those gathered 

 being placed in a room conducive to their ripening. 



Lastly, fruit that is gathered before it is fully mature wiU be 

 the longest keeping, and by far the best flavoured ; but if such 

 fruit be kept in a light, dry room, it will shrivel, and though 

 high flavom-ed be other than juicy, melting, and refreshing. — 

 G. Abbey. 



PLANTING VINES INSIDE OR OUTSIDE. 



In replying to " W. B. A." in your Nmnber of the 29th ult., 

 on the subject of planting Vines inside or outside a house, you 

 Bay, after recommending inside planting, that the roots must 

 not get under the arches or wall plate, so as to reach the out- 

 side border. If so, what is the use of an outside border? 

 Having erected a vinery of late with arches in the front wall, 

 the Vines planted inside, and the outside border as carefully 

 made as that inside, I am startled by your obsen-ation. — W. F. 



[We fear that our answer to "W. B. A." was not expUcit 

 enough, and so far as we recollect it is not exactly as w-e had 

 written it. Alter the part of sentence thus, " but the inside 

 border must be higher than the outside one, and the roots must 

 not descend to get under the arches, in hopes that they will 

 rise into a higher border outside." We said nothing as to the 

 " roots must not go under the arches or wall plate, so as to reach 

 the outside border." If we were crude, you have not quoted 

 correctly. If we had said so, you might well say, " If so, what 

 is the use of an outside border? " Though the above meanuig 

 could hardly be di-awn from our short note, we are much obliged 

 to you for drawing attention to the want of explicitness. The 

 matter has latelybeen so often alluded to, that no doubt we 



wi'ote more carelessly than we otherwise would have done. We 

 have few Vines planted inside ourselves, because we would have 

 to disarrange the internal finishings to do so. We have, how- 

 ever, strong reasons for having them all planted inside. Several 

 times we had Vines eaten by rats and mice at the holes where 

 they entered the wall, and this would be less likely to be the 

 case if the stems were all exposed inside. The stems of Vines 

 will not piass some of our winters uninjured without protection, 

 and if we protect with wooden boxes, with sawdust, iSrc, these 

 boxes, again, give admission to vermin to lodge in them. 

 Even if the border inside is not very wide, but the wider the 

 better, that border is more completely under control as to wet- 

 ness and dryness, cold and heat, than any border can be that 

 is placed outside, imless there is the trouble and exjjense of 

 protecting, and that too with waterproof material. 



The above are some of the reasons for planting inside. The 

 Vines, also, at all times are more under control. There is no 

 objection whatever, in general circumstances, to ha%dng a border 

 likewise outside, and allowing the roots to have free access 

 to that border, by arches or other openings beneath the wall 

 plate, and we like the latter better than arches, because if the 

 border inside is as high as the Avail plate, the roots can get out 

 without having to descend much. The tei-m, " must not de- 

 scend," in the paragraph alluded to, has reference to a fact we 

 have often observed. The front wall was built on arches, 

 leaving, perhaps, some 1.5 or 18 inches of wall above the arches. 

 The border inside in which the Vines were planted might be 

 Uttle above the crown of the arch, whilst the top of the border 

 outside might be some 1-5 or 18 inches above the top of the 

 arches. We have had to manage several vineries where the in- 

 side border was as much lower than the outside one, and less 

 or more, such circumstances always told against the well-being 

 of the Vines. The mound of earth over the roots outside was 

 rarely penetrated with healthy fibres. It is on such accounts 

 that we advise the inside border to be the higher of the two, and, 

 if there are arches or other openings, that the roots may pass 

 freely into the outside border without being expected to de- 

 scend much to the arch, and then rise above it outside. Were 

 the choice given us. to have a low border for Vines inside of 

 a house, a high border for the roots outside, and the Vines 

 planted inside, and, on the other hand, a border altogether out- 

 side, the roots being where we liked, then we would choose the 

 outside border. But where, however naiTow, the inside border 

 is the higher, and the roots have free access outside, and the 

 border, as a whole, slopes fi-om the inside to a lower level at 

 the front of the outside border, then we would decidedly plant 

 aU our Vines inside.] 



THE RIPENING OF OUT-DOOR FIGS. 



The explanation of the cause (by " G. S.," page 166), of our 

 obtaining ripe Figs in .lersey some three or four weeks earlier 

 than they can be obtained near London is very satisfactory. 

 I will endeavour to mark some of the autumn-gi-own Figs here 

 to confirm what I have but little doubt is true. 



It has appeared to me, from simple observation, that this 

 fruit thrives best near the sea. In England it may be gathered 

 in perfection in gardens on the Sussex and Hampshire coast, 

 and in the Isle of Wight ; the garden at Tarring, near Worthing, 

 perhaps, taking the lead; and who knows but that Thomas 

 a Becket may have walked in the cool arbours formed 1\T these 

 same venerable Fig trees, and have refreshed himself with the 

 fruit thereof? for the ruins of his house are there. But the 

 theory of the Fig's early ripening in Jersey wiU not, I think, 

 hold good with other fruits and vegetables that ripen here m 

 the open air, and which in England require some forcing. _ 1 

 may instance Melons, Cucumbers, and Tomatoes, aU of which 

 ripen in my own garden from seed sown in the open ground ; 

 the mildness of our winters would not alone account for this.— 

 A. T., Noirmont, Jersey. 



[Would not the general mildness of all the seasons in the 

 Channel Islands ? — Ens.] 



FucHSU Blooms IxjUKEn by Bees.— A short time ago yon 

 were kind enough to answer an inquiry I made respectmg the 

 decav and destruction of my Fuchsia blooms, and you suggested 

 that' the cfiect might be produced through the agency of bees 

 unpregnating the blossoms. In compliance with your sugges- 



