October 24, 186S. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



341 



velvety, dark shaded crimson. It is globular, handsome, and 

 a free bloomer. 



There are other Roses of 18G.> that I think weU of ; but till 

 they do well no man is jastilied in rocommendins them. It 

 may amount to a national fraud. Roses may do badly the first 

 year, and do altogether well the next season. Some require to 

 be ou strong stocks before they can come out in their true form. 

 I fancy tljat King'.- Acre, Medina CcvU, and t'harles Margottin 

 will eventually deserve a Ifstamiir. Considering that the Roses 

 of 1865, with the exccjition of Rushtou RadclylTe, came here 

 this spring on very weak stocks, and were weak in themselves, 

 I am sur])rised that they should have done so well. The Roses 

 of 18G4 were stronger plants, and wintered out of doors well. 

 Things must he cijual before you can draw a just comparison. 

 — W. F. RiDCLYrFE, Tarrant Mushton. 



FEXNIAN SYSTEM OF SYRINGING WITH 

 HOT SEWAGE. 



When I received " A Bhoixner's " letter I had not sufficiently 

 satisfied myself on a subject that was then imder my observa- 

 tion, in connection with syringing orcliard-house trees. To 

 use to the foliage thick waters charged witli anything but sweet 

 odours, when the fruit is arriving at maturity, would be re- 

 pugnant to our ideas, ks regards red spider or any other evil 

 affecting the foliage of my trees after the fruit was gathered, 

 there was none, so healtliy, clean, and green did the leaves ap- 

 pear ; but just as I was about to rest upon my oars and banish 

 all care in that direction, on the 16th of October a cloud ap- 

 peared to envelope us, and a minute winged black aphis covered 

 us, entering both ears, eyes, and nostrils most offensively, and 

 I prognosticated disease for something under my charge. After 

 the lapse of a few days, and although the air continued to be 

 charged with the flies, I began to console myself for false 

 judgment in this respect till a quantity of yellowish leaves 

 caused me to look suspiciously on what I call the lungs of a 

 Royal George Peach tree — viz., some shoots which I train 

 outside on the end of the wall which forms the back of my 

 lean-to orchard-house, merely for the sake of the leaves, be- 

 cause this tree, strong of growth natm'ally, is rather circum- 

 scribed for space inside. On a close inspection of the back of 

 the leaves I found there were thousands of a winged black 

 aphis, with their wingless progeny apparently of all colours, 

 established and sucking away at the leaves so effectually, that 

 at the slightest touch these fell off. To appearance the foliage 

 of the trees inside the house was unaffected ; but upon ex- 

 amination underneath I saw the plague increasing there also, 

 so that prompt proceedings had to be taken. 



About two gallons of sewage were heated in the evening to 

 160', and with this I operated upon the ■•lungs" of the Royal 

 George by directing the sewage from the syringe well beneath 

 the foUage, and to prevent scalding my hand from the continu- 

 ance of the heat, I counteracted it by only half charging the 

 syringe at each dip. The force used in applying the liquid 

 struck off the leaves most affected ; but upon those retaining 

 their hold and greenness I found, on examination next morn- 

 ing, that the above degree of heat had, scalded to death nearly 

 all the aphides and their progeny without, to my great sur- 

 prise, having at all injured the foliage. That day was Sunday, 

 so of course further operations were suspended till Monday, 

 when at evening, and the foliage of the shoots outside show- 

 ing no signs of being scalded, after two days' hot sunshine, 

 several gallons of sewage were heated to 160'. I then closed 

 all ventilation, excepting .3 inches at the apex at the back 

 of the house, which is a permanent opening and is never 

 closed ; and the Peach trees against the waU, Nectarines, a 

 Peach .\pricot, and some young Vines in pots, along with a 

 Prince of Orange Geranium in full bloom, and which was 

 affected with the green aphis, were thoroughly syringed with 

 the scalding stuff both over and under the foliage, and eveiy 

 cranny of the house besides, till the stone-coloured paint of the 

 woodwork became stained of a dark oak colour. Well, it could 

 not be helped, I was intent on an experiment, and during the 

 operation I was several times obliged to biu-st into the open air 

 to gain breath, in consequence of the dense hot stream being so 

 powerfully charged with acid gas. I have ventilators opening 

 from the back waU of the orchard-house into the vineiy ; these 

 I closed, still the smell insinuated itself in there to such an ex- 

 tent as to cause me to remove some ripe Melons which I had 

 cut and intended to remain there for a day or two, for there is 

 no fruit more likely to acquire and retain a foreign odour ttaa 



ripe Melons. Everj-thing looked particularly well in the house 

 next morning, excepting the paint. There was not a vestige of 

 stain upon kho dark stone-coloured wall, and all the female 

 ajihidcs were dead, as well as the majority of tlieir progeny. 

 The I'riuco of Orange Geranium stood it out without even a 

 petal being injured by the heat, and most of the green fly upoB 

 it wore dead or dying. I fancied, also, that the paint did not 

 look quite so dark. I opened the front ventilators and allowed 

 the sini to beat strongly upon the glass and foliage without 

 any shading, and not a leal was injured. The smell during 

 the hot sunshine would liavo been disagreeable to ladies, and, 

 indeed, it would have been so for twenty-four hours to a man ; 

 but on the following day, it liad in a great measure disappeared 

 whilst the paint was certainly recovering its proper colour.! 



Feeling satisfied with what I had done so far, I concentrated 

 my thoughts upon a young Ribston Pippin against the garden 

 wall, and which, from the sowing of a Blenheim Pippin seed to 

 raise its stem, then grafting the scion upon it, up to gathering 

 its delicious fruit this autumn, has claimed part of my atten- 

 tion for eight years. It has been a consolation to me not to 

 perceive a scab or speck upon it till this autumn, when it 

 became affected with the American blight ; and where these 

 white fluffy insects are congregated, there they are laying the 

 foundation for the dreaded canker on the best of Apples to a 

 certainty. I had been thinking of painting aU over the wood 

 with train oil, but the success with which I had encountered 

 the enemy before with hot sewage determined me to try it in 

 this case also. The tree is horizontally trained, and I un- 

 fastened the shreds, excepting those at the extreme ends of the 

 shoots, and kept the branches about 2 inches from the wall 

 with some stiunpy forked sticks so as to allow the hot sewage 

 to reach the back of the wood as well as the front. I then 

 syringed the tree well with the hot sewage at a temperature of 

 160° on the evening of the 20th of September, repeated the 

 operation two days afterwards, and I am gratified to find that 

 the American bUght is more effectually kiUed in that way than 

 its black compeer on the Peach tree. Although some of the 

 leaves of the Apple tree suffer a Uttle from so severe a scalding, 

 being scorched and becoming brown at the edges, we may well 

 be able to put up with that when we consider the good effected 

 by getting rid of one of the worst of all blights. Whether the 

 black visitor we have been pestered with this autumn is new to 

 us I cannot say, I do not remember it before, and it has not 

 injiu'ed any trees with me excepting those above mentioned. 

 A neighbom' called upon me, during my operations against it, 

 complaining that almost all the leaves bad suddenly fallen off 

 his Peach and Nectarine trees, a circumstance which he could 

 not account for, and to inquire if I had experienced anything 

 of the sort with mine, and I explained to iiim the cause and the 

 remedy which I adopted. 



On the 21st of September I received from you the letter of 

 "A Beginner " asking further advice on the subject of hot 

 syringing. I could have answered him at a guess at once, but 

 as a great many of my operations run out of what I may term 

 the gardening groove, I am never in a hurry to recommend my 

 practice to others till I am well satisfied that it has proved 

 beneficial to myself, or so as to form a conclusion. I again 

 inspected my orchard-house trees, and found that new colonics 

 of the aphis were beginning to settle on the under sides of 

 many of the leaves, so the whole of them underwent a thorough 

 syringing as in the first instance. On the 23rd I saw that the 

 female insects would persist in coming, and again I syringed 

 the foUage with the hot sewage to the certain destruction of all 

 the winged'ones, but the cry was still " They come !" The foUage 

 in the adjoining vineiy seemed invigorated, and I fancied that 

 the Grapes became more rapidly black. Visitors being ex- 

 ))ected, to make sure that no disagreeable odour should exist, 

 I well sjTinged the orchard-house and trees on the 25th with 

 clean water heated to 160°, and scattered a surfacing of fine 

 dry soU over the soil of the house next moi-ning, ventilated 

 early, and set open the ventilators to the vinery ; and, when the 

 party ^■isited us in the afternoon, the houses smelt fresher and 

 better than if I had never applied any of the sewage water, 

 but the foUage looked more grey aud did not exhibit the rich 

 glazed appearance which it invariably has after the syringings 

 with sewage. At the third syringing the Prince of Orange 

 Geranium leaves having exliibited signs of suffering, I moved 

 it into the open air, and it is now insectless and flourishing. 



The only flower with me that has been affected with this 

 persevering aphis is a Convolvulus major against the wall of 

 the house near the front i door, and having for its neighbour' a 

 Gloire de Dijon Rose. The leaves of the Rose, in consequence 



