8 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ July 3, 18CS. 



and others, interested in horticultural pursuits, respectfully 

 submit to your Lordships, that we may be permitted to use 

 Tobacco in the form of pastiles, free of duty, for the purpose of 

 fumigation, in order to destroy the insect vermin which are so 

 injurious to plants and trees. 



" Various preparations have been tried, but' it is well known, 

 that Tobacco is, of all other things, the most efficacious ; and 

 it would be extensively used if its high cost, owing to the duty 

 levied upon it, did not make it too expensive an article for 

 general application. 



"In praying that this petition be granted, your petitioners 

 would most respectfully point out, that similar concessions 

 have been made in other cases, the use of rum in methylated 

 spirit, and of Tobacco, for sheepwash, having been granted 

 tinder circumstances of a similar character. 



" The objection that the use of Tobacco, free of duty, for 

 horticultural purposes might prove injurious to the revenue, 

 could no doubt be met by imposing such restrictions on the 

 mode of preparing the Tobacco in bond, for the pastiles, as 

 would entirely prevent the possibility of its being employed for 

 any other than the purpose for which your petitioners respect- 

 fully ask permission to use it. The method we would propose 

 is to grind a proportion of two-thirds of Tobacco together with 

 one-third of common soot and fish oil ; or to add such other 

 ingredients as the chemist to the Government might suggest 

 for the more effectual destruction of the Tobacco. 



" In the event of your Lordships kindly granting the prayer 

 of your petitioners, you will confer a favour of great value to a 

 large class of persons connected with horticultural pursuits in 

 this country, and a favour which will undoubtedly prove a 

 general benefit to the public. 



" And your petitioners will over pray." 



HYDRANGEA LTORTENSIS FOR OUT-DOOR 

 DECORATION. 



Perhaps no plant has been more generally cultivated than 

 this variety of Hydrangea since its introduction by Sir J. Banks. 

 It is a very imposing plant when seen in its smallest form m 

 the Covent Garden style ; but when seen out of doors in au- 

 tumn, 7 feet high, in the form of a large shrub, with thousands 

 of monstrous flowers resting on fine broad green leaves, it pre- 

 sents the grandest subject that can be seen in our climate in 

 connection with the flower garden, or decorating the margin of 

 ornamental water, where it is most at home. The propagation 

 of this plant is so simple, and its culture in pots so well under- 

 stood, that I will not intrude with remarks on anything save 

 what relates to its out-door culture. 



It is frequently asserted that the Hydrangea will only suc- 

 ceed in favourable localities near the sea. In the west of 

 England and south of Ireland it may be seen with large shrubs, 

 flowering freely without any protection ; but it may also be 

 seen thirty miles inland quite as fine by some attention to 

 culture. The Hydrangea hortensis is a wonderful plant to suit 

 situation ; it may be seen in monstrous cymes on a wall facing 

 south. On a north wall it will flower equally grand, although 

 not so abundantly ; under the branches of trees, on the edge of 

 a pond, or planted on a rock it will flower profusely. It must 

 not be inferred from this that good culture is not necessary ; 

 there is no common plant on which high culture will tell more 

 Strikingly. 



In commencing with young plants, the practice here is to 

 grow them on a bed of loam and peat in a rough state ; the 

 plants are planted on the surface, and mulched with rotted 

 dung and watered as frequently as circumstances will permit. 

 The plants are removed and protected in winter until the wood 

 assumes a shrubby character, when they are permanently 

 planted out, or kept in borders, and regularly transplanted to 

 suit requirements. 



In a climate where frost would destroy the annual shoots 

 the plants may be taken up and put into any sort of shed with 

 straw, or any other thatch, to keep out frost. In this sort of 

 treatment it is important to maintain the vigour of the 

 plants, and to this end it is necessary, when the plants are 

 laid in, to pack firmly moist earth about the roots. No more 

 trouble will be required until the latter end of May, when the 

 plants may be put into summer quarters, when the weak 

 shoots should be freely thinned out, and the bods well watered. 

 The Hydrangea will flower but sparingly if planted deep. 

 Surface-feeding will produce the best result in flower, and 

 prevent the weakly shoots that are sure to come from deep 



planting. Our practice here is to top-dress heavily the large 

 plants with rich pond mud about the end of May, and this 

 treatment has lengthened the continuation of bloom. Water 

 is the great element of success in cultivating the Hydrangea. 

 In many places where flowers are cultivated that element is 

 scarce, but in special cases deep pits may be dug and filled up 

 with peaty sods or other spongy materials : this has been done 

 hero with success. Some of the pits were dug out 6 feet deep, 

 the hole filled in with rough sods, on top of which was put 

 a layer of stiff clay, on which was put a layer of rotted dung, 

 and Hydrangeas planted over the surface-level. The object of 

 the pits is to secure uniform moisture. The plants are a large 

 size, and flower to admiration. I have tried with various 

 earths the changing of the flowers from pink to blue. I have 

 found the same result in pure clay, pure peat, and in the simple 

 bodies ; experience forbids me giving any decided opinion on 

 this matter. Some of the American varieties of Hydrangea 

 thrive well here, and are very beautiful hardy-flowering shrubs. 

 The Hydrangea japonica is no use out of doors. — Charles 

 M'Donald, Woodstock, Co. Kilkenny. — (Scottish Gardener.) 



[The late Mr. Donald Beaton told us that " Cuttings of the 

 Hydrangea made in February may be made to flower blue or 

 pink at will. If the mother plant produced blue flowers in 

 the former seasons, and you force it in February, cut off your 

 cuttings as soon as they make three joints, and when they are 

 rooted place them in a rich, light compost, say one-half leaf 

 mould or very rotten dung, and the rest of any good garden 

 soil, they never fail to produce pink flowers ; whereas, if taken 

 from a pink-flowering parent, and after rooting you grow them 

 in strong yellow loam, with about a sixth part of iron filings 

 mixed with it instead of sand, nine out of ten of them will 

 produce blue flowers. I have proved this over and over again, 

 and have seen it in other hands, but I never could get an 

 August cutting to differ in colour from that of the parent plant. 

 The reason seems to be that the juices of the parent plant 

 have already, by a season's growth, formed the substance, or 

 the organised matter, as the physiologists call it, out of which 

 flowers are produced, so that no after-treatment is able to 

 counteract the effect ; whereas cuttings separated from a plant 

 at so early an age as when they only attain a few inches in 

 length, and are then made to grow in iron rust and loam other- 

 wise impregnated with iron, which is well known to favour the 

 production of blue flowers in the Hydrangea, the organised! 

 matter referred to is formed from juices impregnated with iron 

 oxide, and so produces blue flowers. The intensity of the blue 

 is, I believe, according to the perfect oxidation of the iron. 

 Chalk water never fails to counteract this effect of the oxide on 

 the flowers, as we have often proved here, so that, to give the 

 fairest chance to the experiment of getting blue Hydrangeas, I 

 would recommend the cuttings to be taken as early in the spring 

 as possible, to strike or root them in red sand, to grow them in 

 nothing but red loam and iron filings, according to the above 

 proportions, and never to water them hut with rain water; 

 but I am not sure whether rusty water from hot-water pipes 

 would not add to the success of the experiment ; at any rate 

 this rusty water is not injurious to these Hydrangeas. In 

 some parts of the country the natural soil will produce blue 

 Hydrangeas, and in such places it is difficult to meet with 

 pink ones ; and, what is singular enough, the Rhododendrons 

 will flourish in such soil, although apparently devoid of all 

 traces of vegetable matter. There is also a kind of peat earth 

 which invariably turns the pink to a blue Hydrangea, but all 

 the peat that we have access to here (Suffolk), does just the 

 contrary."] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 



Tite Juno meeting of this Society was held on the 4th tilt., the 

 President, Sir John Lnbbock, F.R.S., &c, being hi the chair. Count 

 Mniszeck, of Paris, and Messrs. Salvin and Turner were elected mem- 

 bers of the Society. Amongst the donations received since the last 

 meeting were the "Transactions" of the Society of Natural Science 

 of Philadelphia, the Smithsonian Institute, the Stettin Society of En- 

 tomology, &c, including new Memoirs on the Coleoptera of North 

 America, by Dr. J. Leconte ; the " Genera des Coleopteres " of Duval, 

 and the work of the Rev. Hamlet Clark on the Phytophagous Beetles, 

 Part I. 



Dr. Wallace, of Colchester, the author of the Society's prize essay 

 on the cultivation of the new Ailanthns Silkworm, just published, 

 communicated a note on the colours of the larvie of that species, and 

 some observations on the new Oak Silkworm, Saturnia Yama-mai, 

 from Japan. Professor Brayley forwarded some extracts from the 

 Report of Consul Zohrah on the trade of Bordiansk for 1365, trans- 



