July 24, 1806. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



50 



Orchard-houses havo been erected very extensively upon tho 

 Rivers plan in tho middle and northorn States of America ; 

 bnt tho results havo not been very satisfactory in a majority 

 of instances — not because this method of cultivating fruit will 

 not succeed here, but because it is not so much required by 

 the exigencies of our climate, and because fruit is so abundant 

 and cheap, and the orchard-house is too expensive for us. 

 Only a heated or forced orchard-house is of any value so far as 

 the sale of fruit is concerned. In a cold or unheated house, the 

 trees aro apt to bo over-stimulated by the hot bright sunshine 

 in February and March, and chilled and frosted in April. Be- 

 sides, we cannot ripen Peaches and Nectarines in our orchard- 

 houses until very late, unless we remove the pots into tho open 

 air as soon as tho fruit begins to colour. We lose time and 

 flavour by keeping the pots in tho house till the fruit is fully 

 ripened. 



The orchard-houso is highly useful as an appendage to a 

 gentleman's garden to grow Plums, Nectarines, and Apricots, 

 which can only bo had with certainty and in perfection under 

 the protection of glass, on account of tho ravages of tho cur- 

 culio (or plum beetle), which out of doors ruins all these 

 fruits. Even Peaches do not escape injury from this cause, 

 and Cherries are here totally destroyed by this insect. Very 

 free ventilation is not quite so much required in orchard-houses 

 here as in England, as our atmosphere is usually so very dry; on 

 the contrary, wet paths and evaporating-troughs to maintain 

 a high degree of moisture are more needed. 



The cordon plan of pruning on single stems, and on the 

 branches of bush trees, is beginning to be practised in the 

 United States, and is gaining favour very rapidly. It is a 

 curious fact that the plan of making cordons by summer pinch- 

 ing was invented in the United States by Captain Austin, of 

 Boston, and put into actual practice on a large scale sixteen 

 or eighteen years ago. The trees were grown with rive or six 

 cordon branches rising from the main stem, the central shoot 

 or leader being cut out at a distance of 3 or 4 feet from the 

 ground. Captain Austin called his method the wine-glass 

 pattern. He now has trees fully and precisely grown upon 

 the cordon plan sixteen or eighteen years old ; indeed, I think 

 they have been fruiting for nearly that length of time. He 

 certainly commenced the system long before anything had 

 been published on the subject in France, and an account of it 

 appeared in " Hovey's Magazine " at Boston as an original dis- 

 covery several years ago. 



The curate's vinery, or ground vinery, is now much talked 

 about, and I have introduced half a dozen of them into my 

 garden on trial this season. We are apprehensive that they 

 will not answer without much modification in management, on 

 account of our intensely hot snnshino in summer. 



Thus it will be perceived that we are under many obligations 

 to the author of the " Miniature Fruit Garden " and the 

 " Orchard-House " for useful hints on fruit-culture, which are 

 now being applied on a large scale, and soon will be univer- 

 sally, I think, in America. Large orchards and fruit-houses 

 are now managed on the Rivers plans ; the Rivers books are 

 being republished in America ; and hundreds of cultivators, 

 I am sure, like myself, watch with eagerness for the genial and 

 instructive articles from the Rivers pen in The Journal op 

 Horticulture, which is taken by many of the leading culti- 

 vators in America, and by all tho principal horticultural so- 

 cieties in the United States. — J. S. Houghton, Philadelphia, 

 U.S., America. 



LORD CLYDE STRAWBERRY. 



In M. Van Houtte's catalogue. No. 108, page 97, the above 

 Strawberry, as raised by Mr. Dean, of Shipley, was recom- 

 mended upon the authority of Mr. Radclyffe as being " the 

 most valuable Strawberry ever known," uniting three eminent 

 qualities — " exquisite flavour, large-sized fruit, and exceedingly 

 prolific." I am sorry to find that this kind is nothing else 

 than the old Chinese Strawberry, in France commonly called 

 Ananas, or Ananas de la Halle, a sort long ago rejected as not 

 worthy of cultivation, producing a prodigious number of leaves, 

 and runners in any quantity, but scarcely any fruit. I pro- 

 cured plants from parties who had them from M. Van Houtte, 

 as well as from Mr. Dean, and they both turned out alike. 

 I think the horticultural world has never witnessed a greater 

 mystification. — Ferdinand Gloede, Lr^ Sabltms, s, ine et Marne. 



[What Mr. Radclyffe said of the Strawberry is contained 

 in this paragraph of our Journal, published July 5th, 1865 : — 



" As regards Lord Clyde, I had only two plants of it, and being 

 under a hot south wall, tho blooms happened to come out 

 early, and were destroyed by a very severe frost. I was amused 

 at M. Van Houtto's very Mattering notice of me in his catalogue. 

 He says of me, ' Ho is the most experienced and best judge of 

 Strawberries in England.' 'He is tho most caustic and pic- 

 turesque writer, sparing no one ; neither in prose nor in verse.' 

 ' Till this great judgo says, " To bo or not to be," raisers are 

 in a state of the greatest anxiety.' I can only say that ' from 

 the sublime to the ridiculous thero is but a step.' What I 

 said of Lord Clydo and John Powell was this : — ' They were 

 the best novelties here, and were rich and good.' " We happen 

 to know that Mr. Radclyffe did not find Lord Clyde answer, 

 but that he still cultivates John Powell."! 



VARIEGATED GERANIUMS. 



Mr. J. Wills, of Huntroyde, sent a paper on the raising of 

 variegated Geraniums to the Botanical Congress. In that 

 paper he maintains chance impregnation as being the cause of 

 sports in seedling Geraniums, but this theory is so opposed 

 to my own experience that I wish to call attention to the 

 subject. Any fact in connection with tho hybridisation of 

 plants is so interesting, that I hope those who observe such 

 will report them. 



If I understand Mr. Wills's paper, ho intends to say, that if 

 two variegated Geraniums — say Mrs. Pollock and Sunset, to 

 name two well-known varieties — be crossed and all other pollen 

 excluded, the result will be seedlings variegated and halfway 

 between the two parents, but that if other pollen have access 

 to the flowers tho result will be some green, and some partly 

 green and partly variegated ; also, that if extraordinary pre- 

 cautions be not taken the latter result is inevitable, the air 

 being charged with pollen ; and lastly, that however performed 

 and whatever precautions may have been taken, the result is 

 not satisfactory if much electricity happens to be in the at- 

 mosphere at the time. What a convenient thing electricity is ! 

 Too much or too little will account for anything. Do your 

 crops fail ? aro they unexpectedly good ? are they diseased ? 

 do your seedlings sport ? do your single flowers produce double 

 flowers ? or your double flowers turn single ? — the ca use is 

 too much or too little electricity in the atmosphere. 



Well, I shall not attempt to disprove the theory that the 

 strange chemical change, if it be chemical, which has turned 

 our dark bronze Zonale Geraniums into pink, crimson, and 

 scarlet, is dependant, or not dependant, on a deficiency of 

 electricity, but proceed to examine the pollen question. 



According to Mr. Wills the air of a house in which Gera- 

 niums are growing is so impregnated with pollen that he uses 

 the expression — " I am sure the house was very much charged 

 with pollen." How was he sure ? Could he see it, or smell 

 it ? How did he appreciate its presence ? If tho air of a 

 house in which Geraniums are growing be so loaded with dif- 

 fused pollen, almost every bloom in the house ought to pro- 

 duce seed. Is this the case? The old Rose Christine, Ren- 

 datler, and many others will seed anywhere, but as they seed 

 freely when grown alone it is manifest they are self-impregnated. 



I have in one of my houses two shelves at the south end, 

 each holding about twenty plants of the best variegated Gera- 

 niums. One lot has been carefully fertilised every morning, 

 and every plant is full of seed ; the others have been left un- 

 touched, and though the kinds are the same as those seeding 

 freely, there is not one pod of seed formed on the twenty 

 plants. Diffused pollen has not been very active in my case. 

 Having had one house 100 feet long and 21 feet wide full of 

 seedling Geraniums this year, besides some hundreds more 

 which it would not hold, I have had some experience, you will 

 say, in this matter, but I have failed to reduce to a certainty 

 the breeding of fancy varieties, though very well satisfied with 

 the result. 



It appears to me that after crossing to the best of your judg- 

 ment your chances are in proportion to the number proved, 

 whether new fruit or flowers be your object. Of course, the 

 raiser of a dozen seedlings may obtain a better variety than he 

 who grows thousands ; but victory generally follows the strong 

 battalions. 



When Mrs. Pollock was first sent out I crossed it with 

 Woodwardiana, the produce were all green Zonales ; one of 

 them with bright orange scarlet flowers I called after a neigh- 

 bour, William Underwood, and sold at 18s. per dozen. Though 

 this was raised three years ago, and one of about a dozen seed- 



