September i, 18G6. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



1»7 



nothing better than a shady thatched shed, where you can re- 

 gulate the force of a breeze pretty well at ploasnre. Before we 

 used it, and having no large house that could have been kept 

 cool, and no underground place, we used to have much diffi- 

 culty with Mushrooms in June, July, and part of August, if 

 the weather was very hot. That might have been surmounted 

 by more thorough but equal ventilation in a narrow house, 

 hut even then it is advisable to have the Mushroom-houBe 

 unoccupied for a few months in summer, so that it may have 

 a good cleaning, smoking, &c. 



Cucumbers. — Potted off some for winter work, if wanted. Re- 

 gulated others in beds. Both Cucumbers and Melons in frames 

 will be the better of some linings, as litter and grass, round the 

 boxes now, so that they may not receive any check. 



Gathered Vegetable Marrows before they became too old. 

 For some years we have dispensed with the usual hotbed be- 

 neath these vegetables, but where early gatherings are desirable 

 it is well to give the plants a rough hotbed below the soil, and a 

 hand-light when first planted out. They then grow with such 

 vigour, and root into the dung, as it decomposes, so freely as 

 to give little more trouble for the season than gathering the 

 young fruit, which in the long kinds should scarcely be more 

 than 1| inch in diameter. After trying many sorts we must 

 say that we like the old long-shaped Vegetable Marrow, which 

 turns to a bright yellow when ripe, the best of all. That is no 

 reason why others may not prefer the Custard and other choice- 

 named kinds. 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



Can do nothing now to clear away runners of Strawberries, 

 until dry weather sets in. In stiff, strong soil, where the leaves 

 keep pretty compact and close to the ground, would not move 

 a leaf from the plants further than might be necessary to give 

 light and air to those left ; but on light rich ground, where the 

 foliage is nearly up to one's knee, and becoming brownish by 

 this time, there would be no harm if a good portion of the 

 tallest were pruned off soon after the fruit was gathered, as 

 then there would be time for the buds to mature themselves, 

 and the plants would be more compact and fresh all the winter. 

 Circumstances may thus alter practice, but as a general rule, 

 in good Strawberry soil, it is well not to touch any of the leaves 

 until they are browned by the winter's frost, and they are, there- 

 fore, trimmed a little in spring as the young leaves expand. 

 These old leaves act as a protection to the plant in winter. On 

 the other hand, on light rich soils, where the old leaves are re- 

 moved early, the young leaves formed by this time, are seldom 

 injured by frost. In a word, if the soil will keep the leaves of 

 Strawberries green until the end of autumn, that is a plain 

 sign that there at least the cutting or removing the leaves would 

 be wrong. When the foliage becomes brown and withered, as 

 in some places it is often seen in August, then such foliage 

 can be of no use further than as a mere protection to the buds, 

 and the buds would have been better with the young stiff 

 foliage around them instead of the old. 



Gathered some of the riper Apples, as the birds began to 

 peck them. We shall have few Pears or Plums this season, 

 except where the buds have escaped the destructive bills of the 

 birds. They so nearly killed outright some nice dwarf Plum 

 trees, that we were obliged to allow these to throw out from 

 the older wood strong shoots, to be stopped and treated so as 

 to produce masses of fruit-buds. These trees were so prolific 

 of fruit-buds as to require previously but little trouble, 

 except to syringe them for a little fly, and gather the fruit. 

 Two or three fine Thorn trees were so completely cleared of 

 flower-buds and wood-buds as only to maintain their vitality by 

 breaking pretty freely all over the older wood. Cherries and 

 Apples were little touched by the birds this season, as respects 

 the buds, and they have produced their usual crops. The 

 birds seemed to take themselves off for a short time as the buds 

 of Apples and Cherries were swelling. Some birds suffered for 

 attacking the Cherries under nets, but on the whole as respects 

 the Cherries, the "black mail" demanded was pretty well 

 earned by good service in other respects. We are anxious to 

 keep a good crop of the Florence Cherry as late as possible, 

 and had it, therefore, double-netted and lost but few by the 

 birds. The ants were a smaller but more difficult enemy to 

 dislodge. We oould syringe the tree heavily to bring them 

 down, and then throw some quicklime on the ground, which 

 they abominate. A good plan would have been to have placed 

 • few saucers on the ground supplied with honey, or sugar and 

 arsenic, with a saucer over it, and openings large enough for 

 the ants to enter. A band of tar along the bottom of the wall 

 will also keep them down so long as it is damp, and not longer. 



Even then they are not easily conquered, being as famed for 

 perseverance as even the spider itself. We have watched a 

 detachment of them going along fully 50 yards at the foot of a 

 wall, going up where it was clean, and marching back again on 

 the wall to reach the coveted plunder. 



A new enemy has appeared within a few days in the shape 

 of wasps, which have troubled us but littlo this season. A 

 nest has been found near at hand, and treated in the usual 

 way, but use what means yon will, you will never catch all the 

 industrious wasps at home, and the finest decoys in the shape 

 of sunk bottles with enticing fluids, will fail to tempt them all 

 to enter ; and deprived of the stimulus of having a home tc 

 care for and young wasps to feed there, tho marauders wil? 

 give themselves up to feats of gluttony, eat, rest, sleep, and 

 eat again without greatly shifting their quarters. In these cir- 

 cumstances, such a rain as we have had, if a little colder, 

 genernlly settles, at least for a time, all these gorged, swelled 

 out, muzzy, yellow-coated plunderers — not but that suspended 

 bottles of saccharine matter, and double hand-lights, with a 

 hole at the top of the lower one, are not good traps for catching 

 all such interlopers, but a few days' rain will often do much to 

 set them adrift, and if their wings are wet they are easilj 

 caught. 



An amateur lately directed our attention to a sort of sca- 

 vangering employment for which he had found wasps verj 

 useful. He had a house with Vines trained up the rafters, 

 and Peaches against the back wall. These Teach trees were 

 very much infested with fat scale, that was making sad havoc 

 of his trees. A colony of wasps were in turn making havoc 

 among the scale insects and their sweetish excretions, and 

 not a berry of the Grapes was touched ; but when they bad 

 worked their sweet will with the attractive scale insect, we 

 should be a little surprised if, of their own accord, they left 

 the tempting vicinity of the ripening Grapes. Some years 

 ago we saw a Peach-house a perfect nest of wasps, though the 

 fruit had been cleared out more than a month, and here, too, 

 the scale which had been aRowed to have its own way was the 

 great attraction. 



Out of doors on walls and inside in orchard-houses, &c, 

 earwigs and woodlice have begun to nibble the fruit, and it 

 is annoying to find fine fruit with just a little hole in it that 

 makes it unfit to go to table. The older and the opener 

 the seams in a waU the more will woodlice choose such places 

 for their best living and breeding quarters. Before the fruit 

 begins to become soft it is a good plan to lash the wall and 

 trees either with clear water or clear soot water, or clear water 

 with as much quassia water added as to make it a little 

 bitter. This repeated several times before the leaves become 

 dry will send most of the woodlice to the bottom of the wall 

 for shelter, under clods, &c, and many may be destroyed bj 

 beating heavily along the side of the wall with a clean spade. 

 Then if a band i inches wide is painted along the bottom of 

 the wall in tar and oil the woodlouse will not cross it so long 

 as it is wet. This may be done as respects any waU out of 

 doors, but it would be dangerous to do it in a house, under 

 glass. There small pots, with a bit of boiled Potato in them, 

 covered with dry moss or hay, may be laid down and examined 

 every morning, and the hiders treated according to the whim 

 or taste of the trapper. 



Similar means will also entice the earwig, and keep the 

 wingless ones from ascending, but it likes a hollow tube to 

 hide in during light better than aU these, and of all tubes is 

 fonder of none than a hollow beanstalk — say a foot in length, 

 stuck among the branches of the tree. Examine these tubes 

 every morning, and, putting an end close to your mouth, 

 give a brisk blow which will send the earwigs, if there, out 

 without ceremony at the other end, into a pot of water or any 

 other contrivance considered more suitable. We have counted 

 twenty blown out of a single beanstalk 9 inches in length. 



Preserving Morcllo Cherries and Currants on the Trees. — We 

 have had both good after Christmas — the Morello merely bj 

 matting or Nottingham fine netting, kept at a distance from the 

 tree ; and the Currants by using mats, straw ropes, or netting. 

 However done, there is generally great loss from those deeayed, 

 and the trees are more or less injured, so that in general, but 

 for having the fruit fresh gathered, it would be better to gather 

 and bottle when the fruit wa3 at its best. The best method we 

 have noticed for preserving Currants, Gooseberries, &o., on 

 the bush, we saw from twenty to thirty years ago, at Tingrith, 

 and we believe the same plan is adopted there still. A light 

 iron frame was made, about 3 J feet in diameter, and as much in 

 height, having a rim for resting its bottomless base on the 



