9tiBa^l9; 1866. ] 



WURNAL OP HORTrCOLTURE AND COTTAGB GAKDENEB. 



461 



up in growth, and which will require frequent stopping to 

 obtain anything like fruit from them. The trees, we consider, 

 are injured for years. Some beautiful Thorn trees were next 

 to leafless, and are now breaking buds from the old wood, and 

 the birds here, too, did the mischief. Plums, Pears, and 

 Thorns suffered most as respects the wood-buds. Apricots 

 and Peaches out of doors had the fruit-buds pecked wholesale. 

 Apples and Cherries from swelling their buds later have com- 

 paratively escaped. When a friend tells us that the sound of 

 a gun must not be heard from the garden premises ; that the 

 setting for a rat of a trap that might catch a rabbit or a hare, 

 or worse still, even a pheasant, would be next thing to being 

 sent to Botany Bay ; that the thinning even of birds' nests in 

 the dense shrubberies and masses of evergreens that surround 

 the garden would be an unpardonable offence, the immense 

 numbers of such otherwise agreeable visitors being constantly 

 on the increase, encouraged by the food thrown down for game, 

 and of which the little rogues take their full share ; and that 

 even as a help he cannot keep a cat or two to frighten, in some 

 measure, the intruders, we have no need for him to tell us how 

 the garden becomes by degrees little better than a game pre- 

 serve, unless great cost and trouble are incurred for nets, and 

 even then he will not be safe. We have never yet seen a net of 

 the common kind put up that a blackbird, thrush, or sparrow 

 would not find his way safely underneath, and if he only had 

 the sense, when disturbed, to go about it quietly, he could also 

 as easily get out without our seeing or noticing him in time. 



Strauberrit's. — Those out of doors are swelling nicely after 

 the showers, but do not look as if they would give us any ripe 

 fruit for eight days or more. Have thinned them pretty well 

 out of the houses ; will soon clear them out of the pits. Those 

 lifted and planted in frames are beginning to change colour, 

 and so is a row that is standing in front of the orchard-house, 

 which we trust will keep us going until we have fruit from the 

 open air. Those who have them in pots in houses must keep 

 a sharp look out, or they may get a dose of red spider they 

 may have cause to remember. In such scorching weather as 

 we have lately had, if ever the soil become diy in a pot, the 

 red spider will soon visit the leaves, and he will not stay there. 

 If ever the plants are in pots, if we could, we would always j 

 have them in pits after May, with the pots set in from 1 to 2 or : 

 3 inches of soil, according as the time dated from the 1st of i 

 May to the beginning of .Tune, as then, with the command of I 

 artificial heat when necessary, and the cool moisture at bottom, j 

 it would be easier to keep red spider at bay than wlien the 

 pots were set on a shelf either in saucers, or without them on ! 

 turf or moss. We have some standing on moss and turf now, 

 the moss and turf being a complete mass of rootlets. When 

 the pots stand on earth it should be so porous and open that 

 the water may pass through it. We have removed nearly all 

 the Strawberries from the Peach-house, and not too soon. 

 The first plant affected with the red spider was one where the 

 drainage-hole in the bottom of the pot was clogged up. Stag- 

 nant moisture is as effectual for causing a sickiy habit as ex- 

 cessive temporary dryness. 



Peach-house .—Vnless in cold nights give no fire now, and 

 plenty of air, as the fruit is coming fast enough, and fine, 

 though a heavy crop. Gave a good watering with drainings 

 from the dunghill, which will help to keep the house cooler 

 aind swell off the later fruit. Gave also a good watering to the 

 orchard-house from similar draiijings, as the rains had helped 

 to fill the manure-water tank. We prefer this for in-door 

 watering, and would confine sewage-water, if we coulJ, always 

 to open-air watering. We are fully convinced that most of our 

 cottage-gardener friends would vastly increase the produce of j 

 their gardens if all the .slops and washings from the house I 

 were carefully kept, if in no better receptacle, in a good clay 

 pond or tank, covered over, and then applied the liquid to all 

 fie rougher vegetables when in a growing state, and without 

 tonching any of the leaves. 



Vines, Figs, Melons, &o.-, much the same as in prevous 

 weeks. 



', . OBNAIIESTAL DEPAETHENT. 



* 'Whilst attending to potting and packing Orchids, dividing 

 Mine Ferns, &e., in drizzly days, the chief work has been, as 

 the weather would permit, going on with planting the flower 

 garden, and getting the lawn and walks in order. We never 

 were so late in planting but, and we do not know if we have 

 any reason to regret it. Most of the plants had been turned 

 out and were growing in temporary beds, and were lifted with a 

 trowel or little fork, and carried in boxes at once to the_ appro- 

 priate place, and after a day or so hardly one showed signs of 



distress even in a bright day. There is this advantaao, hosidaa 

 many others as respects watering, itc, in the case of anoh 

 plants planted out in a temporary bed, and lifted and planted 

 — that the fibres go at once into the fresh soil of the well aired 

 bed. One disadvantage is, that sometimes if the ball formed 

 is large it is apt to break an* take the fibres with it. Wo would 

 sooner have all the nice fibres without a ball, than have tlie 

 fibres lost in the above way. For such plants, after being onee 

 watered at the roots, a skiff over the foliage, as alluded to in 

 the beginning of this article, we generally find soon makes 

 them all right. We had occasion to move a few Geraniums 

 that had been planted three days, and found that the fibres 

 had rim fully an inch into the new soil. After they do that 

 they will pretty well look after themselves, and will bloom aU 

 the better the less watering and rains they have — that is, as a 

 general rule ; for once we had Scarlet Geraniums that began to 

 wither up in the dry summer, the drought having got down 

 to the extremity of the roots, but they did not do so until long 

 after Calceolarias and Verbenas, also left to themselves, 

 perished. As a general rule, when once Scarlet Geraniums 

 take hold of the ground, the less moisture they have the better 

 they will do.— K. F. 



CO^'ENT GARDEN IMAPJiET.— Ju.ne 1G. 



Little or no alterntion in our last week's qnntations shows the con- 

 dition of our miirket, supply and demand beins about balanced. Tho 

 present retHrdiny weather favours the sale of foreign fruit, among which 

 some tons of Strawberries have been disposed of during the week, aelling 

 at about Id. per lb., chiefly among the street Tcndors. 



VEGETABLES. 



Artichokes each 



Asparagus .... bundle 

 Beans, Broad. . bushel 



Kidney 100 



Beet, Red doz. 



Broccoli bundle 



Brus. Sprouts ^a sieve 



Cubbage doz, 



t'apsicnms 100 



Carrots bunch 



Cauhflower doz. 



Celery bundle 



Cucumbers each 



pickling .... doz. 



Endive doz. 



Fennel bunch 



Garlic lb. 



Herbs bunch 



Horseradish . . bundle 



Leek3 bunch 



Lettuce per doz. 



Mushrooms pottle 



Mustd.& Cress, punnet 



Onions bushel 



Parsley H sieve 



Parsnips dox. 



Peas per quart 



Potatoes bushel 



Kidney do. 



Radishes . . doz. hands 



Rhubarb buniUe 



Savoys doz. 



Sea*kaie basket 



Shallots lb. 



Spinach bushel 



Tomatoe.**. . . - per dnz. 



Turnips bunch 



Vegetable Morrows dz. 



Apples M sievo 



Apricots doz. 



Cherries lb. 



Chestnuts buah. 



Cuirauta sieve 



Black do. 



Pigs doz. 



Filbert!) lb. 



Cob» lOOlbs. 



Gooseberries . . quart 

 Graped, Hothouse. .li>. 

 Lejnons ItKI 



s. d. 3. 



Oto 



4 6 

 G 

 



5 

 



d 











6 









 IJ 



15 

 

 

 4 6 

 10 

 10 



a. d. s. t 



Melons...,,. eftch 4 Oto8 * 



Nectarines ■ doz. 10 20 



Oranges 100 B 



Poaches doz. 15 



Pears (dessert) . . doz. 



kitchen dnz. 



Pine Apples . . lb. 6 



Plums v; Bievo 









 

 

 

 



Quinces ^ aievo 



Kaspberries lb. 



Strawberries lb. 2 



Walnuts buah. 14 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



J); ■.'-:. 'J&R 



Book on Fkkns (Pour pauer U Ump.>i.-U yon mean wortei oa F«™»J 

 indiKenous to our islands, " The British Fotob." It can bo had (roc by 

 port from our ollice if you enclose SJ. Hi. in postage stainpj >ntb your 

 direction. We shaU bo be glad to see your notes on MicroscopuJ 

 Researches " as soon as it is convenient to ypurjell. 



Grdbs in Rose Buds (Oluirif. lIamilton).-rTb<, darkcolonred fattisb 

 grub which gnaws into tho buds o( Boaes is the larva of the VO^tf. 

 Tortri:. lArgvrotoza) Berginanniana. The more 'I™*" er«n one vrltll. 

 whiti.h latefal stripes i» that of one of the GeomBtridB. <('■ X""""**- 

 Careful hand-picking of the infested bnds is at present the only remednj 

 When the moths appear they might be trapped by bird-limed tw.gs stuck 

 about the plants. — W. .. / 



Okra Plant CuLTCnE.-- J. P. «." would fool obliged I'.v any of yonr. 

 readers who have tried the cultivation of ^hf<^^';^ f ™<. ""^'"« "5'1?o^ 

 they have succeeded in producing pods without a o.o •'«'»• ""'^''^T 

 treated. The Okra plant (.\belmoschna esculentusi, is a '"" » ''' 'H^ 

 W^st Indies, where it is cultivated ospeciaUy for tUickemng soups. 83 if, 

 is verymucllaginons. ,.- 



Cold Grekniiol-sb PI.ANT3 (.4mo(fur).-You are q^-'l^'fj \ "' '°i/?? 

 nlants for your cool greonhonso. Yon could not have much from il m 

 'dialer lor'^^arlourdSoration. bat yon O"'^* "^ring "n bulh, in . .aU» 

 Stocks and Wallflowers. Hardy annuals would sUnd m il in wintir n^a,- 

 bloom early in spring, and Balsams aijd man j other timgs could be lui«; 

 in great perfectiott. 



