Febniary 4, 1875. "1 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



91 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



KEBEUABY 4—10, 1875. 



Aogustas Pyr. DecandoUe bom, 177d. 

 Zoological Society, 8.30 P.M. 

 Dr. Prieetley died, 1801, aged 61. 



QUINgUAGESIMA. 



Geographical Society, 8.30 P.M. 

 Boyal Horticnltural Annual, 3 p.m. 

 Geological Society, 8 p.m. 



Average 



aperatare 



London, 



Day. 

 45.0 

 45.7 

 46.5 

 46.9 

 45.6 

 45.3 

 44.9 



NiKht. 

 32.8 

 83.5 

 82.6 

 33.0 

 82.0 

 31.6 

 30.1 



Sun 

 Sets. 



m. h. 

 52 a{ 4 



54 4 



66 4 



68 4 



5 



3 5 



3 6 



Moon 

 Bises. 



Moon 

 Sets. 



m. h. 



16af 7 1 



m. h. 

 12 al 2 

 S3 3 



50 

 26 

 61 

 15 



8 9 , 41 10 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Days. 

 28 

 29 

 O 

 1 

 2 

 3 

 4 



From obBerrations taken near London daring 

 32.2«. 



forty-three yeara, the average day temperature of the week ia 45.7'; and its night temperaturO 



CATCHING SUNBEAMS. 



^^^^^^^^^© HO can tall the value of an hour's sun- 

 shine in January to the gardener who has 

 to keep up a perpetual supply of choice 

 fruit, flowers, anil vegetahles ? the de- 

 mands for which always seem to increase 

 in proportion as the weather gets worse. 

 Fourteen hand-barrowloads ot plants in 

 flower (fine-foliage and Ferns count for 

 nothing here), all through the dullest 

 months of winter to bo kept principally 

 in dark dry passages heated with hot-air flues, which pro- 

 duce anything but a genial atmosphere, according to my 

 notions of geniality, varied now and then by an icy draught 

 from wide-open windows early in the morning when the 

 weather is bright (and bracing to the hardier members of 

 the animal world), take no small amount of scheming 

 and forethought. 



But all this is play compared with supplying choice 

 vegetables to M. le Chef, who expects his demands for 

 Coiicomhre, Tomaie, &c., to be supplied as easily as his 

 order to Messrs. Barto Valle for maccaroni. Let a thing 

 be known to be scarce, it is supposed to be recherche, 

 and the demand increases accordingly. I have sometimes 

 found the following httle bit of stratagem successful, but 

 I am afraid it will not serve me much longer. When a 

 thing is likely to run short, gather all that can be laid 

 hold of, of good, bad, and indifferent quality, and cause 

 all to be placed before le Chef at once, who will then say 

 it is not recherche, it is too common, and you may, 

 perhaps, get a respite for a week. This, of course, is not 

 honest practice, and an hour's sunshine made the most of 

 will often do much to remove all difficulties. 



We have now had several weeks of very dull, almost 

 dark days, with not ten minutes' sunshine in a week, and, 

 strangely enough, frequently as soon as the sun had fairly 

 gone down the sky cleared, and the moon shone brightly. 

 I suspect it would take a lot of moonshine to produce a 

 pennyworth of chlorophyll. Now to-day, this 22nd of 

 January, after a little frost, we have actually had a whole 

 day's sunshine — glorious sunshine ! a blessing not to be 

 lightly esteemed. I was a little timid in the morning, 

 anxious to make the most of every ray of light, but half 

 afraid that tender Vine leaves, which had never seen real 

 daylight before, would not bear such an abundance of it. 

 Peaches, too, with flowers fully expanded under very ad- 

 verse circumstances, would they bear it? Cucumbers 

 with strong vigorous shoots, but with scarcely so dark a 

 green colour as they should have, and some of the little 

 fruits damping at the end, barely keeping pace with the 

 daily demand for salad, and affording none for culinary 

 purposes, if they could be induced to stand three or four 

 hours of this heavenly sunshine would never look back 

 again. Strawberries with their ci-owns just opening, 

 Eoses with shoots an inch long and just coming into leaf, 

 Asparagus is Asperge blanche when we would rather 

 have it A.-ipcrge verte. Everything, excepting, perhaps, 

 French Beans, shows a want of daylight. Now it is 



No. 723.— Vol. XXVIII., New Seeies. 



come, wUl they be able to bear it '? Fortunately at sunrise 

 there is no house with a higher temperature than 57". 

 Peaches, Strawberries, and Eoses have a lower tempe- 

 rature than this. Drops of moisture hang like beads 

 round the edges of the leaves, and when the sun shines 

 through the roof it feels inside the houses as nearly like 

 a fine morning in May as anything I can imagine. There 

 is no time to stop long in a place ; there is much running 

 backward and forward, just putting the least bit of air 

 on one house and then running on to the next. There is 

 not even time to look at the thermometers, temperature 

 now is immaterial. The all-absorbing question is, Will 

 the fohage, which is comparately thin in texture and short 

 of chlorophyll, bear the sunhght ? 



Very little air must be admitted at once. It is still a 

 frosty air. A leaf must not be seen to move, nor a breath 

 of cold au- felt. All the air must be admitted at the top, 

 not the least bit anywhere else, or a draught will be the 

 consequence. The sun stUl shines and the sky looks 

 clear, another run round, another chink of ah- on tho 

 Peach house. The trelhs is touched, and the pollen is 

 seen floating about in the sunlight. The petals look 

 strong and healthy, and some fall off still perfect. Some 

 few buds here fell off when commencing to swell, but I 

 think all are safe now, and the first opportunity will see 

 seven- eigthths of them picked off. Other houses, how- 

 ever, want looking to now, and this time it is a question 

 whether the amount of ventilation now on will be suffi- 

 cient for that part of the day when the sun, supposing it 

 to keep out, will be the most powerful. It is now about 

 9.30, and there is not a cloud visible. The temperature 

 has not yet risen more than 5° in any of the houses, but 

 it is gradually rising in all ; not a leaf is droopmg, and 

 there is now every prospect of the plants being able to 

 stand the glorious sunlight. Fires, of course, were stopped 

 long ago, and the pipes are already cooling ; it wOl soon 

 be nothing but Nature's own genial atmosphere. A day 

 like this does more for the gardener than weeks of hard 

 firing. No more air is given after 9.30. The temperature 

 in most of the houses rises to about 75° by 10.30, and as 

 the plants seem to be enjoying it, it is time at twelve 

 o'clock to consider how to make the most of the remaining 

 sun heat. The Cucumber house is now entirely closed, 

 and the temperature rapidly rises to 82°, all natural heat. 

 The pipes, with the exception of those for supplying 

 bottom heat, are now nearly cold. Not a leaf is droop- 

 ing here ; the growth by this time after three hours' bright 

 sunshine must be considerably consolidated, and I shall 

 expect by to-morrow morning to have a visible difference 

 in both leaves and fruits. Other houses now have the 

 ventilation reduced, and all, excepting the Peach house 

 are entirely closed soon after one o'clock. Were the 

 Peaches a little forwarder, and fairly commenced swelling, 

 they would be closed up too ; but probably all the flowers 

 are not yet fertilised, and during the process of fertilisa- 

 tion a close atmosphere is not good for them. 



Peaches and Apricots outside are fast sweUing their 

 buds: I would rather the sunhght did not reach them 

 just yet. I have had hmewash in which a little sulphur 



No. 1875.— Vol. LIII., Old Sebies. 



