May 6, 1875. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTORK AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



345 



Bolate necessity to fertilisation. A genial atmosphere should 

 be maintained — certainly not a dry and hot one, as is so often 

 recorom?nded in our gardening periodicals, but one containing 

 sufficient warmth to prevent anything like stagnancy, and 

 enough moisture to prevent flagging. Cold draughts should 

 not be admitted. When there is no sunshine, a very littlo 

 warmth in the pipes and the smallest aperture at the apex of 

 the roof will give quite sufficient buoyancy to the air of the 

 house. In the case of Vines and Peaches a gentle shake of 

 the trellis will help to distribute the pollen. 



I do not think it at all necessary to touch the flowers with 

 the hand or any implement, and I firmly believe that there is 

 more harm than good done by it. The little caps which cover 

 and protect the blooms of Viues always fall ofi mine at the 

 proper time, and why should they not do so with other growers? 

 The little gl-obules on the stigma, so much talked of and 

 written about, do not prevent impregnation here, and I cannot 

 quite understand why they should do so elsewhere. 



Peaches wOl generally set well enough if the flowers are 

 perfect and the atmosphere suitable. If the flowers are not 

 perfect something besides is probably wrong; and if by any 

 eeheming you can make them set artificially, it is not at all 

 likely you will force them to ripen good fruit. 



This season for the first time I have found anta damaging 

 flowers and fruit. I always thought before that they did no 

 more than dance attendance on the green fly. Now as I have 

 no green fly for them they have revenge by sucking the juices of 

 the flowers. I have had Peach and also Melon flowers entirely 

 destroyed by them, and now they are trying the flavour of the 

 ripe Strawberries. I have read that toads will destroy ants. 

 We have plenty of toads, but they do not care at all for such 

 small fry, they prefer worms and wasps. A dozen wasps is 

 nothing unreasonable for a hungry toad, and I must there- 

 fore think it would take him a long time to make a meal off 

 ants. But to the flowers. 



1 ventured to hint in a former paper that the impregnation 

 of the Strawberry was a sort of compound affair, that to have 

 a perfect fruit it is necessary for all the little hair-like organs 

 in the centre of the flower to be impregnated, and where these 

 are not impregnated the seeds will not be formed, and the 

 trnit will not swell in that particular part. This is the cause 

 of badly-shaped fruit. Each seed affects the swelling of the 

 fruit about an eighth of an inch all round it ; if there is a 

 space of more than a quarter of inch, when the fruit is fully 

 grown without a perfect seed there will be a malformation. 

 These observations are taken from Keens' Seedling. Some 

 varieties may have the seeds closer and some further apart. I 

 have lately bad more proof of the above than I wished for. 

 Daring the sunless weather of March, when we could not keep 

 sufficient warmth in the pipes in the Strawberry house to 

 make the air buoyant without raising the temperature too 

 high, I took the precaution to fan the flowers once every day 

 for a time when they were fully expanded. It was done with 

 my hat as being the most convenient, and I am sorry to say I 

 spoilt the shape of it. I gave it a sharp whisk before the 

 flowers so as to cause them to move without touching them. 

 The effect was plainly visible in the shape and appearance of 

 the fruit. As the season was advancing and the days grow- 

 ing longer, I left the next succession batch to take care of 

 themselves, and a lot of miserable, ngly, deformed fruit was 

 produced, such as I was glad to see the last of. I now put 

 my man in charge up to the fanning dodge, and the fruit 

 agrin was all that could be wished for. In ordinary seasons 

 a knowledge of this practice is of no consequence, but in a 

 sunless season, like the present one has been till lately, I think 

 it of the greatest importance. 



It is interesting to observe how beautifully Nature provides 

 for the fertilisation of the Strawberry flower. The outer 

 stamens are longer than the inner stamens, and soon after the 

 petals expand these longer stamens may be seen bending over 

 so as to cover the tip of the future fruit. They remain there 

 till the little vessels burst and distribute the pollen, and then 

 almost immediately they recede and begin to decay. — William 

 Tatlob. 



Phil^delphu Isteknatioxal Exhibition of 1876. — The 

 applications for space in the British section of this Exhibition 

 are numerous and of a satisfactory character. In consequence, 

 however, of arrangements recently communicated by the Ame- 

 rican authorities, whereby the time for foreign commissions to 

 make definite application for amount of space required is ex- 

 tended, it will be possible for the British Executive to receive 



applications from intending exhibitors, addressed to 5, Craig's 

 Court, Charing Cross, London, up to the loth of May inclusive. 



ALPINE AURICULAS. 



Tnis alpine beauty, so developed by the labour which has 

 been bestowed on it, more especially in years gone by, has in- 

 deed acquired an extravagant diversity of minutely exquisite 

 tints — considering the limited variations it was originally known 

 to possess in its wild state — blending in what are termed varie- 

 gated flowers in a really marvellous manner, and forming a 

 pleasing contrast to those of one colour known as selfs, the 

 plant varying also in a yellow or white eye. As if its beautiful 

 shades of colour alone did not demand for it universal atten- 

 tion, it also yields a delicious Primula-like scent. 



My object in penning these few lines in favour of the alpine 

 Auriculas is not so much to explain how they should be grown, 

 for this has often been done by many able and experienced 

 writers. I would rather speak of the adverse circumstances 

 under which they (the flowers) may be cultivated, and the 

 rough treatment they will survive, their independent character 

 thus bringing them under the class of hardy perennial bedding 

 plants. And yet how seldom are seen in private gardens more 

 than one or two different varieties of the Auricula. As far as 

 my experience goes they are of much easier culture than is 

 generally supposed. It has been said that damp and full sun- 

 shine are their ruin. 



My interest in this flower was first awakened by the surprise 

 I felt at seeing it grown under great disadvantages, its beauty 

 changing a very unattractive spot into one of marvel. This 

 was a tiny walled-in garden or court facing the south — a re- 

 ceptacle, as may be supposed, for every kind of domestic odds 

 and ends, being tenanted by an old mechanic in the narrow 

 street of an uninviting part of a country town. I was assured 

 this plot had no artificial assistance from manure, nor protec- 

 tion from sun nor wet. It was a light soil of poor character 

 yet nurtured the Auriculas, which were produced there in nearly 

 every shade of their colour. One of the moat striking points 

 was the nearness in which the plants were grown — literally 

 touching each other on all sides. At hngth I had the good 

 fortune of obtaining a collection of these April-blooming 

 treasures, but at a period which necessitated a double move for 

 them ; each time they were stripped of all earth attached to 

 their roots. The end of May was the date of their first transi- 

 tion, and September was the second. The latter time they 

 were fully three days out of the ground, being then planted 

 where they now stand, in a poor, sandy, stony soil, unsheltered 

 from the elements, it being a high, exposed, and dry situation. 



With all this their principal enemy is the cockchafer grub, 

 which eats the roots here by wholesale in May, through which 

 I lost a quantity of plants in the summer of 1871. With the 

 exception of a tolerable amount of decayed farmyard manure 

 in the autumn, and a dressing of soot in the early spring, 

 with one later addition of a little liquid manure, they have had 

 to look out for themselves, and where there is a plant that was 

 left unmolested by the cockchafer grub it looks robust. Those 

 that are smaller though now healthy have all suffered from 

 its ravages. These pests eat the roots bare to the surface of 

 the earth, for which I know no prevention. Some of the plants 

 now blooming I had for two years previously on a dry bank 

 facing the south, but shaded. The soil was stiff loam, in 

 which they bloomed fairly, but made little growth, though still 

 alive to tell the tale. In truth the tale they all tell is one of 

 which I can never tire, for there seems daily a new attraction 

 in their contemplation, in comparing their beautiful shades of 

 purple, lilac, crimson, pink, maroon, yellow, and white. I 

 have sent you a few pips of about fifty different flowers, which 

 will show that with all their adverse circumstances they still 

 have something to boast of. 



I mention all these facts merely to demonstrate that Auri- 

 culas can' be grown in many places where now, I believe, it is 

 considered out of the question. If I had such a spot at my 

 disposal I would select a rather shaded, moist, but well-drained 

 bed for them, which is exactly the reverse of their present 

 position in my garden. This is only one of the many beauti- 

 ful hardy flowering plants that surely will again before long 

 take a more prominent place in our gardens. — Henkt W. 

 CooPEK, Surrey. 



[The flowers which Mr. Cooper sent us were very varied in 

 colour, large in size, and of good form. Our experience of 

 these border Auriculas confirms what Mr. Cooper says, for 

 they are among the most gay and hardy of our spring flowers ; 



