April 13, 1876. 1 



JOUKNAIi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



287 



With " A. C." (page 252) I oordially agree. I quite think it 

 is far better to buy out-baok Boses or one-year-old plants from 

 the nurserymen, but as I wrote a letter to that effect last yeir 

 it is unnecessary for me to say more on this head. I still 

 maintain that as fine blooms can be cut (if not finer) from the 

 Manetti as from the Briar. Of course everything depends 

 upon the soil and the climate. It is impossible to lay down 

 any fast and fixed rule on the subject; but the Manetti will 

 flourish where the Briar will die, and the man who would have 

 to despair of showing a good bloom in such a soil as mine can 

 with confidence cultivate the Manetti. 



Of the seedling Briar I know nothing except as a stock 

 for Teas ; but I should suppose that the same quality of soil 

 would be required for it as for the common Briar. It is a 

 wonderfully good stock for Teas, and I wish all mine were 

 worked ou it ; but the good man who introduced it will laugh 

 at yon if you send an order for Teas alone, lie told me last 

 year at Oxford, when I humbly offered an order for Teas, 

 "Not unless you take some Hybrid Perpetuala also;'' for he 

 added he could have sold five times the number of Teas last 

 year if he had had them. 



" A. C." (page 252), mentions the longevity of some standard 

 Hoses at Sevenoaks. It is quite possible that standards may 

 live for a quarter of a century and bear numbers of flowers, 

 but in all I write I regard the Rose as an exhibition flower, and 

 I should much doubt whether such plants ever produced per- 

 fect flowers fit for the Rose shows. I think it will be granted 

 that the maiden blooms and those from the year-old plants 

 are alone, as a rule, fit for exhibition. You must either bud 

 stocks or buy a certain number of plants every year if you 

 mean to keep-np your form at the shows. But it you cannot 

 afford to do this there is one expedient that you can adopt, 

 and that is lifting the plants, pressing the roots, and planting 

 them in fresh ground, either on a fresh site or in virgin soil 

 wheeled into the old beds. 



I have proved it, and my friend Mr. Baker will bear me out 

 in this, as he made the above remark on observing some Teas 

 bear last summer ; and the great nurserymen will also endorse 

 this dictum, for they never grow Roses in the same ground 

 two years in succession. Travellers by the South-Western 

 Railway as they near Salisbury will see Dahlias growing in Mr. 

 Keynes's nursery where last year they saw standard Roses, 

 and even vegetable crops often take the place of Manettis. Of 

 courso it is a hard matter to persuade your gardener to adopt 

 this course of procedure, although he sees the system called 

 "rotation of crops" carried on all around him. I had a 

 regular set-to with my man this year. " Oh, I want that bed, 

 sir,' for airly 'taties, it is the warmest spot in the garden." 

 " Yes, and you have had airly 'taties there over since I came ; 

 give the soil a rest, and the 'taties a change." But I regret to 

 say I was vanquished. Last of all, however, I did get the 

 better of him. Some room had to be found for Roses this 

 spring, and he had the alternative of digging a new bed on the 

 lawn or yielding up a portion of the kitchen garden. He 

 chose the latter, and now those Roses are where his " airly " 

 Rhubarb and Seakale were last year, and the groans he gave 

 vent to as he forked-up the Seakale roots are ever to be re- 

 membered by me. 



There are foes, however, which dwarf Roses suffer from 

 moro than standards, although in Starveacre (the field which 

 killed my ten thousand,!, even the latter suffered, and those 

 foes are rabbits, and even rats. The former are most de- 

 structive to dwarfs. They come out at night and nip off the 

 shoots just at the most critical stage of their growth, and the 

 rats tear the rind. With regard to the devastation made by 

 rats here it is most deplorable. I had a whole consignment 

 of bulbs destroyed by them in my fruit-room. They are so 

 bold that they climb up the Magnolia outside the house and 

 try to get in at the nursery windows. — John B. M. Cajm. 



CHAPTERS ON INSECTS FOR GARDENERS. 



No. 7. 



Everyone of us, I suppose, forms his ideal of perfect happi- 

 ness, not so much from books or descriptions as from his 

 actual circumstances and surroundings; though these, too, are 

 apt to lead him astray when he contemplates what he has 

 never tried. Capt. Marryat thought, we know, that a thoroughly 

 blissful state of being would be one in which no shadow of an 

 editor or a pubUsher ever crossed the path of the brain- worker ; 



and perhaps many a horticulturist conceives of a world of naturalist uaving seen m lo aiiaun au jingiisi 

 happiness as being one which is free alike from insect pests I it would be presumption on my part to do so 



and vegetable foes, so that, unimpeded by these, horticulture 

 as a science may rise to heights unknown before. Y'et here 

 may be a fallacy ; the struggles and alternations of a pursuit 

 which has its hopes and its fears must really be better than a 

 perpetuity of success. We have read of the general who was 

 so often victorious that he positively longed to lose a battle 

 and break the tameness of triumphing ; and the occasional dis- 

 appointments one meets with in the garden ought to encourage 

 us to effort, since, I make no doubt, were it not for the neces- 

 sity of watchfulness, some of us would become sadly careless. 

 But as things are, if we do not keep a sharp look-out, our 

 insect enemies are down upon us ere wo are aware, and the 

 " multitudinous hum," as somebody calls it, which our ears 

 are familiar with just now, sounds a note of warning. 



Much of this aerial music comes from the fly tribes, which 

 we have at present under consideration; though, considered 

 as an order, the Diptera are but " small potatoes " in the way 

 of producing sounds compared with their boisterous four- 

 winged brethren the Hymenoptera. The large section of the 

 flies which entomologists distinguish by the name of Brachy- 

 cera contains no less than seventeen families small and large, 

 comprehending within it great varieties of figure and size ; but 

 all, or nearly all, the Braohycera, as compared with the gnats, 

 crane-flies, and midges we recently noticed, exhibit a certain 

 stoutness of figure. If the Nemocera are the light horsemen 

 amongst the flies, the Brachycera represent the dragoons and 

 heavy cavalry. In some of the families the antennae are short, 

 consisting of but three joints ; in other families, where there 

 are from three to ten, all beyond the third are extremely thin, 

 or they lose their distinctness. In the first two families of this 

 section we find that the pupa remains within the larva skin 

 until the perfect fly appears ; these being the Stratiomidro and 

 the Xylophagidaj. Of the latter family it need only be said 

 that it embraces bat a small number of species, not abundant, 

 most of the larvre of which live in decayed wood. The more 

 important family of the Stratiomido; includes some very showy 

 flies, which may be regarded as doubtful friends of the garden. 

 The soldier-flies of the genus Stratiomys haunt flowers, taking 

 short rapid flights, and having aquatic larvEe, one species of 

 which, producing the common chameleon fly, is frequently 

 flshed up by those in search of objects for the aquarium. No 

 doubt these received the name of " soldier-flics " because of 

 their gay colours arranged in spots and stripes ; but they might 

 also be so called because they occasionally attack and prey 

 upon smaller flies. In the genus Sargus the flies display 

 metallic tints, and there the larvte are underground feeders, 

 preferring vegetable food that is in a decaying condition and 

 that is somewhat moist : hence in this and in two or three 

 other genera the larvae act as scavengers. It is also presumed 

 that the flies of this family, like others akin to them, aid in 

 the fertilisation of flowers by their transference of pollen from 

 plant to plant. 



Throughout the family of theTabanidfc we have the singular 

 circumstance that the females are ferocious bloodsuckers, while 

 the mild masculines 



" Gather lioney all the day 

 I'rom every opening flower." 



Though this is hardly comprehensive enough, as these flies 

 can digest pollen as well, and they are suspected of occasion- 

 ally disfiguring the petals of flowers by biting them. The 

 popular term " Breezeflies " may suit both sexes, but only the 

 females can claim the epithets of Horseflies, Oxflies, or Gad- 

 flies. In some districts the cattle suffer severely from their 

 attacks, and gardens in proximity to woods are occasionally 

 the reaort of Tabanida of both sexes. Poets have gone into 

 enthusiastic fits over the eyes of gazelles, but I do not know 

 that one has expatiated upon the eyes of a breezefly, though 

 in many species these organs are beautifully lustrous and of 

 varied tints, green and purple predominating. The history 

 of the larvffi of this family has not been thoroughly investi- 

 gated. Some few have been reared : these were wormlike in 

 form, of course without feet, and with a head strengthened for 

 the subterranean life they lead. Gardens do not appear to 

 attract the flies to deposit their eggs, or they might be injurious 

 to the horticulturist, since the larvae probably feed on roots, 

 varying their diet at times by preying on smaller creatures 

 than themselves. These cast off the larva skin in assuming 

 the pupal state, as do also the two famihes following. 



Comical little fellows are the Acroceridre, offering quite a 

 contrast to the preceding family in size and shape. No 

 naturalist having seen fit to attach an English name to them, 



Though they 



