.Tamioi'y 1, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICDLTURB AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



11 



that it 13 bad to grow, but because it has suffered no one man, 

 as yot, to boast of many victories over its weak points and 

 native imperfections. Lists of other cultivated flowers alter, 

 oh, how quickly ! A Rose election is necessary now and again 

 to pick quaUty out of quantity. But the high blue-blood 

 Auricula is more than a queen in this. It knows little of 

 such revolution and abundance. We have the belles of fifty 

 seasons blooming by the side of dKhatante beauties and holding 

 their own. But it is just a difllculty which gives zest to a 

 pursuit and value to success. My favourite, the Auricula, is 

 all the more to me for not being a facile flower on this point. 

 With one surpassing triumph I should feel like the lioness in 

 the fable, whom the dog with many whelps reproached for 

 having but one cub. " True," said the royal mother, " but 

 you forget that that one is a lion ! " 



Mr. Trail, like all true florists — and this is why florists' 

 flowers thrive with florists only — always took the culture of 

 his favourite flowers into his own hands. He was ever most 

 generous with them, and would freely give young plants to all 

 who would properly care for them. In the case of a valuable 

 seedUng this generosity sometimes comes back after many 

 days. Mr. Trail knew the pleasure of occasionally receiving 

 from friends again the seedlings of which he had himself 

 lost all stock. He looked a very aged man when he came all 

 the way from Edinburgh to Manchester for the last National 

 Auricula Show, and told us how well the sight repaid him. 

 He was glad to see how good some of his own seedlings could 

 come — better than he had thought — and he brought pips of 

 a few of his last to show us. We did hope once or more 

 again to meet him thus, but he almost shook his head. He 

 could not promise— and he was right. — F. D. Hoenkb, Kirlibij 

 Maheard, Eipon. 



TRAINING POTTED CLIMBING PLANTS. 

 The cheapest mode, as a correspondent, " Chelmsford," 

 observes, is by the aid of sticks, and we prefer them painted 



L 



I 



Fig. 2. 



brown rather than green, the parts of them that are visible 

 then look more like parts of the stem. But Mr. B. Read, 

 many years since, suggested the mode very generally adopted, 

 and represented in the following woodcuts. It is simple and 

 convenient. The rods {fi<j. 2) and rings (seen in //;/. 1) are made 

 of strong galvanised wii'e ; but they might also be made of wood 

 with iron hooks. The hooks should be made to fit the ring 

 exactly, and the rods can be made of any length, according to 

 the nature of the plant they are meant for. Also, when neces- 

 sary, they can be taken out of the pot, painted, and put together 

 again with very little trouble. 



MnsHROOMS IN December. — One morning in the second week 

 two men, named Mark Greenough and Edward Chew, found 

 in fields at Low Moor, Bradford, Yorkshire, upwards of 2 lbs. 

 of Mushrooms, the largest weighing nearly 17 ozs. 



Strawberry Comte de Zans. — I have not seen the variety 

 called Comte de Zans mentioned. This is a first-class variety, 

 as productive as Black Prince, and in size of fruit like Pre- 



sident. I first saw it at Darlington, and was much struck 

 with its prolific character, a plant in a pot having been shown 

 with about fifty large fruit. It seems to be a great favourite 

 near Darlington. I find that it succeeds satisfactorily on thie 

 east coast, where several kinds never bear at all. — R. H. D. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 



Since the year 1871 a Japanese silkworm, the Yama- 

 MAYA, which feeds on Oak leaves, has been in process of suc- 

 cessful acclimatisation in Bavaria and Wurlemberg. The 

 caterpUlar is green, and about a finger's length ; it appears in 

 spring, and the moth lays its eggs in August. 'These pass the 

 winter in the open air. The worms are generally kept in a 

 well-ventilated room, and require little attention. This is the 

 summer Yamamaya ; but, as we learn from a German source, 

 a different insect, the winter Yamamaya, has lately been in- 

 troduced, and is likely to displace the former, inasmuch as it 

 yields two generations each year — at the beginning and end of 

 summer. 'The summer Y'amamaya passes the winter only as 

 an egg ; the winter Yamamaya only as a cocoon. The summer 

 Yamamaya lives as caterpillar, cocoon, and moth only in 

 summer. About the end of April it leaves the egg as a cater- 

 pillar, and it dies as a moth about the end of August ; its eggs 

 giving the worms of the next year. The winter Yamamaya, 

 on the other hand, passes both summer and winter as a cocoon, 

 and the moth appears in April or May. The worms appear 

 from its eggs in about a month ; the spinning of the cocoon 

 begins between the 7th and 27th of July, and the moth leaves 

 the summer cocoon between the 5th and 28th of August. 

 Though the winter Yamamaya appears as a worm later than the 

 summer Yamamaya, it precedes the latter as a moth. The eggs 

 which it now leaves produce worms in ten or twelve days ; 

 after fifty-two days these spin their cocoons in which the 

 winter is passed. These cocoons bear a cold of 10° K. There 

 are other advantages in using the winter Yamamaya; the 

 spring worms appearing later than those of the summer Y'ama- 

 maya, Oak leaves are more easily procured ; the animal also 

 eats more readily, spins a larger and better cocoon, and lays 

 more eggs. The acclimatisation is now being prosecuted with 

 vigour in Siebenbiirgen and the south of Austria. — (EngUsh 

 Mechanic.) 



VicE-CoNSnL Dupuis reports that the Rosa harvest of 



1873 in the villayet of Adrianople has on the whole been 

 remunerative to cultivators, and the crop is said to yield about 

 500,000 misoals, or about 9.3,750 ozs. of otto or atta of Rosea, 

 and is valued at about £70,000; but, owing to the moist 

 weather, distillation was profuse, and the product is conse- 

 quently less strong than in 1872. According to the degree of 

 dryness of the season it takes from 8 to 9 okes (23 to 21 lbs.) 

 to 14 to 16 okes (38 to 41 lbs.) of the blossoms to produce one 

 miscal of oil ; and the price ranges, according to quaUty, from 

 14 to 18 piastres the miscal, or from 13s. Id. to 16s. lOrf. per 

 ounce. The mode adopted for testing the purity of the dif- 

 ferent quahties of these oils is to put the essence into flasks, 

 which are afterwards immersed in water at a temperature of 

 63° to 68° Fahr. ; if the quality be good, it will freeze, and this 

 oil is preferred to all others as being of the purest kind. Some 

 inferior oils will not freeze even at 52". The oils from various 

 soils differ greatly in quality ; and manufacturers frequently 

 adulterate the oils by an admixture of a substance produced 

 by them from certain lands of grasses. Otto of Roses is mostly 

 exported from Adrianople to Germany ; buyers from that 

 country annually resort to Adrianople, and make purchases to 

 the amount of about 62,000 ozs., the remainder finding ready 

 markets in Constantinople and the East. 



ARUNDEL CASTLE. 



The Seat of the Duke of Norfolk. 

 The Premier Duke, the Earl Marshal of England. These 

 are high-sounding titles, and of long descent ; but not less 

 honourable is that of his eldest sou, the Earl of Arundel, who 

 is a peer of Parliament during his father's hfetime, so long as 

 he holds the Keep of Arundel. We only know of one parallel 

 case in the peerage. For years no notice has been taken of 

 Arundel Castle gardens, and it is only now that, through the 

 kindness of " A Visitor," wo are enabled to present our 

 readers with a few jottings of what is there to be seen. More 

 than a quarter of a century ago he tells us he was there, and 

 passed many a day in the beautifully-wooded park of between 



