Fobtuary 19, 1874. ] 



JOUBNAIi OF HOBTIODIiXUBK AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



IGl 



Yama, near Yeddo. The Fusi-Tama is the highest monntain 

 in Japan (14,000 feet), with dense Pine forests, chiefly com- 

 posed of this Idnd, covering its sides to 8,000 or y.OOO feet of 

 elevation." 



The best description of this Conifer is by Mr. A. Murray in 

 the "Proceedings of the Eoyal Horticultural Society, '\from 

 which we extract the following. The woodcut is one of our 

 own. 



" A tree of from 20 to 25 feet high, of the habit of Abies 

 can adensis, to which it is closely allied. Trunk erect, with 

 yello wish brown timber. Branchlets with a dirty cicareous 

 brown bark ; the youngest slender, glabrous, pale brownish ; 

 pulvini angularly decurreut, thickened, and turned upwards, 

 wholly adpressed to the branchlet ; phyllula) semi-orbicular. 

 Buds surrounded with scales, which are very numerous and 

 imbricated ; the lower scales ovate, obtuse, keeled, glabrous, 

 coriaceous, abbreviated, persistent, but not placed remote from 



Tsuga Tauja. 



•each other ; the upper (and inner) scales much longer, spathu- 

 late, obtuse, membranaceous, and deciduous. Leaves from 

 ti to 10 lines long, perennial, approximated, and alternate, but 

 subdistichous from the lower leaves being more or less twisted 

 at the base, distinctly stalked, with the stalk rather long and 

 slender and sUghtly curved, linear, generally obtuse and emar- 

 ginate, rarely somewhat sharp-pointed, entire, glabrous, cori- 

 aceous, above deep clear green without stomata, below keeled, 

 with a midrib, on each side of which is a white line of from 

 seven to ten stomata. Male catkins growing in the axilla) of 

 the branchlets of the preceding year, scattered, solitary, en- 

 circled with scales ; the scales more numerous than in the 

 leaf-bearing buds, closely imbricated, in other respects con- 

 formable to them ; the catkins themselves cylindrical, stipitate, 

 with a straight stiff slender cylindrical stalk, longer than the 

 scales. Stamens numerous, at first closely imbricate, after- 

 wards somewhat looser, spreading out horizontally, rather 

 long ; the filaments filiform, dilated at the apex into a scale, 

 or a small spathulate obtuse entire coriaceous connective ap- 

 pendix, from the base of which descend two divergent elhptical 

 longitudinally bivalve loculi. Female P"*'j^js solitary, terminal 

 on tho branchlets of the precediu' — ,'^^',, Jet, at first enclosed 

 in scales as much as the male catKlns, <..«3rwards emerging on 

 a short footstalk, to whose base the scales are persistent. 

 Cones ripen the first autumn, small, not an inch in length, 

 sub-elliptical, narrowest at the apex, remaining on the tree 

 after the fall of the seeds. Scales (a in cut), inside, with 

 seeds, about thirty in number, imbricated, coriaceous, gla- 

 brous on the outside where exposed, tomeutose inside and 

 where covered on the outside by the neighbouring scales, and 



somewhat shining pale brown, nearly orbicular, deeply emar- 

 ginate and stipitate at the base, slightly emargiuate at the 

 apex ; margins entire, substriated where exposed. Bracts 

 short, rather broad, closely adpressed, bifid or bilobed from tha 

 midrib, not extending so far as its wings on each side. Seeds 

 small, ovato-rhomboidal, inequilateral, somewhat compressed, 

 with depressed spots of various size on the test, and with 

 globules of resin shining through the skin ; the wing pale, 

 ferruginous, membranaceous, straight behind, abruptly ex- 

 panded from the seed in front, thence obliquely directed to 

 the apex, which is sub-truncate, nearly a third shorter than 

 the scale." 



POTATOES. 



The value of this crop and the interest excited about it 

 must be my apology for having a few more words on the sub- 

 ject. I have given my own experience, and have nothing 

 further to add on that score ; but I am anxious to ask my 

 former neighbour and friend Mr. Luckhurst whether he con- 

 siders it desirable to lift the crop when the skins rub. I have 

 always understood that there was danger as to their keeping 

 if they were in this state. My Victorias last year were green 

 in the haulm and the crop large ; and I intended to lift them 

 early in August, but found that the coats rubbed so easily that 

 I was afraid to do it, and left them a while longer, and the 

 result was a terribly diseased crop. I am now (February 14th), 

 planting my entire stock, and hope to have all finished by next 

 week, thus expecting to have an early ripened crop ; but on 

 this point, as to the rubbing of the skin, I should be glad to be 

 informed. 



I am afraid your correspondent " J. P." will challenge my 

 sanity if I venture to express a doubt as to the decisions at 

 Chiswick with regard to Potatoes, but for practical purposes 

 I hold that those trials are not sufficient. What ought to be 

 done is to have the Potatoes sent in, and from those grown there 

 a trial to be made the second year. I have long felt that the 

 place whence our seed came made a good deal of difference 

 in the crop ; and hence there ought to be, to ensure a fair 

 comparison, a trial from Potatoes all grown on the same kind 

 of soil and in the same locahty. I feel this the more because 

 I cannot understand the praise given to the American varieties. 

 Either they are entu-ely different to what I have ever found 

 them, or else the ideas at Chiswick as to what constitutes a 

 good Potato are very different from mine. There is not one 

 of them that I have seen that I would give garden room to. 

 They are, it is true, large croppers, and some of them fine- 

 looking both in haulm and tuber ; but they are very subject to 

 disease, and like Paddy's horse, which was " a mortial bother 

 to catch, and when he was caught wasn't worth the bother." 

 — D., Deal. 



A GOOD FIG. 

 The other day I heard a Spanish proverb, that a good Fig 

 should have " the eye of a widow, and the cloak of a beggar." 

 The tattered covering through which the flesh is seen is a good 

 proof of excellence, and the weeping eye is desirable; but there 

 are first-rate sorts, as the Coldi Signora Nera, whose eye is not 

 moist, while White Marseilles, an inferior sort, drips in the 

 most approved manner. — G. S. 



DESTEOYING GREEN FLT. 



On going into my Cucumber house one morning last week 

 I found some Strawberry plants covered with green fly and red 

 spider. I called to mind what I had seen in " our Journal " 

 about the ammonia in guano being fatal to insect life, and de- 

 termined to try the effects of some liquor made up of chamber 

 wash, soapsuds, and dish-washings, knowing that the said 

 liquor was highly charged with ammonia. About two gallons 

 were put into an old iron bucket, and made so hot that I oould 

 barely handle the syringe, through which the hot flue was 

 given a good soa'dng, thereby filling the house entirely with 

 steam. The morning after there was not a live insect in the 

 whole house, and all the plants, Cucumbers as well, are looking 

 much better for their bath, — William Osbaldiston, Fulwood. 



Sale of Orchids and Tree Febns. — Mr. J. C. Stevens had a 

 sale of Orchids and tree Ferns on the Ijth inst. Of the Orchids, 

 Oncidium zebrinum sold for £ 1 8s. ; Odontoglossum Hallii for 

 £3 lOs. ; Oncidium Eemulum and superbiens, each £3 10s. ; 



