230 



JODENAL OP HORTIUULTDKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ March 19, 1874. 



IB a distinct Eose, and will, when shown later in the season, he 

 more appreciated. The colour is clear rose, and the flowers full 

 and nicely cupped. Mr. Bennet, Stapleford, had a iirst-class 

 certificate for Hybrid Perpetual Rose Madame Lacharme, white 

 blush centre ; and Tea Madame FraDi,-ois Janin, coppery orange, 

 had a similar award. Messrs. Veitch, Cutbueh, and Douglas 

 also exhibited new Hyacinths, which have been already noticed 

 in a previous part of this report ; also Mr. W. Paul. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 



Hepatica angulosa. — It may not bo generally known that 

 there are two varieties of Hepatica angulosa, one very much 

 larger than the other. We lately saw both varieties in the 

 garden of Mr. G. F. Wilson, at Heatherbank, Weybridge 

 Heath, and the flowers of the larger variety measured Ij inch 

 in width. 



Mrs. Pinc'e's Muscat Grape. — We recently received a 



portion of a bunch of Mrs. Pince's Muscat Grapes from Mr. 

 Abram Bass, of Burton-on-Trent, which at this late season 

 were in admirable preservation, and though very slightly 

 shrivelled were quite fleshy. The flavour was very rich, and 

 more like a fresh raisin than anything else. Though the 

 colour was not quite black, the fruit itself was as finely 

 flavoured as could be desired. It appears that the soil in 

 which the Vine was grown is admirably suited to this variety. 



Our cultivated plants survive much farther to the 



north than is usually supposed. M. Adolph Erman, when only 

 eighty-four miles from the Arctic Circle in North Siberia, found 

 not only woods of Larch, Pine, and Birch, fine and vigorous, 

 but garden vegetables such as Turnips of large size, and in the 

 woods Blackberries and Eoses — probably, says M. Erman, Eosa 

 calyciflora of Gmelin — growing luxuriantly. 



We have received from Messrs. Huber & Co., of 



Hyores, a coloured plate of Dahlia areorea, a species quite 

 distinct from Dahlia imperialis. It is of a lilac colour, and 

 the form of the flower is like that of the old Waratah Camellia. 

 In a circular issued by Messrs. Huber they say — " It attains 

 the ;height of about 7 feet, and it forms a well-branched 

 clump with large leaves of a dark green, which contrast 

 agreeably with the foliage of other plants. This inferiority of 

 height makes it take up less room in the conservatory than 

 the D. imperialis, and enables it to resist the wind better in 

 the open air. From the end of December it produces an innu- 

 merable quantity of well-formed mauve-eoloured flowers, the 

 successive development of which does not suffer from a tem- 

 perature below freezing point. The form of the plant is, more- 

 over, quite new in the genus, for it can only be compared to 

 a gigantic Anemone ; and its peculiarity of flowering copiously 

 at a low temperature is a rare occurrence among succulent 

 herbaceous plants." 



■ A FIRM in Hiogo, Japan, exported COO tons of Wheat 



in November direct to the London markets, and intend to 

 export more if the speculation is successful. 



Grand Midland Counties Horticultural Exhirition. 



— We are pleased to announce that H.E.H. Prince Arthur has 

 communicated his intention to become one of the patrons of 

 this important Show to be held at Birmingham in July. 



A NEW work, entitled " Orchids and How to Grow Them 



in India and other Tropical Countries," is commenced publish- 

 ing by Messrs. L. Eeeve & Co. The author is Mr. S. .Jennings, 

 F.L.S., &a., late Vice-President of the Agri-Horticultural So- 

 ciety of India. We have only seen the first number, in which 

 the plates are the natural size of the flowers and well coloured. 



A painting of a fine bunch of the Duke of Buccleucd 



Grape, which has been much admired in the Exhibition of the 

 Eoyal Scottish Academy this season in Edinburgh, was pur- 

 chased last week for seven guineas, by the Eoyal Association 

 for the Promotion of Fine Arts. The representation is a very 

 faithful one, and was executed by Miss Thomas, Lasswade, 

 from a bunch suppUed her from Clovenfords. 



The Colorado Potato Beetle. — The reports of the ravages 

 made among the Potato crops in the United States last year 

 by the Colorado beetle have naturally caused considerable alarm 

 to growers in this country', as it is feared that this insect pest 

 may be brought over in the largo quantities of seed Potatoes 

 which are imported from the other side of the Atlantic. With 

 a view to preventing its introduction, Mr. J. Algernon Clarke, 

 Secretary of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, on the 10th 



of February addressed a letter to Mr. Gladstone, calling his 

 attention to the imminent risk to which the United Kingdom, 

 especially Ireland, is exposed, and suggesting that the import- 

 ation of Potatoes from the United States and British America 

 should at once be prohibited. In reply, a letter was received 

 last week from the office of the Privy Council for Trade, to the 

 effect that, according to the American official reports, it does 

 not appear that the eggs or larva; of the Colorado beetle have 

 been or are deposited or conveyed in the tuber of the Potato, 

 and therefore there is considered to be no reason to prevent 

 the importation of seed Potatoes from America into the United 

 Kingdom until the case is proved to be otherwise. — {Times,) 



THE BEAUTIFUL AND USEFUL INSECTS OF 

 OUR GARDENS.— No. 17. 



Supposing that one were to put the question to an entomo- 

 logist or a general observer of Nature, " What species of insects 

 display activity most notably in the early months of spring ?" 

 we should probably be answered that bees, wasps, and certain 

 individuals of the Hymenopterous race are first seen abroad oa 

 the wing. But the query admits of a variety of answers, 

 according as it is understood as applying to insects of the air 

 or those of humbler habit, and also much depends "upon tha 

 locality brought under observation. In point of numbers> 

 and taking an average season, I should say that flies make the 

 most conspicuous appearance at the dawn of the vernal season, 

 understanding the word " flies " in its broad sense, as includ- 

 ing not only two-winged or Dipterous insects, but also others, 

 four-winged, yet in size and general outline resembling the 

 true flies, and hence commonly classed with them. Besides 

 the numerous hosts of gnats and midges, whose occasional 

 displays on the wing during the brief hours of a mild winter's 

 day serve to link together the insect life of autumn and spring, 

 we find, as at this moment I am writing, that in the first open 

 weather in February or March parties of other flies come 

 forth which have not, for the most part, hybernated as flies, 

 but have just emerged from the pupal condition. I was 

 amused a day or two since at the conduct of some individuals 

 that had evidently only come forth to the world of outer life 

 an hour or two before I saw them. They were dispersed over 

 an old wall, their black bodies and transparent wings showing 

 up plainly enough on the grey lichens, diminutive as they 

 were ; but what was most singular was their being dotted over 

 the wall at intervals, almost as if they had marked out their 

 distances from each other. Yet they had not, in all proba- 

 bility, emerged from any crannies in the wall, only they had 

 selected the spot as a convenient one for their repose until 

 their time of flight arrived. 



These, I suspect, belonged to the host of flies that are 

 feeders in the larval state on dung or refuse. Many, however, 

 of the flies now coming out are more active friends to the 

 garden, being destroyers of caterpillar life, especially those 

 four-winged flies belonging to the large Ichneumonideous 

 division. There are at least 1200 species of these, and, almost 

 without exception, the larvoe are parasitic on other insects, 

 and serve, as we rather vaguely say, to preserve Nature's 

 balance, and prevent any one species becoming excessively 

 numerous. To watch the diligent and as ceaseless way iii 

 which the mothers of the Ichneumon race, running over leaf, 

 stem, and flower in pursuit of caterpillars more particularly, 

 might almost lead one to think that their indefatigable labours 

 would at last " stamp out " some species. But we have no 

 reason to suppose such a result ensues, or very rarely indeed ;. 

 for if a species of Ichneumon was as numerous in any one 

 generation as the caterpillar it attacked, since each fly is the 

 parent not of only one, but of many, the parasitic species 

 would ere long over-ride the other. Besides accidental in- 

 fluences, however, which may destroy the fly and spare the 

 larger species, it is noticeable that scarcely a parasite is there 

 which has not its parasite in turn ; and though this sort of 

 thing may not go on ad infinitum, as the hackneyed phrase has 

 it, we can trace the prevalence of a law of mutual check as 

 far as our eyes and microscopes will carry us. And again, it 

 is true that while it has been found that a certain moth or 

 butterfly will have its special enemy'confincd to that species, 

 others among the Ichneumons attack a variety of caterpillars, 

 and so divide their power. Some caterpillars there are which 

 seem almost to go scot-free and escape parasitic pests, and 

 some, again, are terribly exposed to attack, as, for instance, the 

 moths known as the " Prominents," where unstung cater- 

 pillars are seldom found at large by the entomologist, and 



