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JOURNAL OP HOKTICDLTURE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. 



[ AprU IG, 1874. 



done in this way by loving hanJa, evidence of the cherished 

 memory of departed friends, must always possess a beauty and 

 intrinsic worth thit will place it above criticism. — Edward 



LUCKHURST. 



[Our brethran in America fully coincide with ua in our 

 modern arrangement of the dead's resting-place, and that 

 which they have constructed at Philadelphia is so celebrated 

 that we have copied from the American Horticulturist a view 

 of it, named " West Laurel Hill Cemetery," and this accom- 

 panying note : — " It shares a national reputation for its beauty 

 of adornment, its size and location. It is situated on a sloping 

 hillside, fronting the Schuylkill river, a little northward of the 

 city. The ground was originally divided into three sections — 

 north, south, and centre Laurel Hill ; but demand for space 

 has overflowed all accommodation, until a new tract has been 

 added — West Laurel Hill Cemetery, which alone contains 

 110 acres. 



" In the immediate neighbourhood are other smaller ceme- 

 teries, with cultivated rural aspect : Monument Cemetery, which 

 is somewhat notable from the fact that it contains a fine 

 granite mondbent to the memories of Washington and La- 

 fayette ; also. Mount Peace, Mount Vernon, Glenwood, Mount 

 Moriah, and Woodland, are each of great beauty and located 

 in the suburbs of the city. The Laurel Hill cemeteries are 

 located so as to be for ever free from the disturbance of ever- 

 increasing city buildings and city streets. They are beautifully 

 planned, laid out, decorated, and ornamented with trees and 

 shrubs, which, interspersed among the monuments or statuary, 

 afford a feast to the eyes of any lover of rural taste." — Eds.J 



THE COLORADO POTATO BEETLE. 



A LETTER was recently addressed to Mr. Gladstone by the 

 Secretary of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, " calling his 

 attention to the imminent risk to which the United Kingdom 

 is exposed, and suggesting that the importation of Potatoes 

 from America bo at once prohibited lest that " frightful enemy 

 the Colorado beetle " be introduced into the Potato fields of 

 Europe. The Privy Council for Trade declined to adopt such 

 heroic measures, on the ground that " it does not appear that 

 the eggs or larv.'E of the Colorado beetle have been or are 

 deposited or conveyed in the tuber of the Potato." We present 

 herewith a timely and authoritative statement bearing upon 

 this interesting question. Professor Riley, our accomplished 

 entomologist, clearly shows that if the Doryphora goes abroad 

 it will be as a full-grown and healthy specimen, taking a 

 first-class passage. We trust, however, that our foreign 

 friends will not have this scourge added to that which already 

 devastates theu* Pot.ato fields to such an uncomfortable 

 extent. Professor Eiley, State Entomologist of Missouri, re- 

 marks : — 



In December, 1872, Col. Fred. Hecker, of Summerfield, 111., 

 the well-known and enthusiastic political agitator and tribune, 

 sent to the Gartcnhmhu (Heft 3, 1873), an article on this 

 insect. The article was a condensation, and in some parts a 

 literal translation, from the Missouri Entomological Reports, 

 my figures being copi»d to illustrate it. It has since been re- 

 translated and the illustrations recopied (and accuracy is not 

 apt to increase with these processes, and certainly has not in 

 these instances), by several English journals, over the signa- 

 ture " Fk. H., State of Illinois ; " and since the original trans- 

 lator did not think it worth while to indicate the source from 

 which he drew either his information or illustration, it is not 

 surprising that the Gartciilauhe is left without credit in the 

 retranslations. It is surprising, however, that solid journals 

 like Hardwickc'x Science Gossip and the London Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, should have been so easily led into the consideration 

 of such myths as " Cantharis viniaria," " Doryphora decem- 

 punctata," &a. Some of the articles in the English periodicals 

 on this " new enemy of the Potato " close with the advice 

 that " in the importation of seed of American Potatoes, which 

 is now carried on to a very large extent, the utmost caution 

 should be exercised to prevent the introduction of the beetle 

 to this country." 



That there will be danger of the insect finding its way to 

 Europe when once it reaches the Atlantic seaboard, no one 

 can doubt ; for the impregnated females will live for weeks 

 and ecen months without food, especially in the spring and 

 autumn, when they also take most readily to wing. Such 

 females, alighting on outward-bound vessels, may easily bo 

 given free passage to European ports, and as they will be apt 

 to land without passports, it would be well for the authorities 



to look out for and prevent such unwelcome incursions. I do 

 not think that there is danger of the insect being carried across 

 the ocean in any other way, for Potato plants on which the 

 eggs or larvae might be carried are not articles of commercial 

 exchange, and seed Potatoes do not, as a rule, harbour the 

 beetles. Let our European friends profit by our sad experience 

 with this insect, and, taking time by the forelock, endeavour 

 to prevent its introduction into their Potato fields. This end 

 will best be accomplished through the agricultural and horti- 

 cultural societies, which should make provision for the dis- 

 semination of correct information concerning the pest. A 

 small card, giving a coloured figure of the beetle, or of all 

 stages of the insect, setting forth the disasters which would 

 foUow its introduction, and appealing to the reader to assist 

 in preventing such a calamity, would do good service if posted 

 in the cabins of vessels plying between the two countries, in 

 the warehouses and seed-stores of seaport towns, and in the 

 meeting rooms of agricultural societies. Some such simple 

 means of familiarising the public with a possible enemy 

 should be adopted in a country Uke Ireland, which will per- 

 haps be the first to receive the pest and would suffer most 

 from it. 



In Prussia the Government has adopted a system of agri- 

 cultural teaching which other countries might well pattern by. 

 Travelling teachers (Wanderlelizer) are appointed, one to each 

 district (AVcis), of twenty or thirty square miles, whose duty it 

 is to call the farmers together in their meeting-houses, lay 

 before them recent important facts in agronomy, institute ex- 

 periments and implement trials, &c. With such a system 

 the agricultural community can easily be made aware of 

 possible danger, and a large bottleful of our ten-striped 

 Potato beetles, which a St. Louis friend of mine took over 

 there a year ago, did good service, in that the beetles were dis- 

 tributed, as exhibition specimens, to some of these traveUing 

 teachers. 



[The Editor of the New York Tribune has obliged ns by 

 sending the above. — Eds.] 



FRUIT PROSPECTS AND CULTURE IN 

 LINCOLNSHIRE. 



The notes on the severe weather in March, and its effect on 

 the fruit blossom in different parts of the country, which have 

 appeared in the Journal could not fail to prove interesting. 

 In success or failure, and especially the latter, each likes to 

 know how his brethren fare. It is well that this intercom- 

 munion should pervade the great body of gardeners and 

 garden lovers, and well that it should be fostered by such a 

 genial medium as the readers of these columns acknowledge 

 and rejoice in. It is akin to bearing each other's burdens. One's 

 joy is robbed of half its pleasure if shut up in mere indivi- 

 duality — if it cannot expand and lighten another's heart; and 

 one's obstacles fall with crushing force if borne alone, with 

 no spark of fraternal sympathy. 



I have lately been unwell and unable to write, but have read 

 with interest and a large measure of satisfaction that my 

 friends of the garden have escaped eo generally well the 

 wintry ordeal when the second week in March jeopardised the 

 objects of their care. With a sudden visitation of 15° to 20° 

 of frost just at the time the fruit blossoms had cast their 

 winter covering, it was, I was going to say, a " dark look-out." 

 This, however, woiild be a misnomer, for never did the face of 

 nature look more pure, and chaste, and silvery, when every 

 twig, and spray, and bud was draped and bent down with such 

 a robe of ice as the eastern counties presented at that time. 

 It looked as if the fruit crop was shrouded in its winding- 

 sheet even in its very infancy — as it were in embryo. Yet 

 what looked like death a month ago now betokens life, health, 

 and prosperity, and the fruit prospects at the present momen 

 are hopeful and bright. Should no more severe frosts overtake 

 us, the fruit crop may be expected to rank amongst the best 

 of past years. Old trees and young are ahke promising, and 

 why ■' The old were granted a new lease of life by the searching 

 root-refreshing wet of the summer of 1872, and the young were 

 made fruitful by the extraordinarily dry autumn and winter of 

 1873-1. Previous to the wet summer named many an old 

 scraggy tree looked like a mere cumberer of the ground, but 

 the deluge of water reached the roots deep down in the dry 

 subsoil, and gave renewed life and health. Seldom have forest 

 trees been robed in a richer hue of health than during the past 

 summer, fed as they were by the replenished larders and collars 



