62 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



British Wild Flowers. By 0. E. Soweeby (Van Voorst).— Tbis reprint of 

 "Sowerby's British Botany," edited by Mr. C. Plerpoint Johnson, is the cheapest 

 completeEngiish Flora ever produced. It comprises descriptions and figures of all 

 known Britisli flo-nering plants, the cost being less than a halfpenny per figure. 

 It is true the figures are small, and there are twenty on a sheet, but they are won- 

 derfully life-like and carefully coloured, and the descriptions, though brief, are 

 sufficient for the genuine student. Let no one buy this as a picture-book, or a 

 source of entertainment on the milksoplsm of botany, such as the "language of 

 flowers " and the " sentiments they convey," etc. It is a book for the worker, and 

 those who will work by its aid will have some respect for it all their lives after. 



TO C0RR13SP0XDBNTS. 



Heating CrcuMBEB Frame.— If.JE. — We should advise you to heat your pit 

 with hot water ; the expense would not be much, as one four-inch pipe round tlie 

 pit would give you all the heat you require for cucumber growing. Have pipes 

 which have troughs made on them ; these can be filled with water and a constant 

 steam kept up. Tou could also employ the ordinary-shaped pipes, and have 

 troughs for holding the water made with zinc. In that case you must have 

 them bedded on the pipes with red lead, for you will not be able to heat the water 

 in them sufficiently to raise a steam. If the pit is heated with hot dung, you must 

 have a trench about three feet wide, and about the same depth, round the pit. Tlie 

 walls of the pit nearly up to the ground-level should be pigeon-holed, to admit the 

 heat supplied by the linings into the bed inside. The other side of the trench should 

 be kept in its position with a four-inch wall ; you can grow equally as good, and 

 perhaps better, cucumbers in a pit heated with manure than you can in one heated 

 with hot water ; hut unless you have a stable to run to for manure, you will find 

 it an expensive affair. And", moreover, it will require more anxiety and attention 

 to keep up a regular temperature ; and such things happen to amateurs as having 

 the roots burnt occasionally, through the manure becoming too hot. 



Peaches and Nectaiuxes roii Open Wall.— D. 3/. — We should advise you 

 to make a selection at once, and get the planting finished by the end of February. 

 The trees will then become nicely moted at once, and start freely early in the spring. 

 Spring-planted trees lose the best part of the season in making roots. If your 

 soil is naturally good, you need do nothing to the border beyond trenching in a 

 moderate dressing of thoroughly decayed manure. Mix the manure well with 

 the soil, and trench as deep as tlie nature of the subsoil will admit. To insure the 

 highest degree of success you had better take out about a couple of barrowfuls of the 

 old soil where the trees are to be planted, and fill in with good turfy loam chopped 

 up roughly. Spread the roots out carefully, and keep them near the surface. 

 With uncongenial soil, your best plan will be to take it entirely away to a depth of 

 three feet, and fill the space with good turfy loam. This would be an expensive 

 afl'air, but you would be more than repaid in the superior quality and quantity of 

 the fruit. We should not advise you to mix any manure with the soil in the first 

 instance ; it would promote too great a luxuriance in the growth. "What you want 

 is medium-sized stubby and well-ripened wood. 



Wall-Trees. — Subscriber. — We are of opinion, judging from what you say, 

 that the trees have exhausted the soil in which they are growing, and are therefore 

 unable to make progress. We suppose you have not allowed them to become 

 smothered with red-spider and green and black fly ; either of these separately, or 

 the three in combination, is quite sufficient, if they are allowed to get ahe.ad, to 

 check the most robust-growing tree. Give the border a dressing of about three 

 inches of good rotten dung, and dig it in the border early in the autumn, but without 

 coing deep enough to injure the roots. Excessive cropping would account for 

 the fruit being small on your free-growing trees, and the dry weather has not been 

 favourable to the production of large fruit. 



Standard CT.\NOPHYLLt)MS. — Amateur. — There will be no difficulty in growing 

 the noble Cyanophyllum magnifieum as a standard. Tou must first grow it up to 

 the required height with a single stem, and then cut the top off. After the branches 

 which are emitted from the top buds have made several pairs of leaves, pinch out 



