HINTS TO AMATEURS. 373 



used, except that it was finely powdered. With this tied up 

 in a muslin bag, sufficiently open, or a pepper or dredging-box 

 is better than either one of the old-fashioned powder-puffs, 

 it is shaken or puffed on the leaves and fruit, some of it is also 

 put on the pipes, if the vine be in the house, which is then to 

 be shut up close for twenty-four hours ; it may then all be 

 syringed off, and if the mildew has not disappeared, do it a 

 second time. Out of doors you cannot shut up the vine, but 

 in other respects do just the same. If the sun happen to be 

 very hot it may be all cured the first time, but it is better to 

 give it a second time. 



Blanching is shutting up a vegetable, or a portion of it, 

 from the daylight, by which it is turned white. It applies to 

 the eartliing of celery, the covering of sea-kale, the tying up 

 of cabbages or lettuces, and also the covering or tying up of 

 endive. It whitens whatever portion is covered, hence the 

 term blanching. Plants grown in the dark would be nearly 

 white, and very weak, altogether unable to sustain their own 

 weight. If plants are too crowded they get pale and weak, for 

 they have not the full light ; without light the green cannot 

 appear in the leaf, nor the colour in the flower, and whatever 

 deprives a plant of the light in a greater or lesser degree affects 

 the strength and colour of it. 



Grafting- Wax is made of bees' -wax and resin in equal 

 parts, and lowered with tallow till it will melt at a tempera- 

 ture that will not damage the trees, but harden on cooling 

 sufficient to stand the ordinary heat of the sun. Some gar- 

 deners paint one side of strips of calico, and bind them round 

 the graft ; often a single tie fixes it in its place. Grafting-clay, 

 or clay kneaded till all the air is squeezed out of it, after mix- 

 ing one-fourth of neats' dung with it, is more frequently used. 



Horticulture may be applied to the cultivation of fruit 

 and vegetables for man; Floriculture, to the culture of 

 flowers and flowering plants ; Arboriculture, to the growing 

 of trees ; and Agriculture, to the whole system of farming. 

 These are, at all events, the common acceptations of the words, 

 and well understood. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find 

 where one leaves off and the other begins, but such is the 

 understood meaning of the words as now applied. Perhaps 

 horticulture is the most popular ; for people who have hardly 

 the capacity to think, yet will have sense enough to appreciate 

 eating. Many a man would leave a hundred other flowers for 



