64 Editor's Letter-Box. 



S. M. S. The little bugs in your seed peas are the pea-weevil {Bruchus Pist). 

 While the pods are young and tender, and the peas are just beginning to swell, 

 these insects deposit .their eggs in punctures on the surface of the pods. As 

 soon as the grubs are hatched, they enter the nearest pea by a hole so small as 

 hardly to be perceived, and feed upon the marrow of the pea, but generally 

 leave the germ uninjured. If the peas are kept over a year, the insects will be 

 found to have left them, and their vegetative powers will still remain ; but in 

 order to get rid of the insects, all the peas planted must be a year old. It is 

 said that putting camphor with the seed peas when they are gathered will destroy 

 or banish the insects. We have not tried it, and feel rather doubtful of its effi- 

 cacy ; still it is so easy that it is worth trying even on a small chance of success. 



J. M. We do not know what improvement in lawn mowers may be brought 

 out the coming season, but at present the best one is the Landscape Lawn 

 Mower. It is an improvement over those formerly in use, being simpler and 

 more easily repaired, and sold at much less price. The person to whom any 

 lawn mower is intrusted should, however, be at least tolerably intelligent, or he 

 will be very apt to injure it. The mower should be used often enough to keep 

 the grass short, and only after the dew has dried off. It is pretty play enough 

 to use one for a few minutes ; but when it comes to cutting the whole of even a 

 small lawn, it is very much like work, and, if the grass is too long and wet, pretty 

 hard work. 



Mr. Editor : In reply to the inquiry of S. H., on p. 365 of your last volume, 

 I regret to say that the seeds of the purple beech were eaten, not i^lanted. In 

 Loudon's Arboretum Britannicum, vol. iii. p. 1950, several instances are given 

 in which the Copper or Purple Beech has fruited, and the seeds been planted. 

 " The seeds, in general, come up tolerably true, though in some the shade of 

 purple is very faint, and in others the leaves are quite green ; " and again, 

 " every variety of hue was observed, from green to purple, but none completely 

 either green or purple." The variety is usually propagated by grafting. 



7. 7. D. 



We thank J. J. D. for his reply to the second query of S. H., and add the 

 following paragraph, on the same subject, from the last number of the Florist 

 and Pomologist. 



" Doubts have sometimes been expressed as to whether seedlings of the 

 Purple Beech will come colored purple. Mr. Mills, of Enys, notes that some 

 six or seven years ago he found several seedlings under a Purple Beech, and 

 that these are still equal in color to the grafted trees from which they were 

 raised. The size to which they have grown — about eight feet high, with 

 branches from four feet to six feet long — sufficiently proves their permanence." 



