1844] 







, the latter having a brick foundation ; they answer 

 entirely to the satisfaction of my gardener and myself. 

 They have now been in constant use for full 12 months, 

 without any alteration, and we discover no leakage in 

 any part. I apprehend that the atmosphere of the 

 houses is somewhat more moist than in those in which 

 iron is employed. The luxuriance and beauty of the 

 foliage and flowers, particularly of Roses in pots, during 

 the whole of last winter, was remarkable. The plants 

 expressed their enjoyment very unequivocally. The 

 Pine plants in the pits have afforded similar evidence of 

 enjoyment throughout the season, bearing a fine dark- 

 green foliage, without a tinted leaf to be seen. My ex- 

 perience, therefore, induces me strongly to recommend 

 the article, as by far the most economical and congenial 

 to healthy vegetation— Chas. Lawrence, Cirencester. 

 [Upon receiving this letter we applied to our kind cor- 

 respondent for information as to the cement with which 

 the pipes are jointed ; it having been found near London 

 impracticable to prevent the joints of pipes set in cement 

 from cracking and leaking. The following is his 

 obliging reply :]— I should suppose that the pottery you 

 have used and mine may be very different in quality and 

 construction. Earthen pipes, such as I have seen are 

 very porous, and not above half an inch in thickness ; 

 whereas, my gutters are made of very tough clay, well 

 ground, and are from 1 J inch thick and upwards ; the sur- 

 face is very smooth and compact for such an article. The 

 man who set my work informs me that the lime used 

 in making the cement in which they were set is " Haber- 

 worth lime/' Of the name I know nothing ; but I believe 

 the article is prepared from burning a sort of pebble found 

 near the seainstead of the ordinary limestone. At allevents 

 I understand this to be a lime well known, and commonly 

 employed in works under water ; it is said to set better 

 under water than above. The lime I used was obtained 

 from Gloucester. While the work was in hand, I 

 thought the man extremely careless in not grinding the 

 cement in a pug-mill or something of the sort, as I ob- 

 served indications after the trowel of considerable 

 particles of grit, which I thought would be a source 

 of leakage ; but he was so confident as to his material, 

 that I was obliged to let him take his own course, merely 

 telling him I did not believe the work would hold water, 

 and that I would not pay him till it did. The result was 

 a considerable leakage in particular places ; he put these 

 to rights, and then, at my desire, put a thin coat of 

 Koman cement over the whole of the interior. (?) The 

 houses were set to work in November, 1843, and have 

 gone on to this time without any leakage. Whether this 

 be due to the Roman cement, or the cement by which 

 tbe work was first put together, I cannot say. At 

 t&e points, where I have moveable tops to steam the 

 bouse, I cannot perceive any disturbance whatever of 

 tbe internal coating of Roman cement, which would, of 

 course, have cracked with any expansion or contraction 

 or the gutters. I should, however, put my faith rather 

 in the original cement, if I were to go to work again, 

 taking care to have it thoroughly reduced by grinding. 

 My expectation is that my work will stand for ever, 

 barring chance accidents, against which it is pretty effec- 

 tually protected. Any one can see my apparatus who is 

 disposed to take the trouble of a jaunt by the Great 

 Western.— Charles Lawrence. 



The Bignonia Venus ta.— In reply to Mr. Beaton, I 

 beg to give my mode of prolonging the blooming of tail 

 useful plant. The situation in which it most delights is 

 a bark-bed, where the roots can run at liberty among the 

 tan. Ihe plant here was first potted in a 16-sized pot, 

 and then placed in a corner of a bark-bed, where Pines 

 are grown ; it has occupied that place now for 10 years, 

 and although the bark-bed is regularly turned every 

 year, yet the disturbing of the roots does not injure the 

 plant ; the roots being found to run along by the wall 

 that forms one side of the pit, and the end, the heat of 

 the tan preventing them from progressing towards the 

 centre. The plant is trained upright until it reaches the 

 top-lights ; it is then trained along the house, which is 

 a& feet in length and 3 feet in width, till it reaches 

 tne other end, covering the pathway at the back of the 

 bark-bed. Towards the end of December, I cut the 

 Pjant in to 6 or 10 feet, when it remains dormant 

 through the winter, without a leaf upon it, although oc- 



th Py i! ng - a Wam situation in a Suiting Pine-stove. In 

 the beginning of March, young shoots in abundance 

 break from the apparently dead wood ; a sufficient num- 

 ^ ro [ these are selected to be trained along the house, 

 and these again produce laterals, about a foot or 2 feet 

 in length ; and at the end of each, a cluster of blossom- 

 ouds is formed. On the production of those lateral 

 Jhoots depends the free blooming of the plant, to encou- 



a ge which, a damp atmosphere is kept by pouring water 



over the pathways, and by frequently syringing the plant. 



superfluous shoots are stopped ; and it is necessary to 



Pay a good deal of attention to this, for an over-abun- 



ance of shoots would soon be produced that would form 

 a com plete thicket. The plant here commences flower- 

 i g about the beginning of September ; it is now in full 

 oower from one end of the house to the other, and has 



J!£11^ENERS' CHRONICLE 



sidered questionable, if not e"n7Irdy fallacious. 



813 



exceedingly gay appearance.— James Brown, Gar- 

 Th t0 L ° rd Suutham Pton t Whi'tlebury Lodye. 

 vou t ?°! den IJ 'PP™ — I am glad to revert to this fa- 

 to h !i a g ai n, because I consider it too important 



be disposed of so lightly as n Quatfordensis" would 



to »u U *\ Mr ' Kn 'g ht preferred the Cornish Gilliflower 

 do m ° A PP ,es i I prefer the Golden Pippin, and so 

 worth "* otners • on this account its degeneracy is surely 

 erp ' ,nve »tigating. I am willing to defer largely to so 

 as a a ° authorit y a« Mr. Knight, but with such proofs 

 are now recorded, his doctrine may at least be con- 



PHSn > T n P™*?. 011 * an A PP*« equal to the Golden 

 1 ippm ? I am inclined to think it wiser to bear the ills 



ZuiTx E ? f C Whetber U is P° ssib,e t0 "**» this va- 

 luable Apple during, at least, our time. That it grows 



vigorously and produces fine crops of fruit, at Hewel in 

 Worcestershire, is beyond all doubt; the selfsame kind 

 of Apple also under the eye of Mr. Falconer, has for 20 

 years done the same thing, and in neither of these in- 

 stances has the least sign of constitutional debility 

 shown itself Mr. Knight, in a paper read before the 

 Horticultural Society of London, May 3d, 1831, hinted 

 at the probability of retarding the deterioration of valuable 

 varieties of fruits. If, without Divine intervention, a man 

 could stop the sun in his course for one hour, why not 

 for a thousand ? Mr. Falconer has at least shown that 



u ™ 8u , c f es , s f ull y done »t with the Golden Pippin ; so 

 has Mr Markham, and I dare say many others; and 

 with such authority I leave the subject for the present. 



Birch Coppices.— I have planted Birch rather exten- 

 sively, and in various soils, but more for cover than 

 from any hope of its ever growing into anything better 

 than bavin wood. I cut generally six or seven years 

 after planting, and I invariably find that a great number 

 of the stools die in consequence. I have cut the tree 

 partly through and layered it, and I generally find the 

 same effect produced. If some of your correspondents 

 will have the kindness to point out the cause, they will 

 confer a favour upon— Ilomseyoniensis. 



Hybrid Melons.— In answer to " Querist" (p. 782.) 

 I beg to state that I am well acquainted with the Melon 

 called Pitt s Improved Egyptian Greenfleshed ; but in 

 my opinion it is wrong named : instead of being called 

 the Improved Egjptian Greenfleshed, it should be named 

 • he Unimproved, or the Egyptian Greenfleshed Melon 

 Ruined. The true old Egyptian Greenfleshed, when 

 well grown, is far better than this is in flavour, but not 

 in size ; but of what use is size without flavour? Pitt's 

 improved might certainly be useful for decorating the 

 dessert table, but it must not be tasted, or it will at once 

 be condemned. About four years ago six plants of this 

 hybrid Melon were given to me by a friend. I planted 

 them in a three-light box, two plants under each light, 

 •where they grew rapidly, producing fruit almost at each 

 joint; they set, swelled, and ripened a fair crop of fruit 

 much larger than those of the old Egyptian Green- 

 fleshed Melons. Some of them weighed as much as 

 4 and 5 lbs., although my frames were far too narrow for 

 the rambling growth of the plant. I sent one into the 

 house for dessert, which was used, and the remainder 

 were sent as presents, as they ripened, to the different 

 branches of the family. To my great disappointment, 

 however, not one single fruit was approved of by any one 

 who tasted them. My own opinion is, that this hybrid 

 is tasteless ; the flesh is neither green nor white. Some 

 gardener may perhaps say that I did not give it a fair 

 trial or good treatment ; but such is not the case ; for in 

 the same season in which I grew this hybrid I grew 18 

 lights of a good Persian variety on the same Melon 

 ground, and with the same treatment, the same soil, &c. : 

 the latter produced a heavy crop of fruit, of a most ex- 

 cellent flavour, and highly approved of by all who tasted 

 them. It could not, therefore, be in cultivation that 

 this hybrid lost its flavour. Last season I was deter- 

 mined to give it another trial. I grew six plants in a 

 three-light box, two plants under each light as before; 

 and in this instance I had an opportunity of giving it 

 another fair trial, as the frames (newly made) were 

 7 feet in breadth, 2£ feet in depth in the back, and 2 feet 

 in depth in front. This I considered ample space for 

 the rambling habits of the Melon. They grew with 

 rapidity, bearing fruit much larger than before. I sent 

 one to table, which was not approved of; others were 

 sent as presents, as they ripened ; but none of them gave 

 satisfaction. All other true sorts which were grown on 

 the same ground, and with the same treatment, gave 

 great satisfaction; therefore I consider this quite suf- 

 ficient to convince any person that this hybrid, as well as 

 many others, is quite useless. — JVm. M' Donald, King's 

 Road, Chelsea. — [This is but an unprofitable dispute. 

 No doubt many hybrid Melons are worthless ; but how 

 can we say that they are all bad when, for anything we 

 know to the contrary, half the best sorts in cultivation 

 are cross-bred ? No doubt bad crosses will produce bad 

 Melons, and good crosses good ones. Would a cross 

 between the sweet Melon of Ispahan and the Beechwood 

 be worthless? We suspect that it would be very much 

 the contrary.] \ 



Colour of Leaves affected by Soil. — Most manures 

 seem to deepen the green of the leaf. But there are 

 some Picotees and Carnations that generally have a 

 sickly hue, and however well and carefully they may be 

 layered, they are apt to rot, very often not until the fol- 

 lowing year, when they are in bloom ; they will then die 

 suddenly. Piping seems the only sure way of propa- 

 gating them. It is said that salt and nitrate of soda have 

 the effect of hardening plants. Would it answer to apply 

 them in this instance, and if so, in what manner ? Hum- 

 phreys's Compound is said to harden. Nitrate of soda 

 must be applied in much smaller quantities than Hum- 

 phreys's Compound, but how much may be safely given 

 I do not know ; perhaps a teaspoonful to a gallon of 

 water. — G. 



Potatoes. — I observe, with aorne surprise, your re- 

 marks on Mr. Grey's experiments on the planting of 

 Potatoes in autumn. You appear to think it quite nects- 



the most severe frost-that is, supposing they are 

 allowed to remain in the soil until they are completely 

 thawed again. Hundreds of Potatoes are left in the 

 ground all the winter, many of them not more than an 

 inch deep, and yet, when they are turned up in the 

 spring, they are as sound as if they had been kept in a 

 cellar. If you doubt this, it is easy to test its truth, 

 by covering up Potatoes now in the soil of a dry garden, 

 to the depth of an inch or two, taking care that the light 

 is thoroughly excluded, and take them up in the spring 

 when the frosts are over, and you will see that what I 

 have stated is correct. On reading the article again I 

 observe you suggest the probability of Potatoes bearing 

 frost when covered. As you solicit information about 

 Potatoes, I beg to say that I have saved >ets from the 

 Lemon Kidneys grown in my own garden for the last 

 dozen years, and they neither curl nor rot, which I attri- 

 bute to their being left on the ground exposed to the sua 

 until they become quite green, which appears to give so 

 much excitability to them as not only to prevent rottinr 

 but also to make the crop earlier the succeeding year.—' 

 T. G. [Since our correspondent's experience tells him 

 that Potatoes are not affected by frost, if in the dark, we 

 can only express our satisfaction at finding it agree with 

 our qualified expectations. We should be sorry, how- 

 ever, to risk a crop buried but an inch deep in any land 

 that we know of.] 



Collecting Leaves.— In the Calendar of Operations for 



last week " W. P. A." recommends leaves to be drawn 



into ridges id the back part of the shrubberies, and there 



to lay and rot, if they are not wanted for other purposes. 



This I look at as being a very disorderly plan. Where 



do we see the shrubberies so thick as to hide those leaves 



for the twelvemonth round from the eye of our employers? 



If my master were to pass by leaves behind his" shrubl 



beries without noticing them, I should begin to think 



that, in the course of another year, he would also pass 



them by in front of the shrubberies wi'hout notice. It 



is well known that leaves, when rotted in a proper place, 



and dug into the ground before planting shrubs, are of 



very great assistance to the shrubs ; but to scatter them 



on the surface of the ground is of no uie ; the spring 



months would dry them to a powder, and they would, 



comparatively speakirg, be driven like chaff before the 



wind. I regard the advice of putting them in a fresh 



state into holes intended for American plants, as more 



likely to mislead than to advance any inexperienced 



person. What would have been the result of plants put 



in in such a way, after a summer like the past? Water 



would have been of no use in a hole filled with leaves at 



the bottom. And, in the case of snow with strong wind 



coming soon after the plants were planted, I should expect 



to see their roots turned up to the weather, particularly 



if theywere large plants. Until such time as •■ W. P. A." 



can prove the good resulting from such a practice, the 



advice can be of no use to any one, except to those who 



wish to try it as an experiment — M. D. [We insert 



this letter at the express request of the writer ; but in 



doing so, we must add, that we entirely disagree with 



some of his opinions.] 



The Peregrine Falcon. — I have a living specimen of 

 this noble bird of prey, which came into my possession 

 about six days ago ; he is quite docile ; takes food from 

 the fingers; and apparently might be trained to fly at 

 other birds with very little trouble. He was taken on 

 the 27th of last month, in the neighbourhood of Worm- 

 wood Scrubs, by a London bird-catcher. He is a male 

 in two years' plumage ; and I can only add, that all I 

 have read concerning the habits of this noted bird is veri- 

 fied in this one, as far as I have had the means of judg- 

 ing.— John Milton. 



IVilmoVs Black Hamburgh Grape.— With reference 

 to this Grape I am enabled, from my experience at 

 Welbeck, to state that it is not, as Mr. Mearns suspects, 

 identical with the Welbeck Black Tripoli. Judgiug from 

 appearance I for a long time after it was exhibited at 

 Chiswick considered it the Tripoli, but on tasting it I 

 was soon convinced of my error. Wilmot's Black Ham- 

 burgh, in point of flavour, is inferior to the common 

 Hamburgh, while the Welbeck Black Tripoli is infinitely 

 superior to that variety. Wilmot's Black Hamburgh is 

 a very desirable variety, and worthy of a place in every 

 late Vinery in the country, as it keeps better than most 

 varieties ; but the Welbeck Black Tripoli has no equal 

 among black Grapes that I am aware of. This variety 

 is not known iu the London trade. — W. P. Ayres, 

 Brooklands, Blachheath Park. 



Shanking of Grapes. — At p. 749, an "Amateur" 

 complains that his Vines grew the first year with 

 great vigour, and in the second year produced a 

 considerable quantity of fruit, most of which shanked 

 off. I am not surprised at this. I am confident 

 that the late venerable President of the Horticultural So- 

 ciety would not have sanctioned the cropping of the Vines 

 in the second year after planting, when he approved of 

 the plan for the borders. Surely the considerable quan- 

 tity of fruit which was left on those Vines to ripen, would 

 demand more secreted matter for their maturation than 

 the leaves were able to store up in the system of the. 

 plants, under the most favourable influences that possibly 

 could be. An' 1 Amateur" observes further, that in the 

 previous summer many of the largest Vine-leaves damped 

 off and fell, having rotted near the base of the footstalks. 

 To this I should say, that the larger the leaf, the greater 

 the surface exposed to light and heat ; consequently, it 

 would perspire more than a leaf of less size, and part 



