Domestic Notices. — England. 277 



Throughout its gi'owth it has been exposed to all the vicissitudes of 

 our climate, and appears to me the hardiest variety we are acquainted 

 with. I had it planted in an open border which ranges north-west and 

 south-east, for the purpose of training it as an espalier, hoping that its 

 initiation to our climate would render its habits more suited to a produc- 

 tive growth than those which have been fostered in houses or against walls. 

 The result has, to the full, realised my hopes ; I soon found that its growth 

 was too vigorous to bear the restraint of an espalier form, and therefore, in 

 preference to employing that most prejudicial, and, at least, temporary 

 remedy of over-luxuriance, reducing the number of the roots, I deter- 

 mined to train the centre branch as a standard, and the two side limbs as 

 an espalier. It still grows most luxuriantly, and, by regular thinning of the 

 branches of the standard part, I do not see any danger of its robbing the 

 other parts too materially of sap ; at all events, as the vigour of the tree 

 declines, the centre branch can be reduced, or entirely removed. 



This is the second year of its bearing; and this year it has borne thirty-five 

 peaches, five of which are on the standard branch, and scarcely at all later 

 in their ripening than those on the trained branches. The tree stands on a 

 declivity sloping to the south. I shall be most ready to forward buds to 

 any person who may think it desirable. I am, dear Sir, &c. — G. W. John- 

 ston. Great Totham, Essex, September 25. 1827. 



Ontario White Elm (i/'lmus). — In the article of elms, our misfortune 

 is the great facility of raising them from suckers and layers. If raised from 

 suckers, they are always a sucker, and they fill the ground all round about 

 with suckers : if raised from layers, they are always merely a limb of a 

 tree, and they begin to branch away before they attain any height : if you 

 attempt to prevent this by pruning, you have a nasty knotty thing, good 

 for very little as timber, and ornamental in the eyes of those only who 

 like to see a sort of broom at the top of a handle 40 or 50 ft. long. We 

 have gone on at this rate till people in general actually believe that the com- 

 mon English elm never has any seed, than which a more false idea never 

 entered into the head of mortal man. {Cobbett. See Vol. III. p. 469.) 



The Coccus lanigera. Woolly Aphis, or American Blight, it is said, was firstr 

 introduced from France by a Mr. Swinton, brother of the late Lord of Sesp 

 sion Swinton, in Scotland: he was a lieutenant in the royal navy, and 

 marrying a French lady, settled at Nq. 6. Sloane Street, Chelsea, where 

 he established a foreign nursery, and published a French newspaper. That 

 this gentleman introduced the insect to the neighbourhood of London is 

 probable, as his collection of apples, in 17 90, was sadly overrun with it-; 

 but it must have been in England long before that time, because it was 

 common on crabs, and even thorns, in the wild copses of Buckinghamshire 

 in 1795. It is not generally known that there are two species of Coccus 

 frequent in our hedges and underwoods, designated C. ovata and C. reni- 

 forme ; they are both found on the smooth bark of young ash poles or 

 trees, and sometimes on the red willow. Both species may be collected, 

 and they appear to yield dying matter of as deep a tint as that from the 

 Cactus cochiniilifera. — J. M. 



Removal of Earth. — The taking down of this hill (at Albury, in Surrey), 

 and the piercing of it through, were done with great expedition and cheap- 

 ness, by an ingenious invention (which, Mr. Evelyn informs us, originated 

 with him, and was first practised by his brother at Wootton) ; which is thus 

 (as well as I can describe it) : — They have the command of a spring in 

 this park, which they bring in a channel to the place where they would 

 have the sand taken away ; then they underdig a convenient part of the 

 sand, under which the water is to come, and there the water, as it were, 

 dissolves the sand, as you see sugar dissolved in wine. In a little time 

 after, down tumble three, four, or five loads ; as soon as it is down, a fellow 



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