480 Queries mid Answers. 



this I believe is a fact, and a most important one too. However, although the 

 principle be correct, it is most certain that first-rate grapes, peaches, &c, are 

 grown in the northern counties of England without artificial bottom heat; 

 fruit, in fact, not a whit behind that of the metropolitan growers. If such be 

 the case, then how few of the gardening public will be at this enormous ex- 

 pence merely to illustrate a given principle. 



Surely " poor old Mr. Bull," as Mr. Waterton jocosely says, is not in the 

 humour for such things in these income-tax days, seeing he is " well stricken 

 in years, and bound down in so heavy a sum to keep the peace." — Robert Ei'- 

 rington. Oullon Park, August, 1 842. 



Errata. — In p. 404. line 6., for " hole " read " bole." In p. 405. line 20., 

 for " materials ; altogether," read " materials, altogether;". 



Art. V. Queries and Ansiuers. 



The Clubbing of the Roots of the Cabbage Tribe and Turnips. — I am much 

 obliged to you for sending me the cauliflower (which came quite safe), as it 

 will give me an opportunity of investigating the clubbing of the roots of 

 cabbages, which seems not to be understood. 



Messrs. Kirby and Spence, who (or one of whom) took some pains with 

 these and allied vegetable excrescences, speaking of the turnip, observe 

 that the small knob, or tubercle, on its roots is inhabited by a grub, simi- 

 lar to those of two small weevils which are found in similar knobs on the 

 roots of Sinapis arvensis ; adding, " whether the disease to which turnips are 

 subject in some parts of the kingdom, from the form of the excrescences into 

 which the bulb shoots, called fingers and toes, be occasioned by insects, is not 

 certainly known," with a reference to Mr. Spence's Observations on the 

 Disease in Turnips, called Fingers and Toes (Hull, 1812, 8vo). 



In a later page of their Introduction they observe, that from the grubs in 

 the knob-like galls in turnips, called in some places the anbury, they have 

 succeeded in rearing a small weevil. 



Some years ago, I had an opportunity of examining a bed of 3'oung cab- 

 bage-plants, almost every one of which had its stem, just below the surface of 

 the ground, swollen into several globular galls, each of which contained 

 a weevil-grub; but the plant you have sent me has its roots dilated into 

 large, hard, oblong swellings and knobs ; on opening many of which (the 

 surface of which was entire and sound) there was no appearance of any 

 insect within ; but, in those which had the outside scarred, I found the grubs 

 of some dipterous insect, belonging to the family ikTuscidae, which I shall 

 endeavour to breed, and send you the name of. I do not, however, consider 

 these grubs to have any thing whatever to do with the production of the 

 fingers and toes, but only to have been deposited there by the parent insect, 

 as a fitting nidus already prepared for them. I have no doubt that the grubs 

 are those of Anthomyia brassicse BoucM, described in p. 159. of your 

 sister's translation of Kollar, although his account of their habits is very 

 meagre. — J. O. Westwood. Grove Cottage, Grove Road, Hammersmith. 



The Wild Orange. — As we returned towards the boat, we stopped to 

 examine an irregular scrambling hedge of the wild orange; another of. the 

 exquisite shrubs of this paradise of evergreens. The form and foliage of this 

 plant are beautiful, and the leaf, being bruised, extremely fragrant; but, as its 

 perfume indicates, it is a rank poison, containing a great portion of prussic 

 acid. It grows from cuttings rapidly and freely, and might be formed into 

 the most perfect hedge, being well adapted, by its close bushy growth, for 

 that purpose. (Mrs. Butler, in Rentley's Miscellany, vol. xii. p. 120.) 

 [Will any of our American correspondents inform us what plant is here 

 meant ? — Cond.~\ 



