

THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



197 



Uh-dT^h. Ders " or seed boxes, \ lower than 1 5 feet from the ground. The trees 

 2t willf u* thoee which in form 



of gm»g your 1 



u**-<>a 



bottle. 



The mouth is turned downwards, 

 ~L-n..r restimr on a green earthenware cylin- 

 fiJSSTaS; /inches Jeep, with holes in the sides 

 •miitbe birds' heads. This arrangement confines 

 •L^S in a small compass ; and as it is consumed, 

 *• teoends to supply its place. Birds, when breeding, 



"^^ , !*AJfx- ..««+« o (Tiwat. <W1 nf their 



^aaiDt and a 

 ^ This is a 



kind 



such wanton 



The apartment should contain at iea*t twu wumu^o, 

 ^Ltoadmit plenty of light and air— those, essentials to 

 ZSh. i tree also, or even two trees, one at either 

 3hjf the room, would be most acceptable. W hen 

 ^Wrds biuld in the trees, however, you must see that 

 Xneste*re firmly and secured onnfttmwted. or the 



'Tis a pretty sight, to 



raan g will ne uauie lu i»" m«» 



L eight or ten pairs of gay-cok™-- __ 



!™ied in rearing their tender offspring ! Their anxiety, 

 Iffttioo forbearance, and patience, teach us, moreover, 

 "treat moral lesson, well worth the learning. William 

 KM, w-road, Hammersmith. 



WTVF FROM THE FRUIT OF THE HOLLY- 

 LEAVED BERBERRY. 



I am not aware that the fruit of the Berberis Aqui- 

 folium has been previously turned to any useful purpose. 

 I beg, therefore, to send you the result of an experi- 

 Ivvith it, "ii a small scale, which may prove inter- 

 esting. This very pretty evergreen may not be known 

 to all. I may, therefore, observe that it is a native of 

 lorth America, that it has compou 

 like those of the common Ash, c 

 evergreen and prickly, like the Honj, urvui tumise uiejr 

 fake their name. The flowers are produced early in 

 tommer, and are succeeded by bunches of berries like 

 black irrants, except that they are covered with a 

 beautiful glaucous bloom. 



In my nurseries I had a quantity of bushes which were 



covered with a profusion of fruit. On tasting it, though 



its acidity was intense, it struck me that it would make 



jjood wine, and the juice staining the fingers like the 



laret Grape, made me certain that it would be of a fine 



colour. I gathered two gallons of these berries, and 



when picked clean from the stalks, they were bruised, 



and two gallons of cold spring water added. After that 



six pounds of lump sugar were put into it, and being 



covered up it soon fermented, when it was put into a 



cask, adding 2 lbs. of chopped raisins, and ^stopping the 



cask down. 



After six months it was bottled off. The result has 

 been a most beautiful home-made wine, rich in colour, 

 similar to the best old port ; every one who has tasted 

 it pronounces it first-rate, and I am convinced that with 

 age it would well merit that eulogium. 



I am also of opinion that this kind of fruit would 

 make an excellent preserve, tying three or four of the 

 bunches together, and boiling them in sugar ; they would 

 prove extremely grateful in cases of fevers, &c. 



The juice also would make jelly, similar to that of 

 black Currants ; and very probably, from the medicinal 

 qualities of the Berberry, it might be highly useful. 



I really think that as this shrub is so hardy, and at 



the same time so cheap, it would be desirable to grow it 



extensively for wine making. It will succeed in shady 



places, mixed up in shrubberies, under trees in planta- 



on>, where it makes an excellent undergrowth, and 



would always be worth as much as black Currants, thus 



aiding utility to beauty. I imagine I have not said too 



audi about it, for I think you will agree with me that 



it is one of the most handsome hardy evergreens we 



possess. J.F. Wood, F. H. £., the Coppice, and St. Ann's 



Well Nurseries, near Nottinnham. 



abundantly, and the upper branches amply compensate 

 for the absence of those usually found nearer the roots ; 

 I have myself seen them in the middle of June 

 covered with fruit, and have looked with admiration at 

 the extremity of the wooden walls which support it 

 covered with Peaches of as fine a colour as any we have 



at Montreuil. 



If Peaches are cultivated in lower houses than those 

 I have just mentioned, the trees, in order that there 

 may be a sufficient access of light, must be trained to 

 the roof of the houses. In this way are obtained beau- 

 tiful arcades of Peach trees, similar to those which are 

 in our country made with the Vine and Honeysuckle. 



With respect to Russian pruning, we may say with 

 perfect truth that the art of pruning is very little under- 

 stood by the Russians ; they cut and hack without in 

 the least regarding the laws of vegetable physiology. It 

 is consequently only at a great expense of money con- 

 sumed in producing an artificial climate and at waste of 

 ground, that they obtain results arrived at by our own 

 clever gardeners in a space not a tenth part so large as 

 theirs. Another considerable object of cultivation in 

 this garden are forced shrubs, with which the Empe- 

 ror's apartments are decorated in winter. Those most 

 in demand are the four-season and other Roses. 



I cannot finish this article without noticing the 40 

 beautiful Orange trees which the present Emperor him- 

 self bought at Palermo a few years since ; 20 of these 

 trees are in the Tauride Garden. These trees were 

 taken up with the earth attached to them ; the strongest 

 branches and roots were cut away. As soon as they 

 arrived at St. Petersburgh Mr. Gray, the head-gardener, 

 immediately placed them in some earth obtained from 

 ^flL^L^I^l 1 Mount Etna, in a house perfectly heated. All grew 



^^ and produced remarkable branches; their stems 

 are now 8 to 9 feet high, and 6 inches in diameter. 

 Masson's Report. 



TRADE MEMORANDA. 

 Who are Thomas Warburton and James Barnes, of 

 14, Horse Market-street, Warrington ? Perhaps some 

 of our friends in " the trade " can inform us. 



be that lateral branches have grown out near the bottom, 

 and some varieties are of such fine habit, that we can 

 hardly improve them ; but at the end of the season of 

 growth, I let them rest, and before they make their 

 spring start, I spur in all the strong side shoots to two 

 or three eyes, and cut away weakly branches close, 

 pruning down the centre shoot to three or four eyes 

 above the highest spurs that I leave. The only objection 

 that can be urged against this treatment for Fuchsias 

 applies to but few varieties. There are some too suc- 

 culent, but they will all ripen the greater part of their 

 wood, and many will be found hard and perfectly ripe 

 before they make the spring growth. Once get a 

 Fuchsia to a good-shaped skeleton, as it were, and you 

 may prune every year with the greatest advantage. I 

 have in the Fuchsia mentioned the least favourable 

 plant for my treatment, but I have never found it to fail 

 in producing compact and well-furnished plants, prolific in 

 bloom, and requiring no props. The Weigela rosea, which 

 I have seen exhibited as a large bush, well flowered at the 

 top, but sadly naked at the bottom, ought to be treated 

 precisely as we should treat a Rose. The very first 

 year that it may be called a plant, cut the main stem 

 down within 4 inches or even 3 inches of the pot, and 

 whatever strong side-shoots there may be, should be 

 shortened to even less than this,' even to two or three 

 eyes, while any weak ones should be removed altogether 

 very close to the stem. This cut-back plant will tlirow 

 out numerous shoots, and every shoot will flower. I 

 have bloomed this plant the second season (so cut back) 

 profusely. Let it make all the wood it may after bloom- 

 ing, but you should cut out all the thin shoots and spur 

 back all the strong ones. The only guide you need have 

 will be the form of the specimen, for it is always ad- 

 visable to prune away whatever is out of shape, with- 

 out reference to anything else. The Weigela rosea will 

 flower not only to the bottom of the wood, but the very 

 shoots, that will, like suckers from a Rose, break out below 

 the soil, will bloom also ; but let the plant grow its own 

 way, and it has far from an ugly habit, and all the lower 

 eyes will, like those of the Rose, remain stagnant, and 

 the flowers be, as they are usually seen, confined to the 

 upper half of the plant. Hovea Celsi is a plant which, 

 above all others, should be spurred ; it should, however, 

 be stopped while young within three eyes of the bottom, 

 grown slowly, and when the three shoots have made two) 

 Joints each, pinch off the third. It may be grown then 

 till it completes the shoots, and shows its bloom-buds, 

 when it may rest ; but, before it starts into growth 

 again, cut all the shoots back to two joints, and continue 

 this pruning system after every bloom, and before the 

 plant makes its new wood. All the Epacrises, many of 





Home Correspondence. 



Spuming Roses and hard-wooded Plants. — There may 

 be nothing very novel in my practice of assimilating the 

 treatment of many hard-wooded plants to that of Roses; 

 but I have been to .many establishments in which it has 

 not been adopted, and it may, to some at least, be in- 

 formation when they are told that almost all hard- 



wooded subjects may be brought as completely under the Acacias, Cytisus, Heaths and ^zale^ Hibiscus, or 



the control of the knife as the best habited of the varie- " ~ ' x ~~ 



ties of the Queen of Flowers. I do not propose to 

 notice all the families which flourish, under such treat- 



FOREIGN GARDEN GLEANINGS. 



Taurida [Garden, St. Petersburgh. — This garden 

 i not public ; it is a piece of ground about 500 

 yards square, surrounded by walls, and situate at the 

 extremity of the town, near the arsenal. It was de- 

 spied in 1780 by Wm. Goold for Prince Potemkin. It 

 consists of a pleasure garden, a small park, a school for 

 botany, a kitchen garden, and a large square surrounded 

 and divided by high hedges, which favour the cultiva- 

 tion of early vegetables in wooden pits. 



The most remarkable objects in this garden are the 



hothouses, of which there are 20 of different sizes, all 



together occupying a length of about a mile and a 



<nwter. The lowest contain Pine-apples, which are 



cultivated in an artificial soil composed of peat, common 



mould, horn shavings, and ground bones. This mixture 



yields a large number of luxuriantly growing plants ; 



"00 Pine-apples are yearly sent to the royal table from 



these houses. Next in importance to the Pine-apples 



ment ; but experience has taught me that many plants, 

 inclined to grow rambling and bare at the bottom, can 

 be grown as fine, as shrubby, and as well furnished, for 

 many years, as a young specimen grown up" to perfec- 

 tion ; and that, too, by simply treating them as we treat 

 Roses. But they must be commenced with as we mean 

 to go on. Let me begin with the Camellia japonica, 

 a splendid Evergreen, generally spoiled at the onset, 

 because all of us like to see the bud or the graft make 

 wood early, and because it grows to a terminal bud, and 

 sets for bloom, we have no heart, as it were, to deprive 

 ourselves of its flower ; the upshot of this is, that we 

 have a foot of the new growth, the lower part being 

 sacrificed to great expenditure of vigour, demanded by 

 the flower, and, therefore, naked. Now, the plan I 

 adopt with a plant which has made its first growth, and, 

 it may be, set for bloom, is to cut the ripe wood down to 

 the three lower leaves, before the bloom-bud even swells. 

 Not one plant in 1 fails to make three vigorous shoots, 

 which, the second year, will be as strong as the one 

 worked branch was the first. The second year, I cut 

 the two lower ones down to two leaves or joints, and 

 the top one to three. This operation rewards me in the 

 third season's growth with two shoots each to the 



indeed most plants that are not very succulent, will be 

 improved by more or less of the treatment to which we 

 subject Roses, care being taken to prune before the new- 

 growth is made ; and in plants which push their new- 

 growth before the bloom is over, the shoots should be 

 Removed, by pinching off the growing part. With 

 Epacrises this is essential, for they would, if allowed, grow 

 some inches above the flowers before they faded ; be- 

 sides, by pinching off the ends of the shoots early, the 

 flowers are more equally developed. In all pruning 

 look well to the form you desire the plants to assume 

 when their growth is completed, and cut in accordingly. 

 I have found the knife as useful in the stove and green- 

 house as it is among fruit trees, and I feel convinced 

 that whoever takes a professional pride in good speci- 



I am not now 



lower ones, and three to the centre one. 

 entering into the shifting that is annually necessary, 

 because it does not affect the question of pruning ; but, 

 independently of these seven shoots, there maybe laterals, 

 and if they come too close or crowded, the spare ones 

 should be rubbed off before they share any of the strength 

 that ma/ be wanted for the principal branches. The 

 chances are, that I have a bloom-bud at the end of every 

 shoot, and this third year I allow them to bloom ; but, 

 if there be two flower-buds close together, I pinch one 

 out. If the shoot by the side of the flower makes an 

 early push, which is the case with many varieties, I take 

 it away ; because I do not want to waste in growth the 

 strength required for the blooms. As soon as the 

 flowers decay, I cut all these seven down as before, 



■ "■ ••*» a.-%\^^m xxx ixxMiryr*. itvii^f LV/ bUC7 1 JllC-ftUUltO ilUnCia UCtttV. -L tUt O.II 11ICSC DCTC1I UUITI1 l*a WtlUIVj 



ar e the Strawberries ; at least 14,000 pots of the two regulating them to one or two (or occasionally even to 

 ^Titties Myatt and Roseberry supply dessert to the " ' ' " " ... 



. fhere is a house set apart for Cucumbers, which are 

 m great demand in Russia. The English variety, which 

 requires less light, and yields very fine fruit, is pre- 

 yed ; its cultivation is begun in January ; its fruit is 

 gathered from February to July. 



fhe houses which contain fruit trees differ much 



irom each other in both height and form. Fig trees, 



W^' Gooseberry and Raspberry bushes are in the 



west ; Cherry, Plum, and Pear trees occupy the 



^plL m *!l dli, l? hei ? h i ; o. and the hi « he8t contain 



0/v years old, and the stems 



mens, irrespective of size, will find the most awkwardly 

 crowing subjects very obedient, if they begin in time. 

 Under the free pruning system there will be found little 

 need of props, stakes, and wires, every one of which 

 is a blemish ; but so long as size is to beat symmetry, and 

 handsome growing shrubs are allowed to be exhibited in 

 frames, and the blooming wood to be bent and tortured 

 to cover an even surface, there will be little encourage- 

 ment for those who study the habit of a plant, and pro- 

 duce it as it should be grown without unnatural train- 

 ing. So long as a plant can be grown to support itself, 

 so Ion* ought any specimen unnaturally supported to be 

 rejected ; but of this, perhaps, I may at some other 

 time have something to say. Vktoire Jandn, Rue Mont- 



111/CLVtVC 



Stove Aquatics. — Pekin is 40 Q North, and Astrakan is 

 4t>° North. Therefore Nelumbium Caspium or Cas- 

 piacum (Caspicum is not Latin) requires 6° less of 

 summer heat. Lat. 46° passes halfway between Lyons 

 and Macon in Burgundy ; and its summer heat is 

 that which ripens the standard Grape. La Rocheile 

 nearly coincides with that parallel. And I suspect the 

 Volga is colder than France, under the same parallel. 

 Besides which, this assumes the Nelumbium to exist 

 no higher than Astrakan, whereas very likely it grows 

 a day's journey up the Volga. A. H. 



Hybrid Rhododendrons. — About two years ago we 

 forwarded, along with some Fuchsia seedlings, a few 

 leaves of seedling hybrid Rhododendrons, concerning 

 which you remarked at the time, that if the * flowers 

 proved equal to the foliage they would be grand tilings 

 indeed.*' We have succeeded in blooming one of the 



three) eyes or joints, according as I see the plant re- 

 quires, or does not require, branches. Every year I 

 prune my plant as carefully as I would a Rose, cutting 

 away all weakly shoots, and, as the new growth com- 

 mences, rubbing off all the buds that are growing where plants, a poor sickly one, which is probably the reason 

 I do not want branches. The Fuchsia (which gardeners j why it has flowered this season. The following is some- 

 seem to stake their credit on growing as fast as they ! thing near the description of it. The truss is very 

 can, and producing a large plant from a cutting in a | large, each individual floret measuring 2\ inches across, 

 single season) requires the same care as a Camellia or a j and in outline it is symmetrical and perfect. We have 

 Rose. We ought to form the plant from the first, only, forwarded a flower and a leaf for your inspection. We 

 as it is a rapid grower, we may begin to form it by pinch- WO uld have sent the whole truss, only we have this day 

 ing out the leading shoot as soon as there are three j encased an artist to take a drawing of it. with the view 



which ii "i — * v 1 ~**J7/^ w F« lu > Ili H»«ie«enis or four pair of leaves; yet I prefer allowing it to • f having the same published. This hybrid was raised 



en, tnemseives about 35 feet high, do not branch I have its season of growth, and ripen its wood. It may I from R. arboreum album, crossed with R. campanula- 



