Hetrospective Criticism, 539 



ing the papaw, which has been so skilfully managed, and successfully fruited, 

 at Ripley Castle. 



Mr. Elliott's account of the treatment he bestows will be very acceptable 

 to those who, having the plants, may be desirous of fruiting them ; and they 

 have only to imitate Mr. Elliott's practice to insure success. He is surprised 

 that the male plant should bear fruit ; and accounts for it in the only rational 

 way he can ; namely, by attributing it to an intermixture of the juices, in his 

 attempt to inarch the one upon the other. But the explanation of the 

 phenomenon is this : — The Carica is a genus which connects Linneeus's two 

 classes MoncE"'cia and Dioe^cia, as an intermediate link ; and as exemplified in 

 several other genera belonging to the same class ; as the hemp (Cannabis), for 

 instance. 



This departure from the usual habits and structure of the plants is much 

 more conspicuous in their native country than with us. At Madras, Pondi- 

 cherry, and other towns in the Carnatic, single plants of the papaw from 

 10 ft. to 13 ft. high, are seen in almost every court-yard. As fruit trees, the 

 Linngean botanist wonders how these single plants can answer the purpose of 

 the planter, unless he also imagines that the pollen is so volatile as to be 

 carried by the wind from one street to another; but which would be nothing 

 strange as respects the impregnation of the female plants. But it is the 

 fertility of the male individuals which puzzles the botanist, unless he hap- 

 pens to be aware that this incident is a constitutional property of the male 

 papaw. 



It is remarkable, too, that the fruit produced by the male plants are in- 

 variably found to be the largest and best. This is, no doubt, owing to the 

 paucity of the crop ; the females being much more prolific, and, consequently, 

 the fruit are smaller. Neither are much valued as fruit for the dessert in 

 India: they are mostly used green, as a culinary vegetable. — J. M. Sept. 

 1838. 



NiMs Beehives. — I trouble j'ou with a few observations, which appear 

 necessary, in defence of my former communication (p. 180.), in which 1 made 

 objections to Nutt's beehives. The Rev. T. Clark, in p. 350., begins some 

 rather severe remarks upon my article, by asserting that my failing to prevent 

 swarming was in consequence of my having departed from Mr. Nutt's di- 

 rections. If this were true, I should certainly not be entitled to find fault with 

 Nutt's system : but it is not true. The pages of the Gardener'' s Magazine will 

 testify that I gave Nutt's system a full and patient trial for five years; and 

 only for the last three have I departed from them. If Mr. Clark has so far 

 succeeded in the prevention of swarming, by following Nutt's method, he has 

 been more fortunate than myself: but it must be remembered that the state- 

 ment comes from the editor of Nutt's work. 



Mr. Clark gives three quotations from Nutt's work, which he considers to 

 contain a complete refutation of my observations. The first is introduced, 

 apparently, under the persuasion that I had ventilated empty boxes. This was 

 not the case, for most of the swarming took place after the bees had taken 

 possession of them. If I had ventilated empty boxes, the tin tubes would 

 have had very little effect on their temperature, and, certainly, could not have 

 rendered them so cold and disagreeable as the places which bees often choose 

 for themselves ; such as a branch or trunk of a tree, or an old chimney full 

 of holes, admitting of very free ventilation. 



To the second quotation, recording the success of Mr. Nutt's own fourteen 

 stocks at Moulton Chapel, I must observe that it would have been much 

 more satisfactory to have referred to the results in some others of his apiaries, 

 established in various places. In this county of Norfolk, his system has failed 

 to prevent swarming, though attended to by better apiarians than myself. 



If, by the third quotation, Mr. Clark would insinuate that I have failed to 

 prevent swarming, from not having relieved them at the froper time, I can 

 only consider this proper time as a convenient subterfuge, devoid of any real 

 foundation. After all these quotations from Nutt, which are by no means new 

 to me, I repeat the assertion, from my own experience, that no expulsion of 



