Febmary 7, 1S65. ] 



JOTJKNAL OF HOKTICtrLTtTRE AND COTTAGE GAEDENBB. 



105 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



Day 



Day 



of 



or 



M'Dth 



Week. 



7 



Tu 



B 



w 



9 



Ta 



10 



F 



11 



S 



IS 



Smj 



13 



M 



FEBKUAEY 7—13, 1865. 



Averape Temperature 

 near London. 



Butcher's Broom flowers. 1 

 9trawberry-^e tredCin«iuefoil flowers. 



White .\lyssum flowers. j 



Cll}£K» TicToa-A Mabkied, ISIO. I 



Priinvo?e flowers. ! 

 Septcaoesiji\ Scnd.vt. 

 Sir Joseph Banks bom, 1743. 



Day. 

 46.7 

 45.G 

 43.2 

 44.G 

 44.4 

 44.8 

 44.1 



Niffht. 

 33.0 

 32.7 

 31.S 

 29,6 

 29.9 

 29.7 

 29.6 



Mean. 

 S9.9 

 39.2 

 SS..5 

 36.6 

 37.1 

 87.3 

 36.8 



Rain In 



lust 

 38 years. 



Days. 

 20 

 20 

 15 

 14 

 IG 

 15 

 14 



Son 

 Rises. 



Sun 



Sets. 



I 



Moon 



Moon 



Moon's 



Rises. 



Sets. 



Age. 



m. h. 



m. 



h. 





14 2 



5 



S 



11 



16 3 



45 



s 



12 



£0 4- 



17 



6 



13 



24 5 



45 



6 



O 



28 6 



10 



/ 



13 



30 7 



33 



7 



16 



34 S 



54 



' 



17 



Clock T^„„ ^p 

 before M^7»f 

 Son. ( ^^"f- 



38 

 30 

 40 

 41 



42 

 43 



44 



From obsprvatione taken near London daring the last thirtv-ei^ibt years, the avemae day temperature of the week is 45.1°, and its night 

 temperatara 30.9'. Ihe greatest hect was 65' onthelOih, 1S31; and the lowest cold, 0°, on the 13th, 1355. The greatest fall of ram was 

 0.67 inch. 



HOUSE SEWAG-E AOT) FEFIT. 



EFIT and 

 flarouT are 

 ideas so 

 ^jv intimatelr 

 associated 

 with. each, otlier 

 in OUT minds, tliat 

 to conceive the 

 former apart from 

 the latter is at 

 once to rob it in 

 onr estimation of 

 all that entitles it 

 to the name Tve know 

 itby. Our village doc- 

 tor has been telling 

 me of the distinctive 

 meanings of the old 

 Latin terms fructus 

 and fi-uges, iitterly 

 depriving me of any 

 right to quote the 

 " fruges eonsumere 

 nati " in support of my, to him, very ultra fruit-eating 

 propensities. Somewhat extending th.e meaning of what 

 were, no doubt, household words in the mouths of the 

 old Eomanpomologists, I now include among the "fruges" 

 that very large per-eentage of nominal fruit which, alike 

 on the market stalls, the dessert-table of my friends, or in 

 the produce of my own orchard, has no claim to a more 

 dignified classicil term than the Turnip or the Potato. I 

 have somewhere read of the Turnip, not cooked but 

 neatly cut into slices, handed round to their visitors by 

 some of our continental neighbours. There at least there 

 was no pretence : but to have bright rosy emblems of all 

 that conjures up to the mind the idea of a delicious Apple 

 presented to one, to result when tasted in a disappoint- 

 ment, recalling the fabled Apples of Sodom, is carry- 

 ing the sham too far. " Fmges " forsooth, I must ask 

 the doctor for some Eoman word infinitely less noble, 

 the better to express, the relative inferiority to Turnips 

 of at least nine-tenths of aU the Apples this end of 

 Cheshire sends to msrket. But for the Jargonelle from 

 a wall, the ilarie Louise in ordinary seasons, even from 

 a standard, and some others, far too few, '" fructus " itself 

 is lacking to convey what the word "" debcious," which it 

 were sacrilege to apply to anything else but the best of 

 good fruit, is alone fitted to express. 



Flavour is very much a relative term. He who has 

 once tasted British Queens at their best is hkely to have 

 a very different notion of the word as applied to Straw- 

 berries, compared with him to whom Keens' Seedling 

 1^ been the standard of perfection. Even now it is 

 difficult to understand how, only thirty years ago, the 

 Eoyal_ Horticultural Society ranked as first-class dozens 

 of varieties which now exist possibly only in their cata- 

 No. 202. —Vol. VIIL, Sz-w Setues. 



logue. Year by year our standard of flavour has been 

 gradually advancing, and as old trees decay and newer 

 sorts come more extensively into bearing, we shall hare 

 an immense progress in the public demand for the very 

 best. It is remarkable to notice the harmony of opinion 

 as to flavour in fruit ; for, take any mixed company, and 

 from the infant of two years to the old nian of eighty, 

 the verdict as to the comparative merits of two or more 

 given sorts is almost invariably unanimous— so at least 

 we have found it at the meetings of our family pomolo- 

 gical society ; and I am sui-prised that market gardeners 

 and fruiterers have not long ago seen it to their profit as 

 a mere matter of business'to make the general public 

 better acquainted with first-class dessert fruit by attach- 

 ing tastefully-executed labels to the baskets upon their 

 stalls. Depend upon it that he who once bought Winter 

 Nelis by name will ask again and again for the same fruit 

 ere long ; demand will stimulate supply, resulting at 

 last in cheap and abundant provision of delicious fruit, 

 " familiar in our mouths as household words." 



" Uptvaeds ajsd OirwAEDS," in a late Number of this 

 Journal (December 27, page 507), has noted a very im- 

 portant fact on the question of flavour in fruit, showing, it 

 would seem, pretty conclusively that liberal waterings with 

 house sewage, repeated at intervals, exert a very powerfol 

 influence on the formation of the various secretions which 

 go to constitute flavoiu- in the Apple and Pear. jSTow, 

 flavour being altogether a product of a period of the tree's 

 growth when any supply of moisture, and above all of 

 moisture containing sewage, would in every way tend to 

 defeat the object ui view, it is an interesting matter to in- 

 quire how the happy result referred to in the paper on 

 '■ House Sewage " has been brought about. What " Up- 

 WAEDS AUD OifWAEDS " has done is the very thing hun- 

 dreds of enthusiastic frtiit-growers have been puzzling 

 their brains how to efi'ect, and if we can see clearly how 

 this has been brought about, there is no reason why what 

 has been done in 'one well-regulated garden should not 

 be done in every one equally so, within a reasonable 

 approach to it in' climate, soil.'and situation. I presume 

 the garden referred to is somewhere in the upper valley of 

 the Thames, and, therefore, presenting points in common 

 with a very large section of the country. 



In the annual growth of every fruit tree, and to a great 

 extent in that of eveiy fruit, there appear to be three 

 successive stages, indicated in their pomological relations 

 by the thi-ee phenomena of the setting, the growth, and 

 the ripening of the fruit. Passing over that important 

 aflair of the blossoming time, when the hopes of the friut- 

 grower are bound up with delicate operations of JSTature,. 

 which a night's frost or a shower of rain may eiFectuallj- 

 defeat, let ns suppose the fruit fairly set upon trees in 

 the open ground, and ready to profit by the first abun- 

 dant watering with sewage. We have now, as it were, 

 so msny centres of attraction, each attracting and retain- 

 ing the food elaborated by itself and the leaves in its 

 immediate neighbourhood,' and there is little doubt that 

 this process of increase should receive no check tiU the 

 fruit has reached nearly its full size, or at all events 

 No. 854.— Vol,. XXXIIl., Otu Series. 



