aos 



JOUBNAL OF HOETICTJLTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Much 14, 186i. 



either of these causes ; but in a far less burning summer 

 than the last, it suffered from burning very much. I, there- 

 fore, gave it up, determining to reinstate it, should I ever 

 have clay land, to which, when dressed with sandy loam, it 

 is well adapted, and where treated as stated by Dr. Koden, 

 it would answer well. I think as the plant bums in hot 

 summers, a north aspect would be best. 



Then comes the question. Does the plant bum in some 

 localities ? It did so here, and, of course, it could not run 

 afterwards. I was looking over Mr. Prince's list (Flush- 

 ing, U.S.), when my eye fell on something that struck 

 me. The catalogue is dated lSti3 ; forty-ninth edition ; and 

 at page 8, I read as follows : — " No. 156. La Constante (De 

 Jonghe), regular cone, large, bright crimson ; flesh rosy, 

 sweet, exquisite flavour ; late, hims consideralhj .' " It is no 

 wonder, of course, that in America, a dwarf-habited plant 

 should bum. The silver prize cup previously spoken of as 

 awarded to it in America, by the Pomologieai Society, was, 

 of course, for its fruit, and I presume without reference to 

 it as a plant. If a plant was presented to the Pomologieai 

 Society of New York, it was probably a forced plant. I 

 should think that it would be a very good Strawberry to 

 foi'ce, and that it would succeed very well. It would also 

 be a very good Strawberry to breed from, if fertilised with 

 such a Strawben-y as President. 



We want in this country, so diverse in its soils, and so 

 changeable in its climate, Eoses and Strawberries with 

 vigorous constitutions to meet so many checks, and of quick 

 growth, and quick establishment. Aiything in the way of 

 a plant that does not answer to the above is of no use to 

 me. Annual plantations in first-class lands, and under able 

 hands, may be practised successfully. The plants, however, 

 must be put in early. Mr. May, of Blandford, the best 

 Queen grower I ever saw, took two runners per plant from 

 his British Queens during fruiting time, pegged into a pot. 

 Hence he got his annual plants in early, which, in such fine 

 land, fruited heavily. I have, however, seen in his garden a 

 magnificent crop of Queens roasted, and the foliage burnt 

 up. I found here that the easiest to cultivate of the three 

 recommended by Dr. Eoden, was the Carolina Superba. 

 It was not at all tender. The plants and " brimmed" 

 leaves were strong. I discarded it, as it did not crop 

 sufficiently to repay me. So many people come to eat, 

 twenty-five at a time, that I must have hardy sorts, good, 

 and good croppers. 



Now, as I have put in The Joxienai. of Hobticultuhe 

 what Mr. Taylor has said, it is but fair to put in what Mr. 

 Standish says. I received the following from Ascot Koyal 

 Nurseries a few days days ago. It will be read with interest, 

 and I make no apology for extracting from a kind letter', 

 ending with an invitation : — 



" Certainly La Constante is one of the most hardy kinds 

 known. Mr. do Jonghe showed me letters from Eussia, 

 Germany, and all parts of the world, stating its haidiness, 

 and my experience here confirms it, this being a very cold 

 place. Dr. Hogg was here the other day, and coming across 

 the heath, ho told me he thought the wind would have cut 

 his ears and nose off. I have a lot of Strawberry plants in 

 the ground in beds on ashes. I have several thousands of 

 La Constante, President, Oscar, Sir Charles Napier, and 

 others. La Constante and President are the hardiest. The 

 leaves of both are as green as in summer. The leaves of 

 the others are cut in a very marked manner, and quite 

 dead." He then goes on to say, that " he has fertilised La 

 Constante with the British Queen with a view to get size, 

 flavour, subetance, hardiness, and productiveness ; that he 

 bred and fruited about five hundred seedlings from La Con- 

 stante crossed by the British Queen ; and that although the 

 May frosts injured a good many of them, there were some 

 wonderful crosses with all the size and flavour of the British 

 Queen, and the fine colour of Sir Charles Napier, and, very 

 curiously, there were scaicely two plants alike. " I shall 

 have about two thousand seedling Strawberries, and shall 

 be very pleased to see you at Ascot, to stop as long as you 

 please, or till you are tired of tasting Strawberries." 



The aboTe kindness I much appreciate. Well, let us hope, 

 then, that with Ija Fertile, and Module, and others, we sluUl 

 have an accession to our fragarium that will stand the 

 burning heats of summer and the rigours of an English 

 winter. I trust that in the above article, and also in all 



preceding ones, I have not expressed myself offensively, 

 nor thrown myself open to suspicions of sinister motives. — 

 W. F. Eadcltffe, Tarrant Rushton, Blandford. 



BEICK STOVES. 



Nothing can well be more simple than a brick stove. A 

 bricklayer who could hardly set a washhouse boiler could 

 easOy buUd a square of bricks with a square opening in the 

 middle and two openings in front, one for the ashpit door and 

 one for the furnace and feeding door, and then a third small 

 opening, either on the other side or at the top, for letting 

 the smoke out; the latter if a damper is not used is the 

 best, as the object is not only to heat the stove, but to keep 

 the heat about it as much as possible. All these stoves do 

 better if the horizontal pipe is short, say about 2 feet, and 

 then in general the upright pipe wUl not require to be long. 



To please two or three other correspondents as well as 

 " A. Q," we will describe how to make one of these small 

 stoves, say 28 inches square outside measure, and 46 or 

 48 inches in height, an inch or two more in height, even, we 

 consider to be an advantage. If your chimney is to be in- 

 side your horizontal pipe may be less than 2 feet from the 

 stove before entering the chimney. We will suppose it to 

 be 2 feet, and therefore wiU begin at that distance from the 

 wall, and also because the stove will give out more heat 

 than if one aide of the stove were formed by the back wall. 

 Mark out the square of 28 inches, and cover that space with 

 brick-on-bed. This forms the base, and the ashpit door 

 win thus be the thickness of the brick above the floor. In 

 the front and middle of this set up the ashpit door (one with 

 a ventilator in it is the best), build up the rest, leaving 

 opposite the door a space 8 inches wide, and say a foot long, 

 and some S inches deep, and above that lay the bars and 

 set up the furnace door. It will be best to have the furnace 

 door and ashpit door all fixed in one. There will be holes 

 for hooked pieces of iron to go in, which, carried into the 

 brickwork, keep the doors firmly in their places. A fire-bos, 

 8 inches square and 8 or 9 inches deep, formed of fire-lumps 

 or fire-brick, should be placed at the side of the bars, and 

 this box with outside bricks makes it often desirable that 

 the ashpit door and the fumace door should be in separate 

 pieces, as the bottom of the furnace door should be about 

 the same level as the top of the fire-box. This allows of a 

 facing of bricks between the two doors and round the fire- 

 lumps. Eaise the walls to the requisite height with brick- 

 on-bed, leaving a hole 4 inches in diameter for the pipe, and 

 say from 5 to 7 inches from the top. The top is best made 

 of an iron plate fr'om three-quarters to an inch thick. The 

 heat rising will strike against the plate and be thrown back 

 again on the brickwork before it escapes by the pipe. To 

 make it more difficult for the heat to escape the fixjnt of 

 the opening should have either an iron plate or a thin 

 fire-lump set up on the top of the fiurther side of the fire- 

 box, and about 2 inches from the pipe, forming a sort of 

 chamber in front of it, with openings on both sides be- 

 tween the plate and wall for the smoke to pass. This 

 tends to keep the heat more confined in the stove. With 

 this precaution, a close-fitting fui-nace door, and close- 

 fitting ashpit door, with a small ventilator in it, a damper in 

 the chimney will scarcely be necessary. In one or two 

 cases where the ashpit door had no opening we advised a 

 small hole half an inch in diameter to be drilled and sup- 

 plied with a wooden peg, and regulating that gave suffi- 

 cient draught after the fire was burning. In cleaning 

 out such fire-boxes they should be damped previously, and 

 then for ease, if the grating is hung on pivots so as to fall 

 when desirable into the ashpit, as described in Vol. XX\'., 

 page 134, it will be a great help. 



Such a stove would be useful for excluding spring frosts 

 and ripening the wood in an orchard-house from 30 to 

 .35 feet in length and 10 or 11 feet in width. If more were 

 wanted the stove would require to be larger and the fiie-box 

 larger, or two stoves would have to be placed in the house. 



The iron plate being flat an iron vessel of water con 

 bo placed on it. But for that in your case you might 

 have a hole in the iron in the middle, and place your chim- 

 ni.^y inside the house upon it, bringing it against the north 

 wall and taking it through the wall near the top. This 



