May 2, 1SG5. ] 



JOXJENAX OF HOETICULTTJRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



345 



payment per pensioner of ^680 3s. lOijd. The amount of the 

 funded stock is .£5700." 



No comment on this statement is necessary. Of the above 

 funded stock, .£200 was laid out last year in consols. At 

 the present time it is advertised to add three more pen- 

 sioners to the list, already containing twenty-seven men 

 and twenty-eiffht women, many of whom are entered direct 

 upon the death of their husbands. As to the pensioners, I 

 can speak from personal observation of the good this outlay 

 does. How cheerful it makes the last days of many, who 

 daily thank Providence for first influencing them to add 

 their mite to the yearly subscription of the Gardeners' 

 Eoyal Benevolent Institution, in no expectation then that 

 the adverse winds of life would have compelled them to seek 

 its shelter ! With the administration of the institution I 

 think none wUl find fault ; whilst the result of every election 

 is the return of the most needy, the widow at all times 

 having- an overwhelming majority, and the spirit which 

 prevails amongst the subscribers is of the best. 



In conclusion, I earnestly desire my fellow gardeners to 

 oive a few moments' serious thought to the claims which 

 this institution has upon them, confident of its merits and 

 the good of which it is capable. — W. Earlet, Digswell. 



GUTTERED FLOWEE-POTS. 



I BEG leave to state that upwards of twenty years ago I 

 invented my plant-protecting flower-pot, which I gave to 

 the public, unfettered by patent. 



My flower-pot was figured in ".Johnson's Gardeners' 

 Almanack " many years ago ; but as it was figured withoxit 

 my knowledge its utility was only partly discussed. My 

 flower-pot has a double rim forming a gutter, which is fllled 

 with water, protecting the plants from creeping insects. 

 I also use the pots for forcing Sea-kale with great success. I 

 use for a cover a flower-pot of the same form as the other pot, 

 but single-rimmed and without a drain-hole. When this 

 cover is on, the edge rests in the gutter, which is fuU of 

 water, and so prevents the air and vermin from getting to 

 the plants, and accelerates their growth. — James Stephens, 

 9, Phien Street, HavelocJc Place, Sheffield. 



STEAWBERET PLANTS TEEATED AS 

 ANNUALS. 



I GROW all my Strawberries as annuals, and of all the 

 early varieties have no difficulty in securing a tolerably 

 abundant crop. May Queen and Black Prince were finally 

 discarded last yeai-, and, with great regret, I fear I shall 

 have to add the beautiful and prolific Princess Frederick 

 William to the number of the expelled. All three are with 

 us so utterly destitute of flavour and sweetness, that I now 

 rely upon Marquise de la Tour Maubourg, as the first 

 Strawberry worthy of a place upon our breakfast-table. It 

 is remarkably prolific and vigorou.s in growth, but somewhat 

 deficient in size. Prince Imperial, after the same strain, 

 is a marked improvement upon it both in size and flavour, 

 and ripening as it does only a day or two days after Mar- 

 quise, I shfdl feel obliged by your suggestions as to com- 

 bating a serious drawback to its treatment as an annual, at 

 least as grown here. 



Of my plants this spring fully one-third show no signs of 

 blossom, whether under glass or in the open ground, and, 

 somewhat remarkably, on examining the barren plants I flnd 

 that, without exception, every one of them shows two buds, 

 the fertile plants as invariably showing only one. Now, 

 does there occur a period in the life of the plant when it 

 elects, as it were, whether to form one blossom-bud or two ? 

 Prince Imperial with us has evidently in the past season 

 tried to make many duplicates, but either failing in the at- 

 tempt altogether, or not perfecting the work, the results are 

 two leaf-buds only. By what treatment can I secure either 

 that each plant shall have its own bud, or, if more, that the 

 increase of buds be in the direction of blossom rather than 

 leaf ? — Feuit-batee. 



[Properly speaking, an annual is a plant, the seeds of 

 which being sown, passes through all its stages of growth, 

 fructification, and decay in the same season. We have om--. 



selves never fruited Strawberries as annuals except the 

 Alpines, which often bear very freely in the autumn from 

 seeds, sown in spring. The nearest approach to annual cul- 

 ture is, the taking the runners of this season and fruiting 

 them the next. This is the general plan followed in the 

 south for forcing StrawbeiTies, and if the runners receive an 

 equal amount of attention, they will fruit as well if not 

 better out of doors. Unless in very light soils, however, we do 

 not see much advantage in this practice out of doors, as in- 

 variably in loamy soils, even under the above circumstances, 

 the second season's crop is generally better than the first. 

 As to Prince Imperial not fruiting as you wish iu-doors, or 

 out of doors, but many showing no bloom, we can add little 

 to what was stated lately in " Doings of the Last Week." 

 If we had plenty to choose from, we would take no runners 

 from these barren plants. We have long ago noticed, that 

 plants which divide their crowns are moi-e apt to be barren 

 than those having only one stout bud or crown. The whole 

 matter is somewhat mysterious, especially if all the plants, 

 barren and fruitful, came from fruitful plants. We should 

 not like to advance more than a supposition as to the cause 

 of these double and triple crowns ; but our present con- 

 viction is, that they generally occur from over-feeding and 

 too much pot-room, which prevent the bud ripening, and 

 thence the luxuriant growth. We have often gathered out 

 of 42-inch pots double the weight that some friends have 

 obtained from plants in pots of double that size. It is im- 

 possible to give such plants too much light in the previous 

 autumn, but it is very possible to make them too luxuriant. 

 What say other correspondents ?] 



GARDEN PESTS. 



One of the most destructive insects which infest the 

 garden at this season of the year is the Haltica nemorum, 

 commonly called the black flea or black fly, which is a small 

 beetle-like insect, and most remarkable both for its agility 

 and good scent, as thousands will jump to the ground in an 

 instant just before you approach them. Broccoli, Kale, 

 Brussels Sprouts, &o., have been literally covered with 

 them. The destruction, however, which they have made on 

 Peach, Nectarine, Pear, Cherry, and Plum trees is the most 

 serious, as many trees of the first two at this place have 

 been deprived of nearly every blossom. We have tried soot- 

 water, lime-water, and tobacco to make the leaves, &c., dis- 

 tasteful, none of which, however, appear to drive them away. 

 A good rain with cooler weather is, perhaps, the only thing 

 to put a stop to then- depredations. If any of your corre- 

 spondents can recommend a method by which these trouble- 

 some pests can be either destroyed or driven away he will 

 oblige myself and many others. — John Perkins, Thornham 

 Hall, Suffolk. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 

 The April meeting of the Entomological Society was held 

 under the presidency of F. P. Pascoe, Esq., F.L.S., when 

 donations to the library from the Eoyal Agricultural Society, 

 the Linnean Society, &c., were announced, as well as M. 

 Dolesohall's Memoirs on the Diptera and Spiders of the 

 Indian Archipelago. 



The President exhibited an apparently new sj)ecies of the 

 Lamellicorn genus Bolboceras taken by Mr. Odewahn at 

 Gwalor near Adelaide, South Australia, where it is found 

 burrowing in the hard roads near that place, and coming 

 forth only at night. The President had observed a similarity 

 of habit in the European species B. gallicus, which burrows 

 in the sand in the south of France. Mr. De Boulay had 

 also observed these insects in Western Australia, and that 

 they make a noise by rubbing', as he states, the pulvilli 

 against the coxffi. The President also read a notice which 

 bad recently appeared in the "AtheuEeum" relative to the 

 Eose-like Galls found on WilL'-^s in Cambridgeshire, exhi- 

 bited at a previous meeting by . Ii-. Bond, and which accord- 

 ing to the writer seemed to a..„rd an explanation of the 

 medieval miracle of Willows blossoming like the Rose at 

 Cli-i-istmas. 



-Mr. F. Stoore exhibited a small collection of Lepidoptera 

 taken in the North- western Himalayas by Capt. Lang, in- 



