August 1, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
89 
stronger for the money than when purchased in early spring, 
and they are now most easy of management, should flower in 
the autumn, and lay the foundation for good plants another 
year. 
Unfortunately the varieties having the finest individual 
flowers are not always the best worth purchasing, as many of 
the newer sorts do not possess good habits and constitutions. 
Some of the old and moderately old sorts are still the most 
satisfactory ; for instance, there are few freer growing and 
flowering Fuchsias in cultivation than the good old Rose of 
Castile. Another old variety, Venus de Medici, is still one of 
the most attractive of the light sorts. A fine, free, and valu- 
able variety is Miss Marshall; Starlight is also free and very 
good; and highly effective is Lady Heytesbury. Arabella 
Improved is a strong grower with fine bells; and a little gem 
is Guiding Star. Marginata is also a real amateur’s Fuchsia 
in this section. Mrs. J. Lye is also good; and distinct and 
pleasing is Minnie Banks. Lustre is a strong grower, and 
Beumanni, dwarf, make up a dozen good varieties having white 
tubes and corollas and pink or violet corollas. 
Amongst the dark varieties the following are free growers 
and bloomers, and altogether good :—Model, Albert Victor, 
Enoch Arden, Try-me-Oh, Rhoderic Dhu, La Traviata, Killie- 
¢erankie, Noblesse, Wave of “Life, Victor Emmanuel, Crown 
Prince of Prussia, Lord Falmouth, and to make a baker's 
dozen, the good old Souvenir de Chiswick. The dark varieties 
with double corollas are mostly of straggling growth; Blue 
Boy, however, is dwarf, and so are Little Bobby and Alberta. 
Good stronger growers are Avalanche, Albert Memorial, and 
King of the Doubles; large but almost ugly is Champion of 
the World. Amongst the double varieties with white corollas 
the best are Mrs. Cannell, Miss Lucy Finnis, Little Alice, and 
Enchantress. Singles of the same colour are Conspicua, old 
but good; Cannell’s Gem, Miss Burdett Coutts, and Mrs. 
ein. 
All of the above I have grown and can recommend, also two 
others of recent introduction, and quite distinct from all the 
varieties named—namely, Mr. Laing’s useful hybrid Earl of 
Beaconsfield, and a variety sent out by Mr. Cannell named 
Aurora superba.—A NORTHERN GARDENER. 
STIRLING CASTLE APPLE. 
Mr. WILLIAM HARVEY, watchmaker, told me that it was 
raised about fifty years ago by a man of the name of Christie, 
who kept a toy shop, and had a garden off the back street 
{ie., Spittal or John Streets) where he experimented on the 
raising of seedling Apples, but Stirling Castle was the best of 
them. The first graft was given toa gentleman of the name 
of Anderson, and planted in his garden in Albert Place, now 
occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Watt.—G. McDouGALL, Rap- 
Jock, Stirling, N.B. 
NAN-MU TREE OF THE CHINESE. 
Dr. BRANDIS has drawn our attention to a passage in Mr. 
Davenport’s report on Yunnan (Parliamentary Papers, China, 
No. 2, 1877, p. 13), giving an account of the Nan-mu tree, the 
wood of which is so highly valued by the Chinese. If it could 
be accurately identified the cultivation of the tree would no 
doubt be very profitable in India, and I therefore place on 
zecord what has been ascertained respecting it. The following 
is from Mr. Davenport’s report :— g 
“This part of Yunnan, which seems to be between 25° and 
26° N. lat., produces the famous Nan-mu, so highly esteemed 
by the Court for building purposes and by the wealthy for 
coffins on account of its durability. This timber is to be seen 
in perfect condition after the lapse of nearly three centuries 
in the shape of enormous pillars in the tombs of the emperors 
of the Ming dynasty, and has usually been supposed by 
foreigners to be teak. The tree is tall, thin, straight-growing, 
haying no bough or twigs on the stem but suddenly shooting 
out branches at the top, somewhat like a canopy over a may- 
pole. Its bark is of a peculiar ashy grey colour, and a speci- 
men of the leaves gathered by myself, accompanying this 
report, will prove beyond all doubt that it is not a member of 
the teak family. During the Ming dynasty this wood had 
already become scarce (haying probably been everywhere cut 
down and not replanted), and was brought chiefly from almost 
inaccessible valleys situated in the valleys inhabited by wild 
tribes. The imperial palaces at Pekin were built almost 
entirely of this timber. 
“At the present time this wood is imported into Shanghae in 
planks measuring 8 feet long by 13 or 14 inches in diameter, 
for which the highest price is 200 dollars per plank. Whole 
coffins range from 100 to 800 dollars. The quality is judged 
of chiefly by the pungency of the scent.” 
The leayes sent by Mr. Davenport to the Foreign Office 
cannot now be traced, but by the courtesy of E. Bradford, Esq., 
late Master of the Apothecaries Society, to which the specimens 
of drugs collected by Mr. Davenport were sent, I have been 
favoured with a further fragmentary specimen transmitted by 
Mr. Davenport, and also with specimens of the wood brought 
to this country by Wm. Lockhart, Esq., who states that “itis 
also used largely by Chinese gentlemen who take a pride in 
their libraries to make boxes for sets of volumes, and also to 
place between sets of volumes.” 
The leaves are too slender a basis for a certain botanical 
determination in the absence of flowers and fruits; but it 
appears extremely probable that the tree belongs to the 
family Lauracez, and the leaves themselves agree very closely 
with those of Phoebe pallida, Nees.—(Kew Report.) 
SUMMER CUCUMBER CULTURE. 
“New SUBSCRIBER” says that for the first time the Cucum- 
bers in the distmet in which he resides are badly attacked by 
what to him and his neighbours is a new disease, but which 
from his description is evidently a bad case of gumming, so 
called from the sap which exudes from the affected fruit, 
and becomes hardened to the consistency of gum along the 
numerous cracks on its surface. 
There is no cure for this complaint, and the plants must be 
destroyed—not by any means in despair, for a fresh batch of 
seedling plants should be planted immediately in fresh sweet 
soil, and although they may be grown in the same house or pit 
yet they may not have a single fruit affected. 
Another correspondent complains that his plants, notwith- 
standing the advantage of a good house, haye died after “ bear- 
ing a good many Cucumbers.” This is probably a case of ex- 
haustion—I say probably, because grubs may have attacked 
the roots and induced premature decay. Barrenness and decay 
are, however, so frequently caused by ignorance of the treat- 
ment which the plants should have when in full bearing, that 
attention must again be called to the palpable fact of sucha 
egross-feeding plant requiring supplies of nutriment in propor- 
tion to its size and crop of fruit. Not only must there be fre- 
quent surface dressings of fresh soil, but that soil must be of 
such a nature and so disposed as never to become a sodden 
compact inert mass from the daily drenchings of water and 
liquid manure which the plant requires and must have to 
enable it to perfect its fruit, and at the same time make abun- 
dant new, robust, and fruitful growth. 
If I were asked for a method of growing Cucumbers in sum- 
mer which had never been known to fail I would say, Take g 
table, place it under and some 3 feet below a glass roof; take a 
bushel of soil consisting of chopped turf and decayed manure 
in equal parts, shoot it.on the table ina heap ; in this plant your 
Cucumber plant, train it up a stake to a wire trellis strained a 
foot below the roof, nip off the top of the leading shoot when 
it reaches the trellis to induce a stout lateral growth, which 
train about the trellis. Water and syringe freely, and when 
the roots appear outside the heap of soil cover the mound with 
a couple of layers of turf sods, and go on adding more sods 
whenever the roots peer out and ask you for them. As the 
fruit begins swelling substitute sewage or liquid manure for 
the clear water, and in the latter stages of the plant’s existence 
cover the entire heap of soil with cow dung. 
My motive for naming a table for the soil is to make it clear 
to everybody that no hotbed, manure heap, or bottom heat of 
any kind is wanted for summer Cucumbers. A stage or floor 
would answer equally well, provided there is a free drainage 
for superfluous water. Plenty of fresh air, turf sods, liquid 
manure, cleanliness, prompt and thorough drainage, and pains- 
taking are therefore the few and simple elements of success. 
Avoid deep pits or trenches. Avoid heavy or very fine soil ; if 
you cannot procure turf mix a lot of broken bricks, mortar 
Tubbish, and charcoal with some of your best garden soil. 
When the plant is in full growth pour on sewage by the gallon 
till it streams out of the bottom of the heap, and above all 
‘remove the fruit as soon as possible after it is fit for table. A 
dozen or two of full-grown fruit hanging upon a plant at once 
makes an immense strain upon its system, and if left on long 
exhaustion is pretty certain to follow, of which the effects will 
