408 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



; November 9, 1876. 



in finding a suitable plant for the table during the winter 

 months.— J, M. 



NOTES ON ANNUALS. 



For the last ten years I have devoted a great amount of 

 attention to the growing of hardy and half-hardy annuals, 

 generally sowing above one hundred kinds every year, princi- 

 pally as a test to prove which are the best and really worth 

 growing, also to find out for what purposes the various sorts 

 are beet adapted ; and it may be useful to readers of the Journal 

 if I give my experience and name those kinds which invariably 

 prove satisfactory. 



As my method of treating half-hardy annuals is somewhat 

 different from the instructions generally given, I will mention 

 a few points I have found necessary to attend to. I select a 

 perfectly open site, and do not bow until the end of April, and 

 then only the hardiest sorts, deferring the sowing of those 

 which are mere tender from the 1st to the lOfch of May. By 

 sowing thus late the seedlings come up quickly, invariably 

 escape the late spring frosts and biting east winds, and become 

 strong healthy plants produoing abundance of flowers, which 

 last longer in bloom than the same kinds reared under glass 

 and transplanted in the open ground. Another important 

 point is the sowing. Many of the seeds are very small and 

 are often covered too deep and never come up. I cover them 

 very slightly with fine sifted soil, watering the beds thoroughly 

 before sowing the seed, and never allow the plants to become 

 crowded. If too thick I find the greater part will bear trans- 

 planting by choosing a dull or showery day. I append a list 

 of the best annuals : — 



Half-hardy. — Frenoh Aster, German Ten-week Stock, Phlox 

 Drummondi, Zinnia elegans, double and single ; Zinnia Haage- 

 ana, double yellow; Mexican Zinnias, single deep orange; 

 Tagetes pumila ; Dianthus Heddewigii; Petunia Jacoboea, crim- 

 son, purple, and white ; Sanvitalia procumbens, double ; Mari- 

 golds, French and African, and brown and yellow ditto ; and 

 Salpiglossis, various, very beautiful. 



The first twelve are well adapted for bedding ; the fifth, sixth, 

 and seventh are good substitutes for the Calceolaria ; and on 

 poor soil the first, second, third, fourth, and ninth are very 

 effective in ribbon borders, while the greater part of them are 

 good for out flowers. 



Hardy. — Scabious in variety, dwarf and tall ; Larkspur, 

 dwarf Hyacinth-flowered, and tall mixed double varieties; 

 Linum, scarlet, Yiscaria oculata, Saponaria calabrica, Esch- 

 scholtzia aurantiaca, Iberis hesperidifolia, Erysimum arkan- 

 sanum, Godetia Lindleyana, double ; Tom Thumb Nastur- 

 tiums, scarlet, and yellow; King Theodore, dark crimson ; King 

 of Tom Thumbs, brilliant crimson scarlet ; Crystal Palace Gem, 

 yellow and maroon ; Whitlavia grandiSora and W. gloxinioides ; 

 Lupinus Menziesi, tricolor, hybridus, atrosanguineus, and 

 nanus. 



For Scent. — Mignonette and Mathiola bicornis, very fragrant 

 in the evening; Sweet Peas, mixed; Helianthas californicus 

 and H. globosus fistulosus. The two last are fine for the 

 shrubbery. 



[Some portion of the writer's notes are apparently missing, 

 and he will oblige by supplying them. — Eds.] 



CHAPTERS ON INSECTS FOR GARDENERS. 



No. 12. 

 A certain amount of wonderment has been expressed that, 

 when the enormous number of exotic plants now cultivated in 

 England is considered, the proportion of species of insects 

 introduced with these is found to be so small. Even from 

 those species which are generally reputed to be of foreign 

 parentage a deduction must be made, for species whioh in all 

 probability were really British, bnt kept themselves compara- 

 tively out of view until we took to cultivating largely some 

 plant or Bhrub they prefer. Now, undoubtedly the fauna as 

 well as the flora of a country like ours is capable of undergoing 

 change ; but in the majority of cases the naturalisation of a 

 new species wants an amount of care and caution which no 

 one scarcely would take with an inseot ; in faot all our efforts 

 are put forth in the opposite direction. Then as to accidental 

 introductions, it must be borne in mind that a great many of 

 oar new plants came to England in the seed state and as 

 tubers or bulbs, when they would be less likely to be infested 

 with insects than in a state of growth ; or they have travelled 

 here as email cuttings and slips, when they would naturally 



receive an amount of attentive watching, probably fatal to an 

 unwelcome visitant of the insect family. Moreover, our change- 

 ful and humid English winters and our cold spriDgs are " as 

 good as poison " to insects accustomed to the more equable 

 climes, whence come some of our favourites of the garden or 

 conservatory. 



It would appear that it is in the group of soale insects that 

 we have had most intrusive foreign pests, and this is to be 

 accounted for from the habits of many of the Coccidas, where 

 the female clings closely to the branch or twig, her dried body 

 forming a shield beneath which the young inseots are nurtured 

 just at the period when they would be otherwise in much 

 danger of destruction from external causes ; also by some 

 gardeners these germs of insect life are apt to be overlooked 

 until they have reached a period of their development when 

 they are less easily dealt with. And in our stoves or forcing 

 houses various speoies find they are quite as much at home 

 as in the lands to which they more properly belong, having, if 

 left alone, just those oircumstances favourable to their increase. 

 In short, if the Aphides may be deemed on the whole the most 

 troublesome enemies the gardener has to contend with, the 

 Cocoidro may be reckoned the most insidious. 



Before entering on a description of the Monomers, the laBt 

 subdivision of the bugs or Homoptera, under which are com- 

 prehended the two prolific species 

 popularly called mealy bugs or 

 " scales," it should be noted that 

 the American blight stands in an 

 intermediate place between the true 

 aphides and the Cocci. This and 

 species similar were once designated 

 Pseudococci, as they have not the 

 apparatus which drops honeydew, 

 and in their cottony envelopment 

 they resemble the family of the 

 Cocci, though in other particulars 

 of their habits they approach the 

 Aphides. In the winter they do not 

 generally die off as do the Aphides 

 — (and just at this moment we have 

 arrived at the season which Francis 

 Walker calls the time of Aphis-fall, 

 when, accompanying the dropping 

 leaves, myriads upon myriads of these descend to the earth and 

 die, leaving batches of eggs for the next spring) — but they either 

 creep down towards the roots of the trees and hide partially 

 under the soil, or they seek out crannies in the bark a ad there 

 repose during the winter, covering themselves with their cot- 

 tony down ; and from this peculiar protection, evidently serving 

 to keep them warm, as well as probably a means of warding 

 off the attacks of some parasitic foes, Newman infers with 

 show of reason that this woolly Aphis bearing the modern 

 name of Lachnus (Aphis) lanigera came from a warmer region 

 to us. Newman was the first to experiment with regard to 

 the best modes of dealing with this wholesale destroyer of 

 Apple trees, his conclusion being that there was nothing to 

 surpass hot size, only the applications of it must be repeated 

 from day to day. In the fruit-producing districts of Kent, near 

 my residence, whitewash seems largely patronised as a preven- 

 tive and remedy, and is used both for Apple and Pear trees, 

 though the value of this application will not compare with that 

 of good size. Waterton's plan was to stifle the insects by means 

 of clay, and others have devised compounds of tar and strong- 

 smelling oils, whioh may kill partially. But it is admitted 

 that in large orchards little can be done, and people have to 

 resort to the destruction of all infeoted branches or trees to 

 check the spreading of this blight — a blight indeed, yet can 

 no proof be adduced that it ought to be called American ; and 

 at our antipodes, where the colouists are much troubled with 

 it, they might as justly style it the English blight, and declare 

 that it was imported from these islands, as is possible. But 

 if it did come from America we have taken our revenge by 

 transmitting to them Cocous conchiformis, which, though 

 comparatively harmless to our Apples, has proved a serious 

 infliction across the water, only it is partly checked in its 

 inorease by a speoies of Acarus that preys upon it. — J. R. S. C. 



Fig. 61.-Scale. 



■ BATTERSEA PARK. 

 This noted park occupies 200 acres. It was purchased in 

 1851 by the Government for £11,000, and covers the space 

 once occupied by the inn so celebrated for shooting matches, 



