November 30, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



46S 



wondered at accounts of flavour which had, perhaps, come 

 from the eaters of Cox's Orange or Ribston Pippin. The 

 Eaki fruit I first tasted was quite ripe, and I feel satisfied 

 at its best stage ; one side was beginning to decay, but all the 

 rest perfectly sound. I will with pleasure try my last fruit 

 at its extreme point of ripeness, though I think this was done 

 in the specimen above spoken of. We have another tree which 

 has not yet fruited, apparently another variety. — Geobge F. 

 Wilson. 



[There are more than fifty species of Diospyros known. We 

 have tasted several in India, but all were Wetted like the 

 Medlar when fit for eating. One species is hardy, D. vir- 

 giniana, called popularly in North America the Persimmon, 

 and its fruit is not palatable until it has been frozen. — Eds.] 



ORCHIDS AT CHELSEA. 



The recent large importations have brought down the price 

 of some Orchids very considerably, and I was told by the 

 Messrs. Veitch that the demand for them was never so great 

 as it has been this year. When people are purchasing im- 

 ported Orchids they ought not to drive a hard bargain, for in 

 thinking of them one is vividly reminded of the cry of the 

 Newhaven fishwife trudging through the streets of " Auld 

 Reekie," shouting "Its no fish yer buyin, its hon?st men's 

 lives." Witness the long array of martyrs who have perished 

 in their search for the rare and beautiful in nature, from 

 David Douglas gored to death by a wild bull, to Albert Bruch- 

 muller brutally murdered by a convict in New Grenada. 



The splendid Odontoglo3sum cirrosum is to be seen at 

 Chelsea in thousands. It is not new to England, having been 

 introduced in 1840 from Ecuador, where it was found at an 

 elevation of 6000 feet above the sea ; but, like many other fine 

 plants, it was lost owing to ignorance of its treatment. It is 

 best described as a major form of the rare and beautiful 

 O. niveum majus. The spikes are large and branched, and I 

 can testify to the free growth of the plants in a cool house. 

 Another surprise to me was to see suspended from the roof in 

 baskets and" on blocks hundreds of the magnificent Oncidium 

 Bogersii. The collector, who has had much experience, has no 

 doubt of its being the real thing. Should it not prove true, 

 it will doubtless be a new Oncid of great excellence. 



Masdevallias now almost require a house to themselves, so 

 numerous are the different species and varieties, some of them 

 more curious than beautiful, but all are worthy of culture. 

 Were I to choose three Bpecies only, I would take as the best 

 M. Harryana. The best variety is a magnificent flower, dazzling 

 glowing crimson in colour. Next, M. Veitchiana. The best 

 variety has thick fleshy leaves and flowers, and the colours are 

 most striking. Lastly, the pure white M. Tovarensis. By the 

 time this appears in print Messrs. Yeitch will have in flower 

 perhapB the finest plant of this species in England. — J. Douglas. 



AMERICAN BLACKBERRIES. 



The Lawton is perhaps the best of the American Black- 

 berries ; the fruit is delicious, having very small seeds in pro- 

 portion to its size ; and the cultivation of this fruit is so easy 

 that no person need fail of a crop. The plants flourish in any 

 strong mod6rately-rich soil with good under-drainage. The 

 common, and with many the easiest, way is to plant in rows 

 6 feet apart, the plants being 3 feet apart in the rows, driving 

 a stake 5 feet high to each plant or stool to which the young 

 eanes are tied. But having grown these Blackberries I can 

 name a better plan : Procure sound oak posts and fix them 

 in the ground, the height of them being just 4 feet from the sur- 

 face of the soil, and have them well braced and firmly planted. 

 Set one at each end of the rows of plants, and from one to the 

 other of these posts strain a strong wire, supported at intervals 

 of about 40 feet with stakes driven into the soil, to which the 

 wire is to be pioned with small staples. These posts should not 

 be set exactly in the line of the plants, but 18 inches or 2 feet on 

 one side, so that the canes may be bent over to the wire ; thus 

 allowing the young canes of this season to come up separate 

 from the bearing canes, which facilitates the picking. In the 

 end this trellis is not more costly than staking, and is far 

 neater and lasts as long as the plants, which will yield good 

 crops of fruit for six or eight years. There are other sorts, 

 such as the Eittatinny. Wilson's Early, Wance's Seedling, 

 Western Triumph, &c, but the best, in my opinion, is the 

 Lawton. 



The way to establish a healthy stock is to layer the canes in 



August or September as follows : — As soon as the tips grow 

 nearly bare of leaves and present a dark purple colour peg 

 them into the ground 3 or 4 inches at an angle of 45°. In a 

 few weeks they will form fine matted roots, and can be trans- 

 planted after cutting off from the parent 4 or 6 inches above 

 the root. If very strong plants are wanted, and quality or size 

 more than quantity, check the new growth when 2 feet high, 

 it will then throw out ten to a dozen side branches, and 

 these being layered early form very large matted roots by the 

 autumn. But if a large increase of plants is deBired check the 

 growth of all these side branches when they are about 2 feet 

 in length ; this will cause each branch to shoot out, and in- 

 stead of having ten or a dozen to layer, fifty to one hundred 

 will be produced around a good-Bized bnsh. The plants from 

 these will be much later, and besides do not grow such strong 

 canes ; but my experience has satisfied me that these smaller 

 plants are the safest to plant, especially in large quantities. — 

 H. S. J. 



WRIGHT'3 SELF-ADJUSTING STEP LADDER. 

 At St. Louis the other day we examined different sizes of 

 Wright's self-adjusting step ladder. Mr. Wright is a practical 

 fruit-grower, noted in St. Louis and Missouri for his Wright's 

 Mammoth Peach as well as for the step ladder, which is a 

 result of his experience in the Peach orchard, and therefore 

 worthy of special attention by the fruit-grower, although 



Fig. 69.— Wright's Sell-adjusting Step Ladder. 



equally useful for the ordinary household purposes of a step 

 ladder. 



The peculiarity of this ladder is that the bracing legs of it 

 are each hung on a kind of universal joint instead of the 

 ordinary hinge, and connected by a triangular brace also hung 

 from the upper step by a similar joint, the result of which ia 

 that the braces adapt themselves to uneven ground and leave 

 the step-ladder part in a firm upright position, provided that 

 part only is on level ground. Provision is made for elevating 

 either side of this also where the ground is unusually uneven. 

 — (Rural New Yorker.) 



THE CULTURE OF THE POTATO. 



I have been watching the growth of this vegetable for some 

 time past, and I do not think that we plant it early enough. 

 The self-set Potato, as it is commonly called, usually produces 

 more Potatoes than those we plant. For instance, in the past 

 hot and dry season the Potatoes which were planted late in the 

 spring were in the months of June and Jaly quite at a stand 

 Btill when they ought to have been making the best of their 

 growth ; and then at the latter end of September and the 

 beginning of October, when they ought to have been ready for 

 taking out of the ground and storing, we found them in the 

 full vigour of growth, and were left in the ground for another 

 month or six weeks, in order to make up a good crop, ending 

 in too many cases only in a crop of disease. It i3 my opinion 

 that if the Potato was planted in the month of January on 



