186 



JOURNAL OE HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ March 10, 1863. 



number of feeds taken out in a day, a week, or a month. The 

 cattle-sheds are also complete, forming three sides of the paral- 

 lelogram, with railroads in front of the feeding-troughs of cattle 

 and of horses, connected with the boiler-house, pulping-house, 

 grain-bins, and hay-house ; so that all can be fed expeditiously 

 from the trucks, there being turn-tables at each corner. One 

 side of the cattle square contains twelve loose boxes for cattle, 

 and the remainder are tied up in double stalls. By such means 

 labour is much lessened ; but here, as elsewhere, the economising 

 of human labour power, and even the greatly increased activity 

 of the individual workmen, have not tended to diminish but 

 rather to increase the number of workmen employed on the farm. 

 In winter all these stalls are full, and the cattle receiving their 

 allowance of pulped food, cut straw, chaff, &c. 



On these farms more than a hundred men are regularly em- 

 ployed all the year round, there being besides a great addition to 

 these in summer, and large companies for drainage and other im- 

 provements almost constantly at all seasons. Two blacksmiths, 

 two carpenters, and two painters are kept constantly for routine 

 daily work, and all large jobs are done by contract by other 

 masons, carpenters, &c. A number of cottages are either fresh 

 built or renovated every year, with upstair bedrooms, &c, that 

 the labourer may not only have " the privilege to toil," but a 

 comfortable home when the toil of the day is over. All these 

 cottages have a bit of land attached, generally ranging from half 

 an acre up to as much, at times, as two acres. 



We are averse to speak dogmatically on any subject on which 

 our knowledge is limited, and yet after all first impressions are 

 often the true ones. Our short visit to Straffan left a strong 

 impress on our minds, confirmed by all we heard elsewhere, that 

 like true beneficence which ever carries with it a double blessing, 

 the works in progress were conferring benefits on the employer 

 and the employed — on the former in the Bhape of an improved 

 estate, and greatly augmented happiness from seeing others 

 happy'; and on the latter from increased comfort and stimulated 

 and rewarded industry. There are people on this side of the 

 water who will form no idea of Pat, except as the idle, tattered, 

 ragged fellow, leaning against a gatepost, or holding up the 

 crazy walls of his domicile, as represented by the caricaturist. In 

 all caricatures, there must be a spice of truth, otherwise they 

 would be flat and fail of their object ; and in times that are past 

 at any rate, the artist might find no difficulty in obtaining as an 

 object a poor fellow from whom all hope had next to departed, 

 as alter every endeavour he had failed to obtain "leave to toil." 

 The caricature, however, is no type of the industrious Irishman. 

 We wish those who still have doubts, could pop in quite un- 

 expectedly as we did, at the Irishtown farm at Straffan, on a 

 threshing day. To say that the men were working like clock- 

 work, would give no idea, unless you associated the regularity 

 of their movements with the rapidity and dispatch of a railway 

 train. We have been in many manufactories and workshops, 

 but we never saw more intelligent activity, except, perhaps, in 

 some large iron-forging and iron-working establishments. All 

 honour, then, to those who are leaving it no longer as a problem 

 to be worked, but as a great fact demonstrated, that the great 

 cure for idleness and its wretchedness are plenty of work and an 

 equitable remuneration for labour. R. Pish. 



DOES APOTHEME ENTER PLANTS? 



Yotr will recollect that I started by refusing to accept " J.'s" 

 conclusions until he gave his authorities, and it is well that he 

 has now done this ; and if he writes again on such abstruse 

 points, I hope he will not forget that it is very essential for an 

 unknown writer to give, in th is way, some weight to his opinions. 



Tour correspondent says he regrets "that I would not be 

 convinced by a million experiments," because he thinks " con- 

 viction contrary to a foregone conclusion must be impossible " 

 with me, and he then goes on to say that if I am right in this, 

 " Lord Bacon must have pointed out a wrong road to know- 

 ledge," &c. Now, I am a steady adherent to Lord Bacon, and 

 will abide by any issue confirmed by him ; but I fear your corre- 

 spondent, like many others, lias used his illustrious name as a 

 float when he found himself sinking. 



When Bacon told us to " ask questions of Nature," which 

 your correspondent says he did, he did not mean that we should 

 trust to imperfect answers, but that we should wait for the 

 truth, even although " a million of experiments " should fail to 

 elioit it. My complaint is, that scientific writers and experi- 



menters now-a-days "jump at conclusions," and give them to a 

 very "gullable" public as authoritative facts. If they would 

 favour us with a little more of Bacon's inductive philosophy, 

 we should be better satisfied. — Wm. Baxter Smith. 



[Here this passage of pens in our columns must close. — Eds. 

 J. 03? H.] 



POLMAISE HEATING. 



I have just read Mr. Robson's remarks upon Polmaise in 

 No. 99. I have had Polmaise at work in my church and school 

 for upwards of ten years, and I think that no system of heating 

 is to be compared with it for cheapness, simplicity, and certainty 

 of action. 



I used it for some years in my forcing-houses, but gave it up 

 there, because from want of waterfall it was not in my power to 

 place the Btove on a sufficiently low level. Mr. Robson says, 

 " When it (Polmaise) works well, I do not know of any mode 

 of heating that will beat it for the welfare of the plants." I go 

 farther and say that I know no mode of heating which equals it, 

 and for this reason, Polmaise is the only system of heating I am 

 acquainted with which keeps up a constant circulation of the 

 air within a house when all external air is excluded. My ex- 

 perience as regards the quantity of fuel required by Polmaise 

 differs altogether from Mr. Robson's, and I have found this 

 method of heating fully as safe as either flues or hot water. The 

 conditions of Polmaise are few and simple, but they must be 

 understood and carried out, or Polmaise will, doubtless, bring 

 those who try it to grief. — W. H. 



[We are quite aware that Polmaise answers with those who 

 understand it, and when not too great things are expected from 

 it. It is years ago that we described how well Mr. Lane, of 

 Berkhampstead, made it answer with and without drains, and 

 that without a deep shaft too. All these are secured by the 

 slope of the house, and the pathway forms the drain to bring 

 the cold air to the stove. Something of the same kind will take 

 place in all houses however heated. We are glad you succeed 

 so well with orchard-houses. Yours must be of great size. We 

 would be glad to receive more definite particulars respecting 

 them.] 



TREATMENT OE APRICOTS IN BLOOM— VINES 

 GNAWED BY MICE. 



THOUGH Mr. Pearson's remarks as to the treatment of Apricot 

 trees in bloom were rather severely criticised, I think there is 

 more in them, and, unlikely as it may appear, in syringing trees 

 in bloom, than Mr. Rivers is inclined to give credit for. Where 

 I live, the springs of 1861 and 1862 were very wet. I believe 

 there was not an entire day without rain during the whole time 

 the Apricot trees against the wall were in bloom, and there were 

 even occasional frosts ; yet, notwithstanding this apparently very 

 unfavourable state of the weather, the trees without covering set 

 a fair crop of fruit, whilst those in mj orchard-house, which were 

 kept perfectly dry and with an abundance of ventilation (for I 

 attended to them myself, not trusting my gardener), did not 

 ripen a single fruit in 1861, and in 1862 only three or four. 



This circumstance leads me to think a gentle syringing might 

 do good rather than harm. My trees look very promising this 

 spring, and I shall try Mr. Pearson's experiment on one or two 

 of them. I am disposed to think none of our horticulturists, 

 even Mr. Rivers, thoroughly understands their treatment in 

 pots ; else why under glass are we not as certain of a crop aB we 

 are of Plums and Pears ? 



Your correspondent, Mr. Geo. Burton, to me gives a very 

 unscientific reason with his opinion. How a low barometer in 

 showery weather can make a dry atmosphere is rather inex- 

 plicable ; if he will test it with the hygrometer he will see. 

 Perhaps I do not comprehend his meaning. 



Your regular correspondent, "R. P.," in "Doings of LaBt 

 Week," reminds me of the mortification I had on replacing my 

 trees in the orchard-house a week or two ago, I had all the pots- 

 covered with dry leaves in the autumn ; on removing the leaves 

 I found four or five Vines and a Peach tree eaten off entirely by 

 either mice or rats, and four of the Apricot trees, and two Pear 

 trees eaten round, the bark being almost entirely gone for 2 or 

 3 inches up the stem. Will these live ? I have covered the wound 

 with cowdung, then bound it over with moss, which I shall keep 

 damp. There had been both rats and mice in the place ; whether 



