472 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ June 30, 1863. 



■srill suit them ; strong growers of either require moderate, and 

 weak growers close, pruning. China Roses do not require much 

 pruning, but a thinning or regulating of the shoots. Teas, too, 

 do not lite the knife; they flower better with moderate than 

 close pruning. 



Under the circumstances we do not think you could have a 

 better dressing for your Roses than decayed vegetable matter ; 

 a little Peruvian guano sprinkled around the trees in March 

 would do them no harm ; it would be washed down to the 

 roots with the first strong shower, and they would not be long 

 before they showed its effects. We never use salt, and we should 

 be cautious about doing so. A little might do no harm, but we 

 think anything like a large quantity would be hurtful.] 



MIJ1ULUS CUPEEUS. 



This recently imported plant is a gem in the class to which it 

 belongs — an acquisition for small greenhouse and conservatory 

 decoration. Let its bedding properties be what they may, owing 

 to its slender and somewhat delicate habit I fear it would not 

 stand well out of doors in this part of Ireland, although we have 

 moisture enough, if that is of any advantage ; and I likewise 

 fear it will not be found to stand well in the south, if the 

 seasons prove at all dry, for the Mimulus, delighting in plenty of 

 moisture, nothing suffers bo quickly from drought. Its cultiva- 

 tion is simple enough. Seed if sown in February and carefully 

 attended to, will produce blooming plants by May. I purchased 

 a packet of seed from a London house. The plants are now 

 beautifully in bloom and promise to remain so for some length 

 of time. 



The three new kinds, crosses from cupreus, figured in last 

 month's " Florist and Pomologist," without doubt are pretty ; 

 but in my opinion fall far short of the original, for which we 

 have to thank the Messrs. Veitch. — John Edlington, Crom 

 Castle. 



DESTROYING INSECTS-DEODOEISING. 



Recently you stated that soot (half a peck to twenty gallons 

 of water), is good to wash trees and plants infested with insects. 

 Do you prefer it to tobacco water? and does the latter, or Gis- 

 hurst compound, or Neal's plant soap, injure the foliage or 

 flowers of plants, as Geraniums, Calceolarias, &c, on which it 

 falls ? and can you recommend a wash to syringe Roses covered 

 with green fly that would be effective and not injure the foliage 

 and flowers beneath them ? 



Would a little chloride of lime take away the smell from liquid 

 manure for in-door use ? And if so what proportion should 

 be put to a gallon and not to injure the plants ? — H. G. 



[The greater our experience the more fully are we couvinced 

 that the man who discovers any effective wash that will destroy 

 all insects, and yet be perfectly harmless to plants, may soon, if 

 he chooses, be able to ride in a coach and Bix, and have a mansion 

 and establishment to match with such external grandeur. We 

 have also proved repeatedly that what will destroy insects 

 at one time will not do them much injury at another time, 

 and hence the importance of not relying upon any one spe- 

 cific. Hence also the importance of using liquids which are 

 distasteful to insects, and which will rather tend to increase 

 the vigour of the plant than otherwise. Soot water of the 

 strength mentioned above will not kill insects so effectually as 

 tobacco water, if it be strong enough to kill at once, but it will 

 be as effectual as very weak tobacco water. Our own experience 

 tells us that tobacco water, strong enough to kill the insects at 

 once, will also injure the Bhoots and foliage, and so with all the 

 other things named — GiBhurst and the rest of them. Careful 

 people, therefore, prefer weaker doses repeated instead of a strong 

 dose at once. We have cleared many liose bushes of green fly 

 with clear soot and lime water alone, and left no marks on the 

 plants beneath them, and this could hardly be said of Gishurst 

 or tobacco water. We have, moreover, seen days taken in dip- 

 ping and washing shoots of Roses in tobacco and other waters, 

 and the leaves getting almost as much injured as the insects; 

 when the same time would have enabled a person to run his 

 fingers along the shoots, crush all that came in his way, and 

 then wash off all the remains either with clear soot water or 

 clear soft water. 



There is this objection to all washings — that some of the 

 insects will most likely escape, and they will Boon give you a 

 fresh brood ; and therefore smoking with tobacco is the most 



certain cure, as the smoke will get into every hole and cranny. 

 Even that, however, must not be too strong, continued too 

 long, or presented in a hot Btate, or the tobacco may do more 

 harm than the insects. A glazed cloth covering to put over 

 bushes is a good mode for smoking them, only the smoke must 

 be eooL The green fly is easily killed, but we have noticed the 

 viviparous progeny come from the dead bodies of their parents, 

 and thus, independently of eggs, occasioning fresh necessity for 

 the smoke and the wash. Nothing that has come in our way 

 equals in this respect the brown and black insects of the Aphis 

 persicse, and the evil is that they get in wood, on walls, in pots, 

 in the earth anywhere and everywhere ; and when you have settled 

 one generation, in a short time you have several more to try 

 your patience and resignation. On a hot day recently we found 

 a hard gravel walk swarming with them. Last night we smoked 

 them, and on examining an infested shoot with a microscope 

 could not discover one alive. We placed the shoot and leaves in 

 a cup, covered it up securely, and find that out of some hundreds 

 two or three have recovered so as to be just sickly ; many others 

 that last night were plump and fat-looking are now thin and 

 shrivelled as well as dead; but lots of little brown things are 

 sticking about, too large to have come from eggs, and showing 

 every sign of having come from the dead bodies of their parents. 

 Plenty of young, but not liviDg, could be squeezed from the 

 dead bodies of their parents ; so we must just smoke again. 

 These trees have had washings of almost everything, and with 

 the fingers too ; but if the wash was very Btrong the trees 

 suffered, and if weak they only tended to lessen the evil ; and 

 even when the fingers were used, and they and the liquids killed 

 where they touched, a very small point — even a quarter of an 

 inch missed — would, from containing some scores, soon give yon 

 millions to kill and destroy. Smoking is, therefore, the most 

 effectual remedy next to catching them and killing them. In 

 most cases, whether by smoking or washing, one or two appli- 

 cations will generally be ineffectual, because, though strong 

 enough to kill all which are alive, it will not kUl those not then 

 alive, or even the eggs that may be deposited. Our opinion is 

 that there is but little production in summer by eggs, but that 

 most new races are produced in a viviparous state ; but infor- 

 mation on this subject is necessary. 



One word more. When the fingers are used to squeeze such 

 insects — and an active boy will soon thuB go over a Rose tree — 

 care must be taken to wash off all such remains of the insects 

 with syringe or engine, or the famed hy dropults, as such squeezed 

 remains are as hurtful to the plants as a strong dose of tobacco 

 or Gishurst. Dusting the insects with nux vomica, hellebore, 

 Bnuff, &c., will soon settle those on which it lights ; but the 

 difficulty is that the quickest eye cannot see them all, and then 

 there is just more room for those that are left to breed all the 

 faster. Very few of such insects will stand 130° of hot water 

 syringed on them ; but then, whatever part is missed will 

 give you occasion for another repetition, and growing plants 

 will not stand that long without injury — in fact at this season 

 120° is high enough. Of course the water gets cool a little by 

 being thrown on — a different affair from dipping. If dipped at 

 once, even in 120°, few insects will live ; but the branch must 

 not remain above half a minute or a minute in the water. The 

 natural history of some of those insects by one of our first-rate 

 entomologists, such as those whose initials sometimes honour 

 these pageo, would be extremely interesting. 



A little chloride of lime would remove the smell from liquid 

 manures, as sewage, guano, &c, and fhould be given in pro- 

 portion to the strength of such manure. Superphosphate of 

 lime is one of the beBt manures for inside purposes, and when 

 in small quantities on the surface soil, or mixed up with water, 

 hardly retains any smell after the watering. For all out-door 

 purposes the earth is the best deodoriser. — R. F.] 



Ctanophtllttk magntficttm. — I give you the dimensions of 

 a plant which I have of this. I bought it in June, 1862, with 

 one pair of leaves about 6 inches in length, and the stem not 

 more. The stem is now 3 feet high from the Burface of the pot, 

 and the following figures give the length and breadth of the last 

 four pair of leaves respectively, beginning at lowest : — 24J inches 

 by Hi, 27£ by 12£, 291 by 13J, 27£ by 14|. This last pah- 

 have not yet attained their full growth. The plant is in most 

 vigorous health, having received from the first moist stove treat- 

 ment, a rich compoBt, and frequent waterings with weak liquid 

 manure water. — A Subsoblbbb. 



