September 7, 1871. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTIOULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



175 



must be placed in a subdued daylight, that the blanched growth 

 may acquire a healthy green hue slowly, and they must be 

 kept cool in order that they shall grow very little until they 

 have acquired a healthy colour. The floor of a cool greenhouse 

 is a very good place for them, when first taken out of the bed, 

 and cleaned up for forcing. Another matter of great importance 

 is to place them as near the glass as possible as soon as their 

 green colour is established, and to grow them as slowly as the 

 requirements of the case will allow. If to be forced early, allow 

 plenty of time to train them to bear a great heat, taking from 

 bed to pit, and from pit to cool house, and deferring as long as 

 possible placing them in the heat in which they are to flower. 



Those to bloom at Christmas should be potted in September, 

 those to follow may be potted a month later. If a long suc- 

 cession is required, a suflicient number should be potted every 

 two or three weeks to the end of the year ; the latest potted 

 will, of course, flower in frames without the aid of heat. In 

 any and every case the highest temperature of the forcing-pit 

 should be 70° ; to go beyond that point will cause an attenuated 

 growth and a poverty of colour. If liquid manure is employed 

 at all, it should be used constantly, and extremely weak, until 

 the flowers begin to expand, and then pure soft water should 

 be used instead. It matters not what is the particular con- 

 stitution of the liquid manure, but it must be weak, or it will 

 do more harm than good. The spikes should be carefully tied 

 to neat stakes in good time, and a constant watch kept to see 

 that they are not out Or bent as they rapidly develope beyond 

 the range allowed them by their supports. When done flower- 

 ing, remove the flower-stems, and keep the plants in frames 

 supplied regularly with water until the leaves die down ; then 

 lay them on their sides in a dry sunny place, with their heads 

 to the north, for about ten days ; then shake them out, rub off 

 the roots, clean them up, and store in a dry place. 



In Glasses. — It is of little consequence whether rain, river, 

 or spring water be employed in this mode of culture, but it 

 should be clean, and of a kind not likely to become offensive. 

 Fill the glasses sufficiently full that the bulbs will nearly, but 

 not quite touch the water, and place them at once in a dark, 

 cool place, that they may be encouraged to send their roots 

 down into the water before they begin to expand their leaves. 

 When the roots are growing freely, bring them from the dark 

 to the light, in order that their leaves and flowers may be de- 

 veloped in a healthy manner without being attenuated. Pro- 

 vide supports in good time ; let them have as much light as 

 possible, with an equable temperature. They are often injured 

 by being kept in rooms that are at times extremely cold, and at 

 others heated to excess. Those who would grow Hyacinths to 

 perfection in glasses must remove them occasionally as circum- 

 stances may require, to prevent the injury that must result 

 from subjecting them to rapid and extreme alternations of 

 temperature. It is not desirable to introduce to the water any 

 stimulating substances, but the glasses must be kept nearly full 

 of water by occasionally replenishing as it disappears. If the 

 leaves become dusty, they may be cleansed with a soft brush or 

 a sponge dipped in water, but particular care must be taken 

 not to injure them in the process. — {Suttons' Bulb Catalogue.) 



FIG TREES CASTING THEIR FRUIT. 

 One of your most experienced contributors suggested some 

 time ago that Figs cast their fruit because the female florets 

 had not been impregnated. Upon examining with a micro- 

 scope the interior of the enclosed specimen, the seeds seem 

 well formed, and the general character of the fruit normal. It 

 came off a plant of Bourjasotte grise, the great merits of 

 which variety are lessened by the frequency with which it casts 

 its fruit. I have a good many plants of it, but have lost a 

 large portion of the fruit both last year and this, — G. S. 



ANTHURIUM SCHERZERIANUM. 

 I coNGKATULiTE " H. K." on the length of the spathe of his 

 Anthnrium ; it is the longest I have heard of, but he does not 

 give us the width. [It was 3;J inches where broadest. — Eds.] 

 We have several plants here, among which is one that is thought 

 a splendid variety. The spathes which it has produced this 

 summer average 5 inches in length and 3 in width ; the spadix, 

 or elongation at the top of the spathe, measuring between 7 and 

 8 inches in length. The stems were 20 inches in length, carry- 

 ing their noble blooms well above the foliage. Among the 

 others are one or two longer varieties, but they are narrow. 



The plant above referred to has fifty leaves averaging 20 inches 

 in length and 2f in width, giving it a very graceful appearance 

 even when out of bloom. We find this Anthurium very useful 

 as a decorative plant, and when arranged with a mass of Orchids 

 in flower the effect is charming, its lasting properties greatly 

 enhancing its value for the purpose. It also forms an excellent 

 plant for exhibition. — G. J. W. 



RYHOPE HORTICULTURAL SHOW. 



If, as the story goes, the clerks of the Admiralty did not 

 know where Sunderland was, one could hardly be surprised i£ 

 anyone asked. Where is Ryhope ? It is one of those pretty 

 little villages with which our coast line is dotted, not a fishing 

 village, but a country village pure and simple, though seated 

 little more than a stone's throw from the sea, about three miles 

 to the south of us. When I was a boy, and that's — well, never 

 mind how many years ago — it was a pretty little place ; and it 

 is so to this day, though time has somewhat altered its face, 

 and pretentious three-storied bay-windowed houses occupy the 

 site of one or two of the white-washed cottages of former 

 days. To me, as a child, it seemed a model village ; triangular 

 in shape, its base towards the sea, and its apex pointing west- 

 ward ; approached from the old turnpike road at its north-east 

 angle, the entrance flanked on either side by a cartwright's and 

 a blacksmith's shop, where such carts as never were, were built 

 and painted with that everlasting red and blue, in which wheel- 

 wrights revel, where such horses were shod aa are never shod 

 now, the very smoke from whose burning hoofs seems to float 

 before one's memory as sweet incense ; the village green, where 

 the rustics used to have their games on the long summer's 

 evenings ; the large pond at the head of the village, where we 

 used to sail our ships (there were no model yachts then, ours 

 were substantial brigs and schooners, well rigged, and smelling 

 strongly of paint which never used to dry thoroughly— the 

 handiwork of some friendly shipwright) ; the farmhouses, the 

 cow-byres, the milk carts, and the amiable milkboy, who used 

 to give us a ride in the straw among the cans and milk barrels, 

 and make the donkey kick for our special edification— was 

 there ever such a village ? There may be, and there doubtless 

 are, many fairer spots, but the recollections of childhood 

 clothe Eyhope with charms belonging to no other place. There 

 were the beautiful seabanks, wbe e grew such quaking grass 

 ("dothering ducks" we called them), as grew nowhere else-,, 

 the sea beach with a strip of golden sand, where we used to 

 bathe, my mother performing her toilet, as was customary in 

 that primitive place in those primitive times, under shelter of 

 an umbrella arrangement ; the seaweed-covered rocks, laid bare 

 at low tide, with every pool a mine of treasures ; no end of 

 winkles, and limpets, and crabs, which, for some reasons best 

 known to themselves, have since emigrated — I mean the crabs ; 

 for what with Sunderland on the one hand cribbing hundreds 

 of acres from the sea for its docks, and gas and patent fuel 

 and other stench-producing factories on the other, striving 

 which can discharge the most offensive-smelling compounds 

 into the ocean, I think the crabs have agreed to seek " fresh 

 fields and pastures new," and leave their native rocks to the 

 limpets, who, making a virtue of necessity, still stick to the 

 place with a pertinacity very commendable, affording a supply 

 of excellent bait for fishermen, whose children, barefooted, 

 visit the rocks every tide, knife in hand, detaching the limpets 

 from the rocks with a skill the result of long practice. 



About a mile from the village, and as recently as fourteen or 

 fifteen years ago entirely unconnected with it, is a pretty little 

 valley, a romantic spot, situated between two limestone hills, 

 and once a favourite resort of Sunderland and his wife at the 

 picnicing season of the year. Here, only a very few years 

 ago, science smelt coal, and with a wonderful efioit of engineer- 

 ing skill soon obtained it, and one result is that to-day up- 

 wards of seven hundred cottages, substantial and commodious, 

 each with its own garden and out-premises, tenanted by nearly 

 four thousand people, stretch in long regular lines, broken only 

 by churches, chapels, and schools, over the undulations of the 

 intervening country till they reach our little village of Eyhope, 

 and it and Ryhope colliery become virtually one little town. 

 The sports and pastimes of a pit village are various. Its in- 

 habitants are, perhaps, in part not the most civilised portion 

 of the community, nor has their peculiar calling a very human- 

 ising tendency; but there are among them men made of good 

 stuff, the object of whose lives is to raise the moral standard 

 of those with whom they come in daily contact, and in these 

 efforts they are ably seconded by the colliery owners, who are 



