27S 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTDEE AND COTTAGE GAEDEXEE. 



[ October 12, 1871. 



patentecJ by Mr. Eendle. Now I know that Mr. Kivers wrote 

 to Mr. Brehaut to express his approbation of all protective 

 inventions, bat he has not sanctioned the mention of his name 

 in advertisements. Allow me to advise " Ao betoie," and all 

 owners of small gardens to adopt only Eivett's improved ground 

 vinery or others of the same make, for there is no patent for 

 hinges. These, placed on a few bricks, as mentioned in the 

 " Miniatnre Fruit Garden," pp. 141 to 153, will be found among 

 the most useful and economical of all garden structures. If 

 more luxury is required the protectors of Mr. Brehaut can be 

 employed; they seem very good and useful, judging from the 

 descriptions. 



I do not quite understand "Atjkevoir" when he says, "If 

 the maker of the wooden frames had called them Cauliflower- 

 protectors," &c., " he would have had orders," &(!. Does he 

 mean the improved ground vineries ? or does he allude to 

 Eendle'a protector supported by a wooden frame to prevent its 

 being blown down, as mine has been till supported with slips 

 of deal, which, if for Vines, those first invented require to be ? 

 and if made of sufficient height Vines grow well and ripen 

 their fruit ; but I confess to highly preferring Eivett's improved, 

 which grows Vines so well and all other trees requiring pro- 

 tection. 



The Vines of Mr. Elvers have hitherto been remarkable for 

 ripening their fruit every season, but this year the fruit is not 

 ripe, nor likely to ripen without a hot sun in October. I have 

 to-day (October 2nd) had the pleasure of looking into the ground 

 vineries of Mr. Rivers, so allow me to report faithfully. The 

 first I looked into was one of Eendle's protectors, the original 

 sort. This is 20 inches high in the back waU, to the N.W., and 

 14 inches high to the S.E. The front wall has pigeon-holes. 

 In this was a healthy Vine, or the half of a Vine, 14 feet being 

 perfectly healthy and fall of fine bunches of fruit unripe of the 

 early variety so much like Bnckland Sweetwater — General della 

 Marmora. The remaining 14 feet of this Vine were enclosed 

 in a ground vinery 3 feet in diameter at base, of the usual 

 kind, on bricks. In the 14 feet of Eendle's are sixty bunches 

 fine ; in the 14 feet of the same Vine under the common ground 

 vinery — the base of the Vine — are twenty-five bunches. The 

 top end enclosed in Eendle's in 1870 ripened some thirty 

 bunches in spite of cut fingers. This is a triumph. 



The next ground vinery on bricks has the Black Hamburgh 

 trained under it full of fruit unripe. The next to this is a 

 marvel, requiring eight 7-feet lengths to cover it ; this is the 

 Trentham Black, fruit unripe. Ttiis portion of the ground 

 vineries is too narrow — only 30 inches at its base, but the Vines 

 are full of health and the crop large. This long Vine is a 

 charming sight. I learn that Mr. Elvers, observing towards the 

 end of July the backwardness of the fruit, would not have 

 them thinned, so that possibly — barely so — they might if 

 thinned have been riper than they now are. 



I hope this plain and truthful statement will satisfy " An 

 KEvoiK." I have only to tell him and his friends that for their 

 small gardens no protector is equal to the Eivett's improved 

 with a hinge. It should be 3 feet 6 inches in diameter at its 

 base, placed on brick, and then Vines, Peaches, Pears, all trained 

 along the centre to a wire ; and bedding plants, and salads, 

 and early Peas, &c., may be grown in them to their heart's 

 content. For larger cultivators the cheaper brick protectors of 

 Eendle may be used. — An Old Lovek of Pkoiectoes. 



ROSES tm:th RT. 



One of your correspondents has inquired if Eoses and Ivy 

 will do together, and has been answered by " Hoetator." I 

 have two high walls, one facing south, the other west ; both 

 are completely covered with Ivy and Eoses. The way mine 

 are grown is this. The Ivy and Eoses were planted together. 

 The Ivy will cling to the wall, and the Eoses are trained to a 

 wooden trellis, which should be at least 4 inches from the wall, 

 otherwise the Ivy will choke the Eoses. The varieties which 

 I find do the best are Gloire de Dijon, Celine Forestier, and 

 Mar6ohal Niel grafted on Gloire de Dijon. The contrast when 

 the Eoses are in bloom is grand. I have also trained on the 

 same walls a white-coroUaed Fuchsia, Madame Cornelissen, and 

 at the present time the walls are the admiration of all who see 

 them. Here the Fuchsias want no protection in winter, and 

 I am in hopes of getting them to the top of the wall in a year 

 or two. The upright pieces of the trellis are half-inch square 

 and 9 inches apart. — J. T. Dawson, Gardener to H'. H. Smithard, 

 Esq., Summeriille, Guernsey. 



[The chief difficulty is not in keeping the stems of the Boses 



and Ivy apart, but in keeping the roots of the latter from rob- 

 bing the Eoses of sufficient nourishment. — Eds.] 



SOME PREDATORY INSECTS OF OUR 

 CxARDENS.— No. 20. 



The Hop is a plant which belongs rather to the farming than 

 to the gardening interest, though not unfrcquently cultivated 

 as an ornament in gardens, and used to conceal an unsightly 

 paling by its graceful festoons, or to impart a pleasant greenness 

 to the trelliswork of an alcove or summer-house. I presume 

 that all the readers of this Journal are cognisant of the fact 

 that this year has been a most unfavourable one. It is well 

 known to the growers, and to the purchasers of the product of 

 our Hop plantations, that no one year is exactly alike any other 

 year, a constant succession of changes being occasioned by the 

 seemingly peculiar liability of this plant to be afiected by 

 atmospheric phenomena, by the attacks of insect enemies, by 

 parasitic vegetation, and by maladies not easily definable in 

 addition to these. Just as some persons have remarked to me, 

 that when they feel particularly comfortable they are sure that 

 some trouble is approaching, so is it with the cultivator of 

 Hops ; in a good year he rejoices with trembling, since he may 

 pay for it in two or three subsequent bad ones. On the other 

 hand, in a very unfavourable year he has this consolation, that 

 the next is nearly certain to be different, and most probably 

 decidedly better. 



Now 1870 was a decent average year, but 1871 is exceed- 

 ingly below the mark, both in England and abroad. In a letter 

 addressed to one of our daily journals, a Kentish Hop-grower 

 makes the following dismal statement ; — " The plant has this 

 year, from its earliest shoot in the spring up to the time of 

 picking, eufiered from a succession of attacks as numerous and 

 almost as fatal as the ten plagues of Egypt. I may enumerate 

 wireworm and flea by millions, spiders, red and black fly, some- 

 times three deep, lying on the leaves, followed by innumerable 

 lice, which destroy the vitality of the vine, and turn it black; 

 mould, white and red, which eats away the Hop and destroys 

 the sample ; and to complete the calamitous list of foes, we 

 generally have one or two terrific sou'-westers, which rend 

 and shiver the Hops, so that some grounds in exposed posi- 

 tions look as if our gallant cavalry from Aldershot had charged 

 the enemy through the plantations. I ought in fairness to 

 add that we have two friends who occasionally come to our 

 rescue and destroy the vermin, and I therefore mention with 

 grateful respect our nursery friend, the lady-bird, and a sable 

 insect called the " negur.' " 



I do not profess to be any authority in Arachnids, but yet I 

 demur to the wholesale condemnation of spiders. The true 

 spiders are, I believe, staunch in their adherence to animal 

 food, and decidedly reject vegetable aliment. Young spiders 

 and small mites are often mistaken for each other, though 

 there is a remarkable structural difference between them, one 

 which, nevertheless, no one but a naturalist ould be supposecd 

 to be cognisant of. Spiders are furnished with eyes, while 

 mitea are unprovided with organs of sight as far as we can tell. 

 One of the mites, which is almost exactly like a small spider 

 at a first glance, is that called Trombidium holosericum, and 

 it also spins a delicate web for the protection of its young, 

 rather than for the capture of prey. This is said sometimes 

 to be sufficiently common on plants to impede their growth ; 

 whether or not it occurs on the Hop I cannot say. The harvest 

 bug (Leptura autumnalis), which is abundant in June, does 

 doubtless occasion some injury to the Hop at times, Lhough a 

 more usual visitant to the kitchen garden. This species can 

 only be detected by close watching, from its minute size. Some 

 species of the genus Aoarus may also occasionally visit the 

 Hop plantations. 



It is no wonder that this writer, not, of course, an entomo- 

 logist, though a shrewd observer of Nature, failed to trace the 

 connection between the " fly " and the lice, they being, as is 

 evident, aphides in different stages of growth. What he alludes 

 to under the name of the " negur " is not quite clear ; the 

 larva; of the lady-bird or lady-birds, for there is a plurality of 

 species here, are called "niggers" in some places, and the 

 name may also have been, for aught I know, applied to some of 

 the laiyse belonging to the genus Syrphus, truculent individuals, 

 indeed — wolves among the aphid sheep. Some newspaper 

 editors have, it seems, been sending commissioners into the 

 Hop districts to make their investigations and report thereupon, 

 a proceeding a little in the manner of the proverbial individual 

 who doubly secured his stable door when his steed had been 



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