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JOUENAL OP HOKTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



[ Decemljer 28, 1871. 



There are many men who cannot do either as they ought to be 

 done, and among these are they who hastily set themselves up 

 as censors of other men and things, solely on their own ex- 

 perience of them. It will be in the recollection of many that 

 Mrs. Pince was one of the new Grapes of the time, which 

 those wiseacres so weU abused, on the ground, we take it, that 

 they and some others failed to grow it as Mr. Pince did, and as 

 Mr. Donaldson does now. The bunch before us measures 

 14 inches long, 9 inches across the shoulder, and weighs 

 3 lbs. 2 ozs., while the flavour ia all that can be desired. The 

 bunch of Black Alicante weighed 4 lbs. 14 ozs., and both colour 

 and jSavour were unexceptionable. Some of the other best- 

 abused grapes, such as Muscat Champion, Eoyal Ascot, and 

 Golden Champion, we have no doubt will, in the hands of 

 such cultivators as Mr. Donaldson, ere long force their detractors 

 to abandon the ill-timed and hasty conclusions they formed 

 and attempted to impress upon others.] 



GLADIOLUS FAILURES-KOSES. 

 In answer to your Somerset correspondent referring to the 

 failure of his Gladiolus (page 485). It the signature appended 

 to his paper is at all descriptive of the nature of his soil, then 

 it is an unsuitable one for the Gladiolus. I very much fear 

 if his roots did not throw-up any good spikes last season, there 

 will be no improvement in the ensuing one. His ground might 

 , ba improved by using stable manure and road scrapings which 

 have been exposed to the direct influence of frost during winter. 

 I would also suggest spreading 6 inches of gravel over the sur- 

 face, and stir- up the ground to the depth of 2 feet. The soil 

 here is very light and stony, resting on a gravel subsoil, and 

 is of a similar nature to that of the Messrs. Stuart & Mien, of 

 Kelso, N.B. If the roots were sound and healthy when bought- 

 in last year, there would be no reason to blame the EngUsh 

 house that supplied them.— J. Douglas. 



1'n reference to the query put by " Stiff Soil " as to his 

 bulb, he is, unfortunately, as many querists are, not sufficiently 

 explicit, and no lawyer will give his opinion unless he knows 

 the whole case. He eajs tla': he obtained a hundred bulbs 

 from one of our greatest English growers, and that he had not 

 one decent spike. Very likely ; but will he say in what con- 

 dition he received the bulbs ? Were these clear and bright in 

 the flesh, or had they darkish spots over them ? If he can 

 certify to the latter, then he ought to claim some compensation. 

 And then in what condition are the bulbs now ? Have they 

 this spot on them or not ? If they have, they are not worth a 

 dump ; if they have not, there is still hope for them. Now, if 

 " Stiff Soil " will send me a bulb, a fair average sample of 

 his lot, I will with pleasure give him my diagnosis of it, and 

 return the patient. 



I once used to think it was some use trying to save diseased 

 bulbs, but am now fully persuaded it is useless to try and do 

 so. When going with Mons. Souchet (whom all lovers of this 

 beautiful flower will be truly sor^y to hear is now " tovjours ires 

 vialade "), t'orough his grounds, I have seen him when coming to 

 a plant in full bloom, which displayed that rnstiness of foliage 

 too surely indicative of disease, pluck it up at once and cast it 

 away. This will show the opinion of the most experienced 

 grower of the flower that we have as to a diseased bulb recover- 

 ing itself. But after all, " Stiff Soil's " may not be diseased, 

 and if only puny and weak, there may be hope for them yet. 

 " The dealer laid it to the soil." Perhaps ; but very likely 

 some wonderful manure might have put it right. If, however, 

 " Stiff Soil " really indicates the nature of the ground he 

 has to deal with, it is not a favourable one for the Gladiolus, 

 and he had much better try to lighten it, for few bulbs like a 

 stiff soil, and the Gladiolus, I think, particularly dislikes it. 

 I should imagine well-decomposed leaf mould would tend to do 

 this ; and in a stiff soil I should be inclined to mis thoroughly 

 well-rotted manure with the leaf mould, dig it in, and then 

 when planting the bulbs, remove the soil from each spot where 

 the bulb is to go, and put in sand and leaf mould, so as not to 

 allow the bulbs to come in contact with the manure. The one 

 great drawback to the growth of this lovely flower is the ten- 

 dency to disease, for which, unhappily, there seems to be no 

 remedy or preventive. 



As to Eoses. My reason for excluding Princess Christian is 

 that there is not enough of it ; and so of the very beautiful 

 Teas he mentions. Lovely in the bud, woe to him who trusts 

 to them in a show stand. They are seen to open and show the 

 eye— as bad as showing the white feather. 



With regard to the diSerence between "se tenant Men" and 

 "telle tenue," there is really none, except in the form of ex- 

 pression. If possible, the former more decisively means stiff, 

 erect, and is what one might often hear applied to the Cant 

 Gardes of the Second Empire — " Comment ils le tient Men." I 

 think Mr. Kent hardly estimates aright the force of fixed names 

 and the difficulty of changing them. If he and I never have 

 a headache until we see Eemontants taking the place of Hybrid 

 Perpetuals we shall do well. An attempt was made to change 

 the absurdly arbitrary terms of show and fancy Dahlias, but it 

 never got beyond an attempt. Shanghais was no doubt the 

 proper name to apply to the Brahma fowl ; it was tried, but 

 the absurdly wrong one remains, and the Brahma, which has 

 no more to do with the Brahma Pootra river than with the 

 Orinoco, holds its own. And so with the Hybrid Perpetual ;, 

 the term will outlive Mr. Kent and myself too. — D., Deal. 



HEATING BY IRON STOVES. 



I HAVE a lean-to greenhouse facing the south, about 17 feet 

 by 11 feet, and at present it is heated by an iron stove, about 

 8 inches square in the narrowest part, attached to a 5-inch 

 metal pipe, which is placed at the end opposite the door. 

 Within the structure the flue runs for about 4 feet straight 

 along the end of the building, and then turns at right angles 

 with a rise of about 18 inches in 12 feet, and with another 

 elbow through the roof, which it tops by at least 4 feet. This 

 arrangement has never been satisfactory, for when the wind 

 was to the north of west or east the stove used to smoke, no 

 matter how strong the wind was. I have since attached to the 

 end of the flue one of the patent screw ventilators, and find 

 that when there is any wind it does its work well, but when 

 there is a calm or very little wind, which is generally the case 

 with severe frosts here, it is necessary to heat the flue before 

 the draught sets in. This makes a great smoke, from which I 

 am sorry to say the plants suffer. I enclose a rough plan of 

 the arrangement of the flue as it now is. 



I am thinking if the stove were sunk in the groimd, and a 

 portion of it entered under the end wall, with an elbow joint so 

 as to make the stove face the east side instead of the south, 

 and to be fed from the outside instead of inside, I might so stop 

 the smoking. Or if I were to place the stove as last mentioned,, 

 and run the flue under the centre walk, with an elbow at the end, 

 and another at the back wall. This I am afraid would necessitate 

 cutting the metal pipes. At present the flue is set on brackets 

 fixed to the back wall, which is a boundary wall. As I have 

 only a limited interest in the.place, I do not wish to go to much 

 expense. — J. W. B. 



[There can be no doubt that a greenhouse 17 feet by 11 can 

 be heated by an iron stove ; but we do not think you will escape 

 being smoked, or be thoroughly successful by your present or 

 proposed plans. During the last two winters we kept a lofty 

 place double the size of yours, temperate, by having a round 

 stove inside at one end. It was about 13 inches in diameter, 

 80 inches in height, lined with fire-brick about 7 inches 

 through, and the fire was placed inside. We have no faith in 

 iron stoves for plants, but as mere makeshifts, unless the fire- 

 box stands in the middle, leaving lA to 2 inches all round be- 

 tween the fire-box and the outside of the stove, or unless the 

 fire-box is lined with fire-brick. In either case the sides of th& 

 stove opposite the fire will never get anything like red hot, as 

 iron when so heated exerts a deteriorating influence on th» 

 atmosphere of the house, and this would be apt to injure plants 

 in severe weather. 



If you had been an older subscriber you might have seen that 

 the chief error in your present plan is not so much having the 

 stove at one end of the house, but in taking the flue straight 

 from it for about 4 feet on the level, then by a right-angle bend 

 along the back wall with a rise of 18 inches in 12 feet, and 

 thence out through the roof and 4 feet above it. The error 

 consists in the 4-feet horizontal. If you only had a level of 

 12 to 18 or even 24 inches, and then rose at once as nearly 

 perpendicularly as possible, we should wonder if you were 

 much troubled with smoking. We need not enter into the 

 causes, the fact we have proved over and over again, that no 

 iron stove in a house, nor any mere stove will work well unleea 

 the horizontal pipe that issues from it is short instead of long. 

 The quantity of piping, too, is based on a misconception of the 

 theory of heating by such stoves, as if the pipes and not the 

 stove were to be the means of heating. Now it is best to make 

 the latter the chief heating medium, and it would do all yon 

 require in such a email house if you merely had 18 inches or 



