April 27, X871. ] 



JOURNAL OJ? HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



303 



groand vinery, with litter over them, were safe. Autumn- 

 sown Cabbages were nearly all killed. Celery covered with 

 litter was frozen to the roots, while some planted more deeply 

 in a neighbouring garden came out sound. Hammersmith 

 Hardy Lettuces were killed. A few stray ones starving on a 

 piece ofpoor soil stood well, and are now fine. Tripoli Onions 

 and Spinach were not injured. Antirrhinums, Sweet Williams, 

 Golden Pyrethrum, Clarkia, Silene, Wallflowers, &c., are un- 

 injured. Limaanthes Douglasii, Sedum casruleum, and Pampas 

 Grass were all killed. Laurels and other shrubs are not in- 

 jured. Daring the frost there was scarcely any wind. — J. E. 



PRIMULA AMCENA AND ITS CULTURE. 



I WISH to call the attention of your readers to this lovely plant. 

 I know of none more beautiful at this season of the year to 

 -decorate a greenhouse or conservatory. Like other varieties 

 ■of Primula it is a compact-growing plant, but the flower-stems 

 liae well above the foliage, lifting their bloom? about 6 inches 

 clear of the leaves, and thus showing them off to the greatest 

 advantage. 



The flowers are large in size, deep rose-coloured, from twelve 

 to twenty radiating from the top of each stem ; and as the 

 flower-stems are produced in great profusion, there is a com- 

 plete sheet of bloom, carried well above the foliage, which cannot 

 'iail to strike the eye of everyone who may enter the house 

 where the plants stand. I have in 6-iuch pots a number of 

 plants with from sixteen to twenty flower-stems on each, pre- 

 senting a mass of colour which could not be obtained from any 

 other plant. Better still, these plants are nearly if not quite 

 hardy. Mine have been kept in a cold frame all winter without 

 any covering, and at Christmas, when the thermometer was 

 down to zero on several occasions, the soil in the pots was fre- 

 quently as hard as the pots themselves. Notwithstanding this, 

 as the warmer days of February came in the plants began to 

 push through the soil (they lose their leaves in autumn) 

 strongly and vigorously, and during the last four or five weeks 

 "they have been quite gorgeous. I would strongly advise anyone 

 who has a greenhouse or conservatory to furnish with flowering 

 plants to obtain a stock of this lovely Primula, from which he 

 ■will secure a maximum of effect with a minimum of labour. 



My mode of treatment is simple in the extreme. Just when 

 ■the plants are pushing through the soil in February, I divide 

 aach into two or three pieces or clumps, and pot them in 6-inch 

 pots ; in these they remain until they have done flowering, and 

 then they are shifted into 8 or 9-inch pots according to their 

 ■strength, and they are left to grow all the summer. In spring 

 they are again divided as before, or they may be left in the 

 larger pots to bloom where there are room and convenience for 

 large masses to stand, and then the eiJect they produce is 

 beyond what can be described on paper. They stand in a cold 

 •frame all the year round, except just when they are in flower. 

 'When removed to the greenhouse or conservatory they must 

 be placed in the coolest part of it, otherwise they will become 

 drawn. Anyone following these simple directions cannot fail 

 to be rewarded by masses of lovely flowers. — Thomas Jones, 

 ■Gardener to J. E, Taijlor, Esq., Didsbury. 



USES OF THE POTATO PLANT. 



Can you tell me if the Potato shaw when boiled is unwhole- 

 ■3ome? I was some few years in Bermuda, where vegetables 

 were very scarce. I had an experienced cook, who used to pick 

 off the tops of the Potato shaws just as one pinches off the tops 

 •of Broad Beans, boiled them, and served them like Spinach, 

 and I thought them very nice, but I have been afraid to use 

 them since those days. — Ten-yeaks Reader. 



[Wefcnow from published statements that the tops of Potato 

 stems have been used as a culinary vegetable in the mode you 

 mention. As the berries, sap, and sprouted tubers contain 

 solanin, a narcotic poison, we should not willingly partake of 

 the tops even when boiled, although we are aware that boiling 

 affects great chemical changes in vegetable produce. Another 

 -correspondent asks "What is the best mode of utilising the 

 stems and leaves of Potatoes?" We reply. Use them as a 

 manure. Dug into vacant ground they impart to it more 

 potash than most other vegetable manures. A soft fibre, and 

 used as flax, has been obtained in Austria from the stems. — 

 Eds.] 



Myosotis dissitifloea. — Having seen such flaming accounts 

 ol this novelty, I procured a packet of seeds, and this morning 



(April 21st) I observe some flowers opening of a pinkish colour. 

 I send you a sprig, and also one of Myosotis sylvatica, which 

 seems to me the better as well as the earlier. — G. S. 



THE CUCUMBER DISEASE. 



The remarks of Mr. Fish on Cucumber disease, at page 271, 

 being so much to the purpose, I venture to ask him and others 

 if they have ever experienced a similar disease in their Melons ? 

 Four or five years ago I was told such a complaint had mani- 

 fested itself a few miles from here, but I did not see it, nor 

 have the Cucumbers been affected in this neighbourhood to the 

 extent they were twenty years ago, when I believe the disease 

 first broke out. I well remember being first made acquainted 

 with it in the spring and summer of 1850, when every plant 

 we had became affected, and scarcely any of the fruit grown 

 was fit for use, for when the disease fairly established itself, 

 the young fruit not larger than one's finger was attacked and 

 rendered useless. 



The next year, 1851, I tried all the experiments with soils 

 which I could think of to arrest the progress of the disease, 

 for it was as destructive out of doors as under glass, and I em- 

 ployed many things which might be considered extreme re- 

 medies, as soot, lime, charcoal dust, cinder ashes, and all 

 descriptions of soils, thinking I might hit on something that 

 might be serviceable, but all to no purpose. Some of the 

 mixtures, as might be expected, only resulted in a more weakly 

 plant, which the sooner succumbed to the disease. Like Mr. 

 Fish, I gave up the contest with it almost in despair, and the 

 winter following I did not attempt growing any Cucumbers. 

 Strange to say, my plants had very little, if any, disease in the 

 following year, 1852, neither have they been visited with it 

 since to any extent ; but I had sufficient experience of it 

 to confirm all Mr. Fish says of its refusing to yield to any 

 remedy. 



I do not recollect of the foliage being so much affected as 

 Mr. Fish has described. With me a sort of amber-coloured 

 jelly-looking matter issued from each of the spines, or the 

 places where the spines ought to have been, and enlarged from 

 the size of a mere drop into the dimensions of a boy's marble, 

 being partly embedded in the fruit, rendering the whole a dis- 

 gusting mass of sores ; and I think in our case the foliage was 

 not much affected, but my memory may be at fault, neither do 

 I wish it to be refreshed by a fresh acquaintance with the evil. 

 I can confirm all Mr. Fish's remarks as to the cultivator being 

 powerless in arresting it. In this respect it resembles the 

 Potato disease; both are alike intractable, no one being able 

 to say he can master the latter any more than he can the 

 former. At the same time it is well to try experiments. My 

 opinions at the time were, that the disease was highly infectious, 

 and that until all traces of it were stamped out, as in the more 

 recent case of rinderpest, there was no hope of a remedy, for 

 I tried sufficient experiments in the way of soil, and I can 

 hardly think the plants could be fed with the same juices under 

 all the conditions to which they were subjected. Atmospheric 

 influences seem also incompatible with a complaint raging at 

 all times of the year, for it was as fatal to the winter produce 

 as to the out-door crop in summer, soil from a distance did 

 not lessen the evil, and the most robust kind ol ridge Cucum- 

 ber placed on a hotbed under a frame was as liable to the 

 disease as any other. The idea was entertained at the time 

 that the Cucumber had been bred too fine (as the expression 

 goes), and I tried the reverse course of treatment. 



If it is any consolation to those now suffering from the Cu- 

 cumber disease to know that others have been baffled in com- 

 bating it in times gone by, I acknowledge myself one. Em- 

 ployers must be unreasonable in attributing the failure of crop 

 to the want of skill on the part of their gardeners, for we have 

 only to look to the Potato for an example of what little avail 

 the united researches of the most learned men in the kingdom 

 have been in averting the disease, for although it is not so 

 destructive every year as it was soon after its first appearance, 

 the comparative feebleness of its attacks is not due to any 

 help from professors of science, but to those natural agencies 

 which I hope will in like manner check, if not remove, the 

 Cucumber disease. — J. Eoeson. 



THE COMPASS PLANT. 

 The fact that the leaves of the Compass Plant always turn 

 their edges north and south has long been known to the settlers 

 and hunters on the prairies of the Far West, who, when lost 



