398 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ Jane 8, 1871. 



leaves should either be used at once or go to the annual ma- 

 nure heap. After practising such strict watchfulness and 

 economy in its accumulation, the limited supply is far too small 

 and precious to be thrown broadcast over the land ; instead of 

 which one must strive so to concentrate it that the crops may 

 derive the greatest benefit from it. The best way to do this is 

 to prepare beds or trenches 1 foot deep and of various widths, 

 put a layer of 8 inches of manure mixed slightly with the soil in 

 each trench, filling up the remaining space with the garden soil. 

 In these useful beds almost all kinds of vegetables do well. 

 Peas, Beans of all kinds, Spinach, all the Cabbage tribe. Onions, 

 Turnips, Salsafy, Leeks, salading of all kinds— all these and 

 many other crops I have so grown with the best results. 



Beet is not usually required very large, but of Carrots and 

 Parsnips fine symmetrical roots are grown by the well-known 

 method of dibbling holes about 1 foot deep, and 3 or 4 inches 

 in diameter at top, and filling them with a mixture composed 

 of equal parts of sifted manure and sand — a by-no-means diffi- 

 cult or heavy undertaking in a well-stirred soil, the fine roots 

 almost invariably produced by this method well repaying one 

 for the extra trouble. Those having the advantage of a rich 

 loamy soil, may smile at such an elaborate process for growing 

 Parsnips and Carrots, but let others having to contend with a 

 poor soil only give this plan a fair trial, and they will be able 

 to produce roots of the highest excellence both in shape and 

 quality. Moreover, such modes of culture embody the truest 

 economy, almost every root being so straight and handsome 

 that no waste is incurred, while on the other hand, how fre- 

 quently do such crops, when sown in drills in rich soils after 

 the ordinary fashion, yield a very large proportion of forked 

 crooked roots quite unfit for culinary purposes. 



Another thing by far too important to be omitted is the free 

 HBO of liquid manure in vegetable culture, for by its judicious 

 and constant application rich stimulating food is given to the 

 plants as they require it, so that they are sustained in full 

 vigour throughout the growing season, and thus brought to a 

 high degree of excellence. Care should, of course, be taken 

 that it is not given in excess of the plants' requirements. — 

 Edwaed Luckhukst. 



STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



I FiBST prepare a clean piece of ground, and have it trenched 

 two good spits deep, placing plenty of well-decomposed manure 

 at the bottom of the trench, I then give a good top-dressing of 

 manure from an old Cncumber-bed. I always peg the first 

 runners into 60-sized pots, and as soon as they are ready I 

 have them planted in their fruiting-bed. I never allow the 

 plants in my fruiting-beds to have any runners. I never dig 

 between my plants after planting out. I let the beds remain 

 aU winter as they are after the fruit is gathered, for I consider 

 the old foliage helps to protect the crowns in severe winters. 



In the spring I go over the beds with a knife, cut off the 

 dead foliage, and rake and clean the beds. As I have at that 

 time a heap of manure ready to be put on the beds, I always 

 give a good top-dressing, which answers for all purposes, as it 

 keeps the ground moist and the fruit clean. It also prevents 

 the liquid manure from running away from the beds. I apply 

 liquid manure as soon as the plants show their flower-stalfes, 

 and I give a good watering as soon as the fruit begins to swell, 

 and more if needed. I have no more trouble with my beds 

 except in gathering the fruit, and that is often a trouble to a 

 gardener when he is short of hands. My beds at this date 

 (May 28th) promise a profuse crop. 



i iThe varieties which I grow are, for early production. Keens' 

 Seedling, Alice Maude, and Sir Harry. Ofber sorts are — 

 Cockscomb, President, The Lady, Dae de Malakoff, Nimrod, 

 Crimson Qieen, British Queen, Dr. Hogg, Sir Joseph Paxton, 

 Sir Charles Napier, Mvatt's Eliza, and Myatt's Surprise ; but 

 above all the British Queen, Crimson Qneen, Nimrod, and Sir C. 

 Napier, are the favourites with me. — J. Eose, Gardener, Dal- 

 linghoe Rectory, SvffolTc. 



Effects of the Weathee. — The past week has been remark- 

 able for cold weather, a strong east wind prevailing. This ap- 

 pears to have blighted most things, and both on Friday and 

 Saturday night there was a severe hoar frost, which, in the 

 month of June and in the height of the bedding-out season, 

 has discoloured many plants. In the kitchen garden it has 

 been necessary to protect Dwarf Kidney Beans and Scarlet 

 Banners with straw, and that too in the middle of the day, as 



the winds have been so cutting. I do not remember having 

 ever seen the Bed Currant trees so much cut up through honey- 

 dew and aphis ; in some places the foliage is dropping ofli, and 

 the trees apparently dying. Cherry trees are pretty free from 

 their pest — the black fly, and Eose trees are this season un- 

 usually free from both the maggot and fly. — T. Eecokd. 



anojmalies of the past winter. 



Although in my garden, not far from London, the ther- 

 mometer went down to 4°, and killed even the Purple Sprout- 

 ing Broceoh, yet I am surprised to find how many plants 

 usually considered more or less tender have passed through 

 the ordeal unharmed in the open border. I would note Linum 

 flavum, Crinum capense, Lilium longiflorum, Michauxia eam- 

 panuloides, and Calandrinia umbellata. CoUetia horrida has 

 survived not only this winter, but the still severer one of 1860. 

 The terminal shoots of Figs, though covered thickly with straw, 

 and this, again, kept dry by a covering of oiled paper, have 

 been killed where not nailed back against a wall. But at 

 Hastings, on the 29th of May, I see in the garden of Miss North, 

 in the Croft, a standard Brown Turkey, fully exposed to the 

 east, with four leaves already expanded, and seven or eight 

 fruits showing on most of the shoots. 



Sometime ago one of your correspondents asked for practical 

 testimony as to the use of laying down Broccoli in autumn, 

 heads northwards. It is universally recommended, but I tried 

 it several years, leaving some rows untouched. The latter 

 stood the winter best. The most vulnerable part seems to be 

 just under the leaves, and when the plant is laid down this is 

 more exposed. 



At Pevensey, I observed a vinery built in a fashion prevalent 

 at Eastbourne, and which gives some of the advantages of the 

 curvilinear roof in admitting the direct rays of the sun when 



he is at diiJerent altitudes. At 

 the back there is a wall. The 

 roof is slightly hipped so as to 

 allow ventilation on the north- 

 ern side. The southern lights 

 are fixed, but divided into two 

 portions. The upper two-thirds 

 are at an angle of about 30°, 

 while the lower third has a 

 sharper pitch, probably about 

 50°. Not having been able to 

 get a side view of the house, I 

 could not well determine the 

 angle. The front wall is about 

 2 feet high, with large wooden 

 ventilators, through which I saw the hot-water pipes running 

 near it. — G. S. 



THE CUCUMBER DISEASE. 

 FoK the last seven years I have been troubled with the 

 Cucumber disease in its worst form in a house heated by hot 

 water ; in frames on dung beds, and in the open air they are 

 equally affected. I have tried them in all kinds of soil— maiden 

 loam, a mixture of loam and leaf mould, and in peat and char- 

 coal in winter. In the present season I have been more suc- 

 cessful ; I began to fancy I had found a remedy, as, during 

 April, I cut a number of good sound fruit, but I am sorry to 

 say I shall soon be compelled to destroy the plants, as the 

 fruit are now very much diseased. A friend of mine, who has 

 been a Cucumber-grower for more than twenty years, was 

 troubled with the disease in his plants fourteen or fifteen years 

 ago ; it left him, and he has never had a diseased fruit since, 

 and 'his treatment has varied but little during the whole of his 

 experience. One of your correspondents attributes this disease 

 to a deficiency of water and air in a high temperature, and to 

 too much of the former and not enough of the latter in a low 

 one. Now, I do not wish to contest his having done all he 

 states, but I fear he is as far from the cause and cure as ever, 

 as I have tried all kinds of temperatures, but in vain. My 

 supply is kept up by having a succession of young plants, as 

 I find the first fruits are invariably the best.— J. C. B. 



Cattell's Eclipse Beoccoli.— "We have received well-grown 

 specimens of this from Mr. J. E. Pocock, gardener to N. M. 

 Forbes, Esq., Lilbnrstone Lodge, Godstone. It stood the frost 

 of last winter better than any other variety. Out of 350 plants 



