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JOUKNAL OF HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



[ July 14, 1870. 



each other during their early growth ; and, curiously enough, 

 in my graft hybrids a change of foliage is now distinctly seen, 

 excepting only in those of the grafted Lapstone family. I have 

 about two hundred varieties of Potatoes growing here. — Kobeki 

 Fenn, Woodstock Rectory. 



GREEN FLY ON CUCUMBER AND MELON 

 PLANTS. 



I am sorry to hear that some correspondents have fumigated 

 with tobacco and syringed with soft-soap water without any 

 effect. I know of no better remedies for plants under glass, 

 and when used in lime I have always found them less or more 

 effectual. No green fly will stand tobacco smoke when pre- 

 sented to it strong enough, but smoke will not hurt those just 

 hatching into life, and even very young green fly will stand a 

 dose which older fly will not. Unlike what takes place in 

 other departments of life, I have generally found that in 

 insect life the vital powers are strongest in proportion to 

 youth, or even infancy. If the plants are pretty good I 

 should recommend a continuance of the smoking and the 

 washing. Perhaps it may be as well to allude to a few of the 

 essentials to success. 



1, The smoke must be kept in the place for a considerable 

 time. Hence, unless the glass roof is very close, it should be 

 covered, and litter or short grass placed at the top and bottom 

 of the sashes, and then the glass and covering should be kept 

 damp by syringing outside, which will fill all laps of the glass, 

 and prevent the smoke escaping. It is better to shade than 

 give much air the following day. Smoking is best done in the 

 evening. With these precautions, 2 ozs. of tobacco will do as 

 well as, or even better than, a pound when the smoke is allowed 

 to escape. 



2, All plants smoked should be dry as respects their foliage ; 

 not only is this necessary in order that the smoke may tell at 

 once on the insects, but also that the smoking may be safe to 

 the plants. The narcotic that kills the insects will also poisoD 

 and destroy the plants if presented to them in excess, and 

 more especially if the foliage is damp. I have a hazy con- 

 ception in my own mind as to how this is, but it is not quite 

 clear enough to myself to enable me to put it in black and 

 white for the benefit of others. Would chemists, whom I have 

 helped in days of yore, say how it is that tobacco smoke affects 

 the leaves of plants so differently when they are wet and when 

 they are dry ? 



3, Tobacco smoke and all combinations of tobacco should 

 come against the leaves cool. The different fumigators that 

 ■work with a wheel, patented or otherwise, are very useful in 

 this respect. To be used against plants I would recommend 

 them to our amateur friends, just as I would use them myself ; 

 but they are of little use in the hands of common labourers, 

 who soon make all such instruments worthless, and then, if 

 we do not do the work ourselves, we see the folly of invest- 

 ing in an instrument of from 10s. 6d. to las. that will so 

 soon be unworkable. For common purposes I use a metal pot, 

 or a common garden pot. Our consumption of tobacco is very 

 small. I know smaller places where more pounds are spent 

 for tobacco than we spend shillings. I am more anxious to 

 keep insects away than to destroy them when they come. For 

 more than one reason, though I think good shag tobacco the 

 best, yet I generally use a little tobacco paper, and of all I 

 have met with as yet, that manufactured by Griffilhs & Avis, 

 and sent out at 2s. per pound, I have found the safest and 

 most effectual. The efficacy and safety will greatly depend in 

 every case on the coolness of the smoke. If we use a pot, we 

 therefore cover it with damp moss, and keep it as far from 

 the leaves as possible. Besides presenting the smoke cool, it 

 is alwavs safest to give two or more moderate smokings instead 

 of one heavy one. 



The more slowly the tobacco or its preparations are burned the 

 more effectual the smoke will be. I have seen half a shovel- 

 ful of red fuel used to light a pot of such smoking material. 

 It is best in every way to use one red cinder or a piece of 

 ignited charcoal, put just a little very dry straw, or slips of 

 paper over it, and when burning add the tobacco, &c, and 

 cover first lightly and then more heavily. Where moss is not 

 to be had, a little short grass or damped litter answers equally 

 well. If a garden pot is used, enough of air to support slow 

 combustion will be obtained by the hole in the bottom, if the 

 pot be elevated to leave the hole clear. My dislike to tobacco 

 is chiefly owing to being obliged in my young days to have 

 a hole in the sides of suoh pots, and then to blow away with a 



bellows in a house until it was full of smoke. There is not 

 the least necessity for such barbarism, if a little care and pre- 

 caution are used. When a fnmigator is used, its pipe may 

 pass through a hole whilst the operator remains outside. In. 

 all cases where a proper fumigator is used, and the possessor 

 of a little garden is his own operator, nothing is better or even 

 more economical than good shag tobacco. The instrument 

 insures that the smoke, when it reaches the plants, shall be 

 cool. 



Lastly, for the present. If you wish one or two smokings 

 to be effectual, smoke as soon as you see the first insect. If 

 you wait until the larger leaves are covered with them, one 

 smoking and syringing will be of no use. In fact, if the bulk 

 of the leaves are so infested, except as an experiment, it is 

 next to labour and money thrown away to smoke at all. The 

 cheapest remedy would be to clear all out and commence afresh. 

 Leaves thus infested with insects seldom recover the com- 

 bined effects of the insects and the smoking. If only a few 

 leaves are very bad, even if they suffer, the younger ones 

 will come all right. But whenever leaves are much infested, 

 several smokings at intervals of twenty-four and forty-eight 

 hours will be necessary. On every such leaf there will be 

 found several generations of insects, and the younger will 

 escape what will destroy the older ones. Besides the myriads 

 coming into life at once — that is, viviparous, there are myriads 

 of eggs that the heat is continually hatching, and on these, 

 until fairly established in existence, the smoke has no effect. 

 Hence, late smoking, so as to give the insects the chance to 

 propagate freely, involves the trouble of many smokings to get 

 rid of them, as what destroys the older will leave the younger 

 insects and the eggs untouched. 



Washing with soap water is more effectual after smoking 

 than washing alone. Keference has lately been made to the 

 strength. It is less effectual in frames and shallow pits than 

 in houses or places where the plants are fastened to a trellis, 

 so that the under sides of the leaves can be freely washed. The 

 insects must have firm hold before they appear on the upper 

 sides of the leaves. Washing is effectual in proportion as the 

 under sides are freely reached. At the strength spoken of by 

 Mr. Kobson, not only would the insects be killed and dislodged, 

 but the eggs that were not dislodged would to a great extent be 

 sealed-up from the action of air, and if so, the insects would never 

 chip the shell. The wash is best applied the day after smoking. 

 If the day, after smoking the previous evening, should be dull, 

 or the glass shaded, and little or no air given, I would defer 

 the washing to the second morning. Where this cannot be 

 well done, I wonld syringe the following morning or afternoon. I 

 am thus precise because the correspondents who have made the 

 inquiry are only a few of many who say tobacco smoke and 

 soap-water washing are powerless against the greenfly. lam 

 certain that both will kill, but they will not kill where there i3 

 not active life. The powers of reproduction in these insects, 

 by eggs, &c, is wonderful. Never could there be a better ex- 

 emplification of the old proverb, " A stitch in time saves nine." 

 Put off one early smoking and you may have to smoke many 

 times to get rid of the enemy, as fresh myriads come into 

 existence between the smokings, which have no injurious effect 

 on the eggs deposited. The washings are more injurious to 

 them. — B. Fish. 



SPECIMENS IN BOXES BY POST. 



I am constantly noticing in your columns complaints made 

 by yourself and various correspondents that articles sent in a 

 box through the post are rendered useless, or completely de- 

 stroyed, by the Post-office stampers. I send you by this post 

 a small cardboard box tied round with string, to which a 

 parchment direction label is attached, and upon which label 

 the address is written and postage stamps affixed. If this 

 system were generally adopted in forwarding articles through 

 the post, I have no doubt, from my experience, that they would 

 invariably reach their destination intact. — J. Walden. 



[Our correspondent is quite right. If the direction and 

 stamps are on a parchment label tied to the box, the Post- 

 office stampers pu:*ch the label, and not the box. This box 

 from our correspon lent was quite uninjured. — Eds.] 



Cotton Seed a I aper-maker's Fibre.— A Lancashire papers 



j maker has sncceede 1 in turning to profitable account particular 



kinds of Cotton seed as a material for the manufacture of the 



I best kinds of pape:r. The seed is to hi obtained in quantities 



