.Inly 7. 1"70. J 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



15 



potting-board. If wetter, it may be too compressed to allow 

 water to percolate freely; if drier, there is a great difficulty in 

 common watering to get the whole regularly moistened. — R. F. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



*** We request that no one will write privately to any of the 

 correspondents of the " Journal of Horticulture, Cottage 

 Gardener, and Country Gentleman." By so doing they 

 are subjected to unjustifiable trouble and expense. All 

 communications should therefore be addressed solely to 

 The Editors of the Journal of Horticulture, <£c, 171, Fleet 

 Street, London, E.G, 



"We also request that correspondents will not mix up on the 

 same sheet questions relating to Gardening and those on 

 Poultry and Bee subjects, if they expect to get them an- 

 swered promptly and conveniently, but write them on 

 separate communications. Also never to send more than 

 two or three questions at once. 



N".B. — Many questions must remain unanswered until next 

 week. 



Books (J. W. t Liverpool). — "Fruit Gardening for the Many " con- 

 tains all you require about Strawberry culture. You can have it from 

 our office, post free, if you enclose five postage stamps with your address. 



Tenant Removing Shrubs (Yorkshire). — You have no legal right to 

 remove shrubs or plants from the garden, although they were inserted 

 and have been cultivated by yourself for seven years. Cannot you divide 

 each plant, put one part in a pot, and leave the other part ? The potted 

 portions you might take away. 



Measuring Glaziers' Work (A. IF.).— Unless specified to the con- 

 trary, glazing by the foot is measured on the square— that is, the greatest 

 length and breadth; at least that used to be the case. The true measure- 

 ment of angles and triangles, as ends and corners, would only be half a 

 square; but a glazier could not do it on such measurement, he would 

 have such a waste of glass in the sharp angles. No donlrt this makes 

 the difference in the number of glazed feet. Circular-topped windows 

 are measured the same way — by the square. 



Mistakes at Local Shows (B. G ).— We cannot spare space for record- 

 ing such miBtikes. You should write to the Committee. 



Galvanising Plants {A. D.).— The experiment with the two Pelar- 

 goniums was too imperfect to merit reporting. The results from half a 

 dozen galvanised, nnd half a dozen ungalvanised, with proper precautions, 

 would be more worthy of confidence. 



Seeds for Arkansas (Pangbourne). — They will need no special pack- 

 ing. In email paper packets will be the best form. Any seeds that will 

 succeed in England will succeed there. 



Pelargonium— Lobelia (S. Kidley).— The box was smashed. There 

 was no Lobelia, and only a few petals of the Pelargonium. Their colour 

 and markings are not uncommon. 



Zonal Pelargoniums (Quarn St.).— We cannot recommend dealers. 

 Any of the principal florists who advertise in this Journal could supply 

 the varieties you name. 



Seedling Pelargoniums (W. 0. B., Dublin).— The petals were nearly 

 all shed, and the box smashed. There are many Pelargoniums with 

 similarly coloured and marked petals. 



Seedling Tricolor Pelargonium (E. Shepston).— It i3 handsome, 

 but the leaf sent was precisely like Sophia Dumaresque. 



Pansy Diseased (E. M.).~ The cuttings of the Pansy reached us safely 

 last week. The yellow spots are the fungus Oidium Viola?. A hybrid be- 

 tween a Fern and Pansy is an impossibility, as cryptogamic and phreno- 

 gamous plants have no affinity. We do not remember receiving Pansies 

 previously. 



Rose La Seduisante {Centurion). — We do not know a Tea-scented 

 Rose of that name, but there is an old Hybrid Perpetual as well aB the 

 Alba Rose. Most probably it is the Hybrid Perpetual that you have. You 

 must wait for the flowers. 



Charcoal for Roses (J. If.).— It is a good manure for Roses both in 

 pots and in the open ground. One-sixth of the compost is sufficient for 

 Roses in pots ; and for giving colour to the flowers it may be applied to 

 the surface of the soil in the pots, and just scratched in with a piece of 

 pointed wood. If the surface be covered about an eighth of an inch deep 

 it is sufficient. For those in the open ground a dressing a quarter of an 

 inch thick is not too much. 



Brush for Killing the Rose Aphis (IV. T.Dix).—V?e have used the 

 brush yon speak of to remove green fly from Roses, and find it useful but 

 rather tedious. If Roses are well mulched and manured during the 

 winter they will very seldom suffer much from aphis. We do not quite 

 know whether your Rose plant which had its leaf perforated suffered from 

 the weevil or the Rose Cutter beetle. If from the former, handpicking 

 would be quite effectual ; if, as we suspect, it was the latter, you would 

 have done no good by cutting down the plant, as the Rose Cutter beetle 

 merely cuts the leaf to tafce it away to line the sides of its nest, and when 

 the nest is complete will commit no more ravages. Singularly enough, 

 these beetles generally confine their attacks to one plant; they usually 

 select a plant with stiff short foliage, and the nest will be found in a 

 small hole in the ground near the tree. The Rose Cutter beetle always 

 begins its perforation at the outside of tho leaf, and cuts a semicircular 

 piece out of th*. side. 



Boilers (L. C. J , Dudley). —We never venture to commend any. 



Manures (H., Tunbridge Wells).— You do not quote accurately. We 

 recommend dry earth and coal ashes to be used when saturated with 

 sewage, which has to be Btored. Coal ashes so employed would not be 

 injurious to aDy soil ; and if the soil be tenaciouB they would be beneficial 

 employed even in large quantities unsaturated with sewage. They would 

 improve the soil's staple. 



Parsley Turning Brown and Yellow {"Idem").— But for being 

 brownish yellow, the specimens of Parsley sent seem to be a fairly good, 

 curled, close kind. This turning yellow might be owing to the great 

 dryness — most probably owing to some reason of which we are ignorant. 

 As it is best to err on the safe side, and as defects are easily perpetuated, 

 even if the plants would ripen their seed, we should not care to sow it, 

 unless as an experiment, as such withered-looking Parsley would never 

 be used in the kitchen. 



Heating a Removable House (T.M.L.). — Such a span-roofed house 

 as you propose we would build entirely on the ground, with perhaps one 

 course of bricks for the window-sill to rest on. The roof, &c, we would 

 form of rafter sash-bars, say to receive glass 18 inches wile. These bars 

 we would groove to receive the glass edge to edge without putty, and 

 merely fasten the squares in their places with small list, soft cord, or 

 rope yarn, fixed in the groove beneath the glass. Provided tho groove is 

 made deep enough to allow room for tho g'nss to expand, there will be no 

 breakage from expansion, and if the ginss is well cut there will be no 

 leakage. The bottom square will require a pin to keep it from sliding out. 

 With the roof screwed, and these squares in grooves, you can take all 

 your glass out, and the house to pieces, and pacn in little space. As to 

 heating, for ease in moving, nothing could be better than a small gas 

 stove; but aa, on the whole, you might not have gas at your next 

 place, it would on the whole be best and cheapest to have a small iron 

 stove fed at the side, the smoke-pipe coming from the opposite side, 

 and rising with a bend through the roof, with a flat top to the 

 stove to receive a vessel of water. Supposing the stove stood in the 

 centre of the house, the small smoke-pipe from' it might go through the 

 roof near the apex. A 3 or 4-inch pipe would answer if frequently 

 cleaned. People cannot, or will not, see bow easy it is to take such a 

 pipe through a glass roof ; all you have to do is to substitute a square of 

 plate iron for a square of glass, with a suitable hole in the iron to let the 

 pipe through. The pipe Bhould have a cap over it outside, to prevent the 

 rain and snow falling into it. If you prefer a gas stove — and there are 

 good ones to be had with argand burners that consume almost the whole 

 of the gas— even in such a case have a small pipe, if only from a quarter to 

 half an inch, to take off the products of combustion into the open air. 



Raising Water (Edmonton).— The best reply we can give is to publish 

 the following, for which we are indebted to our weekly contemporary, 

 The English Mechanic and Mirror of Science. The accompanying " draw- 

 ing will explain a cheap method of making a force pump for watering. One 

 has been in use some time. A, common lead pipe; B, valve; C, solid 

 plunge from pump; D, outlet pipe; E, small cask, or any suitable air- 



tight vessel holding about 6 gallons ; F, valve ; G, outlet pipe, reaching 

 to within about 2 inches of the bottom ; K, guide for plunge-roi. It can 

 now be used as a common pump by having a union ; an india-rubber or 

 any other pipe may be screwed on. and there would be sufficient force to 

 carry a continual stream 60 feet high. The cask, or air-tight vessel may 

 be placed at any distance from the pump; around hole in the bottom, 

 with a piece of stout leather weighted, is all that is required for the valve." 

 Failure in Heating (Inquirer).— We are glad you refer again to flue- 

 heating, as instanced at page 191, No 467, for March 10th. It seems we 

 were quite right in our surmises. No flue will draw regularly with the 

 furnace-bars level with the middle of the fine, as respects its depth, and 

 we wonder you were not smothered from the want of a regular ashpit 

 below the fire-bars. Your proposal to let the present flue remain, but 

 block it up ; let the fire-bars remain, but break a hole through the present 

 flue at the end of the furnace ; and place a flue of hard-burned earthen- 

 ware pipes of 9 inches in diameter on the top of the present flue, will, no 

 doubt, answer much better. But even then your furnace-bars will scarcely 

 be low enough, and instead of a foot you would require to build a brick 

 fine from 1 to 2 yards in length on the top of the old flue before using the 

 pipes, as such pipes are apt to crack when too near the surface. We 

 have a great sympathy with people wishing to carry out their own plans. 

 We do not, therefore, repeat our advice, " Try tbe flue again," for as it 

 is, it wiU not answer, but as the flue is there, why not "try it again" 

 with a little alteration? Would it not be easier to dig down and sink 

 your furnace-bars from 18 to 24 inches, instead of making this new flue 

 on the top of the old one? Then, instead of the bars being in 'the 

 middle of the flue as now, your bars would be below the bottom of the 

 flu©. However, try your own plan if you like it best. 



