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JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 13, 1870. 



when provided with a tank that would not run dry during such 

 a season of drought as the one from which we are but now 

 emerging. At all seasons — potting, blossoming, fruiting, ston- 

 ing, growing, ripening, gathering — the orchard house is a well- 

 spring of pleasure, a pleasant lounge, a pleasant divan, a plea- 

 sant scene of labour, not irksome, but like that of Eden — 



"No more toil 

 Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed 

 To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease more easy." 



A pleasant place of retreat (except when the sun is a little too 

 warm) from the cares and business of life. It is, moreover, 

 " a resting-place for innocence on earth." Yes, for innocence ! 

 Do n't laugh ! Orchard-house pleasures are innocent pleasures, 

 and only to be truly enjoyed by innocent people. Surely if 

 Izaak Walton had a right to assume that all brothers of the 

 rod were honest men, I may claim equal license to assert that 

 my brother fruit-growers-under-glass are innocent men. You 

 cannot call anglers innocent. Gudgeons know them to be full 

 of guile ; but all of our craft, Messrs. Editors, are free from 

 guile, and honest men to boot; and so, according to the inex- 

 orable logic of facts, as Count Bismarck would say, the orchard 

 house is " a reBtiug-place for innocence on earth." But now 

 audi alteram partem. " Yet it is a talent of trust." Yes, here 

 it is that so many make a mistake. Some wealthy proprietor 

 of greenhouses and vineries must have an orchard house also. 

 As he likes to have everything very nice he grudges no expense, 

 thinking that, as a matter of course, abundance of fruit will 

 result from a considerable outlay. The crystal palace is reared 

 — a thing of beauty and a joy for ever; but he takes no pains 

 about the selection of his trees, or potting them in a suitable 

 soil ; he never troubles himself about pruning, pinching, fumi- 

 gating, lifting, watering, syringing, mulching. All that he 

 leaves to his gardener, who has plenty else to do ; and when he 

 thinks, good easy man, full surely his Peaches are a-ripening, 

 on inspection he finds his unhappy pyramids poisoned with 

 aphides, or .over-run with red spider, or starved for want of 

 nutriment, or withering away from lack of moisture, or re- 

 dundant with leaves from want of pinching and thinning, and 

 no good joint coming to perfection. He either lays the blame 

 upon his unlucky gardener, or else joins in the hue and cry that 

 orchard houses are failures — all humbug — expensive toys — all 

 very well for those who sell the trees, but of no profit to those 

 that buy them, and so forth, forgetting the axiom that the or- 

 chard house " is a talent of trust" — a talent to be improved 

 by himself, not delegated to another — "a delight, but redolent 

 of care." Aye ! mark well that formula, " a delight, but re- 

 dolent of care." To be the former it must be the latter also, 

 for without care — care incessant, personal, and loving, no or- 

 chard house, however costly, can possibly succeed. Yes, it 

 must be redolent of care — not anxious, troublesome, carking 

 care, but care that is pleasant, as all gardening care is, because 

 full of hope, full of promise, sure to be rewarded ; for has not 

 the Giver of all good things made man's success to depend 

 upon his endeavour, and as good as promised that " we shall 

 reap if we faint not ?" Want of personal care, and supervision, 

 and interest lies at the root, depend on it, of all want of suc- 

 cess in orchard-house culture. 



I will only just add that, although the late season has been 

 fruitful, yet in coneequence of the long drought, out-of-door 

 Peaches here fell from the trees before they were fully ripe, 

 and that the fruit grown inside the orchard house baa been 

 far superior. We have had a plague of flies this autumn, and 

 I intend bringing up my siege guns in the shape of Appleby's 

 fumigators, of which I highly approve. I find it a good plan 

 where Vines are trained beneath the rafters to have early 

 Apricot trees in pots, because they are well advanced before 

 the Yines put forth their leaves, and they can be easily moved 

 if necessary to ripen their fruit in the open air ; but then I 

 have 108 feet of wall 13 feet high well covered with triple 

 cordons, which supply me with abundance of Peaches and 

 Nectarines. — A Constant Readek. 



The Btjkb Knot Apple. — This valuable kitchen Apple, I 

 think, comes to us from the north. It has not the least re- 

 semblance to the English or any other Paradise stock, has large 

 leaves, and large fruit of excellent quality good all the autumn. 

 I find it in the " Catalogue " of the Horticultural Society, 1831 ; 

 but I do not find it in the -'Fruit Manual " by Dr. Hogg. In 

 moist soils it grows from truncheons planted in the ground, 

 and will bear fruit the second year after being planted. It 

 is, I believe, used as a stock in some places. Most of our 



frnit-growing nurserymen know this Apple well. — Constant 

 Readeb. 



COMPARATIVE PRODUCE OF POTATOES. 



Fob the following report of results we are indebted to Ad- 

 miral Hornby, Knowsley Cottage, Prescot, Lancashire. Ha 

 thought that seed obtained from other localities and new varie- 

 ties would be more productive than seed grown near Prescot 

 and of older varieties. He also tells us that "of the sorts I 

 send you, there is not one bad sort, but as to their keeping 

 powers I have yet to see. The various sorts have been all 

 treated exactly the same, and grown in light black soil." 



Seed from near 

 Prescot. 



Early Coldstream . . 

 Transell's Needling 



Veitch's Kidney 



Lemon Kidney 



Mona's Pride 



Littlegreen 



Daintree's Seedling 



Early Oxford 



Ready Penny 



Regent (Paterson's) 



Milky White 



Royal Ashleaf 



Weistht 



ot Old 



Seed. 



lbs. 



. 8* .. 



£8 



lbs. 

 433 

 63? 

 112 

 504 

 46i 

 46{ 

 71 

 86 

 62 

 77i 

 6U 

 57§ 



Seed from other 

 places. 



Weight 



of New 



Seed. 



lbs. 



Gryffe Castle Seedling 8J . . 



Yorkshire Hero „ .. 



Scotch Blue 



Wormsley Kidney ,, •■ 



Redbridge Ashleaf 



King of Flukes 



Early Emperor „ .. 



Alexandra „ .. 



Daintree's Kidney , .. 



Gloucester Kidney .. „ .. 

 Dawe's Matchless .... „ 



Wellington , .. 



Early Coldstream . „ .. 



Webb's Imprl. Kidney „ 

 Harris's Nonpareil . . „ 



Waterloo Kidney 7 



Early Rose „ .. 



Bresee's Prolific 3 



Bresee's King of the 



Earlies „ .. 



The Queen's 



GIFTS OF BEDDING PLANTS. 



At this season of the year in all large gardens many hundreds 

 of fine bedding plants must be cleared off and committed to 

 the limbo of the rubbish heap — a sad end to come to after 

 affording so much delight. Would it not be better if they were 

 given away to our poorer neighbours ? This is done by public 

 announcement in the case of the parks in the metropolis ; can 

 it not be imitated by private individuals in the suburbs of large 

 towns ? 



What visitor to those lanes and courts will not bear willing 

 testimony to the good effect, the quiet influence, of some well- 

 kept window garden on the sunny side ? Those painted boxes, 

 those clean red pots, the plants without a dead leaf or withered 

 branch, prove that there is no slatternly wife, no drunken 

 husband within. The same care that attends to these objects 

 will also see that there are no dirty windows, no filthy doorstep, 

 no unwashed floor, and no uncombed children. From railway 

 arches, too, are to be seen little oases in back yards, and won- 

 drous parterres on housetops. Fevers are infectious ; but the 

 love of plants, the rivalry of bloom, and the accompanying 

 habits of neatness and decency are infectious too, and we can 

 powerfully second the efforts of those of our sisters and wives 

 who visit the poor, by a distribution of plants in autumn and 

 of a few pinches of seed in the spring. 



Of course there will be a little trouble and some loss of time 

 for the gardener, but a notice hung outside the gate to the 

 effect that on a certain day plants will be given away on appli- 

 cation will render the matter easy enough. I thus distributed 

 last year from my small garden upwards of two hundred plants 

 — Calceolarias, Geraniums, Verbenas, Heliotropes, Gazanias, 

 &c, each of which would make several fine cuttings. Many 

 large establishments must have cartloads of these, besides a 

 surplus stock of Crocuses, Snowdrops, Gladioli, andother bulbs. 

 If you think this communication likely to be of service in in- 

 ducing anyone to try to do good at little expense, perhaps you 

 will find a corner for it. — Penumbra. 



ERADICATING WEEDS WITH CREEPING 

 ROOTS. 

 In a recent number I saw a query from a correspondent 

 respecting the possibility of banishing Couch and Bindweed. 

 I have had, I regret to say, some experience of both, and con- 

 sider it quite possible to banish them, the first step being to 

 forbid the use of a spade, nothing but a fork to be used. One 

 year my Asparagus bed was so full of Bindweed that it seemed 

 as if the Asparagus had been grown merely as stakes for the 



