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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ December 1, 1970. 



a honse that would never be very warm in summer or very 

 cold in winter. In such a house artificial heat would be little 

 needed, still it is a help when quick returns are wanted at 

 times, and if the house were from 12 to 14 feet wide there 

 would be room for a bed on each side, and a path of 3 feet 

 wide in the centre, and that pathway of stone, slate, or gravel, 

 could have a hot-water pipe on each side of it. If in the house 

 one or two platforms should be deemed necessary, then to be in 

 character the uprights and bearers should be of iron, and the 

 bottoms and sides of slate. The house would always look neat, 

 except when a bed was being made, and when shallow beds are 

 used this might be too often to prevent, except to the inter- 

 ested, a Mushroom house being a show house. 



Some small windows would be necessary, if merely for light, 

 so that visitors should see the crops ; the windows, too, had 

 better be double, otherwise they might admit too much heat in 

 summer. The question of light is rather too large as respects 

 the Mushroom to be entered on here, farther than to state our 

 conviction that MushroomB grow as well in the dark as in the 

 light, and that so grown they are as firm, sweet, and healthy, 

 as those exposed to free light and air. We have no objection 

 whatever to the light if it do not interfere with the desirable 

 equal temperature ; but no one need be afraid to use Mush- 

 rooms that never were exposed to a direct beam of light. 'With 

 the requisite temperature of from about 70° in the bed, and from 

 55° to 60° in the atmosphere over it, even ventilation is of very 

 little consequence, except to get rid of superfluous vapour 

 when a new bed is being formed. It is in a close, muggy, 

 warm night that the Mushroom grows most rapidly out of 

 doors, and we can hardly err to take a lesson from Nature to 

 guide us in our practice. It will only be by doing so that we 

 shall succeed in cultivating other valuable fungi. — R. F. 



PORTRAIT OF MR. RIVERS. 



The following subscriptions have been received, in addition 

 to those already announced : — 



£ s. d. 



Ellison, Rev. C.C., Bracebridge Vicarage, Lincoln 1 



Pennell, Mr. Charles, Lincoln 1 1 



Walton, Mr., Camfield Gardens, Hatfield 5 



Essays on Floral Criticism. — The prize offered by Lieut.- 

 Col. Scott, R.E., Secretary to the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 for the best Essay on Floral Criticism, has been awarded to 

 Mr. Alfred Bradley, 8, Salisbury Road, Highgate Hill. 



THE AMERICAN PEACH TRADE. 



The New York Times says, that in the season "every man, 

 woman, and child luxuriates at a small expense in the most de- 

 licious fruit known to humanity." But the Peach of the southern 

 counties of England is superior to the American, and Covent 

 Garden Peaches are from four to eight and ten times as large as 

 Washington market Peaches. New York draws its supply chiefly 

 from Delaware, Maryland, and part of Pennsylvania. Most of 

 the fruit is sent by railroad in through ears ; in favourable 

 weather it arrives in much better condition by water, but weather 

 cannot be relied on. The supply which reached New York and 

 Philadelphia last year exceeded four million baskets, a basket 

 averaging 200 Peaches ; but this year there is hardly half a 

 crop, owing to an " eastern blight." The method of the Peach 

 trade in New York in the season is this : — A trip to Jersey City 

 about 1 a.m. will show a shabby-looking unwashed crowd 

 awaiting the cars. As soon as they arrive, no time is lost in 

 selling, and 100,000 baskets are gobbled up very quickly, in 

 quantities varying from 50 to 500 baskets at a time, by middle 

 men. Now comes the turn of the first-class retailers, who 

 often spend 3 dols. to 5 dols. a basket for choice lots ; then the 

 grocers, a hard lot to suit, but good buyers, make a large hole 

 in a consignment ; after them come the apple women, pretty 

 hard at driving a bargain, but profitable customers in the main. 

 The shippers and preservers come in later, and generally get 

 fruit cheap. The last customer is the worst — the huckster. 

 Be Peaches ever so good or ever so rotten, he bides his time, 

 and never misses a chance of pouncing on some unfortunate 

 dealer mad with anger at being " stuck," and anxious to get 

 back some of his money. Rarely, however, does this class of 

 retailers get anything but the very worst artiole, or pay more 

 than 75 cents, a basket for it. When it is considered, that on 



a moderate computation there are over 10,000,000 dols. 

 embarked in the Eastern Peach trade, the profit on which 

 exceeds 35,000 dols. per annum to the growers, labourers, and 

 mechanics of the region, nearly 250 000 dols. per annum to 

 the New York commission houses, 1,400,000 dols. to the railroad 

 and freight companies, and perhaps another 3 000,000 to the 

 vendors in New York, an idea of the importance of the trade 

 may be had. — (American Gardener's Monthly.) 



FRUIT TREES FOR SMALL GARDENS. 



Though much obliged to Mr. Abbey for his articles on the 

 above subject, I was glad to see the editorial comment on his 

 calculations of prices and productiveness, for an acre of such 

 trees as he refers to have never given me anything at all ap- 

 proaching to the return he would lead one to expect. What 

 with frost and drought, winds and weevils, the £ s. d. of fact 

 is a very different thing from the £ s. d. of theory ; and Mr. 

 Abbey will add much to hiB favours if he will say whether his 

 conclusions have been arrived at by actual experiment with a 

 strict cash account, or whether they are merely an inference 

 from his great general knowledge of fruit culture. 



Mr. Abbey certainly has a large margin in his estimated cost 

 of trees — viz., Apples at Is. 6d. each ; for many large firms — for 

 instance, Fisher & Holmes, of Sheffield, supply splendid trees- 

 at 5s, per dozen ; and I am told by market gardeners that some 

 firms offer their maiden plants at 2d. each ; and even that price, 

 a grower informs me, affords a good profit, the land being 

 £6 per acre. 



I have no desire to throw cold water on bush fruit-tree cul- 

 ture, quite the reverse ; it is a source of increasing interest 

 and pleasure ; but cent, per cent, at the end of seven years is 

 a result I have never seen nor expect to see ; and if an income 

 of £180 per annum could be educed so pleasantly from an 

 acre of land in seven years, men would not so freely risk their 

 necks in grubbing for diamonds at the Cape. — C. C. E. 



CHATSWORTH— No. 1. 



Glorious Chatsworth ! the crown and pride of Derbyshire, 

 the best and moBt enduring memorial of the genius of Sir 

 Toseph Paxton, is one of those rare places where harmony of 

 aspect everywhere prevails. The wide expanse of the park, 

 which in its circumference of eleven miles embraces more of 

 natural beauty than can be found in almost any other county, 

 the lofty mountain from whose summit the hillside comes 

 down with a majestic sweep into the valley, through which the 

 bright Derwent has its course — new gliding smoothly along, 

 and now brawling over beautiful cascades, its waters agitated 

 by the masses of rock over which it descends seething and 

 foaming with a pleasing cadence — the gentle eminences, and 

 the magnificent trees — all these features are in fine keeping 

 with the princely mansion, which occupies an important posi- 

 tion overlooking much of the fine scenery surrounding it. 



But it is to the gardens I must turn my attention, as belong- 

 ing more to my peculiar province, and which are so worthy of 

 the great master whose hand designed their principal features. 

 From the grand conservatory down to the kitchen garden all is 

 on a scale of magnificence, and every part is enriched with the 

 choicest treasures of the vegetable kingdom. Many are the 

 striking features which the gardens generally, and the pleasure 

 grounds particularly present ; each of these features i3 on so 

 vast a scale that it is developed in the highest degree of ex- 

 cellence. Here noble deciduous trees display the full beauty 

 of their magnificent proportions, and vast spreading branches 

 sweep the closely-mown turf, and in grounds so extensive 

 and so beautifully kept they have an air of dignity and re- 

 finement very different from that which they present when 

 crowded together in groups or shut in among thickets of wild 

 underwood. 



The masses of rocks forming the rockery are so disposed as 

 to cause one to fancy they are the result of some terrible con- 

 vulsion of Nature ; so boldly and wildly are they arranged, that 

 it seems hardly possible that the hand of man could have 

 scattered these mighty fragments with as much ease as though 

 they were so many pebbles. These rocks occupy a considerable 

 space, at some places standing out boldly in all the might of 

 their rugged majesty, and at others partly concealed among the 

 shrubs with which they are interspersed, and as walks wind 

 among them one is enabled to thoroughly enjoy this curioue 



