October 18, 1877. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



305 



of first-claes Pears to be the Pear of the north of England. 

 One other thing is worthy of notice : Had the Pear crop in the 

 north been ever so abundant it would have been next to value- 

 less, as the fruit has grown to little more than half its usual 

 size. The cold ground, through lack of sun, has undoubtedly 

 prevented their swelling. — J. Witherspoon, Cliester-le-Street. 



Will anyone tell me his experience of the Pear Desire 

 Cornelis ? It is highly spoken of in the " Fruit Manual," but 

 I have never met with it. I tried last year to buy a tree or 

 grafts, but failed. Neither Messrs. Rivers nor Mr. Smith of 

 Worcester could supply me; I should like to know where I 

 could prooure it. 



I for one should be very glad if now, at the commencement 

 of the planting season, your correspondents would give us the 

 benefit of their experience in the matter of Pears, stating, of 

 course, their locality, and whether the Pears which they recom- 

 mend or condemn (for this should be done as well as the 

 former) are grown as standards or against a wall. There are 

 some old favourites that succeed anywhere, and of course need 

 not be mentioned — e.g., Jargonelle, Marie Louise, Winter 

 Nelis, Seckle, Glou Morceau ; but there are many kinds more 

 recent or less known which may well deserve to be ranked 

 with these. There is a certain pleasure in trying experiments, 

 but life is too short to plant many varieties of Pears and then 

 to be disappointed by them. 



I can recommend Doyenne da Cornice (pyramid), Bergamotte 

 Esperen (wall, si), and Josephine de Malines (wall, S.E.), 

 especially the latter, as quite first-rate. Louise Bonne of 

 Jersey is inferior with me. Knight's Monarch will not ripen, 

 nor BeurrtJ Diel. Fondante d'Automne is good, so is Comte 

 de Lamy and Thompson's. BeurrS Bosc varies with the 

 season. These (except BeuTre Bosc) are grown as pyramids 

 and standards. — L., Cheshire. 



OBANGE CULTTJKE. 

 We cannot give you (" M. P.") better information than is 

 contained in the following extracts from a paper written by 

 Mr. Rivers and read at the International Horticultural Con- 

 gress held in London in 1866, and which was published in the 

 " Report of Proceedings :" — " The difference," says Mr. Rivers, 

 " between Oranges freshly gathered from the trees and the very 

 finest imported is most remarkable ; there is a crispnoss and 

 fine aroma in Oranges freshly gathered difficult to realise un- 

 less they are promptly compared with imported fruit. They 

 are indeed a luxury, and as such will be cultivated ere long in 

 every good garden. The houses best adapted for their cultiva- 

 tion are the large span-roofed, 24 feet wide, 6 feet high at each 

 side, and 15 feet high in the centre. A houee of this size 

 will require eight 4-inch hot- water pipes, four on each side, 

 as artificial heat is required all the year to ripen Oranges in 

 one season perfectly. A smaller span-roofed house, 5rV feet 

 high at each side and 12 feet high in the centre, heated by four 

 4-inch hot water pipes, two on each side, is almost as eligible 

 for Orange culture as one of the larger size. A house of 

 these dimensions, with a central path, and a border on each 

 side planted with Orange trees, would form a pleasant and 

 productive Orange garden ; but to form an Orange grove, so 

 as to have trees of fine growth and to give abundant crops, the 

 large house must be resorted to. From the experience I have 

 gained I firmly believe that no conservatory, no Orchid house, 

 nor greenhouse, is half so beautiful or iuteresting as an Orange 

 house constructed on the principles I now advocate, and pro- 

 vided with fixed roofs, rafters 24 inches apart, glazed with 

 large pieces of glass, and admitting abundance of light, so that 

 in December, when the trees are covered with their golden 

 fruit and many of them showing their snow-white perfumed 

 flowers, the scene is indeed enchanting, and is enhanced by 

 the agreeable temperature, which need not be higher than from 

 50° to 60° Fahr. (10° to 15° Cent.) in cloudy weather. It is 

 not frame heat in winter that ripening OrangeB require, but 

 an even agreeable temperature such as is experienced in the 

 Azores during that season of the year. The houses above 

 mentioned should have side ventilation as in Orchid houses — 

 viz., an opening on each side of the large house 2 feet wide, 

 for the smaller houses 1 foot wide ; these openings should be 

 in the centre of each side, and shutters of wood or sashes em- 

 ployed to close them, the latter of course being the most 

 agreeable. The cultivation of dessert Oranges in pots or tubs 

 is very Bimple. The compost they require consists of equal 

 partB of peat, loam, and manure thoroughly decomposed ; the 



two former should not be sifted, but chopped up with the pieces 

 of turf and roots so as to form a rough compost. The trees 

 will grow in this freely and bear abundantly, but they should 

 have gentle constant root heat. This is best given by enclosing 

 hot-water pipes in a shallow chamber of bricks, and placing 

 the pots on a flooring of slates or tiles forming the roof of the 

 chamber. One of the most oharming and prolific of dessert 

 Oranges is the Tangierine ; the tree has small leaves, and 

 Beldom attains a height of more than 7 feet even in North 

 Africa. Its most valuable quality is its early ripening, so that 

 in October, just as the late Peaches and other soft fruits are 

 over, this luscious little fruit is ready for the dessert. And 

 when freshly gathered no fruit can be more gratifying or de- 

 lightful, as its aroma is so delicious and its juice so abundant, 

 in this reBpect offering a pleasing contrast to those imported 

 from Lisbon in November and December, the flesh of which is 

 generally shrunk from the rind instead of being ready to burst 

 aB is the case with those plucked from the tree. They should, 

 in common with all home-grown Oranges, be placed on the 

 table with some leaves adhering to the stalks, thus showing 

 that they have not made a voyage." 



WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD EXAMPLE OF 



AN UNPROVED NEW GRAPE? 

 I hoticed an announcement in the Journal stating that the 

 prizes offered for the three single bunches of Golden Queen at 

 the Crystal Palace were withheld, because they were not con- 

 sidered good enough. It appears that three prizes of £5, £2, 

 and £1 respectively were offered by the raiser for the best three 

 bunches, but these liberal prizes have failed to bring out more 

 than three competitors, and none of the samples are considered 

 excellent, and the prizes are withheld. The donor of the 

 prizes and holder of the stock of the new Vine, while holding 

 out the inducement to gardeners to buy his Vine and compete 

 for his prizes, attaches no conditions, so far as I am aware, to 

 his offer ; but for all that, when the competitors come forward 

 in good faith on their part they are told their samples are 

 bad, and that they must go without the prizes. Is this fair 

 and honourable, may I ask? and farther, may I inquire by 

 what standard of excellence as regards the Golden Queen were 

 the three bunches judged? or, in other words, was it the fault 

 of the growers, or the fault of the Grapes, that the bunches 

 were in such " bad condition?" In my opinion the action of 

 the Judges, or whoever was instrumental in withholding the 

 prizes, has not improved the prospects of the Golden Queen. 

 One can understand judges withholding a prize from a bad 

 sample of Black Hamburghs or any other Grape of known 

 excellence, but not in the case of a Grape that is on its trial 

 for the first time ; for I hold that it is no safe guarantee of its 

 excellence generally that the raiser of the Grape may have 

 produced fair samples of it himself. What new Grape, good, 

 bad, or indifferent, that has been raised within the last 

 twenty years has not been sent out as all that was excellent by 

 the raiser, but which under general culture has perhaps turned 

 cut to be worthless ? Permit me to say that I am not a disap- 

 pointed exhibitor, nor was I at the show. I only gather my 

 impressions from the reports. — A Geape-Gbowek. 



FLOWER GARDEN NOTES.— No. 1. 



A cold spring ; spring flowers late in flowering and for the 

 most part of short continuance. Primroses were an exception, 

 flowering grandly, but bulbous plants though fine were soon 

 over. The late frosts cut off to the ground such succulent 

 plants as Dielytra spectabilis and injured the flowering stems 

 of Spiraea japonica. 



Summer bedding plants were, owing to the cold during the 

 6arly part of summer, planted out late, and in most instances 

 in a baokward condition. Calceolarias put out in April suffered 

 severely, the frosts early in May cutting off many plants to 

 the ground and damaging all more or less. They recovered, 

 however, famously, breaking Btrongly from the stems, forming 

 stocky plants by the early part of June. One-half of the 

 plants — about a thousand — were at that time moved with 

 good balls, well watered, all going well until the latter part of 

 July, when a plant here and there showed by the flagging 

 foliage evidence of disease. The disease appeared before the 

 cold and wet, and continued its ravages with the rains. The 

 infected plants wholly succumbed to the disease, the fungus at- 

 tacking the stem at its junction with the soil or a little below, 

 and destroying the plant root and branch. Though the disease 



