November 22, 1877. ] 



JOURXAL OP HORTICUIiTOKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



30J 



and dessert, but of this a separate notice presently ; Lord 

 Suffield for August and September ; then Ecklinville Seedling 

 September and October, and Eed Hawthornden somewhat 

 earlier. Medium Dessert Apples — Cox's Orange Pippin and 

 Golden Winter Pearmain. Medium Kitchen — Cellini, October 

 to November; Stirling Castle, on to February; then later for 

 the kitchen the Apple impossible to be too highly praised — viz., 

 Dumelow's Seedling, better, at the fruit shops, known as 

 Wellington; Tower of Glamis, Striped Beefin, and Alfriston 

 complete the number. As to late dessert, Court Pendu Plat, 

 Bibston Pippin, and Sturmer Pippin. 



Let me add also a short Pear list for those whose gardens 

 are small: — Summer Doyenne, Williams' Bon Chretien, Jar- 

 gonelle, and Beurre Gifiard, followed by Beurre Hardy and 

 Louise Bonne; while Bergamotte Esperen and Josephine de 

 Malines are the best late-ripening Pears. If you want or only 

 have room for one Apricot, there is Large Early for you. As 

 to Plums, Early Prolific and that most profitable of Plums, 

 Victoria. I may notice in pasEiDg that at St. John's the 

 trained trees if put in a line would reach eight miles ; and as 

 a specimen of the healthiness of the trees in Peaches, Nec- 

 tarines, and Apricots, as well as Apples and Pears, I have 

 noticed the extraordinary length of the wood made in one 

 year. 



Besides the larger fruits, I looked at the stock of Goose- 

 berries and Currants. As a few of the best flavoured of the 

 former I would name PitmaBton Green Gage, Catherine, 

 Bough Bed, and Whitesmith. Of Currants there are among 

 the Beds Baby Castle and Bed Grape ; and let me call especial 

 attention to Lee's Prolific Black, on which all the berries ripen 

 to the tip, a Cunait, too, in which there is no acidity, and it 

 wanta little sugar in preserving. There are at St. John's plenty 

 of cordon fruit trees, a form of growing perhaps not yet suffi- 

 ciently taken up, but on which comes the finest fruit, and 

 which the wind cannot blow off. I looked at the stock of 

 Peaches, Apricots, Plums, Damsons, &o , and saw in all not 

 only a vast Bupply but also there was not to be seen the least 

 trace of disease. 



Among the fruits, though specially noticeable as ornamental 

 trees, I came upon a number of Purple-leaved Filberts, being 

 good beaters of good nuts, and also the leaf as pleasing from 

 its colour as a Copper Beech — eye and palate both pleased. 



But next, aye ! what next ? Well, weary in this work, but 

 not weary of the work, we bend our steps towards the office 

 where luncheon awaits us, for man must eat, although the 

 Franch wit said to the beggar who pleaded " a man must live," 

 *■ I don't see the necessity of that in you." Yet each of us 

 does see the full necessity at least in ourselves. Into the office, 

 on to an inner room, the master's own, and what do I see? 

 Some dozens of Worcester Pearmains laid out for me to look 

 at. At onoe I exclaim, The Doctor was right, the pictures are 

 not exaggerations. Although this has been a terribly sunless 

 summer, and no fruits are quite as well coloured as usual, yet 

 what.a display of handsome Apples ! 



To my mind an Apple deserving of the highest place must 

 be up to the mark as regards both beauty and utility. Let me 

 try the Worcester Pearmain by these two tests. First as to 

 beauty, there must be beauty of form as well as colour. The 

 Worcester Pearmain has this to perfection ; its form is pleasiDg 

 to the eye, not squatty, dumpy, or one-sided, or angular and 

 ribbed, but large and broad at the base, and gradually narrow- 

 ing to the crown — a true Pearmain shape. ADy view of it as 

 to shape is agresable, for it meets the eye pleasantly. Then 

 as to colour, its smooth skin is completely covered with a 

 brilliant red, a glowing glorious colour, a treat to look at in 

 England where we have too little brightness and deepness of 

 colour. Certainly the Worcester Pearmain is among the very 

 handsomest of Apples, and if a table covered with them looked 

 brilliant, what must a tree look like in the glow of an autumn's 

 golden sunlight? As to utility, its size is large, a requisite in 

 a first-class Apple ; also it grows well, forming a handsome tree, 

 and crops very freely. I handle Apple after Apple and tbey 

 seem almost too pretty to eat, but in goes my silver knife and 

 I find the flesh to be tender and juicy and very pleasant. It 

 is a fruit not only to adorn a dining-table, but to be welcome 

 on the plate of the guests as well as to the dish of the host. 

 I brought several specimens home with me ; some I roasted, 

 others I baked, and some I boiled, and it was a success how- 

 ever cooked. I pronounce, therefore, upon full examination 

 that the Worcester Pearmain stands the test of beauty and 

 atility, and it must be for ever one of England's first-class 

 Apples, and when further distributed it will be sure to com- 



mand a good price in the market, for its appearance is so 

 attractive that it will at once find ready purchasers, who upon 

 buying it will again become its purchasers. What I saw after 

 luDch will supply materials for another and concluding paper. 



While sitting and resting out of doors for awhile, Mr. Smith 

 directed my attention to a mansion across the road, over the 

 high walls of which rose to view some fine timber trees. " That," 

 said Mr. Smith, " is Pitmaston House, where in old days lived 

 Williams, a friend of Thomas Andrew Knight, and it gave 

 name to many fruits, such as the Pitmaston Nonpareil Apple, 

 the Pitmaston Orange Nectarine, and several others." Quite 

 a classical residence and very fit to be a near neighbour to St. 

 John's Nursery ; and if the ghost of worthy Andrew Kuight 

 should ever walk and take a look at the gardens of PitmaBton, 

 I am sure he will walk across the read and much gratify his 

 ghostly, and of course fruit-loving nature, by a look at and a 

 walk through its fifty acres of fruit trees. I walked there in 

 the body, and was charmed when there, and treasure-up the 

 sight as one delightful for ever to my pomological instincts 

 and memory. — Wiltshire Becioe. 



EaRATDM. — In part I., p. 869, column second, liDe twenty-one, there is 

 a clerical error, I mean a printer's error, for I don't own to it. For " a 

 quren-amidst look." read a " Qneen-Annish look," so many of the houses 

 beloDg eithtr to the Queen Anne era, or show symptoms of the style of her 

 reign.— W. B. 



SPECULATIONS AS TO THE NATURE AND 

 ORIGIN OF THE POTATO DISEASE.— No. 2. 



I will now refer to the theory of electricity. The disease 

 has been supposed to have been caused by some peculiar 

 electrical state of the atmosphere. The great objection to 

 this theory is the same as the others — that it will not account 

 for the disease appearing only in 1815, unless it could be shown 

 that some peculiar condition prevailed not before known, which 

 is very improbable. I think that there is no doubt the disease 

 spreads rapidly in damp thundery weather, but that is a diffe- 

 rent thing from the eleotrical state of the atmosphere being the 

 origin of it. Some years ago there was a discussion in a con- 

 temporary with regard to the connection between the Potato 

 disease and electricity, and a writer calling himself a " Loveb 

 of Nature" made the following remarks, which I cannot 

 do better than produce here : — " The theory advanced that the 

 Potato disease is caused by the action of electricity on wet 

 tubers appears to me wholly uutenable. That the disease 

 should appear three days after a thunderstorm is no proof that 

 lightning produced it, for it might be a mere coincidence, or it 

 might arise from other attendant circumstances. Tour corre- 

 spondent makes no attempt to support his theory by known 

 facts in the science of electricity ; nay, its supporters (for it 

 has many) seem to look upon electricity as another Ariel play- 

 ing all sorts of odd pranks and setting all laws at defiance. 

 Now this is not the case. All electrical phenomena, including 

 thunderstorms, are subject to certain fixed laws which never vary. 

 For the benefit of your non-scientific readers I will trespass a 

 little on your space to explain the phenomena which take place 

 dcri'jg such storms. All thunderstorms are produced by one 

 of the following causes : — Either first, by the passage of the 

 electrical fluid from one cloud to another; or second, from the 

 earth to the clouds ; or third, from the clouds to the earth. 

 This takes place, however, only under the following circum- 

 Btances: — The cloud or part of the earth from which it passes 

 must be in a positive Btate of electricity, and the cloud or part 

 of the earth to which it does pass in a negative state of elec- 

 tricity ; the exchange goes on until both are reduced to the 

 same condition. Another important law of electricity is that it 

 moves by conduction — i.e., aB some substance, such as metals, 

 water, &c, are conductors it will pass along them; but glass, 

 fur, atmospheric air, &a., being non-conductors almost totally 

 obstruct its passage. As the two first causes of thunderstorms 

 enumerated above cannot influence vegetation we will pass over 

 them and come to the third — the passage of the electric fluid 

 from the clouds to the earth, which takes place in the follow- 

 ing manner : — A cloud highly charged with positive electricity 

 being surrounded by air, which ia a bad conductor, cannot dis- 

 charge its excess of electricity till it is in the vicinity of some 

 good conductor, 6uch as a church, a house, a tree, or any other 

 high object, to which it immediately passes (generally in a zig- 

 zag direction, owing to the resistance of the air) and is con- 

 ducted to the earth, where it is distributed in a thousand 

 different directions. Now, with these few Bimple though well- 

 established laws before us, what are we to make of the 

 electric theory ? The only data advanced in support of it are 



