463 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE QABDENEB. 



[ December 20, 1877. 



late in March or eaily in April where the plants are to remain, 

 thinning them out to the required distances. The plan 

 answers equally well also for Savoys, the plants being much 

 sturdier from the first, and receive no check by transplanting. 



Broccoli. — The heads were poorer last spring than we ever 

 had them ; they were also late and came in " a glut." I have 

 abandoned the culture of " winter" Broccoli, not having had 

 a head but what was damaged by frost for years, for the early 

 ■winter sorts do not head with ms until late winter, and with 

 Cauliflower or autumn Broccoli, Veitch's Self-protecting being 

 first-rate if lifted when the heads are 3 or 4 inches in diameter 

 and planted in frames and protected from frost, continuing until 

 very nearly the time the spring Broccolis come in. The kinds 

 grown are Veitch's Spring White, a capital kind, having very 

 compact medium-sized pure white heads, followed by Coolitig's 

 Matchless, Leamington, Lauder's Goshen, and Sutton's Per- 

 fection, all first-class. I should not like to dispense with any 

 of these, but Leamington is perhaps the least satisfactory. 

 The plants are this year not strong. I have not laid the 

 plants for many years. None have been " legged " by frost, 

 whioh may be due to the saline manures applied — nitrate of 

 soda, which is also a powerful agent against slugs ; 1 lb. is a 

 aufficient application to a square rod — 30J square yards. 



Carrots. — These have, as they have ever done with me, 

 grubbed, though I have used wood ashes, and soot and lime 

 plentifully, and have also grown Onions in the Carrot beds. 

 They are usually attacked at thinning time, when I usually 

 dress with soot, evidently too late, as the eggs of the fly are 

 ■then deposited, the grub being at work shortly afterwards. 

 The wood ashes are placed in the drills at sowing time. A 

 wineglassful of paraffin well stirred into three gallons of water, 

 let stand forty-eight hours, and then having the oil skimmed 

 off, I find to be a good preventive both of grub in Onions and 

 Carrots, applying the water with a rose watering-pot when the 

 plants have two blades or two leaves besides the seed leaves, 

 and again just before or immediately after thinning. The 

 French Forcing Carrot is the best for frames, Early Horn for 

 •use in summer, and Intermediate Scarlet for autumn and 

 winter. Bed Surrey is first-rate for deep soils. 



Parsnips and Beet. — Both crops are fine. There is no better 

 Parsnip than a good stock of Hollow-crowned. Of Beet Dewar's 

 Dwarf Bed is early and of good form, size, colour, and quality. 

 Borne others are higher-coloured, but they are not so uniformly 

 good. Salsafy and Scorzonera are smaller than usual and 

 much forked. Jerusalem Artichokes are very uneven in form. 

 Turnips are excellent, especially Early Snowball, Early White 

 Stone or Six- weeks, and Golden Ball. Vegetable Marrows were 

 practically a failure. Long White was no better than the 

 Custard. The season has been too cold and wet for them. 



Celery is shorter and smaller than might have been expected, 

 but the quality is good. Sandringham or Incomparable Dwarf 

 White is the best white, and remains longer in use than any 

 other sort. Leicester Bed (Major Clarke's) is the beBtred, 

 but it is not so good a keeper as Williams's Matchless Bed. 



Lettuces were probably never finer. Early Paris Market 

 is a first-rate Cabbage Lettuce for frames and for early use, 

 coming in before any other by several days, and appears to be 

 not only earlier but hardier. Neapolitan is the finest of all 

 the Cabbage kinds for summer. Stanstead Park is the best 

 Cabbage sort for standing the winter. Of Cob varieties the 

 old Bath or Brown Sugarloaf is good, and for frames is un- 

 equalled, also for early summer use. Hicks' Hardy White is 

 a good kind for either summer or winter, but is surpassed in 

 summer by the Alexandra White Cos, which is simply a good 

 stock of Paris White. 



Endive. — This is not so fine as usual. The Bound-leaved 

 Batavian and Green Curled are the best. The plants have 

 often given so much trouble in covering and uncovering with 

 protecting material that we now plant in frames and cover 

 with dry leaves, which excludes frost and light. The lights are 

 used to throw off wet. A foot thickness of leaves will keep 

 off any amount of frost and cause the Endive to blanch per- 

 fectly. 



Chicory. — I find it better to leave the roots in the ground 

 until wanted, as when they are taken up and stored in sand 

 growth takes place in mild weather, whereas by leaving them 

 in the ground we take up as wanted without any loss, and 

 plant in rich soil in a dark place. In a Mushroom house the 

 heads are fit to cut in about three weeks. Witloof is the same 

 as Large-rooted Chicory ; in fact we have both sorts, and no 

 one can tell any difference between them. The well-blanched 

 heads are admirable for winter salad. 



Of Badishes none are more esteemed than French Breakfast, 

 which is excellent for forcing ; so also is the White Forcing 

 Turnip (Sutton's). Wood's Early Frame is all that need be 

 grown of the long short-tops for frames and early produce, but 

 in Bummer it is superseded by Long Scarlet. 



Tomatoes. — Plants out of doors have entirely failed. Some 

 in cold pits had the disease badly, and others in a cool house 

 were also infected, but others, again, in a warmer and drier 

 house were not contaminated, though the plants were placed 

 in contact with fruit blackened by the disease. Orangefield 

 Dwarf is fine for pots, and Hathaway's Excelsior for planting 

 out against walls. Carter's Greengage is the best of the yellow- 

 fruited sorts. 



Onions have been a good crop and are keeping well, except 

 Danver's Yellow, which does not keep well with me, nor does 

 it crop so well as Beading, which, with White Spanish, are 

 the best whites. There is no difference in appearance between 

 Brown Globe and James's Keeping, yet the latter will keep 

 much longer than the former, though both are good keepers. 

 Leeks have done grandly. Carentan is the best ; it is an im- 

 proved Musselburgh. 



Asparagus came up very weakly. Some of the heads were 

 damaged by frost, the supply having been not only scant but 

 of short duration. Connover's Colossal was very much better 

 than the old variety, which will soon be superseded by it. 

 Artichokes (Globe) have been excellent. The old plants con- 

 tinued producing heads late in November. The spring-planted 

 suckerB were not profitable. Summer Spinach was good. The 

 winter crop is very thin and not at all promising. Seakale 

 has made good growth and ripened off well. After two 

 seasons' experience of Fern-leaved Parsley I find it superior 

 to any of the curled sorts both for culinary and for garnishing 

 purposes. Mushrooms, as regards fields, have been a blank. 

 Beds in the Mushroom house are cropping well and are pro- 

 ducing very fleshy Mushrooms. Shubarb excellent ; that now 

 forced is very strong for the time of year. St. Martin's is the 

 best for forcing and early. Monarch is the largest Eort and is 

 of very good quality. — Yorkshire Gardener. 



CHKISTMAS DECOBATIONS. 



Gladly do I sit down to pen a few hints on Christmas 

 decorations in response to an appeal from a correspondent who 

 has annually to decorate a dining-room and a church, for it is 

 a subject to which the heart warms, beset as it is with plea- 

 sant associations and cheerful reminiscences ; not, alas ! with- 

 out a tinge of Eadness, the mind involuntarily taking a retro- 

 spective glance to scenes of brightness long since paBsed away 

 and dear friends gone to the " land of the leal." How the 

 sad roll of the departed lengthens with every year of one's 

 life ! Christmas come again ? So it is. Soon will the little 

 folks be declaring that it is quite the best Christmas they have 

 known, and no doubt it will bring with it its own peculiar 

 delights. Let me therefore not stay to moralise, but turn forth- 

 with to the assistance of " S," who in the dining-room appears 

 to have hitherto confined his efforts to wreathing the pictures 

 with evergreens, and who this year wishes to take a somewhat 

 higher flight. 



Now, let us suppose we have such a room having pictures 

 hanging upon its walls with certain intermediate spaces, and 

 to which we wish to impart a festive appearance with simple 

 and inexpensive materials, and we might treat it very success- 

 fully in this way : Between each pair of pictures exactly mid- 

 way we would fasten to the wall a bracket a few inches higher 

 than the bottoms of the picture-frames, placing upon the 

 bracket a vase filled with foliage of Iris fcetidissima intermingled 

 with pods of its scarlet berries drooping down from the long 

 flexible stalks. Wreaths of Ivy should then be made to sweep 

 downwards from each side of the bracket in a bold graceful 

 curve, meeting another wreath from the next bracket in the 

 centre of the bottom of the picture-frame, where three or four 

 shoots of Ivy should hang down in the manner of a tassel. 

 Plants in pots could of course be used instead of vases, and 

 such other evergreens for the wreaths instead of the Ivy as 

 taste or fancy may suggest. Failing the brackets a cluster of 

 berried Holly might he used, but the effect would be neither 

 so light nor elegant. 



Church decoration should, I think, be confined to the em- 

 bellishment of the pulpit, resding desk, altar, font, pillars, 

 lamps, window-sills, and perhaps some portion of the walls. 

 The seats should be left untouched, as also should memorial 

 tablets and monumental tombs. I am fully aware that here 



