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JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ November 21, 1872. 



workhouse, St. Leonards-on-Sea, planted 3J lbs. of Paterson's 

 Bovinia Potatoes. In the autumn the crop was dug up, and 

 the whole of that year's increase, excepting 14 lbs., which were 

 cooked, was preserved and planted in the spring of 1872. The 

 total produce this year weighs 580 lbs., and none diseased. 



Old Dk. Cooper, of South Carolina, used to say to his 



students, " Don't be afraid of diet, young gentlemen. What 

 is dirt? Why, nothing at all offensive, when chemically 

 viewed. Rub a little alkali upon the dirty grease spots on 

 your coat, and it undergoes a chemical change and becomes 

 soap ; now rub it with a little water and it disappears. It is 

 neither grease, soap, water, nor dirt. That is not a very 

 odorous pile of dirt you see yonder ; well, scatter a little 

 gypsum over it, and it is no longer dirt. Everything like dirt 

 is worthy of our notice as students of chemistry. Analyse it ; 

 it will separate into very clean elements. Dirt makes Corn, 

 Corn makes bread and meat, and that makes a very sweet 

 young lady, that I saw one of you kissing last night. So, after 

 all, you were kissing dirt, particularly if she whitened her face 

 with chalk or fullers' earth ; though I may say that rubbing 

 such a stuff upon a beautiful skin of a young lady is a dirty 

 practice. Pearl powder, I think, is made of bismuth — nothing 

 but dirt. Lord Palmerston's fine definition of dirt is, matter 

 in the wrong place. Put it in the right place, and we cease to 

 think of it as dirt." 



The following plants are now to be seen in flower in 



the Pal3i House at Kew — viz., 



Dahlia imperialis. — The florets of the ray are in a single 

 circle, large, spreading, milk white, with a splash of crimson 

 at the base ; those of the disk are compact, and of a bright 

 yellow colour. A most striking object among all the other 

 rare and beautiful plants with which it stands in company. 



Areca rubra and Areca sapida. — The inflorescence of each 

 of these consists of two large, fleshy, waxen-looking spadices, 

 breaking-up into many somewhat round, tapering branchlets, 

 on which both the male and female flowers are associated. 

 They are situated one on each side of the stem in successive 

 axils of the old leaf -scars, just below the bottom of the sheath 

 formed by the enormous leaves. In one case the pollen is 

 being caught in a newspaper hung underneath, doubtless for 

 the purpose of examination or fertilisation. 



A splendid specimen of the flower of Musa Ensete is also 

 there. It is a spadix about 4 feet in length, thickly covered 

 with leafy dark crimson spathes, which spread out towards the 

 base, but are still unfolded at the end, where they look like a 

 gigantic bud. The reproductive organs are set within each of 

 these spathes, the male or imperfect ones being in the upper 

 ones, the perfect flowers in those below. The whole droops 

 from out of the ascending leaves of the plant, and looks in 

 every way worthy of the handsome bearer of it. 



Ghamcerops humilis is also pushing forth from its summit 

 spadices, which bear yellow male and female flowers of very 

 small size. 



The following advertisement appears in a Canadian 



paper : " Will the gentleman who stole my Melons last Satur- 

 day night be generous enough to return me a few of the seeds, 

 as they are a choice variety? " 



We regret to learn that Mr. John Mackenzie, of the 



firm of Blake & Mackenzie, of Liverpool, London, and Glas- 

 gow, died on the 16th inst. at Woolton, near Liverpool. Mr. 

 Mackenzie was well known among the nursery and seed trade, 

 and many will lament the loss of one who by his gentle man- 

 ners had ingratiated himself into their friendship. 



COLLECTING AND STORING TURFY LOAM. 



Having run short of fine, fibrous, loamy material, wet as 

 the weather has been, I had a quantity collected from a lane, 

 and as rubbish was burning at the time, I had the turf placed 

 grass side downwards over the burning heap until the herbage 

 was charred and the sods somewhat dried. This, exposed for 

 a week in an open shed to sweeten, will be excellent for potting, 

 especially when large pots are used, as plants thrive all the 

 better when, with the finer material or compost, there are nu- 

 merous small pieces of lumpy fibrous stuff proportionate to the 

 size of the pot and the shift — say from the size of field beans 

 for 5 and 6-inch pots, to the size of walnuts for 8 and 1'2-inch 

 pots. A little rough charcoal, with the dust excluded, from the 

 size of peas to that of beans, is also of importance for keeping 

 the soil open and allowing water to pass freely. For burn- 

 ing good-sized wood into charcoal, the old plan of smothering 



all up with earth and turf, with small openings to keep-up a 

 slow combustion, is the best ; but it is not the best when you 

 want to char lots of twigs and small wood. There is a risk 

 that there will be more ashes than charred twigs. I now 

 simply burn it in small heaps, either covering with a little 

 damp litter, or without any covering at all, and as soon as the 

 small wood is charred enough, then put out the products 

 gathered into heaps, and when cool sift into sizes. A few 

 faggots may thus soon be quickly charred, and after some 

 trials there will be very little or no ashes. The finest dust is 

 black, and is useful for top-dressing cuttings in boxes in winter, 

 and for other purposes. 



In making turf heaps I find it is best to have them from 

 3J to 4 feet wide, and to raise them some 5 feet in height, 

 building them square, and then forming a span-roof with the 

 turf. This soon becomes so solid as to throw off the rains. 

 If that is at all doubtful, we lay a turf lengthwise grass side 

 outwards, and fasten it on with a few wooden pins. Thus 

 making the heaps, we can always secure dry sweet compost 

 without occupying shed-room, and it becomes an easy matter 

 to damp the compost as desired. The chief object in storing 

 is to have the sods dry and well sweetened by the air without 

 greatly decomposing them, or rotting-down their fibre. For 

 this purpose a wide bed or stack is a mistake. The outsides, 

 if well built, long after the grass has decayed will remain open 

 and full of fibre ; but the centre will have become so dense as 

 to be little better for potting than good soil dug out of a field. 

 Nay, if the flakey exposed matter were scraped off the ridges 

 thinly from a ploughed field, it would be better on account of 

 its greater sweetness. Such scraped sweet material will grow 

 almost anything well, except the hair-rooted plants, which must 

 have more or less of heath soil. 



In stacks of turf, owing to the too great decomposition in 

 the centre, I find that a bed from 3J to 4 feet in width is too 

 wide, unless one or other of the following precautions , or similar 

 ones, be resorted to. Having a lot of round drain-tiles 14 inch 

 in diameter, for every foot rise in the stack two rows are 

 placed along the bed some 15 inches 'from each other and 

 nearest the centre. The tiles are not placed end to end, but a 

 couple of inches or so apart, in order that the air may pass 

 through the centre of the stack sufficiently to make all sweet, 

 but not so as to cause much decomposition. A simpler mode, 

 though not so easy to manage afterwards, is to put in layers or 

 faggots of brushwood whilst building the stack. These seem 

 trivial matters, but after taking great trouble in obtaining 

 some suitable turf to stack for compost, it is important that 

 the whole of the heap should be friable and well stored with 

 fibre throughout. Of course, those who can only obtain a few 

 barrowloads of turf for compost, may adopt the same system 

 as is followed in the case of some scores of cartloads. The 

 great point is just to get the grass decayed and the soil of the 

 sod sweetened, whilst wasting as little as possible of the fibre. 

 For years I have never been able to obtain turf to my mind, 

 though I know of hundreds of acres at no great distance where 

 the grass is so needle-like, and the turf for fully 3 inches so 

 dense and full of fibre, that it is no easy matter to pull it to 

 pieces. Such turf after having been stacked from six to twelve 

 months is very valuable. 



When out of turf soil I have often charred the grassy sides 

 of turf so as to be able at once to use it. For many strong- 

 growing plants this charred turf, broken-up by the hands, 

 answers very well, but mistakes may be made in its use. Like 

 a strong dose of concentrated manure, it will do injury. The 

 chief precaution to be taken is to expose it thinly in a dry open 

 shed for a week or a fortnight previous to use, and then in 

 general plants flourish with it extremely well. That time of 

 exposure would be sufficient if the prunings, &c, used were 

 chiefly deciduous. In some cases I have used chiefly mounds 

 of laurel twigs which had been burned to be out of the way, 

 and then the sods would require to lie double the time before 

 being used. I have tried charring laurel twigs the same as 

 other small wood, but they are not worth the labour, for the 

 charred material seemed to retain too much of the deleterious 

 qualities of the twigs and leaves. — R. F. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 

 The first meeting of the present season was held at Burlington 

 House on the 4th inst., the President, Professor Westwood, in 

 the chair. A very extensive series of works on general natural 

 history and entomology, presented to the Society since the last 

 meeting, was placed on the table. A letter was read from the 

 Secretary of the Haggerston Entomological Society, inviting the 



