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JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Angnst 9, 1861. 



and Nectarine must be heated in the north, has not been 

 met by any evidence whatever to the contrary, and yet we are 

 ashed to believe that Peaches are so grown (without heat) in 

 many places. More besides me ask where ? The evidence 

 being twenty-three cases of failure in a circle of ten miles, 

 to four of success in the whole -north, this point is claimed 

 also. 



Point 4, a wall covered with glass is better than an un- 

 heated orchard-house, span or lean-to, or is not equal to a 

 wall covered with glass for the production of Peaches or 

 Nectarines. No evidence against this is furnished, but Mr. 

 Pearson strives to make it appear that I advocated the 

 building of walls in preference to erecting orchard-houses. 

 My argument was and is, that Peaches and Nectarines have 

 been grown, and can be now, on walls with equal certainty 

 to those in orchard-houses with wooden sides and ends and a 

 glass roof. As for Apricots, they are grown more abundantly 

 and with greater certainty on cottage walls than in orchard- 

 houses. I do not think it necessary to show why a wall 

 covered with glass should be better suited for protecting 

 a Peach tree in the north than a frail structure of wood 

 and glass. If you build brick walls to your orchard- 

 house instead of wood and otherwise make it such as has 

 been employed for generations for the growth of Peaches 

 under the designation of a Peach-house, and call it an 

 orchard-house because the trees are in pots or planted out, 

 yet trained as standards, bushes, or pyramids, I think you 

 would be better thought of if you were to give things the 

 . same name as that by which our forefathers knew them. 



I now retire from the controversy ; and if anything like 

 wounds are felt, I can only hope that they will soon heal 

 kmdly and no pain be given when the sore is touched after- 

 wards. I have done with the subject.— G. Abbey. 



EVIDENCES OF PKOGEESS. 



We are told that in a religious periodical recently appeared 

 a dirge, entitled " Pray for Daventry," and we consequently 

 inquired what calamity had befallen the place. The reply 

 was neither clear nor satisfactory, but we waived further 

 inquiry, for we knew that we should ere long be at this 

 Bennavenna of the Britons ; and that visit being now 

 passed, we will note down a few facts which lead us to the 

 conclusion that the place is not altogether in a state aban- 

 doned — and improvable only by prayer. 



Talking over the recent discussion in our pages about 

 "foul brood," and inquiring if it had been noticed in the 

 neighbourhood of Daventry, we were referred to a Mr. Pid- 

 dington, and in search of that authority we at once set 

 forth. We found in him an example of that higher class of 

 artisan which was so rare fifty years since, that it may be 

 considered as a creation of the last quarter of a century. 

 " The schoolmaster being abroad " among artisans, facility 

 of intercourse with other places by the agencies of the rail- 

 road and penny postage, have raised this class from the 

 mighty multitude of English artisans. These artisans have 

 ever been distinguished for acuteness, thirst for information, 

 and mental independance. The agencies we have mentioned 

 placed the acquirement of knowledge within the easy reach 

 of them all; and those of them who had minds most capable 

 of improvement, and who were most sedulous to improve, 

 form that high class of artisan of which Mr. Piddington is so 

 good an example. 



We should not be justified in particularising all we noticed, 

 but we may say the neatness and comfort diffused over his 

 home, and the attention to arrangement and harmony of 

 colour in the small flower-beds of the small garden, indicated 

 a well-ordered mind and a cultivated taste — such comfort, 

 and neatness, and beauty, would not have been there if not 

 fully appreciated. We will only particularise of the garden 

 that we never saw anywhere else the edging of the leaves of 

 Geranium Golden Chain so brilliant. 



The apiary was in excellent order, and "foul brood" 

 unknown in it, though a greater number of dead lame have 

 been thrown out this year than is usual. There are about 

 twenty stocks in the old-fashioned straw hive, seven in 

 Marriott's hives, and one in a box-hive of Mr. Piddington's 

 own devising. The old-fashioned hives he will gradually 

 supersede, and he is about changing them all to a southern 



aspect, which he finds by far the best — there the bees being 

 stronger, and their honey-harvest the largest. Prom his 

 seven Marriott's hive3 he has this season taken more than 

 100 lbs. of honey in bell-glasses, yet the store for winter in 

 the hives is ample. 



Last year we visited the Horticultural Show at this town ; 

 and this year we reached it on the day of its annual Goose- 

 berry Show, but too late to see the fruit exhibited. 



In the course of our rambles round we reached Norton 

 Hall, the seat of the late Mr. Boutfield, one of the Vice- 

 Presidents of the Linnsean Society ; and we must record our 

 hope that Mr. Smalley, the intelligent manager and gar- 

 dener, will be permitted to complete the improvements — the 

 great improvements — which were in progress when Mr. 

 Boutfield died. They are worthy of the family motto, 

 "J'ay bonne cause," and so is the transformation of the 

 cottages around. They were miserable hovels ; but now they 

 are all substantial, comfortable dwellings, looking respect- 

 able, and fostering that good preservative from evil — self- 

 respect. 



The maternal grandfather of the late proprietor was the 

 celebrated Dr. Withering, author of the "Arrangement of 

 British Plants," and we note this for the purpose of record- 

 ing that an excellent portrait of him is among the numerous 

 pictures in the Hall. He is seated with a stem of the Pox- 

 glove (Digitalis purpurea), in his hand, for the use of which 

 in medicine he was an early and efficient advocate. 



Many other notes have we of progress in and about the 

 town, but they are of a character not the legitimate themes 

 of our columns, but the instances we have glanced over are 

 sufficient to testify that there is something to be thankful 

 for as well as to pray for at Daventry. — G. 



EFFECTS OF SMOKE ON VEGETATION. 



Dr. Voelckeb lately read a paper on " Smoke and its 

 Effects" before the School of Arts, and the following is a 

 passage from his lecture which especially interests the 

 agricultural reader : — 



"Wheat, Barley, Grass, and Clover, exposed to a smoky 

 atmosphere at an early stage of their growth, are visibly 

 affected in a short time. The tops of these plants turn first 

 red, then yellow, and finally white, and an effect is produced 

 not unlike that caused by frost or excessive drought. Corn 

 crops affected in this manner by smoke may recover to a 

 certain extent, but they never yield well, inasmuch as the 

 development of the plants becomes irregular, and the corn 

 ripens unequally. If cereals are attacked by smoke when 

 in flower, the ears do not fill well, and the grain is of a poor 

 quality. 



"Grass and Clover, more or less discoloured or bleached 

 and damaged by smoke, are disliked by cattle, and often re- 

 jected by them altogether. Smoke deteriorates the quality 

 and diminishes the quantity of Grass and Clover crops. 

 Plants with strongly developed leaves — for instance, Man- 

 golds, Swedes, Turnips, and other green crops — are less 

 liable to suffer injury from a smoky atmosphere. 



"Fruit and ornamental trees, on the other hand, are 

 readily affected by such an atmosphere. The leaves turn 

 yellow, brown, and finally black, and then drop. If the 

 leaves are destroyed two or three years in succession, the trees 

 become sickly, and finally die off. Fruit trees in blossom 

 attacked by smoke yield no fruit, or but a poor sickly crop. 



" During the combustion of coal much sulphurous acid is 

 generated, which is carried away by the smoke of the fire. 

 The injurious effects of smoke on vegetation are evidently 

 due to sulphurous acid — a gas which, according to experi- 

 ments made many years ago by Turner and Christdson, 

 causes the leaves of plants to drop when it is present in air 

 merely in the proportion of l-10,000th part. 



"Recently, experiments on the effects of air containing 

 small quantities of sulphurous acid upon vegetation have 

 been made in Germany by my friend Professor Stockhard, 

 of Tharand. Young Fir trees exposed two or three times 

 for two hours to air containing only l-20,000th, or even 

 l-80,000th, of sulphurous acid gas were completely bleached 

 in wet weather, and killed when they were exposed for a 

 longer time to air containing bo small a quantity of sul- 

 phurous acid. 



