226 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



experimental grounds are at Santa Rosa, California, has raised 

 a considerable number of hybrids between the American and 

 Japanese races of plums, and also some cross-bred prunes, which 

 he describes as of great merit. I cannot speak of any of them 

 from personal observation. 



In conclusion, may I say a word about the value of the plum 

 for filling up gaps in old orchards. Most practical orchardists 

 know how useless it is to replant apple-trees on the site where 

 apples have been grown previously (though alas there are 

 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of trees condemned to a lingering 

 death each year for lack of this knowledge), whereas plums will 

 grow very well in such places if the land be fairly fertile. I have 

 omitted to say anything about the enemies of the plum ; they 

 are not many, and most of them easy of conquest. Perhaps 

 from this very cause it arises that one so frequently sees the 

 trees at this season of the year smothered up with aphis. The 

 sluggard says they will do no harm, but the careful cultivator 

 knows full well that they will weaken the shoots, prevent their 

 ripening, and so destroy the chance of either fruit or good growth 

 in the coming season. 



These rough notes, written down at odd moments in a busy 

 life, are offered, trusting they may be found to contain a few 

 practical truths, and that attention may be drawn to a fruit 

 which is at present somewhat neglected in our gardens. 



NEPENTHES. 

 By Mr. Harry James Veitch, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., &c. 



[Read September 7, 1897.] 



I propose to deal with Nepenthes almost solely from a horti- 

 cultural standpoint. The part played in the economy of the 

 plant by those curious appendages of the leaves, to which we give 

 the name of pitchers ; how they act as traps to decoy insects 

 and other small animals ; how the bodies of these creatures are 

 decomposed by a fluid secreted from the walls of the pitcher ; 

 the chemical composition of this fluid, and the minute structure 

 of the apparatus that secretes it ; all these and other interesting 



