MAHCH. 



45 



main features in growing Easpberries and Strawberries. No man tears out the stomach and 

 entrails of his horse and pig in order to fatten them ; but this is what a man does when ho 

 despoils the roots and rootlets of his plants. I am encouraged to make the above remarks by 

 the numerous letters of thanks which I have recoived from yonr readers, in different 

 counties, for my Strawberry article. The preparation for Raspberries is precisely the same 

 as for Strawberries. I think the best distance is a yard from plant to plant, and from row 

 to row. The following Raspberries are well spoken of by Mr, Rivers, in his noble catalogue 

 of fruits : — Red Antwerp, Yellow Antwerp, Fillbasket, Fastolff (red), vulgarly called Falstaff, 

 Cuthill's Prince of Wales (red), Carter's Prolific (red). I have tried the Red Antwerp and 

 Pasfcolff ; but they bear no comparison for canes and crop to the Beepot, wbich, I suppose, is 

 the same as Knevett's Giant; moreover, it never blights. FinaUy, what a pity it is that 

 J ohn and "William should work so hard — first, in doing nothing : secondly, in doing worse 

 than nothing ; and that men generally who possess so acutely " five senses," should be so 

 lacking in the sixth and best of all, " common sense." 



Rushton Rectory. W. F. Radclyfee. 



DESTROYING ANTS. 



Some time since your pages contained an account of a particularly clever gardener who 

 hit upon the very ingenious plan of destroying ants by waiting, hammer in hand, and 

 killing all that appeared. I wish he were in my employment at sufficiently low wages. We 

 are pestered with ants in our hothouses ; and, though we kill large numbers, they abound 

 in many places where hot water cannot be applied, and this is the only remedy we find of 

 any use. I have often seen it stated that ants do no harm to plants, being merely in search 

 of insects or honeydew, excepting where they attack ripe fruit or injure the plants by throwing 

 up the soil. 



Knowing that many species of foreign ants live on vegetables, and observing many plants 

 infested by them looked ill and recovered when removed to another place, I have long had 

 my doubts about the harmless nature of these insects. Within the last few days I have had 

 positive proof they can do mischief. At the end of a large house full of forced Poses a 

 Grosse Mignonne Peach is trained on a wall ; it is now in full bloom, and the ants are eating- 

 out the anthers, pistils, and embryo fruit, leaving nothing but the petals surrounding a 

 hollow, empty cup. I presume they are in search of honey ; but if they adopt such a means 

 of obtaining it, may they not wound the foliage of a plant when its juices are in a saccharine 

 condition for the same purpose and thus cause honeydew P Trained, trees in a Peach-house 

 are no favourites of mine. If this were in a pot it might be removed ; as it is, the ants when 

 prevented climbing the stem mount by the wall, the nest cannot be destroyed without injuring 

 the roots of the Peach tree, and if the bloom is to be preserved the plan of the hammer is 

 the only one that occurs to me. You, Mr. Editor, are supposed to know everything ; pray 

 come to my assistance. — J. R. Pearson, Ghilwell. 



[In such circumstances there is nothing for it but to take Mr, Weaver's remedy of 

 il Catch 'em and kill 'em."] 



NOTES ON NURSERIES. 



Mb. Williams, Hoxxoway. — A recent call at this nursery rewarded us with a first sight 

 of Phalcenopsis Schilleriana — an Orchid which had largely excited the hopes and fears of 

 cultivators, but which has now proved itself to be a gem of the first water. The leaves of 

 this plant, which are elongately oblong and blunt, are freely mottled with white, so that 

 when out of flower the plant is interesting as a variegated Orchid. The flowers, moreover, 

 are really handsome, and produced in well-furnished spikes— the best we have yet seen, being 

 branched, and bearing sixteen expanded flowers as shown by R. Warner, Esq., at Kensington. 

 They measure about 3 inches across the expanse of the petals, and except in colour, which 

 is a delicate and lovely lilac-tinted rose, remind one strongly of P. amabilis. The side lobes 

 of the lip are yellow at the base, spotted with red ; otherwise the lip is rosy, widened 

 about the middle, then contracted, and again widening at the extremity, when it is truncately 

 rounded, with the two corners extended into longish. The plants are reported to bear a 

 large number of flowers when in a vigorous condition. There are varieties already observed, 

 some differences being apparent in the marking of the leaves, and some in the tint of the 

 flowers and breadth of the petals. The plant has been recently imported from Manilla. 



Messrs. Backhouse & Son, Yomc. — The Nursery of Messrs. Backhouse has only 

 become famous for its collection of Film Ferns, to the formation of which it has been well 

 known that Mr. J. Backhouse, jun., has devoted untiring attention. This has been rewarded 

 by the gradual accumulation of what is probably the finest collection of Hying plants of this 



