12S 
CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
form temperature. When required for use, 
they should be unpacked a few at a time, in 
the order in which the different varieties 
ripen ; and after laying a few days in the 
cool atmosphere of the fruit-room, they should 
be submitted for a day or two more, just 
before they are wanted, to a temperature of 
about sixty degrees. This applies to the later 
kinds. The choice fruits of the summer and 
autumn kinds should be as carefully gathered, 
and removed to the fruit-room until they are 
wanted for use. 
Preserving wall fruits. — Such fruits as 
the peach, apricot, plum, &c. may be kept 
for a week or more, if gathered when ripe, 
and laid carefully without a bruise and thinly 
on the shelves of a dry cool fruit-room, where 
there is a uniform low temperature. The 
same principle must be followed when it is 
required to keep such small fruits as straw- 
berries, raspberries, cherries, gooseberries, 
currants, &c. for a few days. 
American blight. — In the Horticultural 
Society's garden, a number of apple-trees 
affected by the American blight have been 
cleared by the use of coal-tar naphtha applied 
with a small brush. The least touch of the 
naphtha destroys the insects ; but, in order 
to economise labour as well as material, it is 
desirable to cut away or shorten in all in- 
fested twigs that can be spared, previous to 
dressing the trees. When the pest is esta- 
blished it takes some perseverance and watch- 
fulness, however, to get quite rid of it, for, if 
neglected for a time, a fresh race springs up. 
The matter is, however, worth perseverance, 
and if this be bestowed, a complete cure will 
in due time be effected. 
Fairbeard's Champion of England fea. 
— This has been grown in the Chiswiek gar- 
den, and is reported as a variety meriting 
attention. The pods are large, and well 
filled with large — perhaps, for some, too large 
— peas; but they are tender, and of good 
quality, and are, therefore, worthy of being 
cultivated. 
Herbaceous inarching wall trees. — 
Various means are resorted to by gardeners 
to supply a deficiency of branches in wall 
trees, and with greater or less success ; we 
imagine, however, that the following French 
mode, which may be termed herbaceous in- 
arching, so far at least as the scion is con- 
cerned, offers advantages over every other 
plan at present in use. It is adopted in the 
Horticultural Society's garden, and consists 
in inarching the growing extremities of ad- 
joining shoots to the parts of the stem from 
which it is desirable branches should proceed. 
A small slice is taken off near the extremity 
of the young shoot, and a corresponding ex- 
tent of surface immediately below the inner 
bark of the stem is exposed ; the two are 
joined together and a perfect union is very 
soon effected. By this means tiers of horizon- 
tals in young trees may be formed without 
disappointment, and branches may be replaced 
in old trees more readily than by the old 
mode of side-grafting or budding. — G. C 
Earthing up culinary crops, such as 
cauliflowers, brocoli, beans, &c. is often at- 
tended with more injury than benefit. This 
is usually the case, when the draw-hoe only 
is used in performing the operation, its work 
being superficial, and the trampling back- 
wards and forwards between the rows, ren- 
dering the spaces between them almost as 
hard as gravel -walks, thus forming ditches 
in wet weather, and breaking into great 
cracks and fissures during periods of drought. 
In the case of crops which it is desirable to 
earth up in this manner, the spaces between 
the ridges should, after the other part of the 
operation is completed, be well broken up 
with the fork or the pronged hoe ; and in 
this way the advantages of surface-stirring 
will be realized. 
Mildew on greenhouse plants. — It 
often happens that hard-wooded greenhouse 
plants of the more delicate kinds, such as 
chorozemas, for example, suffer much during 
the summer season from attacks both of mil- 
dew and of red acarus (or red spider, as it is 
commonly called). They must, therefore, be 
closely watched. To guard against these 
pests, both as concerns these and similar 
plants, it is a good plan to lay the plants on 
their sides and give them a thorough syring- 
ing with clear water ; and then, while they 
are wet, to dust the plants over, both the 
under and upper side of the leaves, with sul- 
phur. In a week or ten daj'S this may be 
washed off. This will generally clear the 
plants for the season. The washing or syring- 
ing should be a bona fide one. The pots may 
be supported in a one-sided direction by set- 
ting two bricks V fashion, but not quite close 
together, against which to lean them ; the 
syringing will then command the under-side 
of the leaves and branches, as well as the 
upper and lateral surfaces. It is not a few 
syringefuls of water either that will suffice for 
these washings. Every plant, of any size, 
should have two or three gallons of water, or 
more, thrown over them, and usually with as 
much force as the syringe will command : of 
course a little judgment must be exercised, so 
as not to drive the water in a direction to 
break or damage the plants. By leaning the 
pots in the way recommended, too, another 
advantage is gained ; most of the water drips 
off instead of — as it would otherwise do — 
of running down the stems, and injuriously 
saturating the soil in the pots. 
