JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Febiutry 21, 1884, ] 
142 
ifc is a heavy crop when they swell to an average 10 lbs. of 
fruit. 
If the Vines are strong at the end of the fourth year the 
remaining portion of the border should be made. If any 
show signs of weakness give them a year’s freedom from the 
strain of fruit-bearing and encourage a young cane from near 
the base. When planted thickly as advised, after they have 
fruited for a number of years a young cane may be encouraged 
from the base of every alternate Vine, removing the lower 
spurs to give ifc light. After ifc has been grown one year 
remove the old Vine, and then allow the young cane to grow 
the following year without bearing fruit, so as to become 
thoroughly recruited. By this means the life of the plants is 
.renewed, and in consequence extra vigour and fruitfulness is 
the result.— Wn. Bahdney. 
NOTES FROM THE NORTH. 
~ Cypritedium Spicerianum. —Probably the flowers of this 
lovely Lady’s Slipper last longer in perfection than those of any 
other. There is a plant in bloom here that expanded its flowers the 
first week of November, and there is as yet (February 16th) not 
the slightest indications of its fading. The house in which it 
stands has been kept at 60° at night, with an amount of moisture 
sufficient for Vandas and similar Orchid 3 . The stock of plants 
from which the blooms were cut as they opened were removed 
a month since into a house where, from great command of 
pipes, the night temperature is easily kept at 70° with a very 
-moist atmosphere, and the effect has been magical in the 
expansion of leafage and deepening of their green. Evidently 
ifc is a plant that grows most vigorously in a high temperature 
.and saturated air. 
Vanda Sanderiana. — Two plants of this grand Vanda 
stood in our Vanda house all winter without showing signs of 
making fresh roots. It, too, was placed in the warmer and 
moister house along with C. Spicerianum, and it commenced 
to make roots almost directly. From the appearance of this Vanda 
I suspect it requires more heat than the tricolors or suavis. A 
writer has recently said that it resembles V. caerulea in its 
growth, but I fail to see anything like a resemblance in two 
plants of it here to some eight or nine plants of V. caerulea 
growing in the Cattieya house ; but perhaps there may be 
varieties of it, like all other Vandas. 
Calanthe Veitchii. —It is affirmed by some that there is 
■only one variety of Calanthe Veitchii, and that the variety of 
colour is merely the effect of exposure to different degrees of 
light. I, however, have grown the two varieties year after year 
side by side under precisely the same conditions, and have 
always found them quite fixed in their shades of colour as well 
as in the shape of their bulbs, and maintain that the one with 
the contracted middle part of the bulb is not worth growing as 
compared to the other. 
Dendrobium Hillii. — This distinct Dendrobe is well 
—worthy of more attention than it receives, and few Orchids are 
•more ornamental wdien well flowered. I have to-day (February 
16th) cut two spikes of it from one growth or stem, the flower¬ 
ing portions of which without the stalks measured 20 inches long. 
The same plant has several other spikes on it. It is considered 
a shy flowerer, but if grown in a cool airy house, and after it 
has made its growths it be kept dry for three or four months, 
It flowers freely enough. Our plant has not been shifted for 
eight or ten years, and the pot seems to be full of roots and 
nothing else. 
Material for Potting Orchids. —Having passed a very 
considerable number of Orchids through my hands in the opera¬ 
tion of potting during the last two months, I have noticed two 
things in particular—namely, that where epiphytes are found 
growing in sphagnum and crocks with next to no peat inter- 
mixed, the roots and growths were always in better condition 
than where the latter ingredient was more abundantly used, 
it would be difficult to understand how peat can get up a tree, 
though that does not by any means prove than an Orchid in 
the cleft of a tree does not get manured, but it must be directly 
from the surface. And it was also found that where such 
plants as Odontoglossums and Cattleyas have had a larger 
surface, but very little depth of material to grow in, they were 
in much better order than where the surface was less and the 
depth greater, an inference which might also be drawn from 
the condition of such plants growing on trees. By the way, a 
celebrated writer not very long since declared he saw lumps of 
loam sticking to newly imported masses of Odontoglossum 
Alexandra. It would be interesting to know how the loam got 
up the trees. In potting Cattleyas it was also found that where 
the crocks were placed edgeways the roots had a far more 
vigorous hold of them than when put into the pots less regard¬ 
less of their position. In clearing the old material from the 
roots a most effectual way is, after removing it all from the 
surface, to give the pot a few sudden plunge3 in a barrel of 
tepid water. This forces every particle of decayed material out 
at the surface and at the holes in bottom of pots, which operation 
is also most effectually carried out when the drainage is all 
carefully arranged edgeways, and where a plant has been found 
with its roots so welded to the inside of the pot that in many 
cases they must be vex - y much injured if an attempt were made 
to liberate them even by breaking the pots, they have been 
placed entire inside a larger pot when a shift into a larger was 
considered desirable. In this way the roots are not injured, 
and fresh-made ones find their way from the top into the larger 
pots. 
Mildness of the Weather.— This may be judged of when 
it is said that on Friday, February 2nd, all our large-foliage 
plants were taken out of the stoves into the yard and thoroughly 
drenched with petroleum and water to make sure that no insects 
were left on them as a preparatory operation to their being 
shifted into larger pots when that was necessary. Speaking of 
petroleum, it is the cheapest and most effectual of the many 
insecticides of which we have had experience, and the destruc¬ 
tion of mealy bug was despaired of till we employed petroleum. 
The enemy was so general that it was found in legions on the 
under sides of the iron gratings that form the paths of the 
houses ; but paraffin soon solved the problem, and I do not 
believe there is a bug in the place, nor has there been a plant 
injured by the oil.—D. Thomson, Drumlanrig. 
SPRING TREATMENT OF STRAWBERRY 
PLANTATIONS. 
The best of all ways of growing Strawberries is in rows, which 
may be from 1 foot to 2 feet apart, according to the variety. Some 
who only try to secure large fruits grow the plants singly, 3 feet 
apart every way, but in my opinion this is not the most profitable 
method. The best and most fruitful Strawberry plantation I have 
had was one where the rows were 3 feet apart—that is, from centre 
to centre of the rows, but each row was in reality 18 inches wide, 
and a bare space of the same extent was left between them. The 
plants in these strips were grown in a mass together, and as they 
have been in existence for ten years they have, through adding top- 
dressings, become higher than the ground between, and this is a 
great advantage both in keeping the blooms and fruits clean, and 
the crowns are well exposed to the action of the sun and atmosphere, 
which is an important point. 
Some growers, whose whole attention to their Strawberry planta¬ 
tion consists in gathering the fruit, allow what may at one time have 
been rows to become a mass of runners, and every inch of the surface 
of the soil is covered, but when this happens the plants will soon 
degenerate and fail to produce fruit of any reasonable size or in 
profitable quantity. It is this system of neglect I wish to speak 
against, and now is the time to remedy such evils. The first fine 
day should be taken advantage of to line off the original rows. 
Remove all superfluous plants, and leave the ground between the 
rows perfectly clean. In digging up the plants the whole of the soil 
need not be upset, but cutting them off like turf is the best way of 
clearing them, and to dispose of them finally they should be burned. 
All weeds should be taken up, and a sprinkling of short manure 
then placed amongst the plants. At the same time a good 
coating of manure should be applied to the cleansed ground, and 
this should be forked-in. As soon as the plants commence growing 
they will at once reap the benefit of this treatment, and by the time 
the fruits are swelling the cultivator will be well repaid for his 
labour. 
I always have all superfluous runners cleared from our plantations 
in the autumn, but some may not have the opportunity then, only 
the operation should not be delayed after this time, and the sooner 
the manure is applied the better. Rutting straw or dried grass around 
the plants at fruiting time to keep the fruit clean is very well, but 
this will neither increase the size nor number of the fruits. To do 
this manure is required liberally in poor soils, and that the plants 
may benefit fully by this they should have it to feed on from the 
time growth begins. Where the roots are plentiful near the surface 
it is not right to disturb and break them, and only a top-dressing 
should be given, but in the centres of the vacant spaces between the 
rows a good quantity may be forked into the soil, as the roots will 
find their way to it before long. Plantations which have only been 
