February 17,1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 139 
syrup or sweet juice of flowers remain as it is gathered, we may well 
ask these questions, and come to the conclusion that bees have yet to 
learn the economy of labour. 
Let us take another consideration. If the gentleman who reviewed 
the “ Handy Book of Bees ” has had experience in supering, and has 
been observant in this work, he must have seen that the honey and 
combs in supers increase as fast at night when bees are at home as 
they do in the day when they are gathering honey in the fields. This 
being an unquestionable fact, it may be asked where the honey stored 
at night comes from. Intelligent reasoning, supported by the evi¬ 
dence of three senses—viz., seeing, tasting, and handling, supply 
the answer. 
I have taken as much as 15 tbs. of crude honey from a hive and 
jarred it up, and thus kept it for a considerable space of time. It 
never became honey in the jars. It was ultimately given to a hive 
on which was a super partly filled. The bees of this hive took it 
rapidly and converted it into honey proper. The reader will naturally 
ask why so much crude honey was allowed to accumulate in this hive. 
The explanation is easy. The hive was a strong one, without brood 
at the time, and therefore had plenty of empty cells and field hands. 
A glut of honey came, and so much of it was gathered by the bees 
during sunshine that they were unable to convert it all into real 
honey at nights (and this is not an uncommon occurrence during 
times of great gatherings of honey). The bees were driven from 
this hive on the evening of the fourth day of the honey glut. If 
they had been permitted to remain in their hive for some time longer, 
or if bad weather had kept them from outdoor work for a day or two, 
the 15 lbs. of flower syrup would have been reswallowed and dis¬ 
gorged and thus made into honey proper. If your reviewer would 
feed two hungry bees with good honey, and catch other two returning 
from the fields loaded with crude honey, and dissect the four bees if 
his tenderness of heart would allow him to do so, and examine their 
contents, he would be converted on the spot to the views I have 
enunciated. Though I have no interest in the sale of the book which 
has been named and revised, and which belongs wholly to the pub¬ 
lishers, I cordially thank the reviewer for his friendly and favourable 
notice of it.—A. Pettigrew. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
H. Cannell & Sons, Swanley, Kent.— Illustrated Floral Guide for 
1881. 
James Yates, Stockport.— Catalogue of Flower and Vegetable Seeds 
for 1881. 
W. W. Johnson <fc Son, 5, Bridge Street, Boston, Lincolnshire.— 
Catalogue of Vegetable and Flower Seeds. 
Wm. Hugh Gower, Tooting, London.— Catalogue of Floicer and 
Vegetable Seeds ( Illustrated ). 
Pruning Hollies (/. J., Cork).—You may slightly prune the shrubs now, 
doing the work with a sharp knife, severing the growths close to the leaves 
remaining on each shoot that is shortened. September is also a good time for 
pruning the shrubs. 
Cutting Down Roses (Idem). —If you have only “ 2 or 3 inches ” of stem 
destitute of foliage they will not be unsightly during the summer, and to plant 
more than 2 or S inches deeper than at present would probably injure the Roses 
considerably. Cannot you cut some of them down ? Fresh growths will be pro¬ 
duced freely from the old wood if the plants are healthy, but may not flower so 
freely the first season. In cutting down, however, you must be careful not to 
prune below the “worked” part, or you may have a cluster of Manetti growths. 
Hyacinths Defective (James Carter <t Co.). —We have carefully ex¬ 
amined the plants, and never dissected firmer, sounder, and more healthy 
bulbs. We consider the defects of the plants wholly due to some error in 
culture. Were the bulbs potted early enough ? Have the plants been supplied 
with over-strong stimulants ? Have they been placed in a warm house before 
the pots were filled with roots ? We have probably indicated the cause of the 
failure, and think the plants have been overfed and overforced. 
Grafting Oranges (IF. M., Doncaster).— The following extract from 
Mr. F. W. Bnrbidge’s work on the propagation of plants so well expresses what 
you require that we need add nothing to it:—“ Like all other cultivated fruits 
Oranges are extremely variable in earliness, size, colour, and flavour, this being 
partly owing to their being propagated from seed, and partly owing to the sudden 
development of sports or bud-variation. Good varieties are readily propagated 
by grafting on the Lemon stock or on seedlings of the common kinds. Seedling 
Lemons are found to be more vigorous, to grow faster, and to make better stocks 
than Oranges. Seeds taken from imported fruit grow freely if sown in moist 
earth and placed in a greenhouse or vinery, and these may be splice, whip, or 
side grafted in a close case in heat at almost any time, preference being given 
to the early months of the year when vegetation is most active.” 
Planting Seakale (J. Sands). —The roots may be planted in rich deeply 
trenched ground immediately the weather and soil are favourable for the work 
being cleanly performed. The rows may be 18 inches apart, and the sets a foot 
asunder in the rows. The terminal crowns should be removed, and growths will 
issue from dormant buds at the base. If the crowns are left they will only 
produce flowers, which exhaust the plants and retard the growth of the basal 
buds that must be depended upon for producing crowns to afford produce next 
year. The tops of the sets should be just beneath the surface of the soil. 
Early Prolific and Early Crimson Pine Strawberries (J. E., 
Aberystieith ).—They are not synonymous, as the annexed woodcuts and descrip¬ 
tions clearly show. Early Prolific .—Fruit 
large, and large medium. The woodcut de¬ 
picts a fair medium size. In some soils it 
is decidedly larger. Colour bright glossy 
vermilion, becoming a little darker when 
very ripe ; seeds slightly embedded ; flesh 
white, firm, and juicy, with a delicious re¬ 
freshing flavour peculiar to this variety 
alone. It is decidedly early. Early 
Crimson Pine. — Fruit handsome bright 
crimson colour; seeds rather prominent; 
flesh dullish white and sometimes pink, 
very juicy, with a rich piquant Pine 
flavour. The fruit is much like British 
Queen, observes similar shapes as it ripens, 
and lias an equally rich Pine flavour, 
but colours up better all over the fruit. 
It has the advantage also of coming in 
some three weeks before that excellent 
variety. Figures and descriptions of 
other varieties of Dr. Roden’s Strawberries 
will be found in our issues of September 
the 9th and 16th, 1875. 
Removing; Asparagus (Rus in 
Urbe ).—We doubt if it would be profitable 
to remove the Asparagus as you propose, 
as plants ten years of age can seldom be 
transplanted well, and never if they are 
removed before growth commences, when 
the work needs to be done with extreme Fig. 29.—Early Prolific, 
care, as if the growths an inch or so long 
are broken in transit or the roots dried by exposure success cannot be expected. 
Two-year-old plants are the best for removal and transplanting. Much labour 
is involved in taking up old plants to preserve their roots intact, and then even 
when great care is taken in transplanting—such as preserving the roots moist, 
and spreading them out their full length in the new position, working light 
soil amongst them, covering 4 inches deep, and watering them as needed—a 
great number often fail .to grow, and the remainder do not become quickly 
established. 
Cauliflowers for Succession (Dor-king ).—You may maintain a supply 
by sowing at intervals as recommended on page 118 last week. Early Dwarf 
Mammoth and Walcheren, with two additional sowings of Yeitch’s Autumn 
Fig. 30.—Early Crimson Pine. 
Giant in March and April. These, with good soil, culture, and shelter as needed, 
will produce heads from the end of May till January, and from January to May 
you may have Broccoli, the seed being sown from March till June. 
Cabbage Plants Clubbing (An Amateur ).—The clubbing to which you 
refer is known as ambury, a disease peculiar to the Cabbageworts, and is most 
common in light sandy soil. Cabbage plants are frequently infected with 
ambury in the seed bed, which infection appears in the form of a gall or wart 
on the stem near the roots. This wart contains a small white maggot, the larva 
of a little insect called the weevil. If on the gall and its tenant being removed 
the plant is again placed in the earth where it is to remain, unless it is again 
attacked the wound usually heals and the growth is little retarded ; on the other 
hand, if the gall is left undisturbed, the maggot continues to feed upon the 
alburnum or young woody part of the stem until the period arrives for its 
passing into the other insect form, previously to which it gnaws its way out 
through the exterior bark. The disease is now almost beyond the power of 
remedies. Your soil would be much benefited by a heavy dressing of lime and 
salt; the former at the rate of eighty bushels per acre, the latter at the rate of 
5 or 6 cwt., the whole being dug in as soon as weather permits and well mixed 
with the soil. The ambury may usually be avoided by frequent transplantings, 
for this enables the workman to remove the excrescences upon their first appear¬ 
ance, and renders the plants altogether more robust and ligneous, the plant in 
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