4G6 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
fully when growth begins again. But too often this is not 
attended to, and the shoot is hacked olf with a long slope, as 
at b, fig. 3, to the serious detriment of the future shoot. These 
are some of the minor details which seriously affect success and 
must have due attention. There must be no foolish hacking and 
hewing in fruit culture, but one should be able to give a reason 
for every cut of the pruning knife. Watchfulness and care will 
soon enable one to work with confidence and to aim at results 
which are worth our best efforts, and are by no means difficult of 
attainment to a really earnest man.— Edward Luckhurst. 
QUEEN WASPS. 
Now that “ Y. B. A. Z.” has explained that he wished me to 
say what I believed to be the natural history of the common 
wasp, I must decline to enter into so large a subject which I have 
never studied or professed to study. My first letter simply gave 
the result of sundry observations on one point in it, and I see no 
reason for going further afield. 
As “ Y. B. A. Z.,” when he says “ that every wasp appearing in 
spring is a fertilised queen,” meant that a certain number (large 
or small) were unfertilised, and that the said unfertilised queens 
do appear in spring, I fear that his words and the meaning he 
now attaches to them are self-contradictory. I do not doubt that 
the spring queens are the parents of the autumn nests, nor have 
I ever said anything that would seem to question it. I never 
took a nest in winter, nor do I remember ever seeing a queen 
before (about) March 16th, but I do not see how this is relative 
to the discussion.— Duckwing. 
FERTILISERS—POTASH, SODA, AND MAGNESIA. 
Apologies and recrimination in the course of a discussion are 
apt to impair its usefulness, and to be tedious to a reader who 
wants to learn the truth and cares for nothing further. Iu the 
numerous ramifications of the discussion between “ Single- 
handed ” and myself there is already a danger that the main 
points may be lost sight of, and I will refrain from importing 
extraneous matter as much as possible. I sorrowfully admit that, 
like many others, I am too liable to a want of proper attention in 
reading an opponent’s statements, and very often misinterpret 
his views without intending to do so ; and I hope that “ Single- 
handed ” will accept this general confession, and allow me at 
once to go to the matters on which I must still sign myself, as 
hitherto, an inquirer. 
Your correspondent adduces, as an illustration of his theory, 
a case in which an interchange of acids between salts of ammonia 
and potash must have taken place. This, though a good exempli¬ 
fication of chemical reaction, affords no proof of the necessity of 
the conversion of sulphate of potash into carbonate in order that 
the potash may become fit for the nutrition of plants. At page 284 
“ Single-handed ” expresses surprise at my statement that 
agricultural chemists do not return, as a matter of course, the 
potash present as having a money value in an analysis and valu¬ 
ation of a manure ; but in his last letter he affords a strong con¬ 
firmation that my statement was correct, for in advocating the 
importance of potash as an ingredient of manure he complains of 
the tendency among manufacturing chemists “ to place perhaps 
too little value on everything but nitrogen and soluble phosphates.” 
This tendency is the natural result of the practice of the agricul¬ 
tural analytical chemist on which I remarked ; and it was because 
I thought that there was a tendency on the part of “ Single- 
handed ” to place an undue value on the importance of adding 
potash to farmyard manure as a general practice that I entered 
upon this discussion. Dr. Yoelcker’s report that crude potash salts 
had been sometimes harmful in common with extracts, showing 
that they were sometimes beneficial, were quoted, I again repeat, 
solely to show that “ Single-handed” was scarcely justified 
in claiming Dr. Voelcker’s support for his views. Let me ask 
“Single-handed” to read again my letters at pages 325 and 
326, and at page 381. 
I now pass on to the Cork experiments. I admit readily that 
the chloride of sodium present with the kainit used as manure 
may have contributed to the surprising result, but I maintain that 
the beneficial effects derived from the chloride of sodium were 
probably small in comparison of those of the potash and magnesia 
of the kainit; first because the ash of the Potato plant contains 
very large quantities of both potash and magnesia, and secondly 
because equally successful results were obtained with firnus, of 
which the dominant constituent is phosphate of magnesia, a small 
proportion only of potash being present in the manure, though 
apparently sufficient for the wants of the plant. I am puzzled as 
to what “ Single-handed ” means when he says (page 425), 
“ I ventured to doubt that the potash in the kainit had anything 
to do w r ith the manure.” On referring to page 368, as he requests 
me to do, I can discover nothing to help me to understand his 
doubt or his line of argument. I am equally perplexed with 
what he says respecting the supposed injurious effects of chloride 
of magnesia. At page 368 “ Single-handed ” observed in the 
P.S. of his letter, “ ‘Inquirer’ quotes the words of Dr. Voelcker 
to show that potash salts are sometimes hurtful,” an intention 
which I have more than once disclaimed. “ Are we to attribute 
such effects to the potash or the chloride of magnesia ? We believe 
the latter and not the potash does the mischief.” He says that 
I have not apprehended his meaning in the matter of his query, 
and that “ it was a query and not an assertion.” But surely a 
query of this kind, coupled with an expression of his own belief 
in regard to the trustfulness of magnesia chloride, is some justifi¬ 
cation of my remark that he “ apparently shares in the popular view 
of the bad qualities of magnesia as an agricultural application.” 
I have only one other observation to make. “ Magnesia,” as 
“ Single-handed ” observes, undoubtedly “is one of the recog¬ 
nised wants of plants but it is by no means an addition univer¬ 
sally recognised as advisable in the manufacture of manures, any 
more than is the necessity of adding potash recognised. The soil 
is supposed to be sufficiently provided with these ingredients, espe¬ 
cially with the latter. This I believe to be a serious mistake. 
Referring, again, to the letter of your correspondent “ B.” at 
page 398 respecting the use of chloride of potassium in agricul¬ 
ture and the preference shown to that form of potash as compared 
with sulphate. There is one disadvantage attending the use of 
the former mentioned by Liebig in his “ Laws of Husbandry ” 
which calls for some attention in estimating the merits of the 
two salts. 
In cultivating by the system of farmyard manuring and rotation 
of crops it is found that for a long time the soil becomes richer 
in potash, Sec., after each rotation, and more rank and prone to 
grow weeds. The most noxious of these are the wild Radish, the 
Corncockle, the Cornflower or Bluebottle, the German Chamomile, 
and the Corn Chamomile. All these plants contain in their ash 
as much potash as is found in Clover and 7 to 18 per cent, of 
chloride of potassium, a salt which forms one of the principal 
constituents of the urine of animals, and which is brought to the 
field in the farmyard mauure.— INQUIRER. 
As “ Inquirer ” has settled the question of potash as a chlo¬ 
ride being the cheaper form, I will only shortly follow “ Single- 
handed ” in his remarks in last week’s issue. 1, I have all along 
been aware of the practical inability to procure any manufactured 
manurial agents at the per-ceutage they ought to be when pure. 
2, I quoted an assertion of Ville’s merely to show the value that 
may be placed on such a quotation as the one “Single-handed” 
made use of. The fact that Ville employed irrigation and the dif¬ 
ference of climate must in fairness be taken into account when 
judging the value of his propositions. 3, “ Single-handed ” is 
surely incorrect in stating that chemists conclude soda to be un¬ 
necessary as a plant food. That plants obtain a sufficient supply 
of soda without its being necessary to apply it manurially is quite 
another question, and has for many years been allowed, and your 
correspondent has recommended soda as a manure for Straw¬ 
berries ! 4, The hypothesis as to common salt is very plausible, 
but on a bare piece of gravel, for instance, heavily and regularly 
salted over a long series of years, where are the “ unavailable 
supplies ” to come from ? I may have something to state with 
regard to effects of different manures on various crops later on. 
Meanwhile I do not see that it will be useful to prolong the dis¬ 
cussion.—B. 
MR. PENSON'S AURICULAS. 
I would much like to be allowed to contradict a statement 
made by “ D., Deal," in his notice of this collection of Auriculas 
—viz., that Mr. Penson’s purchases were mainly made from me. 
I do not 6ell Auriculas to amateurs, and told Mr. Penson so, but 
I let him have four plants, which he could not get elsewhere, as 
a favour, and that so recently that he cannot have propagated a 
single offset from one of them. Your Journal is so widely read 
by amateurs to whom I have refused to sell plants, that if you 
would allow me to state once for all that I do not sell Auriculas, 
it will save me a great deal of trouble replying to unnecessary 
correspondence. I am glad to agree with “ D., Deal," in one 
thing, and that is in his high opinion of Mr. Penson's plants. 
They are exceedingly well grown and flowered, and the collection 
contains some really choice varieties, and it is very pleasing to 
state that other amateurs are springing up in the south who are 
