July 26, 1863 ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
83 
grown in pots, pans, or baskets, will all be produced by means of 
cuttings. The plants from cuttings are dwarf, and flower more pro¬ 
fusely than those produced in the ordinary way. 
Lsolcpis gracilis. — This is most useful for various purposes of 
decoration, either for using in the dwelling-house or for the edge of the 
stove or greenhouse stage. To have them in fresh and good condition 
abundance of water is needed in all stages, and they must be divided 
and repotted frequently. This is a good time to prepare a batch by 
•dividing a number and repotting them in 4-inch pots, which will under 
■cool treatment take the place of those now doing duty, which by autumn 
will have become unsightly. By dividing a number of plants three times 
during the year a supply of healthy plants will be maintained ; but this 
can be done more frequently if the demand is great. 
THE FLOWER GARDEN AND PLEASURE GROUND. 
Lawns and Wallts .—These if kept trim and neat, as they should be, 
add to the appearance of and contribute greatly to the enjoyment of 
a place by its proprietor and friends. The lawns should be mown and 
the edges cut at least once a week, and if there are any “bents ” or 
■flower stalks of weeds or grasses which the machine will not cut, these 
should be cut with a scythe. Where the grass is thin the collecting 
box may with advantage be left off the mowing machine. Gravel 
walks should not be hoed, but all coarse weeds are best pulled up, and 
if there are many small weeds appearing one of the simplest methods 
of getting rid of them is to dress the walks with rough salt obtained 
from manure dealers. This should be applied during hot sunny 
weather, and in sufficient quantities to just whiten the surface. Crude 
carbolic acid used at the rate of one ounce to a gallon of water and 
liberally applied with a rose watering pot, is both a cheap and effective 
remedy. Whatever destructive agent be employed, care must be taken 
not to let it touch either the roots and toDS of Box and other edgings, 
nor the lawn grass. 
Clipping Hedges .—Tbe summer trimming of the hedges of Box, 
Yews, and other Conifers should at once be completed. If delayed 
later the young growth following will not have time to become suffi¬ 
ciently hardened before the winter. This summer cutting is essential 
in many prominent positions, otherwise it is advisable to cut the hedges 
once only during the year, and that during the late winter or early 
■spring months. Treated in this manner they are hardier and retain 
their vigour longer than those more frequently clipped. Banks of 
Laurels should not be closely cut at this time, but all strong irregular 
growths may be shortened back or removed with the knife. For 
cutting the broad Yew and Box edges which form part of the flower 
gardens arranged in the Italian style, Ridgway’s hedge-clippers prove 
to be of great service, as with these they may be cut very quickly 
and neatly. 
Propagating Roses hy Cuttings .—In all gardens not exceptionally 
cold and heavy Roses succeed best on their own roots. The Hybrid 
Perpetuals especially are easily struck both during the late summer 
months and again in the autumn months. Cuttings may be made of 
shoots that have just flowered, taking these off with a heel or thin slice 
of old wood attached, and dibbling in either singly in 3-inch pots or 
thinly in larger pots. The soil employed should consist principally of 
loam and a little leaf mould, to which sand or road grit has been freely 
•added. The cuttings should be fixed firmly, be placed in a cold frame, 
and shaded for about three weeks, when they will have callused, and 
ought then to be placed in a mild bottom heat to root. They ought 
never to become dry at the roots, neither should they be saturated. 
When rooted, those in single pots may either be given a small shift or 
hardened off. Those struck in large pots should be potted off singly and 
returned to the frame till established, then gradually hardened and 
placed in a cold frame or pit for the winter. Later on strong well- 
ripened lengths of Hybrid Perpetuals may be rooted in the open ground, 
but in the case of the more delicate Teas, Noisettes, China, and Bourbon 
Roses the above method of striking in heat is the best method of 
propagating by cuttings. 
Layering Roses .—Many will have bought the set of Bennett’s new 
Hybrid Teas, and doubtless will be anxious to increase the stock. In 
most cases the plants will have been received with long and fairly strong 
flowerless shoots. If not already done, turn them out of the nursery 
pots, carefully pick off any sour unoccupied soil, and shift into larger 
pots, the soil employed to be loamy and gritty. Plunge the pots in a 
bed of good firm soil. Slice off the bark lengthways under every other 
bud, and peg these down firmly into the soil. Cover with a frame. 
Keep the plants watered, and when rooted detach the young plants and 
pot-off singly as in the case of the other sorts. 
m 
M 
S' 
HE BEE-KEEPER. 
. r-'i -i - ; -1 -T-' -1 ■ 
FOUL BROOD. 
I have some hives of bees which have done remarkably well, especi¬ 
ally one hive which has given me twenty-six l£-lb. sections, and has 
thirty-five more on it almost complete. It is an ordinary Woodbury 
Live, and threw off a very large swarm ; but beiDg anxious to have all the 
sections finished I returned it, and since then on examining the hive I 
discovered foul brood in it, which has been very prevalent in the district 
this year. I shall feel greatly obliged if any of your able apiarian 
correspondents would tell me if it is curable, and if so how I can cure 
it. All my stocks are very strong, and I would not like to destroy them 
if there is any way to save them. I trust some kind apiarian will be 
able to help— A Young Bee-keeper. 
OVERSTOCKING. 
The range of the honey bees’ flight is limited. The number of honey- 
producing flowers within that range is also limited as well as the capacity 
of the flowers to secrete honey. Granting these assertions, overstocking 
becomes a possibility. Does this possibility ever become a fact ? Let us 
examine the subject a little. First, how far do bees fly? Not what is 
the extent of their flight under peculiarly favourable circumstances, as, 
for instance, when they are following a receding honey flow on higher 
land, but how far do they fly on the average profitably in quest of surplus 
honey ? If we permit those of most ample experience to answer, they 
will tell us that forage must be within two miles of the hive in order to 
secure much gain in the surplus apartments of the same, and that it will 
be most profitable to have it within one and a half mile. Then we may 
place our apiaries three miles apart, giving to each one the jmsturage of 
nine square miles, or about 6000 acres. I believe Mr. Quinby preferred 
to place his yards no nearer than this, and thought about sixty colonies 
in each apiary gave the best results. Mr. C. Root places a still smaller 
number in many of his yards. Mr. Adam Grimm noticed that when as 
many as 100 stocks were kept in a place there was a diminution in the 
number of swarms, and that surplus honey was made per colony. He 
concludes by saying that “ if not more than fifty colonies are kept in a 
place and the yards are placed three miles apart there will be no danger 
of overstocking in ordinary seasons.” These are spring numbers, and it 
will be remembered that all the authorities quoted were in good localities. 
If fifty stocks are kept in a place and the number doubled it will 
require 2500 lbs. of honey for them winter stores ; nearly double this or 
5000 lbs. for brood-rearing and summer consumption. Therefore about 
4 tons of honey will have to be gathered before any surplus can be stored. 
A yield of 25 lbs. surplus per swarm, old and young, will require 
2500 lbs. more, or a total of 10,000 lbs. This is on the supposition that 
the comb is already built in which to store the honey. If comb founda¬ 
tion is furnished instead, we will consent to call it one-half more, or a 
total of 11,0001 lbs. If the bees have to construct the whole comb, 
unless the hives contain too small a quantity of old bees in proportion to 
young, we shall have to double the first amount, making a total of 
12,250 for a surplus of 25 lbs. of comb honey per hive. In the above I 
have purposely made a liberal estimate of honey consumed in the hive, 
but even then it figures up but little over 2 lbs. of ripened honey per 
acre; while many an acre will not contribute a pound of honey it may 
still be granted that in the average season many more pounds will be 
produced than gathered. What is the objection, then, to stocking heavier 
and permitting less to go to waste ? The period of greatest scarcity in 
most sections is in the spring. A honey dearth then is detrimental to 
brood-rearing, and is felt through the whole season. Feeding may be 
resorted to, but it was demonstrated last spring that nothing but natural 
resources or fresh honey and pollen from the flowers will stimulate suffi¬ 
ciently. I do not refer to early feeding, now abandoned by most bee¬ 
keepers, but to stimulating after the first brood hatches, when brood 
should be reared most abundantly. Again, if the field be overstocked in 
the fall, brood-rearing ceases too early, and it is the belief of many that 
this is one drawback to successful wintering. It is very certain that 
artificial feed at this season of the year will not take the place of natural 
supplies for securing brood. Then, again, when crowded on a range, even 
in flush times, bees lose much time in searching for honey from flower to 
flower when they have already been emptied, and they will even conde¬ 
scend at such times to gather honey before it is sufficiently ripened in 
the flowers as well as other poor honey, including aphis honey and honey- 
dew, all of which injures the quality of surplus and winter stores, making 
it almost impossible to winter bees under such conditions. 
It may be asked what proof we have that bees gather too. thin a honey 
and such is not sufficiently evaporated in the hive after being gathered. 
I answer that the proof is found in honey gathered in wet seasons, which 
is still thin after being sealed. Sugar may be substituted for honey in 
wintering, but it is a Herculean task to extract and feed after honey¬ 
gathering ceases, and after a little experience in feeding with grape sugar, 
white earth, and the other adulterants of sugar, it may be concluded that 
pool - honey is even safer than this. It will be found that a guarantee of 
purity does not always imply purity. This last winter I observed bees 
to drop down by the quart as if poisoned in a few sugar-fed swarms, and I 
noticed in the fall that it took much less water to melt some sugar 
guaranteed to be pure than it did of another brand containing no such 
guarantee. It is certain that grape sugar takes little water to melt it. 
We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that it is easy to overstock a 
range, and that overstocking often means not only the loss of surplus 
honey, but also the loss of the bees as well.—P. H. Elwood (in The 
American Apiculturist). 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Isaac Bunting, Creekside Nurseries, Yokohama, Japan .—List of Lilies 
and Orchids. 
