204 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 6, 18&3. 
present it is not necessary to give potash. Few garden crops 
possess this power—hence little silica is found, either as a part 
of them or as an excretion in or on them. For this reason an 
application of potassic chloride or sulphate may tell effectively 
when applied to many garden soils, and yet have little effect on 
cereals in the same soil. 
Silica is abundantly present in all soils and in all ordinary 
manures. It is not, therefore, necessary to trouble about its 
application. 
MANGANESE, &C. 
Very little is known about the part taken by this metal in 
vegetation. In most plants mere traces are found, although in 
one instance as much as 11 per cent, was found in Beech ashes. 
Professor Johnson mentions that “gardeners mix it with the 
soil to improve Roses; ” but in wliat way they are improved we 
cannot say. 
Aluminium has been found in Lycopods by Professor Church, 
but is seldom present in ordinary plants. 
Fluorine is found in the teeth of animals which deiive their 
nutriment from plants. Iodine is extracted from certain sea¬ 
weeds, and is occasionally detected in garden plants, but only in 
the merest traces. 
Bromine, copper, lead, lithium, caesium, and rubidium are 
also occasionally to be found in plants, but it is supposed that 
their presence is an accident. Among the matteixs which plants 
must get in the soil nitrogen ranks first, phosphorus next, then 
potash, lime, and magnesia. In what order we rank chlorine, 
soda, silica, manganese, &c., does not greatly matter. Possibly 
they are here placed in their proper order.— Single-handed. 
SOWING ANNUALS. 
The present is a good time to sow a few seeds of some of the better 
class of annuals, such as the Cornflower, Schizanthus pinnatus, Sweet 
Scabious, &c., for conservatory use in the spring. The seed pots should 
be placed in a cold frame, and as soon as the plants are up they should 
be pricked off singly into small 60-pots and kept close for a few days ; 
afterwards gradually expose them to full sun and air. When 2 or 3 inches 
high pinch out the points to make the plants bushy. When the small 
pots are filled with roots give the plants a shift into 4 or 5-inch pots. 
Winter in a dry airy pit free from frost, or, better still, in a cool green¬ 
house. Annuals treated in this way amply repay the labour bestowed 
upon them. A few plants of Chrysanthemum coronarium grown in the 
same way will also be found very useful.—E. B. 
COLOURING- OF GRAPES. 
At page 91 of your present volume “ Dunedin,” who is evidently 
a careful observer, mentions a fact, “ that one grower, the intense 
colour of whose black Grapes is the admiration of all who see them, 
puts himself to much trouble to Keep the air of his vineries moist 
while the Grapes are finishing .... but it is only the black 
Grapes which are thus brought to perfection. White Grapes are 
never of the golden tint we wish to see.” 
He goes on to say that “ not far off in the same locality is another 
grower, by no means even a fair one, whose black Grapes are never 
more than rusty, but (and this point is worth noticing) his inferior 
Muscats .... inferior—that is, as a crop, and in bunch and berry 
are generally beautifully golden. He practises extreme dryness. 
Now, we personally have always had the finest-coloured black Grapes 
in wet almost sunless seasons, and the worst whites. When dryness 
and blight sunshine prevailed the whites were better and the blacks 
worse,” and he concludes from this that sunshine and dryness spoil 
black Grapes, and that shade and moisture spoil white ones. 
-Now, although your correspondent’s observations and conclusions 
are highly creditable as confined to the small area to which they 
extend, and we are indebted to him for bringing to the front a sub¬ 
ject which has no doubt puzzled others as well as himself, yet if he 
takes a wider range he will, I think, soon find that his conclusions 
are not entirely sound. For instance, it is possible to point out cer¬ 
tain places where both blacks and whites are finished perfectly and 
simultaneously under exactly the same treatment, and where the 
management is such that, although a fine season is preferred and 
highly appreciated, yet a bad season does not prevent the production 
of first class fruit of both colours. 
“ Dunedin ” rightly says that “ the dry air and dry borders aimed 
at in finishing black Grapes is a mistake.” Most assuredly it is, and 
I thought such a practice was now obsolete. I will add that it is an 
equal mistake to have any dry air and dry borders for the finishing of 
Muscats, and will try to show that your correspondent has put the 
saddle on the wrong horse. 
First, let me say that the effects of damping down a house when 
it is open and when it is shut are entirely different. Pour a quantity 
of water down with the ventilators wide open on a bright sunny day, 
and you will lower the temperature somewhat and soften the atmo¬ 
sphere considerably. This treatment with Hamburghs, Alicante, 
Mrs. Pince, Madresfield Court, and some others which do not require 
a high temperature during their second swelling will have a beneficial 
effect whenever the temperature is likely to rise much above 85°. 
On the other hand, Muscat of Alexandria, Lady Downe’s, and 
some others which require a high temperature during their second 
swelling as much as at any time, are not benefited to the same extent 
by the damping-down unless there is provision made for keeping up 
the mean temperature somewhat in excess of that required for the 
first-named class of Grapes. 
But it is not the state of the air as to humidity at all which makes 
the difference observed by “ Dunedin.” It is the amount of light, 
received by the leaves and fruits. Muscats cannot be coloured in a 
sunless season except in the lightest and best managed houses. Black 
Grapes can be coloured in any season, but of course we vary our 
treatment somewhat to meet the different conditions. 
There is not one garden in twenty where Muscats are allowed 
sufficient room, and consequently they do not get sufficient light. In 
a hot dry season the light of course penetrates the thicket to some 
exteut, and better coloured fruit is the result, while in a dull season 
it may often fairly be said that the fruit does not ripen at all. All 
this, however, is entirely under the control of the cultivator if he has 
a good house and knows how to use it. 
Black Grapes will colour under the densest foliage even in a dull 
season, but they will not keep as well as those which have been only 
moderately shaded and have had the wood pretty well ripened. 
With regard to the case mentioned by “ Dunedin ” of the inferior 
Muscats becoming a beautiful golden colour, he is probably again in 
error in attributing the colouring to the dryness of the atmosphere. 
Undersized fruit, provided the foliage is kept healthy, is much easier 
to colour than large fruit; and undersized fruit generally, too, means 
undersized leaves, so that the light has a better chance of acting on 
them. —Wm. Taylor. 
CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM FOR WASP NESTS. 
Your correspondent “T. W. S.,” in mentioning cyanide of potassium 
as the best thing for taking wasp nests, has certainly spotted the 
right remedy ; but it is by the remarks given made far less convenient 
than it really is. I have used it for many years, and always with the 
greatest satisfaction; indeed, only yesterday I submitted it to the 
severest test. I have yet given it, and nothing could be more complete. 
Indeed, the young lady of the house describing it to a friend said I had 
sent “ hundreds of wasps to rest, the charge of Balaclava being nothing 
to it,” and I daresay many of those noble fellows would have preferred 
that death ride to my little experience of yesterday. 
What I wish to impress on your correspondent, and on all who try 
the cyanide, is, that it is quite unnecessary to take hours over it—gene¬ 
rally half an hour is ample. My plan is to make a strong solution of 
the cyanide, which your correspondent rightly remarks is most poisonous 
and needs care in using. I then repair to the nest armed with my bottle 
and a piece of moistened lint, generally two thicknesses, and the water 
squeezed out as dry as possible. I treat the wasps as I do the bees—I 
am as gentle in all my manipulations as possible. Firstly, if necessary, 
I enlarge the hole with a knife, and then wetting my lint with the solu¬ 
tion I take it on a piece of stick, so as not to handle it more than neces¬ 
sary. I place the lint on the lower margin of the entrance hole, so as to 
form a poisoned alighting board for the wasps. The effect is speedy, 
each wasp alighting on it either quickly falls on one side or enters the 
nest never to come out again, for the vapour goes into the hive, and soon 
the passage is choked. While the wasps are returning home one may 
notice that none come out, and soon in ordinary cases at the end of 
fifteen minutes there is absence either of those coming out or going in. 
When this condition has arrived you may begin to dig out. All the 
wasps will be found motionless, though here and there some may be 
sluggishly moving. The nest being dug out it may be put in a pail of 
water or otherwise broken up. 
The nest taken out yesterday was without exception the very largest 
I have seen—about 15 to 18 inches in length, 12 in breadth, and 9 in 
depth. It was situated under the tiles of the roof of a bow window. 
The house being an old one, the cement between the tiles was lacking 
almost everywhere, and the wasps being particularly.numerous I found 
they used half a dozen apertures. Some of these were stopped up with 
difficulty, and pieces of lint steeped in the solution were placed at some of 
the openings; but the points of ingress and egress were so numerous that 
the progress was very slow, so many of them escaping the lint. It wa3 
more than an hour before I found matters sufficiently quiet to allow me 
to remove one or two of the tiles. The huge nest then showed up beauti¬ 
fully ; it occupied the whole space between two of the rafters, and ex¬ 
tending under the inner was continued in the space beyond. It was, 
however, built over the wood supporting the rafters, and, after sawing 
through three or four of the laths supporting the tiles, I was able to glide 
a spade along under the nest and lift out the greater portion, which was 
deposited in a large washing tub. The nest was, however, so large that 
great numbers of the wasps were alive on the lower portion, the spade 
having divided the nest. A little more solution dropped on the nest 
enabled me to get the remainder out and place it in another tub. Float- 
