512 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ December 2, 1880. 
branches off fruit trees is usually followed by half a dozen fresh growths near 
the severed parts, and if these are permitted to extend the trees are soon more 
crowded than before; hence our advice not to shorten the branches. The 
growths issuing from the main stems are easily disposed of in the spring by 
rubbing them off, not cutting them, when they are an inch long in the spring. 
This is an important corollary of pruning, and is not sufficiently attended to. 
We have seen some trees spoiled by pruning when afterwards neglected in dis¬ 
budding, and, on the contrary, have seen many fruit trees greatly benefited by 
the judicious use of the saw and knife in winter and the thumb and finger in 
spring. The present is the time for thinning the trees ; and so far as we under¬ 
stand their condition from your lucid letter we think they would be benefited 
by the treatment suggested, provided, as we before observed, they are not growing 
thinly in a very exposed position. 
New Roses (./. B.). —It is doubtful if any of the Roses you name will 
be eligible for competition in the class for new Roses of 1878, 1879, and 
1880. Charles Baltet, Edouard Dufour, Madame Chevrot, and Mdlle. Marie 
Verdier are varieties of 1877. We do not know the dates of introduction of 
Mrs. Berners and Prince de Joinville, and we are not acquainted with the 
variety “ Madame Levette.” Perhaps some of our readers can supply the infor¬ 
mation. No twelve Roses that can be named, only one plant of each being 
grown, would enable you to stage twelve exhibition blooms on a given day in 
1881. and especially since they have to be purchased and planted. We name 
some good varieties that will be eligible for the class in question, but we must 
inform you that even if you purchase all of them your chance of winning a 
prize in the class next year will be extremely remote. If you plant them now 
in good soil so as to have strong plants during the summer, and also insert buds 
in Manetti and dwarf Briar stocks, you may succeed by obtaining blooms either 
from the cutbacks or the maidens in 1882 that would enable you to achieve your 
object. Twenty-four good new Roses are Dr. Sewell, Duchess of Bedford, Coun¬ 
tess of Rosebery, Harrison Weir, Pride of Waltham, Crown Prince, Duke of Teck, 
Mrs. Jowitt, Penelope Mayo, Dr. Hogg, May Queunell, Mr. Laxton, Robert 
Marnock, John Bright, Gloire de Bourg-la-Reine, Jules Finger, Henriette Petit, 
May Quennell, Glory of Chesliunt, Mrs. Harry Turner, Marquis of Salisbury, 
Masterpiece, Dean of Windsor, and Charles Darwin. You had better add to rather 
than diminish the number if you intend carrying out your project, especially as 
a few of those named may not be admissible in a class for “ New Roses ’’ in 
1882. 
Names of Fruits (Owen). — 1, Like Bringewood Pippin ; 2, Red Ingestrie. 
Names of Plants (P. R .).—The Rose you have sent is not Devoni- 
ensis, it more resembles the China Rose Mrs. Bosanquet. AVe do not 
undertake to name Roses nor varieties of any florists’ flowers, only species. 
(II. I!.). —1, Asplenium viviparum ; 2, Phlebodium aureum ; 3, Adiantum cunea- 
tum ; 4, Adiantum trapeziforme. (Mr. Owen). —1, Too withered, flowers also 
needed ; 2, Sedurn aizoideum variegatum; 3, Selaginella uncinata. (J. IF.).—The 
plant is a Tydiea, but as it was only accompanied by one flower, and that much 
crushed, we are unable to give the name of the variety, nor do we undertake to 
name varieties of flowers, only species ; still we give the names of those that we 
can readily recognise. (H. A. II.). —The fragments of stems you send are in¬ 
sufficient for us to deteimine the plant to which they belong, but if you forward 
flowers or a description of the habit of the plant we may be enabled to name it. 
(Field). —The shrub is Garrya elliptica. The Fern is Aspidium aculeatum. 
POULTRY, PIGEON, AND BEE CHRONICLE. 
THE CULTIVATION AND GROWTH OF MAIZE. 
The cultivation and growth of this crop has of late years at¬ 
tracted little attention in this country, although in various foreign 
lands it is as much, or even more, thought of for profitable culti¬ 
vation than at any former period. In referring to the experiments 
and facts relating to its growth in England we shall have to go 
back for a long period, and even th?n it assumed somewhat the 
character of amusement and experiment in the hands of amateurs. 
Whatever may be its merits the ordinary occupiers of land did 
not believe that it was of much advantage to them. It should, 
however, be understood by the home farmers that cultivating 
Maize in this country is very different from that adopted in 
America, where the climate and other circumstances are so diffe¬ 
rent from those of England. It must also be remembered that in 
case of its being cultivated in the agricultural districts of this 
country to any important extent the same varieties of Maize 
would not ripen in our climate, which in America furnish so 
large a portion of its produce. Enormous quantities are imported 
which stand high in the estimation of feeders of stock, whether 
of cattle, sheep, pigs, or horses, and the quantity usually con¬ 
sumed here is extremely large, and is sold at such a reasonable 
price as to greatly depreciate the value of nearly all the cereals 
and pulse crops commonly grown in this kingdom. The attempts 
to grow Maize, however, in this country refer chiefly to particular 
varieties, which ripen very early, and have been found in favour¬ 
able seasons and hot dry summers to not only ripen the grain, but 
to yield a good acreable produce. 
The first man whom we can learn attempted the growth in 
England was the celebrated politician William Cobbett, who had 
two ears of corn brought to England by his son William from a 
gentleman in the province of Artois in the north of France, who 
had cultivated it in a small way for many years. This was in 
1820, and induced Mr. Cobbett to import the early variety of 
corn from New York in 1827, selling the greatest part of it and 
planting the remainder, and he continued to grow it for ten years 
in Hampshire, After having recommended its growth to the 
public he sold considerable quantities every year, and found that 
the more frequently he grew it from his own saved seed tho 
earlier it ripened. In offering it for sale in this country it was 
called “ Cobbett’s corn,” and we were induced to plant some on 
our farm in the year 1828, and occasionally since that time, con¬ 
sidering that if it answered for growth to produce corn at all it 
must be upon the system of interculture, somew’hat in the same 
Avay that we grew Beans and Mangolds—in alternate lines ; we 
therefore in the first instance planted three sorts of crops in alter¬ 
nate rows to prevent loss and disappointment in the event of the 
Maize failing. These crops were grown upon the stetch at 2 feet 
apart upon a capital piece of land, good loam on brick earth. The 
result was an enormous produce as a whole, one portion being 
Mangolds, which had just about that time began to attract notice 
amongst agriculturists, and another portion Potatoes, which 
proved a good crop ; but the Maize did not ripen. It, hoAvever, 
always proved very good provender when passed through the 
chaff-cutter—stalks, leaves, and green cobs all together. We 
believe that our Maize did not ripen because the land was too 
good and loamy, for in all those cases which have come to our 
knowledge of the corn ripening well and early it was grown upon 
light, dry, and warm soils. For some years after the continuation 
of our experiments we saw but little of Cobbett’s corn, except 
statements published in his weekly “ Register ” of the period up 
to the time of his death, which occurred in 1835. 
In 1849 the question of growing Maize was again taken up by a 
Air. Keene, who introduced a variety to public notice under the 
title of “ Forty-day Maize.” This gentleman, in order to give 
publicity to his ideas and its advantages, read a paper at a local 
farmers’ club in the south of England on the 22nd of October in 
that year on the cultivation of Keene’s “ Forty-day Maize,” and 
said, “ I now lay before the Club numerous specimens of Indian 
corn and Forty-day Maize in cobs, plants, and shelled-out 
samples grown in America, in Barbadoes, the south of France, 
Middlesex, Hampshire, and other places. The Forty-day Maize 
which had been cultivated by two gentlemen in conjunction with 
myself near to Southampton was decidedly the best of the whole 
lot, whether as regarded the thickness of the cobs or the size and 
quality of the corn, and these samples, as well as those from 
St. James’s Park, London, are thoroughly ripened, and the cobs 
are regularly garnished with grain from base to apex. It 
appears that this variety of Maize is cultivated chiefly in the 
Basque provinces of Spain, where it is looked upon as not far 
inferior as a diet for the poor to a crop of Potatoes, and they have 
a name for it bearing no analogy to any other European or 
American appellation, for in their tongue they called it Arthoa. 
In Spain there are many varieties of Maize—about 130, and the 
qualities are nearly as various as the varieties, so that they are 
applied to various purposes—one being retained for human food, 
another for cattle, a third for poultry, and so on. It is gene¬ 
rally sown from the 15th of April to the 10th of June in Spain ; 
but the best time in England is from the 10th to the 25th of May. 
That is, in fact, the time for sowing in the Pyrenees, the climate 
there being much like that of the south of England, and the seed 
ought not to be put into the ground before that time in consequence 
of late night frosts.” Mr. Keene further stated the seed he had 
brought with him to England was not of the variety usually 
grown in the Pyrenees, for it had been his study to produce a 
variety of Maize by hybridisation and otherwise in order to 
obtain early ripening, which is so desirable in an inferior climate. 
It is, however, found that the Forty-day Maize bore the often 
severe frosts of our springs better than any other variety with 
which he was acquainted, for it had been grown that year (1849) 
with success under considerable difficulties at Putney in Middlesex ; 
in St. James’s Park, London ; and on two estates in South Hamp¬ 
shire. The cobs which he exhibited were produced in the latter 
district in a field of corn as fine as any he had ever seen in the 
province from which he brought the seed. These samples, com¬ 
pared with those produced in the Pyrenees last year, were superior 
to the cobs, which were there considered as excellent samples. 
As we have taken up the subject in the interest of the home 
