80 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ January 25, 1883. 
Cut-back Vines intended to be grown into fruiters for next 
season may be placed in heat, and when they have made 2 or 
3 inches of growth shake out and repot them in rough rich 
compost, using pots 6 to 9 inches in diameter, and training the 
growths near the glass. Examine the bunches in the Grape room, 
and dispense with fire heat there as far as possible, yet prevent 
an accumulation of damp. 
Melons. —If seed was sown as previously advised the plants 
will have made one or two rough leaves, and should be potted at 
once into G-inch pots, be again plunged in a bottom heat of 75° to 
80°, aud kept near the glass, placing a small stick to each. Those 
intended for planting in hot-water pits or dung-heated frames 
need not be potted, but being stopped at the second rough leaf 
can be planted as soon as the soil has become of the same tempera¬ 
ture as the pits or frames. The best soil for Melons is a turfy 
loam inclined to be tenacious rather than sandy, which has been 
cut and stacked during the previous summer. This chopped up 
will be sufficiently rich without any manure ; but if poor soil is 
used one-fourth of well-decomposed manure may be incorporated. 
Make a hillock in the centre of each light by placing in a barrow¬ 
ful of soil, and leave a space of 10 to 12 inches from the glass. 
Insert a plant in each hillock, or two if the light be large, making 
the soil rather firm about the roots. See that it is mode¬ 
rately moist before planting, and ascertain that the bottom heat 
does not exceed 90°. A ring of dry soot and quicklime around 
each plant will keep snails at bay. Sow seed for successional crops, 
and get more fermenting materials ready for making additional 
hotbeds and for linings. 
Cucumbers .— With more light the growth will be increased, 
necessitating more copious and frequent applications of liquid 
manure in a tepid and diluted state. The night temperature may 
still be continued at 65°; 2° or 3° higher in mild or less in severe 
weather, ventilating from 75°, and increasing with sun to 85° or 
90°, maintaining the bottom heat between 80° and 90°. Close the 
house early in the afternoon, and damp the pathways and plants 
when the weather is favourable for so doing at closing time. 
Remove at once any superfluous or deformed fruit, decayed wood, 
or leaves as they appear. If green or black aphis become trouble¬ 
some fumigate on two or three consecutive evenings moderately, 
applying flowers of sulphur against mildew, or paint the hot- 
water pipes thinly with the same brought to a thin wash with 
skim milk. Transfer young plants into larger pots as they require 
it, keeping them near the glass till ready to plant out near the 
trellis, placing a stick to each ; but those for planting in pits or 
frames for training over the surface of the soil should be stopped 
at the second rough leaf. The hillocks can be formed as advised 
for Melons. Cucumbers thrive well in a compost of three parts 
rather light loam, and one in equal proportions of old hotbed 
manure and road scrapings, with a sprinkling of charcoal. 
PLANT HOUSES. 
Stove .—Rhynchospermum yasminoides is a valuable plant for 
supplying abundance of fragrant white Jasmine-like flowers from 
the present time to the month of June if properly prepared for 
the purpose and forced into flower. Although this is a greenhouse 
plant which will bear a very low temperature while at rest, it will 
make much greater progress if subject to stove treatment during 
its season of growth. When grown in heat its shoots are much 
longer and soon cover a fair-sized trellis. Beautiful decorative 
plants quite suitable for forcing can be grown in 5 and G-inch 
pots, which will with a little care and attention soon assume a 
sturdy bushy habit of growth, which is decidedly the best for 
decoration and forcing. A number of plants according to the 
demand should be introduced into a temperature of 55°, and 
syringed twice daily, and in a few weeks their flowers will be 
produced. A batch of cuttings can now be taken from any plant 
that has finished flowering, and these will root readily under a 
bellglass in any warm house, or better still where a little bottom 
heat can be given. Useful plants will be obtained in twelve 
months if grown on under stove treatment. This plant will 
flourish well in either all peat or loam, the former being prefer¬ 
able, as it does not become sour so quickly. 
Greenhouse .—Cyclamens from seed sown towards the end of 
the summer, and which have been kept close to glass in a tempera¬ 
ture of 45°, will now be thoroughly established in 2-inch pots, and 
ready for transferring into others 2 inches larger. Employ a 
compost of loam, cow manure, a little leaf soil, and coarse sand. 
In potting keep the corms moderately well above the soil for 
fear of damp, which should be expelled on fine days by the appli¬ 
cation of fire heat, when the ventilators can be freely opened. 
Supply water carefully until the roots take to the new soil, and 
remove all flowers that make their appearance as soon as they can 
be seen. Where seed was sown during the month of October, 
and the plants kept in a night temperature of 60", they will 
now be ready for placing in small pots, using more leaf soil in 
the compost than will be necessary for the next potting. Potting 
is preferable to pricking them out into other pans until they 
attain a larger size, which not unfrequently results in a check. 
Place the small pots on a shelf close to the glass, and if 
practicable plunge them amongst cocoa-nut fibre, which will 
assist in preventing the soil drying too rapidly. Keep the house 
close until they commence growth, then admit air daily when 
favourable to insure a sturdy and dwarf, instead of weak drawn 
growth. If sufficient stock has not been raised sow without 
delay, as some very useful plants can be produced for flowering 
next winter from seed sown at the present time. Plants that have 
been prepared for flowering and kept as cool as possible will, if 
placed in a temperature of 50°, quickly produce their flowers. 
Arrange them close to the glass and ventilate daily to keep the 
flowers and foliage from drawing, or much of the beauty of the 
plants will be lost. Give liquid manure every time watering is 
necessary. 
Begonias that flowered in early autumn, such as Dregei, weltoni- 
ensis, and semperflorens, should be partly cut back, shaken out 
and repotted in a mixture of loam, leaf soil, manure, and sand, 
and placed in more heat and moisture. They will flower again in 
a few weeks, and not only useful for the stove and conservatory 
but supply abundance of useful flowers for cutting. Tuberous 
varieties that were rested early may now be started in a tempera¬ 
ture of 50°, and brought on gently for conservatory decoration. 
FEEDING. 
(Continued from par/e 16 .) 
In the article on Feeding given in the Journal for January 4th, 
autumn and spring feeding of stocks were recommended. The 
desirability of the former so as to induce the queen to continue 
laying up to the end of September seems to be called in question by 
“ Stinger,” in his remarks published January 18th. For this reason, 
before proceeding with our advice concerning the feeding of swarms, 
and what we termed obligatory feeding, it may be necessary to 
retrace our steps somewhat, and to say a few more words relative to 
autumn feeding. “ Stinger ” asks if we mean to say that we can 
induce our queens to lay after they have ceased to do so in the 
autumn. There is not the smallest doubt about i . Our experience, 
although perhaps not reaching over so many years as that of 
“ Stinger,” has clearly shown us that the queen’s power of and 
desire for depositing eggs are produced, not by date or season of the 
year directly, but by a rising temperature and steady’ influx of food 
indirectly. Indirectly the warm summer weather and the natural 
harvest of honey stimulate the queen to exert her greatest possible 
powers to increase her colony. In like manner indirectly warm 
coverings to hives and an artificial supply of stimula ive food tend 
more or less to the same purpose, according as they are as isted or 
adversely’ acted upon by bright or dull weather and higher or lower 
external temperature. Each and all these causes we hold to act 
indirectly on the queen. The direct agency is the animation caused 
among the workers, which reacts on the queen, and Nature teaches 
her to continue, or maybe to recommence, laying in order to replace 
the balance of animal power lost to the hive through the continued 
exertions of its workers. 
In these days, when thousands of stocks are rescued by intelligent 
bee-keepers from the sulphur fumes, the fact hardly needs stating 
that queens can be made to recommence laying after they have 
ceased to do so in autumn. In nearly every instance in which a 
stock so rescued has been transferred, combs and all, to a bar-frame 
hive and gently fed, fine batches of young bees have been raised, 
and such stocks have invariably turned out to be among the best in 
the apiary for the ensuing season. Even without the facilities 
afforded by bar-frame hives and sheets of foundation, we have years 
ago built up strong colonies in straw skeps, feeding far into October, 
and these have been wintered with heaps of young bees, proving 
our best stocks in the next season. 
Again, in very mild winters there are hives which are never 
without some eggs and brood, more or less, according to circum¬ 
stances, and in tropical climates bees hatch and rear young almost 
without ceasing. This is caused by the indirect action of a con¬ 
stant high temperature and a supply of honey all the year round 
where flowers of various sorts are ever in bloom. Speaking of bees 
in hot climates, we cannot help digressing a moment to record 
