April 2S, 1883.] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
337 
used being one part turfy loam, to which is added a third part of 
cow manure, with a 6-inch potful of bonemeal to each barrowload 
of the compost. A few coal cinders are placed in the bottom 
of each pot for drainage. In potting, the soil is rammed quite 
firmly. 
At this stage it must be explained that, in order to have good 
plants for flowering the following spring, a continued and unin¬ 
terrupted growth must be secured. These newly potted plants 
must therefore be placed in a structure where they will grow 
freely and quickly, though means must be taken to keep them 
from becoming drawn. When well started into growth the 
growing point must be pinched out ; and again when the shoots 
produced from that pinching are long enough, the points of these 
must also be removed. With the help of a little liquid manure 
when the pots become filled with roots the first potting should 
last until autumn, when another shift into 6-inch pots will be 
sufficient over the winter and into the flowering season. During 
the winter months the temperature ought never to be below 45°. 
Assistance from manure, either employed as a surfacing to the 
soil or given with the water, will be necessary when the days 
lengthen. The plants will not need stakes if properly grown. 
Unless required for flowering in winter they should be destroyed 
when the crop of bloom is over, yearling plants flowering the 
most satisfactorily. The season of flowering may be prolonged 
by striking a batch of cuttings in July. These should not be 
shifted into their flowering pots until spring. The points to be 
observed in order to be successful, are these—to select healthy- 
growing cuttings, and to keep them growing without check from 
first to last.—R. P. B. 
SULPHURIC ACID versus CARBOLIC ACID 
FOR DESTROYING WEEDS. 
By an inadvertence I am made in answers to correspondents, 
page 330, to recommend carbolic acid for destroying weeds. I 
have never done so, but did some time ago call attention to the 
value of sulphuric acid for that purpose. As some confusion 
appears to exist in the minds of many gardeners concerning the 
two acids, it may be well to explain what they are, and something 
of the uses to which they are applied. Carbolic acid is a substance 
resembling creosote, and is obtained by the distillation of coal tar. 
I have used it quite recently mixed with oil as a disinfectant with 
much success among animals, but have never known it to be 
regarded as useful for the wholesale destruction of weeds. Sul¬ 
phuric acid or oil of vitriol, on the contrary, is a well-known 
destroyer both of vegetable and animal life. It is obtained by an 
elaborate process from sulphur and nitrate of soda, which is fully 
explained in Brande’s “ Dictionary of Science,” where, too, in a 
lengthy account of its various properties, it is stated that “ its 
affinity for water is such that it rapidly absorbs it from the atmo¬ 
sphere, and when mixed with water much heat is evolved. It 
acts energetically upon animal and vegetable substances, generally 
charring them, and often, as in the case of sugar, with singular 
rapidity.” I may add that when using it for destroying weeds, 
I have noticed that the heat imparted by the acid to water is so 
great, that it may instantly be felt outside a waterpot after the 
half pint of acid is poured into a gallon of water.— Edward 
Luckhurst. 
CANKER IN FRUIT TREES. 
I KNOW from your invariable kindness and patience you will 
allow me to bring the above subject before your many able and 
trustworthy practical contributors. 
I have been a diligent and close reader of “our Journal ” for 
thirteen years past, and am familiar with all it has so interestingly 
taught in that time, and I trust I may truthfully say I know of 
no subject that needs more discussion than the above. 
I have recently been through many gardens and orchards round 
London to the extent, in some cases, of over twenty miles out, and 
anything more disheartening can hardly be seen than the numbers 
of Plum, Apple, and Pear trees that, after being watched and 
tended for years, are crippled, or useless, or dead through canker. 
I think this evil more than all others combined disheartens both 
amateurs and business fruit-growers. I was recently in an 
orchard where Cherries were magnificent, fruitful, healthy, very 
large trees ; but nearly all the Apples, Plums, and Pears were 
dead or dying by canker. 
I know by my own practical experience that some kinds of 
Plums, Apples, and Pears do not canker anywhere, but, unfortu¬ 
nately, I know of very few varieties of which this can be said. 
Would it not be a very great good for you and some of your able 
contributors to give in “our Journal ” lists of Plums, Apples, and 
Pears that would flourish, fruit, and not canker on any part of the 
London clay or gravel, say from five to fifteen or twenty miles 
round the metropolis ? I mean trees on free stocks and standard 
form. I am familiar with all the good obtainable books and treatises 
on fruit trees in our language and some of the best in French, but 
not much help on this subject is to be obtained. 
No doubt wet autumns in which the trees keep growing until 
sudden and severe frost sets in is the chief cause of the mischief ; 
but still there are some varieties that resist even these changes, 
and what are certainly needed are lists of these varieties from 
Fig. 79.—Primula ecotica. 
experienced men to point out clearly all that are so known, and 
“ our Journal ” is the one that should give them.— Canker. 
[We shall be glad if our readers, not near London alone, but in 
different parts of the country where fruit trees are liable to canker, 
will name those varieties that are not affected, or only slightly, 
stating also the soil and conditions under which the trees are grown. 
Will our correspondent oblige by naming those that he knows 
by his “own practical experience do not canker anywhere ?”] 
PRIMULA SCOTICA. 
A CORRESPONDENT sends us flowers and leaves of a remarkably 
fine and early variety of this charming little Primrose—indeed, 
by far the best we have seen, and of which a faithful representa¬ 
tion is given in fig. 79. In a communication accompanying the 
flowers it is stated that “ it increases very rapidly and is very 
useful for spring bedding, but the plants have suffered a little 
from the cold this season.” 
We felt some doubt respecting the identity of the plant, but 
