206 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Sjptemte - 4, 1690. 
surfacing witli half an inch of sand, making thoroughly firm. 
Insert the cuttings at on<5e, water well, and stand aside for a short 
time to dry, then place in a close frame or cover with a bellglass, 
shading and watering so as to prevent flagging. They do not require 
heat, rooting as well or better in a close pit or house without heat. 
Pot when rooted, and keep in a close pit or house until well 
established. 
Some of the most desirable for pot culture are the following:— 
Acacia cordata, fig. 26 (1).—A very distinct and graceful 
species, having long, slender, but slightly branching stems, densely 
clothed with leaves and flowers. The latter are in very small 
globular heads, creamy white. The leaves or phyllodes are cordate, 
angular, and with a tapering point. 
A. pulcliella, fig. 26 (2).—One of the most beautiful of the 
Acacias, as it is extremely floriferous, with showy flowers. The 
plant is of spreading habit, with small pinnate leaves three-quarter 
inch long, the pinnce narrow. The flowers are in globular heads, 
half inch in diameter, bright golden yellow, and slightly fragrant. 
They are borne on slender peduncles, 1 inch long, solitary on the 
axils of the leaves, but produced very freely all over the plant. 
A. verticillata , fig. 26 (3).—Tall growing, of somewhat cylin¬ 
drical habit, the dark foliage and stem contrasting with the soft 
yellow flowers. The leaves or phyllodes are half inch long, very 
dark green, narrow, sharp, and arranged six or eight in a whorl. 
The flowers are in a dense spike 1 inch or more long, sulphur yellow, 
usually solitary, sometimes slightly branched at the base, fragrant. 
A. Drummondi, fig. 26 (4), is certainly one of the best, the flowers 
being borne in axillary spikes, drooping gracefully. In a good 
specimen, which is as difficult to get as most of the kinds are to keep 
from growing too much, this is one of the most handsome of spring 
flowering greenhouse plants, the chief points to be guarded against 
in its culture being overpotting and over-watering. It is also 
rather subject to attacks by red spider, which can be subdued by 
judicious yet efficient syringings. 
A. armata, fig, 26 (5).—This attains to a height of 6 to 10 feet 
or more, and forms a very handsome pyramid, its long annual growths 
gracefully arching being studded with solitary globular heads in 
March or April are very pleasing. If there is only room for one 
this may be given preference. By gentle forcing it may be had in 
flower from December. 
A. diffusa has the flowers globular and usually twin, produced 
somewhat freely, the growths being diffusely procumbent. It attains 
to a height of about 3 feet. 
A. olecefolia elegans is very handsome, the heads of bloom dis¬ 
posed in racemes, the plants being of graceful habit, and the flowers 
are very bright. It is A. lunata of the botanists. 
A. grandis is certainly but a variety of A. pulchella, but rather 
freer in growth, though both are free enough, soon forming speci¬ 
mens 10 to 12 feet high when the object is a pyramid, and the 
leading growths trained up. It flowers from February to May, the 
flowers being globular very freely produced. 
A. longifolia magnified is a fine erect growing kind, the leaves 
being linear lanceolate, the flowers borne profusely in loose spikes 
from the axils of the leaves, and during the early spring months. 
It attains to a height of a dozen or more feet, but can be kept to six 
by judicious pruning, which it seems to flower all the better off, at 
least the sprays are longer and the flowers finer. 
The species named are all for the greenhouse. I have not 
grown any of the stove species. White scale is the great enemy of 
Acacias. I know of no better remedy than applying methylated 
spirits carefully to the stems and other parts affected with a small 
brush, and the cleansing influence of rain when placed outdoors is 
exerted most beneficially on the plants towards autumn. Indeed 
the plants usually come in in splendid flowering condition.— 
A. G. Y. 
THE FRUIT ROOM. 
Amongst the various appendages to a garden an efficient fruit 
room is certainly not the least important, yet such a room we 
seldom see. Generally some back shed is fitted up with shelves in 
a very rough manner, and on these the winter Apples and Pears 
are laid, more or less thick as the crop may have been. In too 
many instances they are obliged to be laid too thick for their 
keeping well ; as they are likely to be all wanted there is no 
alternative but to place them so if the space be too limited for 
their being kept more thinly. Although we all kuow that good¬ 
keeping fruit will remain sound a considerable time, even when 
subjected to this treatment, there is no doubt but it would keep 
much longer if allowed more room from the first, and those 
instances in which fruits have been kept for long periods will be 
found to be where plenty of space was accorded them. Some other 
conditions seem necessary for the well keeping of fruit, and it will 
be advisable to point out a few of these individually. 
Whatever may be the reputation of a certain variety of fruit 
for keeping purposes, there is no question but its merits that way 
are influenced by the situation in which it is grown, as well as the 
period at which it is gathered, and the condition of the atmosphere 
at the time. By way of exemplifying these three conditions it 
will be as well to take a very common case to point them out, and 
though there may be some difference of opinion on the habits and 
qualification of the variety given as an example, there is certainly 
none that has a wider reputation ; I therefore, by way of pointing 
out the conditions necessary to enable a fruit to keep as long a 
period as possible in a sound condition, will take the Ribston Pippin 
Apple as an example, not on account of its long-keeping capabilities 
—on the contrary, it is only an indifferent one in that respect ; but 
by it we may learn the laws that govern other fruits as well. In very 
many districts the Ribston Pippin Apple has ceased to be culti¬ 
vated as a profitable fruit; the trees thriving indifferently for a 
very few years, either die off or linger on a wretched existence, the 
dead branches almost equalling the live ones in number. Though 
there is generally a fair proportion of blossom each season, what 
fruit there is can seldom be classed higher than second, or perhaps 
third-rate. Now, these fruits have, in many of them, the germs of 
decay before they are gathered from the tree ; black specks near 
the eye, or in some cases near the other end, turn into a mass of 
decay of a peculiarly bitter quality, differing widely from the 
ordinary “ rot,” by which most other fruits are carried off more 
quickly, but not less surely, than by this black bitter spot of the 
Ribston. 
Whatever may be the different opinions regarding this, it seems 
pretty generally admitted that it is mostly due to the diseased 
condition of the tree on which it grows, or perhaps the worn-out 
constitution of the variety. Whether this be so or not (and there 
seems every reason to believe it is so), certain it is that a very 
large proportion of the Ribston Pippin Apples that are grown fall 
a victim to this black spot, which, by being of an intense bitter, 
disqualifies this Apple from mixing with others for making cider, 
which the decay in other fruits does not necessarily do, as they are 
not so bitter. Now, this bitter principle is doubtless imparted to 
the fruit by the decaying process it goes through differing from the 
same conditions by which other fruits become decayed and rotten ; 
and whether the chemical change which takes place in the Ribston 
Pippin has its origin in the imperfect condition of the fruit at 
the time it is gathered, and the latent seeds of this disease be 
engendered then or afterwards, certain it is that a very great 
proportion of the fruit of tills variety falls a victim to this disease. 
Though some situations favouring the better development of the 
fruit may render them less liable to it than in others, still it is 
reasonable to suppose that those places now in a great measure 
exempt will eventually become diseased like the rest, and the 
Ribston Pippin Apple will become a matter of history. The 
purpose is not now to prognosticate this, but to point out what 
conditions are necessary to preserve what healthy fruit there may 
be as long as it is possible to do so. 
No one who has visited a fruit room in the warm days of 
September, when there was a quantity of fruit all ripening into 
that mellow condition which betokens perfection, but must have 
been struck by the odour which is emitted from them. This odour, 
it is needless to say, must be as hurtful to the well-keeping of 
fruits as anything can be—say, for instance, a quantity of Williams’ 
Bon Chretien Pear all ripening at once into the condition fit for 
table, and in a day or two all will be in a stage beyond this, and 
become a mass of juice which it is difficult to handle without 
bursting them. Now, I always look on a mass of this kind as the 
most dangerous to a fruit room, and as all early fruits ripen in 
warmer weather than other kinds do, they ought to be furnished 
with ventilation almost amounting to complete exposure, in order 
that the odour emitted by ripening fruit, which very quickly 
takes a decaying turn, may not contaminate the rest. Fruit 
at that time ought also to be kept thin. But to return to the 
Ribston Pippin. It often happens that these have to be gathered 
when the fruit room is more or less occupied by fruits in the 
condition spoken of ; and if the weather be warm at the time, 
the fruit is impelled onward to a condition fit for table much 
earlier than they otherwise would be if kept cooler, and the 
character of the atmosphere they are in hastens on decay some 
time before ripeness or mellowness has done its part, hence fruits 
that ought to be in perfection m January are ready by the end of 
November—not Ribston Pippin Apples only, but all other kinds of 
fruits as well. This is one of the reasons why fruits in certain 
seasons keep longer and better than they do in others—the simple 
fact they are not ready to gather until cold weather insures their 
keeping, as more fruit generally perishes in November than in 
December and January, and no amount of mere cleanliness and 
care of removing diseased fruit can compensate for the crowded 
condition of the fruit room in the early autumn months, when the 
