248 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 16, 1886. 
“ Chatswortli,” which has only one flue through the saddle, the 
flame being then returned over the top of the boiler. The 
“ Imperial ” is fed from the top, and has two lower and two 
higher flues. The “ Climax ” is another very similar boiler, and 
undoubtedly a very powerful one. These are all welded. The 
large boilers at Norris Green by Messrs. James Coombe & Sons 
are rivetted, and differ only from the “ Allerton Priory ’ 
in haying ten cast tubes passing horizontally through each of 
them. They are quick and powerful, and have a large amount 
of heating surface exposed to the direct action of the fire. 
W. Bardney. 
(To be continued.) 
now Nor to grow roses. 
Mr. D. Gilmour, jun., has explained in your columns one method of 
accomplishing the above. May I suggest another ? 
Start early on a chilly autumn morning for the garden of some cele¬ 
brated nurseryman, selecting, if possible, one whose fame rests more on 
his pertinacity as an advertiser than his skill as a horticulturist. On 
arriving at your destination, after a long and tiresome journey, you are 
surprised to find the gardens almost deserted, save perhaps by one 
“ personally conducted ” party disappearing in the distance. However, 
you happen to catch sight of an under gardener or journeymen loafing 
amongst the Roses. In answer to your inquiries he will inform you lint 
the men are at dinner and “ the foreman ” at present engaged. While 
resolutely refusing to compromise himself by affording you any informa¬ 
tion as to price, &e., he puts an end to further interrogatories by dis¬ 
appearing in the direction of “ the office.” 
After being kept an interminable time kicking your heels while 
perhaps a bitter east wind almost cuts you in two, 11 the foreman,” whom 
you speedily recognise as the “ personally conducting ” individual, makes 
his appearance. After some slight conversation you will find him to be 
merely the salesman of “ the firm,” who knows as little about Roses as 
they know about him, his business being simply to make the customer 
buy, not what he wants, but just what he does not want. Previous to 
your visit you may have prepared a list of Roses suited, according to 
“ the firm’s ” publi-hed catalogue, to your soil and situation. To each of 
these names the salesman will remark that the variety is out of stock, but 
“ we can get it for you,” nr that be cannot recommend such a Rose, or 
some other excuse. He, however, suggests others which you find on 
inquiry to be at least double the price of those chosen by you. You 
naturally feel somewhat dissatisfied, but having taken so much trouble to 
purchase plants at this nursery you feel disinclined to roturn home empty- 
handed, and accordingly, by mutual concessions, a list of Roses is made 
out, though very different to your own. You mildly express a wish to 
choose your own trees and take them with you. The selection (?) is per¬ 
mitted, but the idea of removing Roses just then is ridiculed, and you are 
given to understand that you have made a great fool of yourself for 
suggesting such a thing. You are, however, assured that the plants shall 
be forwarded without delay directly the weather is favourable. Feeling 
somewhat cowed you retreat to the station to find your (rain gone and 
your day utterly wasted by the nurseryman’s procrastination. 
As you still probably retain faith in the firm’s professions you 
will doubtless wait many weeks without hearing any tidings of your 
Roses till, as the period for planting almost expires, you summon up 
courage to write expressing a wish to cancel the order. This threat at 
once produces a reply from “ the firm,” who, while ignoring all your 
previous communications, “ regret the delay in executing your order owing 
to the difficulty in obtaining such and such varieties,” these being the 
very ones that the salesman professed to have in stock. “ The trees will 
be forwarded at once, invoice for same being enclosed.” Thus ends the 
letter. Day after day inquiry is made at the railway station, but nothing 
is known of your Roses, till late on Saturday night you are informed that 
the package has arrived. As it is then impossible to have out a cart they 
must remain exposed to all the vicissitudes of weather and temperature till 
the following Monday. “ The firm ” have carefully arranged that the 
wretched plants should have been travelling for the best part of a week. 
You had given directions that they should be sent by a particular line of 
railway because it is the quickest and cheapest ; “ the firm,” on the 
contrary, elect to send your goods by that line which is both the slowest 
and the most expensive. Voila tout. 
When at last the Roses reach your house and are unpacked, you find 
them highly interesting from an entomological point of view, being, in 
fact, a perfect cosmos of insect pests; indeed, so infested are the plants 
that they will require months of quarantine and hard work before they 
are approximately clean. Again, should any of their roots shine with a 
metallic lustre it might be well to send portions to an analytical chemist, 
who will probably report that they have been “ pickled ” in order to kill 
them. If after this you happen to compare the names on the labels with 
those in your list you wid find very few tally, whilst amongst the majority 
you will recognise names which the salesman had tried to palm off on 
you during your visit to the nursery, but which you had then declined. 
You will also discover that all the kinds which should have been standards 
are dwarf, and vice versa. 
Should you write to complain, “ the firm ” is profuse in its apologies, 
and regret its having failed to obtain the Roses you ordered, quite 
forgetting that these names were given as of plants in stock in their 
elaborate catalogue. 'Jhey, however, lay stress on the fact of having 
aided one or two (worthless) Roses “grat’s” to your order. By the 
time this correspondence is concluded the trees have been placed in the 
ground, and it becomes a nice question of law whether they can be returned. 
Any customer who has had experience of the glorious uncertainty of 
English law in general, and British juries in particular, thinks twice betcre 
be engages in a lawsuit with a tradesman, consequently the nurseryman 
generally “scores,” though the cuttimer vows never to deal with that 
firm again.— FAIRPLAY. 
[Is this a burlesque P] 
RED SPIDER ON VINES. 
Red spider is a pest that most people who grow Grapes have to 
contend against, and it may safely be said that much damage is done 
to Vines and much vexation caused to growers by this little insect. In 
many cases the pest is allowed to get a firm hold before measures are 
taken to cope with it, and it may often be seen swarming on the berries 
and making them unsightly, as well as damaging the skin of the same. 
When it is first noticed in a vinery no time should be lost in attacking it 
with a copious and forcible discharge of clean water. If there sti 
remain some of the spiders at the time when the Grapes are rip-ming, 
sulphur should be thickly sprinkled on the pipes, a brisk fire staited, an 
as strong a fume as possible raised. This should be done either on a < u 
day or in the evening, so that the house may not require ventilation or 
some time. When a strong fume has been raised it will generally be 
found that the red spider has suffered thereby. 
Great attention should be paid to the thorough cleaning and scrubbing 
of the Vines in winter, so that as many of the eggs of the spider as 
possible may be destroyed. Some Vines, such as Lady Downe s and 
Alicante, which are, as a rule, not early forced, and are also of a very 
robust habit of growth, are not much troubled with spider. Muscats 
seem more troubled with this pest than any other kind, and this may 
easily be accounted for by the extra amount of fire heat which mos 
people find necessary to ripen this variety. It is a great matter to attack 
the enemy as soon as perceived, and not to allow it to get a hold betore 
attention is paid to its extirpation.—A. B. C. 
TRENCHED verses DNTRENCHED SOIL. 
I AM afraid “A Kentish Gardener,” page 135, has arrived at the 
conclusion that I do not intend to “ crack his nut,” but I can assure 
him that I only deferred that pleasure to a time when I had more leisure 
to enjoy the process. He feems to have fallen into a very common error 
of thinking that Marston ani Somerset generally are favoured spots, but 
that we who practise in these parts are such fortunate individuals is yet 
to be proved. That part of the west of England where I am located is 
no more favoured than Kent; in fact I should prefer the latter, and I 
ought to know something about it, seeing that I spent the earliest halt ot 
my career in that pleasant and most fertile coumy. If “ A Kentish 
Gardener” will do me the honour of looking up the back numbers and 
read what I have previously advanced on this subject, he will fiud that I 
frequently expressed the opinion that there are some s nls which may be 
trenched with advantage, and I may now add just such described on t e 
page quoted would be benefited by it. His soil is rather light, 2 teet 
thick, and resting on a gravelly subsoil. Our soil is naturally heavy 
and clayey, is about 18 inches thick, even less in places, and rests on an 
almost solid and badly drained subsoil. Yet Marston is a “favoured 
spot” For my part I should be delighted to change conditions, and then, 
no doubt, trenching would be more resoited to. . 
I should be sorry to be thought bigoted or dogmatic, and if 1 honestly 
thought trenching wise under all and any circumatinces it would soon 
come out in the pages of this Journal. But it is not, and the more 
gardens I visit the more I am convinced that inju icious trenching has 
much to answer for. Each season we have tried the effect of trenching 
on different parts of the garden, and for various crops, but always with 
the same result—viz., that well-manured and well-worked, but not trenched 
land, is the most profitable. This season half of the Oni n quarter was 
bastard-trenched, and the other half deeply dug only, about the same 
amount of manure being used in each portion. The ground being in good 
condition at sowing time, all the seeds alike germinated evenly, but until 
within six or seven weeks ago it would have been a difficult matter for a 
stranger to point out where the different portions commenced and ended. 
Now, however, the case is very different, as the Onions on uutrenched 
ground are actually ripened ready for storing, the ground being already 
occupied with winter Cabbage, while those on trenched ground are s'lll 
quite green, and are not nearly such a solid pretty lot of bulbs. It is 
always the same here, and in wet seasons especiady the advantage is 
Btill more decided in favour of uotrenched ground. Were we to sow 
Beet, Carrots, and Parsnips on trenched ground, they would either become 
far too large to be serviceable, or, if the season was very wet, they would 
refuse to grow at all, the tops turning a sickly yellow. The only, or 
principal reason, why trenching is efficacious on medium and light sot s 
is that it both increases the depth, and a small portion of the subsoil 
mixed with it improves the staple, and the deeper it is the longer it is in 
becoming dry. Heavy land holds moisture only too well, and trenching 
further aggravates the evil, at least such is my belief. Improve the 
surface by all means, but let the nasty subsoil alone. 
“A Kentish Gardener’s” Peas on trenched ground were a great 
success, and taose on untrenched ground a signal failure, and he naturally 
concludes my theory is altogether wrong. But if trenching is so 
efficacious in all cases, how comes it so maDy failed with Peas this 
season ? During Aueust I conversed at different places in Wilts, 
Somerset, Gloucestershire, and Dcrsetshire, with scores of good gardeners 
