290 
JOURXAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDEXER. 
[ April 21, 1892. 
afforded by a covering of hay or bracken placed over the glass, 
the sides of the pit receiving no covering whatever. We have at 
various times registered from 25° to 28° of frost. Whenever the 
thermometer in the shade has risen above freezing point air has 
been afforded, Since the very severe weather of midwinter they 
have received no protection, as I am convinced that so long as we do 
not get more than 10° or 12" of frost Calceolarias in frames at the 
foot of a south wall, or in pits in the most exposed positions, are 
better without covering. With such treatment the plants will by 
the present time be sturdy, strong, and in tbe right condition for 
planting in temporary beds. Prepare beds 4 feet wide, either 
by making a trench 6 inches in depth and throwing the soil on 
each side, or by forming temporary frames above the ground 
with board and stakes. 
The soil used to plant in now should not be too rich. Some 
make a point of mixing a quantity of half-decayed manure with 
it, but this cannot be of benefit to plants which are only to remain 
in this position for a few weeks, and it moreover hinders quick 
root production. Ordinary garden soil is very good for the 
purpose, but if inclined to be heavy mix a little leaf soil and wood 
ashes with it. Plant 6 inches apart, and press the soil firmly about 
the roots, but take care not to injure the stems of the plants in so 
doing. The first bright morning after the planting is performed 
give a good watering, place a few cross stakes over the frame, and 
cover with mats each night till the time arrives for hardening the 
plants. Given this treatment they will be ready for placing in 
their summer quarters by the second or third week in May. 
Having been grown hardily from start to finish, and planted out 
thus early, they are better able to resist the heat of summer when 
it comes than they would otherwise be. These remarks apply to 
varieties of the floribunda type. Amplexicaulis, a fine tall-growing 
yellow variety, is more tender, and should have a frame devoted 
entirely to it.— Flower Gardener. 
and not having heard or read of the, remedy being applied before 
for the stamping out of a troublesome pest must be my apology for 
writing this letter—G. R. Allis, Old Warden Pari-, Biggleswade. 
[^Ir. W. Iggulden was the first to recommend the practice 
advocated in these columns.] 
SULPHUR VBJisus WHITE FLY. 
I WAS interested in reading Mr. W. P. Wright’s remarks on 
Tomatoes (see Journal of Horticulture, March 24th, 1892, page 215), 
when he says Tomato growers have found a remedy in carbolic 
soap for stamping out a very troublesome pest, the white fly. If 
this remedy is found to be permanent it will be hailed with delight 
by Tomato growers. I may say that the fly in question has given 
me more trouble than any insect pest that I am acquainted with. 
It has not been confined to Tomatoes, but forced Beans, Straw¬ 
berries, and other plants have suffered a good deal, so much so that 
I have had serious thoughts of discontinuing growing some very 
useful winter-flowering plants. Although we have from time to 
time used the remedies usually recommended—such as fumigating 
with tobacco paper and cloth, and carbolic soap, and they have 
been temporarily effective in keeping the fly under, young broods 
would again appear at short intervals. So persistent have the 
attacks been that I began to look upon the remedies as almost as 
bad as the disease, for the repeated fumigating seemed to destroy 
most of the Tomato blooms as they opened, so that we could not 
always depend on securing a good set of fruit under glass, and those 
planted out against vacant spaces of the garden walls have also 
suffered more or less. This fly is so tenacious of life that when 
Strawberries have been brought in for forcing it has usually been 
introduced with them, although the plants have been exposed to 
all the severe frosts we have had of late years. 
But a brighter future seems to be at hand, and so far as my 
experience goes we are in a fair way for stamping out this pest, 
at any rate under glass. The plan I have adopted for the last 
three or four months, where the fly has been troublesome, is to 
mix flowers of sulphur in water to the consistency of paint, 
and apply this to the hot-water pipes, not smearing it on too 
thickly, nor when they are very hot. If the flow pipes are too 
hot it had better be put on the return pipes, which, as a rule, are 
cooler. It is best to apply it in the evening when the houses are 
closed for the day. The frequent syringing of the houses wi 1 
cause the sulphur to be washed off the pipes, and it must be 
renewed as occasion requires. I am no advocate for using sulphur 
on hot-water pipes where it is not necessary, and particular 
attention should be paid to the ventilation of the houses in bright 
sunny weather where sulphur is used. 4Ve have applied it where 
Vines, Cucumbers, Melons, and Kidney Beans have been growing, 
and have not perceived any ill effects from i*". The more humid the 
atmosphere of the houses the more effective will the result be. 
Wherever it has been applied it has acted almost like magic. 
Tomato plants that were infested are now perfectly clean and 
healthy. It is a rarity now to see a white fly where the treatment 
(or as I prefer to call it the golden remedy) has been carried out. 
For this wrinkle I am indebted to my foreman Mr. W. Modro\ 
DAFFODILS ON THE PYRENEES. 
Under this heading, on page 276, I read a note regretting the 
destruction of wild Daffodils in the Basses Pyrenees. I have long 
been acquainted with the department of the Basses Pyrenees and 
its Daffodils, and have just returned from a visit of three months 
at Biarritz, during which I devoted much of my time to investi¬ 
gating the local natural history of the varieties of Narcissus said to 
be wild there. The indigenous kinds generally prevalent there are 
chiefly two—N. bulbocodium var. citrinus, and N. pseudo-Narcissus 
var. pallidus pnecox. The first of these is so abundant oven in 
the immediate neighbourhood of Biarritz, and it extends over so 
much ground, reaching to nearly 3000 feet high on the mountains, 
that in spite of English orders for hundreds of thousands yearly, 
it is not in danger of exxermination. The pseudo-Narcissus, how¬ 
ever, has been severely taxed, especially round Bayonne. A veteran 
botanist of that town. Dr. Blanchet, who has known the district 
from almost the beginning of the century, and formerly lived at 
Dax, has told me many of his recollections of the genus Narcissus, 
which has suffered much from the advancing encroachments of 
new enclosures and cultivation, but still more in recent years from 
eradicating collectors for the English market. 
In a local botany which he published last year the Narcissus is 
the subject of a note of which I give the substance :—‘‘ The plants 
of this charming family, which have the misfortune to flower 
in early spring, and which formerly were the pride and ornament 
of many estates round Bayonne, will soon be things of the past. 
For some years they have been the object of a reckless cominerce 
which has now assumed the proportions of a veritable exterminat¬ 
ing vandalism. Every year they are exported across the channel 
by hundreds of thousands, and the collectors seem not to know that 
they are bringing about their own ruin.” For all that, pallidus 
praecox is by no means excinct yet in any of the woods, even close 
to the town of Bayonne, in which it formerly grew. Indeed it 
multiplies so fast from seed, and the seedlings flower in three or 
four years, that it only wants a few years’ holiday to be as abundant 
as ever. It is now preserved partly by the thickness of the coppice 
in the woods—many of them consisting of Robinia—;n which it 
grows, partly by the increasing protection now given to it by the 
proprietors in the way of fences of barbed wire and dense thorns. 
Besides, I am glad to find that it is being largely cultivated for the 
English market at Biarritz. I saw large enclosures amounting 
together to several acres full of it, and when the owners of these 
become aware how easily it comes from seed they will hardly go to 
the expense of having the wild bulbs collected as they now are 
annually from the neighbourhood of Peyrehorade, Hasparren, and 
other less populous parts of the Basque country. 
Some day I hope to have time to put together my notes on the 
Narcissi said to be native in the south-west of France, but I am 
afraid they would be of interest only to those who care for the 
natural history of the genus.—C. Wolley Dod, Edge Hall, 
Malpas. [Pray do.— Ed.] 
ROTATION OF CROPS. 
(^Continued from page 251.') 
Second Year. —Cereal Crop. —Spring-sown Barley or Oats. 
These are chosen because the land is clean in consequence of the 
fallow crop, also through early seeding affording little opportunity 
of preparing the land. When the crop preceding—the first year’s 
cleaning one—is removed so as to admit of autumn ploughing there 
is less difficulty in preparing a seed-bed, as the winter weathering 
breaks up the stubbornest substances, and the frost so acts on the 
water in its interstices as to highly comminute the soil, and, with 
care not to work it until in a proper condition in spring, a grand 
tilth is forthcoming ; yet it is only necessary on heavy land, which 
can hardly be too much weathered, unless containing a very large 
amount of lime, and oxide of iron and alumina, such becoming 
puddles when weathered and saturated with rain. Those soils are 
comminuted enough. Light land only needs shallow ploughing, as 
s ich is easiest mellowed by the weather, and reduced to the neces¬ 
sary tilt’n ; all Barley requires is enough tilth to cover the seed well, 
and only fairly light below, so as to give the plant the needful 
“ grip ” of the soil. Barley succeeds on good land—not too heavy ; 
when too stiff Oats may take Barley’s place in the rotation, also 
when the land cannot be got into proper order for Barley, which 
