436 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 9, 1892, 
are on the Quince stock. The blossom out of doors was scanty, but 
Apples, on the contrary, were full of bloom, and as many acres 
are grown they made a fine display at the time our representative 
called. 
-Express Grape Forcing. —In reference to the allegation 
that Grapes have been ripened in ninety days from starting the Vines, 
“ Incredulous” wishes to know, first, if any of our readers have known 
the feat to have been accomplished before, and, secondly, he would 
like to know some of the quickest periods in which Grapes have been 
forced apart from Mr, Gilchrist’s rapid action. Mr. J. Watson desires 
to say that he cannot, on the invitation of Mr. Brown, send Grapes over 
which he has no control. Our correspondent attended the last meeting 
of the Sunderland Gardeners’ Society, expecting to see the grower of 
the Grapes, but he was not in attendance. Mr. Brown would like to 
obtain and send a record of the treatment to which the Vines were 
subjected that ripened fruit in ninety days after closing the house for 
forcing, but thinks the grower of the Grapes should himself answer Mr. 
Brown. The Vines are said to be thirty years old. It cannot be very 
difficult for Mr. Gilchrist to state the time the house was closed, with 
the dates of thinning, the commencement of colouring, and of cutting 
the fruit. He could also indicate the temperatures provided during 
the period of growth. This is the kind of information several of our 
readers require, and we will readily publish it if forwarded for that 
purpose. 
- Gardening Sundries.—T his is generally considered to be a 
pretty expressive term, but, writes a Journal representative, I only 
realised its full meaning when calling in at the city warehouse and 
show rooms of Messrs. Corry & Co., Ld., the other day. As they do 
not supply retail customers their name is better known in the trade, 
where it stands high, than in private quarters ; but as wholesale 
manufacturers and dealers in horticultural requisites of all kinds they 
have an important, though indirect, connection with the gardening 
community. Mr. Corry took me in hand, and before he had finished 
with me I was almost as bewildered as I was astonished at the 
enormous number of the articles kept in stock, and the quantity in 
which they are represented. Manures and insecticides are a great 
feature, and a specially fitted laboratory, with a qualified chemist, 
enables constant series of experiments to be made. Tobacco powder is 
sold by the ton, and tobacco liquor in various forms by thousands of 
gallons. The firm have the right of importing the leaf for insecticide 
manufacturing purposes duty free. They also supply almost every 
known insecticide. Special manures are sold in great quantities. Their 
speciality, Standen’s, is well known to be one of the finest fertilisers 
procurable, and such popular plant foods as Clay’s and Beeson’s are sold 
very largely, wiih numerous others. Of lawn sand enormous quanti¬ 
ties are distributed, while the same may be said of Lethorion Cones, 
Summer Cloud, Eucharis mite killer, nicotine soap, Ewing’s mildew 
wash, hellebore powder, and Fowler’s insecticide. A great feature is 
made of wreaths, crosses, plumes, grasses, rustic ware, tiles, and vases 
of different ware. All kinds of tools are kept, and syringes from the 
cheapest to the best. Hyacinth glasses fill numerous cases, but are 
now out of season. Flower stakes and wood labels are sold by millions. 
It would be impossible to enumerate a tithe of the articles stocked, 
but after traversing many spacious floors in the huge warehouses, all 
packed with goods, I came to the conclusion that it must be a 
tremendous quantity indeed, or a very peculiar article, that Messrs. 
Corry & Co. could not supply. Moreover, Mr. Corry was quite prepared 
to escort me to the Thames side, and show me over larger warehouses 
still for the purpose of “piling conviction on conviction’s head,” had 
that been necessary. All the firm’s specialities and the general goods 
supplied by them are procurable from seedsmen in all parts of the 
country, but not direct by retail buyers. Very wisely, they do not 
attempt to serve two masters, and they enjoy the respect and extensive 
support of the trade. 
INSECTS OF THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
(^Continued from page 235.') 
That gardeners, and others, should have mistaken some of 
the species of Andrena, mentioned in my last article, for hive bees 
is not very wonderful ; though the Andrente are rather more 
hairy, and they do not exhibit the self-importance which seems 
to characterise the hive bee. Some, indeed, are hairy enough to 
pass for dwarf specimens of the humble bee kind. Age tells 
upon bees quite as notably as it does upon mankind ; many that 
are bright and yellow in their youthful days become hoary when 
they grow older, and with some much of their hair gets rubbed off, 
making them almost bald. A curious-looking species, which is 
fond of making its burrow in a shrubbery where there is a sloping 
bank, is that named Dasypoda hirtipes, and a party of them often 
resort to the same bank. It is well furred with black, grey, and 
yellow, being also furnished with unusually large pollen brushes. 
The second family of the bees is called the Apidae, and its best' 
known representative is the hive bee of our island, and its various 
kinsfolk of distant countries. As the domestic bee has its history 
and doings chronicled in a distinct page of this Journal, I pass it 
here with brief remark. The fact has been verified by frequent 
observation that our hive bees, in their visits to flower beds, seldom 
go indiscriminately from plant to plant, but limit themselves on a 
tour to a few kinds. Again, though these bees gather the pollerv 
for home use, and pack it carefully into the receptacles on their 
legs, they do a good deal in the way of free distribution. In their 
eager researches after honey, especially amongst certain species of 
flowers, pollen is thrown upon the body from the anthers, and 
then borne by the insects to other flowers, where it is scattered 
unawares upon the stigma. Or it may happen, as with the Gladiolus, 
that the anthers place the pollen in such a position upon the thorax 
of the bee that it is brushed off by the stigma of the same flower, 
Pliny, the old Roman naturalist, was the first to observe that the 
bees shunned certain flowers ; he mentions those of the Laburnum, 
for example ; but they sometimes gather honey from the blossoms- 
of plants that are poisonous to man, not to themselves. Yet 
there are flowers which prove risky to some visiting them. 
Mr. Staveley, the entomologist, found that bees died as a result of 
having taken nectar from some varieties of the Tulip. 
The cuckoo bees are not a tribe frequently seen about 
gardens. As their name implies, they do not seek honey or 
pollen to feed their young, but, like the familiar bird of our 
fields, they deposit eggs in the nests of others. Availing them¬ 
selves of the store provided by more diligent bees, the cuckoos 
watch for au opportunity to effect their purpose, and then they 
close up with clay the cells in which they have intruded. Cuckoo 
bees are smallish, gaily coloured, rather wasp-like in movement. 
We pass from these to the Dasygastr®, named thus from the thick 
clothing of hairs which form a pollen brush on the under side of 
the abdomen in tbe female bee. The males are remarkable for 
having spines at the extremity of the body. Some of these in the 
genus Osmia are known as mason bees, from their habit of work¬ 
ing in cliffs or banks, in old walls, or a tree stump ; for variety 
also some of them excavate the pith of the Bramble, and form 
cells within a branch, which are distinct from each other. Some, 
too, fashion an abode for their young upon a wall, constructing it 
of a hard material that is their own manufacture. These nests 
outside have the appearance of a splash of mud. Food is always 
laid up by the careful mother, honey and pollen, sometimes a sort 
of cake, which seems a mixture of various substances obtained 
from plants or flowers. 
We come now and then unexpectedly upon traces of an osmia 
in the garden. Picking up some shell of the too familiar garden 
snail, empty ones of which are not uncommon amongst moss or the 
roots of plants, we find it is filled up by something foreign. 
Inspection will prove that a bee has turned the shell into a nursery, 
putting five or six cells and sufficient food between tbe end of the 
whorl and the entrance ; this, to keep out parasitic foes, she blocks 
as firmly as she can with clay or pebbles, joined by gummy matter. 
The skill which several species show in boring is remarkable, seeing 
that the jaws and legs have to deal with hard substances which 
might easily injure them. To the leaf-cutter bees of the genus 
Megachile we are indebted for the peculiarly cut holes to be 
noticed in the leaves of some garden plants about June and July. 
Roses, and especially the Sweet Briar, are much visited by them, 
but they do not touch the petals, though a foreign species has been 
found to use as a lining for its cells the scarlet petals of the Poppy. 
The circular holes made by these bees are quite distinguishable 
from the bites of caterpillars. One or two species, instead of 
biting these holes, scrape off from the leaves of woolly plants 
portions of the down, which is applied to the same purpose. A 
gallery or burrow is formed in the earth, and it is lined by 
portions of leaves carried to the spot by the bee, which are 
cleverly arranged, and the opening is similarly closed at the finish. 
Some of the leaf-cutter bees make the nests for their offspring in 
decayed wood. One of the bees in this group has received a Latin 
name which means “ flower-sleeper,” for at early morning the 
males especially are commonly found asleep in flowers, to which 
they have attached themselves by their jaws. All these bees, like 
their brethren, provision their nests with honey and pollen. 
Another bee of this group gardeners have been recommended 
to encourage rather than drive off, as on the green lawn or grass 
plot its presence is enlivening, and it is not inclined to sting. This 
is the Eucera, notable for the long antennae of the males, and they 
