320 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ April 20, 1893. 
sheet iron, and well painted. These are kept eonstantly filled with 
water, and in them are placed what look like short stout drain pipes 
about 6 inches deep and the same in diameter ; upon these stand the 
pots containing the Chrysanthemums surrounded entirely by water. 
Thus neither worms, slugs, nor earwigs ean ever reach the plants ; and 
in addition Mr. Fowler believes the plants derive much benefit from the 
vapourised moisture constantly rising amongst their foliage. Stout 
stakes and wires strained between them in the usual form are adopted 
for supporting the plants, and earwigs are prevented climbing these 
stakes by bands of cotton wool put tightly around them, at about one 
foot from the ground, and these kept saturated with petroleum. 
Chrysanthemums are not, however, the only flowers the culture of 
which is here made a speciality. Tea Roses, Gladioli, double Tuberous 
Begonias, and Freesias all have a like distinction accorded them. The 
Chrysanthemum house is now devoted to Tea Roses in pots ; fine health}' 
plants free from mildew and insect pests and carrying many splendid 
blooms, amongst which we specially noticed Sappho (Paul) a recently 
introduced variety resembling as here seen a good Catherine Mermet. 
Outdoors an immense number of Tea Roses are grown in beds, as 
standards upon Briar stocks, and are looking wonderfully well. I 
asked Mr. Fowler if his losses amongst these, grown in this manner, 
were not often severe in winter, but he assured me such was not 
the case. Unfortunately the climate of Taunton is not to be found 
generally throughout England. 
More than 1000 corms of Gladioli, all the best varieties, are grown in 
beds of four rows each, with about fifty in each row, and many are the 
prizes Mr. Fowler has secured for these and his Roses. Double Begonias 
have a house specially devoted to them, and very vigorous and strong 
they are looking. They are now in 9-inch pots and look as though they 
will make specimens 2 to 3 feet through. A large number of single 
varieties are bedded out in summer, and these are now making sturdy 
vigorous growths planted out in cold frames, so that being freely 
ventilated and well hardened, they may be lifted and transplanted 
when required without check or injury. 
Freesias are extensively and well grown, these also being Mr. Fowler’s 
favourite flowers. They are all grown in large square seed pans occupy¬ 
ing shelves near the glass in a cool house, and the number of long spikes 
now furnished with plump seed pods testifies to the freedom with which 
they have flowered. Mr. Fowler thinks his practice of leaving them 
upon these shelves exposed to the fullest sun well into the summer, so 
that the young bulbs become thoroughly ripened, contributes much to 
his success with them. When taken down therefrom each season the 
pans are emptied and refilled, using fresh compost and assorting the 
bulbs into their respective sizes. They increase very rapidly, and he has 
many to give away to friends each season. 
Another feature of Claremont is the immense numbers of Narcissi, 
all tte best varieties intermixed and planted in grassy banks adjoining 
to the lawn. These have a most charmingly natural and free appear¬ 
ance growing amongst the uncut grass, which forms a splendid setting 
for them, and constitutes a scene at once novel and pleasing to every 
beholder. On a farm near, during the past autumn, five thousand 
bulbs were planted amongst the meadow grass for naturalisation. Mr. 
Fowler is a most enthusiastic floriculturist, and his ideas and wishes are 
most loyally supported and ably carried out by his gardener, between 
himself and whom a perfect accord and sympathy appear to exist, as it 
should always be between employer and employe.—W. K. Woodcock. 
HAZEL-BUD GALL MITE. 
This insect threatens to prove as destructive to Cob nut and Filbert 
trees as the Black Currant-bud gall mite (Phytoptus ribis, Westw.,) has 
to Black Currant bushes in many parts of England, especially in the 
North, also in Scotland, for some years past. 
The Hazel-bud gall mite (Phytoptus coryli, Frauenf.; Calycophthora 
avellanae, Amerl.) was first observed by Dujardin (Ann. des Soc. Nat., 
1851). It was also noticed by Dr. Amerling of Prague and Dr. Kirchner 
of Taplitz, two Hungarian naturalists, about that time ; and Kaltenbach 
states, in 1863 : “ This mite, according to the observations of Dr. Amerling, 
M. Kirchner, and ourselves, deforms the leaf buds into cone-shaped, 
scaly galls, which fade early, and never unfold or produce fruit,” The 
term “ cone-shaped, scaly galls ” only applies to the configuration of the 
infested buds in the axils of the leaves in late summer, they being in 
August considerably enlarged, and by September present the corticated, 
scaly, corrugated appearance of catkins just emerging from the buds at 
the bases of the leaves. In that month, and sometimes in August, the 
affected buds are round and flattened at the apex, considerably swollen— 
quite as large as a full-grown Marrow Pea, and of similar shape, with a 
brown, scaly exterior. The mite-infested buds differ from normal wood 
or fruit buds in this essential particular—namely, they are not only then 
(September) four times the size of a fruit bud, but the scales of the 
buds are open and hypertrophied, with a ball-like swelling in the centre, 
while, in the case of a wood bud being infested, there is no catkins being 
pushed from its side. The fruit buds of Hazel, Cob nut, and Filbert 
trees are rounded and never push catkins from their sides, for, if cut 
open and examined in September with a good lens, the growth of the 
following season will be clearly seen—the embryonic shoot and leaves 
terminated by its cluster of nuts. Such a bud is always solitary in the 
axil of its respective leaf ; a wood bud may also be without a catkin- 
producing bud by its side, but it is from the side of a wood bud that 
catkins appear in due course. The catkins, therefore, owe their presence 
to the preservation of the wood bud, for if anything happens to the wood 
bud or it does not receive sufficient support, catkins are not formed and 
pushed from that joint. A fruit bud infested with mites cannot produce 
fruit, nor a wood bud similarly attacked bear catkins by its side, for the 
simple reason that the forces of the wood bud are expended in the pro¬ 
duction of the gall, their presence or otherwise depending on the pre¬ 
servation of the wood bud and the amount of support it receives. It is 
essential, therefore, that the buds first formed in the axils of the leaves 
remain, normal for the ultimate formation of male or female blossoms in 
embryo, those depending on the trees receiving the needful support and 
its due assimilation, for if either of these are defective wood buds only 
will be formed, plethora on the one hand, and poverty on the other 
hand, being alike fatal to fruit production. Why one bud should have 
formed within it the male and another the female structures is not 
known, but it is well to understand that gall mites attacking either 
form of bud will prevent their unfolding and producing either growth 
or fruit. 
If the buds of Hazel, Cob nut, or Filbert trees infested with mites 
are examined in spring they will be found of the appearance shown in 
the illustration, fig. 61, A, a spray of Hazel, natural size. Three buds, 
a, are infested, swollen, distorted and destroyed so far as growth of 
value to the tree is concerned by the Hazel-bud gall mite. They, as 
will be seen, are rounded and hypertrophied, without any outgrowths, 
and are crimson coloured, indicated by the ” black ” in the engraving, 
in the centre, this part now (April 7th) becoming fissured, and by degrees 
the galls crack, open, turn black and wither. Let us look inside one of these 
swollen buds—gall formations. If torn open there is nothing visible to 
the naked eye beyond a distorted swollen mass. A pocket lens discovers 
nothing, only shows more of the devastatory work with, perhaps, a 
dirty white grub. But these supposed devourers of mites are very 
seldom found in bud galls, and the parasitic entedon is certainly not 
found in the galls until they have been deserted of the mites Phyto- 
phagic chalcidice, also, may be dismissed as non-parasitic on mites. 
The way to examine a bud-gall with a microscope, and see the 
hundreds of minute, semi-transparent, ashy-grey coloured mites is to 
cut the thinnest possible sectional slice of the interior of the gall and 
place it on a glass slide, with a reflector throwing light upon it from 
beneath. Such section is shown in B. Several active creatures, less than 
200th of a line in breadch, promenade the excrescences and stump-like 
hairs, and eggs, affixed by their small ends mainly, interest the beholder. 
Some of the insects appear browsing on the tips of the stumps (J), others 
pass from one stump to another (c) ; not a few steady themselves by 
their caudal appendages, and clasp the stump ends with their maxillm 
(lips, rZ), while others “ sun ” themselves on the eminences («). The 
galleries are very irregular and partitioned, sometimes, but not always, 
protected by hairs resembling the outgrowth of fungi, and called 
erineum. The eggs (/) vary as much in size as those of fowls, and they 
are, as seen and sketched on April 7th, equal in diameter to the average 
transverse one of the mites. 
The specimen, c, greatly magnified, was specially selected for illus¬ 
tration ; also the egg, D, the nucleus or head being clearly visible at g. 
As this part of the egg gains in weight it leans to one side, and the 
sac becomes drawn out, as shown in e. The mite ultimately emerges 
with four feet and the bristle-like attachments at the sides and caudal 
part of the body, leaving the empty sac still attached to the wall of the 
excrescence, as in f. When the newly hatched mites get well on their 
legs, and appear as c, they desert the galls, not a single one nor any 
trace of its former occupants being found in the discoloured, shrivelled 
gall but the empty sacs, with perhaps the larvae or maggots of some fly. 
What happens to cause the exodus of the mites is clearly due to their 
being no longer able to produce further swellings of the gall, because 
the sap which flowed into it in spring or from their entrance into the 
bud has been transferred into other channels, the tree not centring its 
forces on abortions, but on the growths essential to its enlargement and 
the reproduction of its kind—that is, the wood and buds of the current 
year. It should be distinctly understood that the mites must have live 
parts to act upon, otherwise they cannot produce galls, which are due to 
drops of poison deposited by the mites on the host, producing chemical 
changes, and hypertrophies yielding their essential food. This cannot 
go on the same part indefinitely, for what tends to produce a swelling 
does so at the expense of another part of the host, so that there is no 
hypertrophy without its corresponding atrophy, and culminating in the 
parasites exhausting the supplies of food, therefore, perforce of necessity, 
they seek fresh pastures. 
What becomes of the mites from their departure out of the old galls 
to their presence in the new buds of the Hazel, Cob nut, or Filbert trees 
in autumn ? Dujardin states that he found the same species of Phytoptus 
he detected in the Lime leaf nail galls in the malformed and distorted 
buds of the Hazel. M. Dujardin’s figure of the Lime-leaf nail-gall mite 
(Phytoptus tillas, or Ceratoneum extensum, Bremi), in the Bethnal 
Green branch of the South Kensington Museum, Aptera, case x., No. 16, is 
a very different one to that in the engraving C ; in fact, they are different 
species. M. Dujardin’s mistake is easily accounted for by his being an 
early worker, though preceded by M. Duger (1832-1831) and M. Turpin, 
who observed, in the nail-galls of the Lime leaf, a number of very 
minute semi-transparent fleshy mites of a new and hitherto unknown 
form—“a narrow creature with two pairs of small legs at its head, and 
some kind of sucker apparatus at its tail, on which it rests and raises 
itself, swaying about its body.” This accurate description of a gall 
mite cannot be improved upon ; but M. Turpin regarded “ the creature ” 
as a species of Sarcoptes, yet his figure accords with Dujardin’s of 
