May 11, 1803. ] 
371 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
moderate dimensions being the most effective when used as a means 
of supplying a mass of bright colour. I always employ a good 
number of two-year-old plants of both Pansies and Violas ; these 
flower very early in the spring, and are now a perfect mass of flower, 
but will not continue satisfactory throughout the summer. These are 
provided for in the following way :—A number of Pelargoniums are 
potted, and have their flower buds removed till the middle of June. 
By the first week in July the beauty of the Pansies is on the wane ; 
they are then removed, and their places occupied by these prepared 
Pelargoniums, which are by that time covered with flower buds 
just ready to open, and with careful planting and watering a good 
show is obtained almost immediately. A number of Stocks and 
Asters are also prepared by planting 9 inches apa’rt in nursery 
beds ; these in time take the place of the two-year-old Violas, and 
create a seasonable and beautiful display late in summer. 
Before commencing to set out bedding plants in their summer 
quarters it is important to see that all have been thoroughly 
hardened, for it will assuredly prevent much future disappoint¬ 
ment. To see Pelargonium leaves turning a bronzy brown colour 
after planting is a sure indication that the hardening process has 
not been completed. When the plants are kept in pits or frames 
up till the time of planting out the lights should be entirely 
removed for at least a week previous to planting, because it is quite 
as necessary for them to be inured to sunshine as well as to com¬ 
parative cold. If, therefore, by any mischance plants have had 
the lighcs kept partially over them till they are wanted for planting, 
Yew, Spruce, or Laurel branches disposed among them for a few 
days will effectually prevent them from being injured by sunshine 
during the day or cold at night. It is well to be prepared for 
such contingencies, but better still to provide against them by 
exercising care and judgment to have all planes thoroughly hardened 
by the time they are required. 
Should the dry weather continue the work of bedding will 
unfortunately be more laborious than usual, as regular watering 
will be absolutely necessary for the well-being of many plants. 
Even where plenty of water and hose are at command much 
valuable time is taken up with the work, but where these 
conveniences are not provided the task is an Herculean one daring 
a season like the present. Much may be done in such cases by 
obtaining water carts and garden engines of one of the many 
improved types now advertised, which are labour-saving machines 
of immense benefit to both employers and gardeners, for it is 
only by seeing that the plants are thoroughly moist at the roots 
when planted, and by watering continually after planting till they 
are established, that the occupants of the flower garden can be 
kept in a satisfactory condition during seasons of prolonged 
drought.—H. Dunkin, Castle Gardens^ WarwieJe. 
ANTIPODEAN APPLES AND THE R.H.S. 
NORTHERN SPY AS A STOCK. 
Some time since I saw in one of your publications an article 
from the Curator of the Chiswick Gardens, asking for cuttings or 
plants of any new or rare Apples for the Royal Horticultural 
Society. I went to a good deal of trouble and some expense in 
obtaining cuttings of Australian and New Zealand seedlings that 
are growing and fruiting in this district. I obtained something 
like three dozen varieties ; I carefully packed them and sent them 
by post to Mr. Barron eight months since, along with a letter. I 
have never heard anything of their arrival, or received any 
communication from the Society on the subject. My object in 
writing this is to show how little anything of the kind is appre¬ 
ciated, and to prevent others, like myself, going to trouble or 
expense in trying to confer a benefit. Many of the varieties I sent 
were great improvements on older sorts. Seeing that Bismarck 
Apple is becoming so popular (and as I was the first to introduce it 
into England), I thought j. should do something further to add to 
the popularity of colonial-raised seedlings. 
Whilst on the subject of Apples, I see by an article in your 
paper that the Northern Spy does not fruit well or early in 
England ; the same complaint was made here until we commenced 
to grow it on its own roots. We now find it fruits much earlier, 
and bears larger and finer crops. I have some trees only three or 
four years old from the root grafts now bearing beautiful fruit. 
If “ R. M., Neivburi/C will write to me and send his address I will 
send him a few young trees grown on their own roots. On account 
of the woolly aphis attacking the roots of Apple trees so severely 
here, we use the Northern Spy wholly as a stock, and from my 
long experience I have no hesitation in slying that, apart from its 
blight-resisting properties, it is the best stock in the world on 
which to work Apples. There is a small fortune for any nursery¬ 
man who first makes it a speciality as a stock for Apples. I have 
never yet met with a variety that does not do well on it, from the 
Siberian Crab to the Blenheim Pippin. The union is always 
perfect and the growth good. I have not much faith in my hint 
being taken ; the British public are so wedded to old notions that 
generally the rest of the world have adapted any new idea before 
they awake to its utility.—W. J. Palmer, The Nurseries, Carletou 
Gore Road, Auckland, New Zealand. 
[Mr. Barron informs us that the grafts referred to never 
reached him, and that letters are answered in the Secretary’s office 
in Victoria Street. He received grafts from another Antipodean 
source, but they arrived in bad condition, some packed in crushed 
charcoal being dead on arrival. We have heard from other sources 
of the value of the Northern Spy as a stock, and it is noticeable 
that trees of this variety are singularly free from insects.] 
THE LARCH DISEASE. 
This subject, introduced by Mr. Williams (page 292), is 
opportune, and also interesting to those with experience of the 
disease, which, I am sorry to say, is increasing in these parts. 
The exceptionally severe weather experienced at what I call an 
unseasonable period has much to do with the spread of the disease. 
Take for instance the 7° of frost registered here on the morning 
of Whit-Sunday, May 17th, 1891. At that time the trees bad 
made 2 inches of new growth. In one plantation alone 15,000 
trees were injured, many of them being 15 feet high. Such 
fluctuations of temperature as this must have an injurious effect 
upon the trees, other than the destroying of the season’s growth. 
Unfortunately the spread of the dreaded Larch disease is not the 
only ill caused by adverse weather. The trees are left in such a 
weakened state that they so easily fall a prey to the attack of 
insect pests. 
The months of February, March, and April last year being so 
exceptionally dry, directly new growth commenced on the trees 
injured by frost the previous year it was attacked heavily by the 
sheath caterpillar of the Coleophora laricella moth. Until the 
shoots were fully developed these caterpillars voraciously devoured 
the tender leaves, giving the trees a bleached appearance.^ On a 
neighbouring estate a portion of a plantation of Larch of 5 acres 
was slightly injured also by the frost occurring on the date named, 
but the same trees almost escaped the caterpillar plague last year. 
However, this year the caterpillar has made sad havoc of those m 
the plantation named that escaped last year. The weakest trees 
were first attacked, the ravages gradually extending over three 
parts of the plantation and slightly affecting some in an adjoining 
wood, these latter trees being fully 30 feet high. As m our case 
the trees are growing in a thin bed of soil overlaying a chalk 
foundation. Until the trees received the check by the frost named 
a diseased tree was an exception, but now 75 per cent, are affected. 
The disease appears generally in that part of the tree which is 
three or four years old, the formative fluid or cambium being larger 
in that part than in any other, and hence its susceptibility to adverse 
climatic influence. My opinion also is that the chalk foundation 
has much to do with the presence of the disease. This mineral 
has a decided influence on the progress of the trees, and in some 
cases increases the disease. 
We scarcely ever find the disease on trees growing in stiff soil 
intermixed with flint stones as is present in some parts of the 
estate, not even in the same plantation where the trees were so 
much affected by the frost of 1891. The soil in this plantation is 
so variable that both kinds are found within a short space of each 
other. However, Larch timber growing wholly in chalk in this 
neighbourhood is considered to be of superior quality up to at least 
sixty years old where the trees escaped disease in their earlier 
stages of growth. The grain of the wood is of that rich colour so 
pleasing to timber merchants as compared to that grown in soil 
opposite in character—sand, for instance. 
Some persons attribute the Larch disease wholly to a wet and 
ungenial soil, owing to its want of drainage. I do not dispute that 
such conditions are favourable to disease, but as to being wholly 
the case, I am convinced this is a fallacy. On this estate it is not 
possible to find a wet piece of land. I mean by wet, where water 
collects on the surface, refusing to percolate for a time. Through¬ 
out the whole of the estate chalk is the foundation, varying in the 
distance from the surface as much as 19 feet in some parts, and as 
little as 4 inches in others. I find where trees from 3 feet high up 
to 12 feet receive a check in their growth by frost or insect pests 
they are more liable to disease. The disease does not in all cases 
kill the trees, as close here some planted twenty-two years since, 
and now 40 feet high, were attacked about G feet from the ground, 
but have apparently grown out of the difficulty. It does not 
follow either that all Larch planted on chalk subsoil necessarily 
