May 16, 1895. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
429 
- The AaRicuLTURAL Resources of Russia.—M. Bataliue, 
Director of St. Petersburg Botanic Gardens, in a recently issued report, 
gives some idea of the immense undeveloped agricultural resources of 
Russia. He states that in the Caucasus, along the shore of the Black 
Sea, is a wide area of land more fertile than any other in Russia, and 
where Grapes, Olives, and other fruits, tea, and corn would flourish. 
The vegetation is rich, but hardly any attempt has been made to 
cultivate this fertile country since the Russian conquest of the Caucasus 
in 1864. With the exception of two villages, where are some large 
gardens, there is little sign of cultivation in a province where thirty 
years ago were broad cornfields, extensive orchards, and a flourishing 
people. 
- Bees Puncturing Flowers. —Bees puncture many other 
flowers than Beans. Aqnilegias are mutilated by them. I am much 
obliged for the reply given by Mr. W. Cuthbertson (page 404), but 
scarcely fall in with him that the shaking of the blossom by the 
bees aids in fertilising the Bean. It was the general opinion at one 
time that the humble bee punctured the base of the blossoms for the 
sole benefit of Apis melliflca. I turned my attention to that, won¬ 
dering why comparatively few humble bees could get over so much 
work, and why they did not appropriate the honey instead of labouring 
for other bees. I soon made the discovery the honey bees did the 
puncturing for their own benefit as well as a small beetle. I cannot 
say when the bees puncture or enter the blossoms in search for honey, 
but it is reasonable to suppose that they puncture only when the honey 
is scarce. Beans secrete much honey at the base of the leaves, which 
the bees gather readily. If honey and blossoms are the attractions for 
insects to assist fertilisation, what then is the use of the honey at the 
axils of the leaves ?— Observer. 
- May Weather. —Last week was one of the sunniest that has 
ever been experienced in these islands. Over a very large portion of 
Great Britain the aggregate duration of bright sunshine amounted to 
between seventy and eighty hours, giving a mean daily proportion of 
ten to eleven hours. At Cambridge the total duration for the week was 
as much as eighty-eight hours, or rather more than twice the ordinary 
average. Even at Westminster, where the operation of the sunshine 
recorder is too often interfered with by mists or smoke, the total 
duration last week was no less than eighty hours, or 75 per cent, of the 
possible amount. So large a proportion for a whole week has Only been 
registered once in London in the course of the past fifteen years. That 
was in the second week of May, 1893, when the proportion, of the 
possible amount of sunshine in London was 1 per cent, higher than in 
the past week. With this exception the proportion has never exceeded 
70 per cent., and in eight years out of the past fifteen it has not once 
exceeded 65 per cent. The presence of so much bright sunshine last 
week resulted, very naturally, in high day temperatures, the maximum 
readings over the inland parts of Great Britain being frequently above 
70°, and in some few instances above 75°. In London the thermometer 
in the shade rose to 70° and upwards on four days out of the seven, 
while on Thursday last it reached 76°. The latter point was, however, 
eclipsed on Sunday, when, in spite of a rather cloudy sky, the shade 
temperature rose to 79°, or 17° above the average for May, and 7° above 
the average for July or August. Out of the past twenty-five years 
there have been only six in which the temperature in London during 
the month of May has risen so high. The highest May temperature 
registered in London during the past quarter of a century occurred on 
the 26th of the month in 1880, when the thermometer rose to 86°. Such 
a temperature as was recorded in the heart of the City at one o’clock on 
Monday morning (65°) has not been experienced thus early in the 
month for years. Indeed, since 1891 the only instance of the ther¬ 
mometer touching that point at midnight in May was on the 28th of the 
month in the spring of 1892. Taking the whole of last summer the 
thermometer only thrice stood as high in the early hours of the morning, 
and those three occasions were all in the month of July.—(“Daily 
News.”) 
THE R.H.S. EXAMINATION. 
I TRUST we shall learn through the columns of the Journal of 
Horticulture, and from many sources, now that you have published 
questions set at the recent examination, what is generally thought 
of them as a test of practical and theoretical knowledge in gardening. 
It would be absurd to say of any of them that they were abstruse 
or difficult. So far as I can see in them they are such as any in¬ 
telligent gardener might have answered with comparative ease, whilst 
some amateurs would not find them exceedingly difficult. 
Probably there are many who have ere now read the questions, who, 
shrinking at the time, now think they were very foolish not to have sat 
for the examination. I cannot conceive of young men who have their 
way to make in the calling who would not be eager to seize the 
opportunity to sit, because if no pecuniary good eventually resulted, and 
I think that could hardly be the case when a young gardener did well, 
still undergoing the ordeal of an examination would be productive of 
great good, ani must render the candidate more fully conversant with 
much in gardening that perhaps hitherto he has not studied or even 
practised. 
One very estimable gardener, a man of mature years, whose work I 
had previously seen, and whom I was anxious should sit, told me that 
he was specially desired in another direction not to do so, because some 
less experienced meu would to some extent regard him as a competitor, 
and thus damp their energies. In any case he did not sit. Another 
gardener, who had previously done first-class paper work, seems to have 
refrained from sitting because the nearest centre was so far from his 
residence. In that case only one candidate (a schoolmaster) sat; but 
I think, from what I know of him, that he will not have done badly. 
Talking to an esteemed gardener in Surrey the other day, he 
remarked, “I wonder that head gardeners, where they have two or 
three or more young men under them, do not both specially encourage 
these youths not only to attend horticultural lectures, hut also to sit 
for the R.H.S. examination.” In that view I fully concur. Ido not 
say, of course, any compulsion should be exercised, but moral suasion 
should be employed to those ends. Young men may not find in garden¬ 
ing that perfect or highly paid vocation they wish, but at least they are 
extremely foolish, once they are right into it, not to try and make the 
very best of it that offers. Their ages range from twenty to thirty years, 
perhaps, and yet there is not in the kingdom an intelligent gardener 
three times the age who will not admit that all there is to know in 
gardening has never been acquired. It does therefore seem to be folly 
to neglect the aids which to-day furnishes, whether in books, lectures, 
classes, examinations, or in whatsoever way found. 
I have found numbers of cases in which old and experienced men have 
admitted how much they have learned through lectures, even if little 
in mere work at least much in theory, and in opening up new veins of 
thought and aspect. To such men as these lectures are sources of real 
enjoyment as well as of improvement. The stubborn man, who encases 
himself as it were in armoury of cold disdain, and offensive egotism, 
will neither attend lectures nor learn from any source. He is a fool unto 
himself, for no persons are so mentally blind as those who will not see. 
That is a sort of feeling that may come of age, but should never be a 
characteristic of the young man. If he is wise he will try hard to 
obtain useful knowledge from any source, for he never can tell when he 
may find it useful. How often is it he who has a chance to drop into 
some better position finds that lack of knowledge heavily handicaps 
him, and loses for him the post to which he aspired. All this is too 
true, and much to be deplored. 
Would that we could get head gardeners everywhere to interest 
themselves much more actively in connection with this annual R.H.S. 
examination, and try to induce their young men to become candidates. 
The number of these should be ten times as many as are now presented. 
The examination is of course open to all, but it is essentially a gardener’s 
examination all the same. It is therefore all the more a matter for 
regret that as such it is not far more widely utilised.—A. D. 
EARWIGS FLYING. 
Although I willingly reply to “ W. R, Raillem’s ” request on 
page 408, I feel bound to say that I do not see the object of his remarks. 
That in surrounding Chrysanthemum plants by water earwigs are 
practically precluded from attacking the plants is an undoubted fact 
experienced by those who pursue this course. Whether they suffer from 
hydrophobia, or are too indolent to use their wings, I am unable to say, 
but that they rarely get on to my plants while so protected is sufficient 
for my purpose ; but “ W. R. Raillem ” must not assume I state that 
they do not fly upwards, as all I say is " there need be little fear.” But 
after all, whether they fly at all matters little to me, unless they would 
all fly to the south-west of England. Unfortunately these insects 
account for an hour or more of my time every night from May to 
November, which is doubtless funny to “ W. R. Raillem,” and I have 
thought that I have seen thousands make use of their wings in the 
manner described by me, but I would tell your correspondent that I 
have the greatest dislike to touching these insects with my hands, and 
always use forceps, and that I have never seen them open their wings 
in the daytime, although I assume the night is referred to. 
As to “ W. R. Raillem’s” inquiry, “Will ‘Entomologist’ he kind 
enough to say whether an earwig can fly over an inch or two of water, 
or as high as the leaves of a Chrysanthemum plant? ” Why not. I only 
speak of its customary habits. 
Perhaps I may remind “ W. R. Raillem” that our old “barndoor” 
has also a “ splendid pair of wings,” and although there are two or three 
of us who have done the funniest thing that he has heard of for a 
long time, I do not think that need surprise him, nor myself, inasmuch 
as the funniest part of it all is that the “Earwig Baffler” is not mine, 
but that of some other funny person (see page 341). 
And, lastly, as to the libel on the poor cuckoo, why I heard a girl 
once say, “ Oh, mamma, I heard the cuckoo this morning, it went 
pe-wet, pe-wet.” Libels on birds or animals are not, however, in¬ 
frequent, as I bear in mind the reply of the man who received a kick 
from a donkey and said that he took it from whence it came.— 
H. Beiscoe-Ironside, Burgess Hill. 
