April 12, 1394 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
281 
- Broccoli and Frost.— Referring to the statement of Mr. 
John Chinnery (page 260) of his Broccoli plants withstanding the test 
of tS3° of frost, we registered 22° and lost 75 per cent, of Spring White 
and 60 per cent, of Main Crop and Model. A late foreman of mine now 
in Yorkshire, when writing a few weeks since, states, “ We have had 
32° of frost. All my Broccoli are killed, and my Brussels Sprouts quite 
spoiled.” How are we to account for the differences in experiences 
indicated 1 —Hackwood. 
- March Weather in Scotland. —Mr. G. M’Dougall, Stirling, 
writes :—Total rainfall for the last month amounted to 2 929 inches, 
which fell on fourteen days ; greatest fall on any day 0 590 inch on the 
7th. Frost was recorded on sixteen nights ; coldest night, the 17th, 
with 25 8°; coldest day, the 11th, with 43-2° ; warmest night, the 20th, 
with 44° ; warmest day, the 26th, with 64°. Mean maximum, 519°; 
mean minimum, 33 4°. There was no rain after the 14th until the 31st, 
when 0‘015 inch fell. More than 30 inches of rain have fallen since the 
ist of December. 
- The Weather Last Month. —March was bright and dry, 
with much less wind than usual, and very little frost except on the 
17th and 18th. The wind was in a westerly direction eighteen days. 
The total rainfall was 0 94 inches, which fell on eighteen days; the 
greatest daily fall being 0‘25 inches On 12th. Highest shade tempe¬ 
rature, 67° on 30th; lowest, 24° on 17th; mean daily maximum, 
53 83° ; mean daily minimum, 34-00°; mean temperature of the 
month, 43 91 ; lowest on grass, 15° on 17th. Total sunshine, 167 hours 
10 minutes.—W. H. Divers, Belvoir Gastle Gardens, Grantham. 
- The Weather. —Reports as to the weather received from 
the country generally show that in spite of local thunderstorms ex¬ 
perienced in many places last week there are still many districts in 
which no rain has fallen since the middle of March. Of the stations 
in daily communication with the Meteorological Office there are 
four which may lay claim to this distinction, the places in question 
being Shields, Dungeness, the North Foreland, and Valencia (Ireland). 
At the first-mentioned station the period of absolute drought had lasted 
up to Sunday morning for as many as twenty days, while at the three 
other places it had continued for no fewer than twenty-five days. Taking 
the past three weeks as a whole, we find that with the exception of a 
few isolated localities in the more central parts of England and Ireland 
the total rainfall has amounted to less than a quarter of an inch, and in 
very many places to less than one-tenth of an inch. Up to the present 
time the drought of this year, though less severe than that of last, 
has been far more general, the absence of rainfall being as great in 
many of ,the northern parts of the kingdom as it is in the southern 
districts. 
- An Ancient Sequoia. — The .British Museum has recently 
acquired a section of a trunk of Sequoia gigantea from California, 
having a diameter of somewhat over 15| feet. We learn from “ Nature ” 
that the annual rings have been carefully counted by Mr. Carruthers, 
and two years ago when the tree was’cut down it was 1330 years old. It 
was then still living and vigorous. It had, therefore, attained already a 
considerable age when St. Augustine intro4uced Christianity into Great 
Britain. The rings indicate a remarkably symmetrical growth on all 
sides of the tree. For the first five or six centuries they show a con¬ 
siderable annual increase in the girth of the trunk, getting gradually 
thinner as the superficies to be covered became larger, and becoming 
very thin for the last three or four centuries. It is satisfactory to learn 
on the authority of Mr. Carruthers that there were in 1884 in all the 
groves which he visited trees of various ages, so that Sequoia is in no 
danger of early extinction. 
- Propagating Pyrethrums.-^" Divide Pyrethrums and make 
new beds” is the somewhat loose adviqe given to readers of a provincial 
newspaper by some amateur correspondent. I should like to know on 
what experience that advice is based. | My own is that no hardy plants 
divide so badly as do Pyrethrums. In the trade nurseries, where the 
work of propagation is performed with considerable success, the rule is 
to take off young shoots in the spring with pieces of root, if possible, 
attached ; if not then as ordinary cuttings insert them singly into tiny 
pots, and in sandy soil, root them in warmth, and thus increase stock. 
If the roots be lifted as above advised and be divided there is always the 
gravest danger that the young shoots will be severed from the roots, and 
these can only be propagated as cuttings. Even when successfully 
divided the plants take a long time ere they get hold of the ground, 
often suffering much in drought because they are shallow rooted. 
Amateur gardeners could soon lose their stocks in this way.—D. 
- Heating Appliances. — Messrs. J. Weeks & Co., King’s 
Road, Chelsea, S.W., send us a record of the experiences of persons in 
regard to their patent upright tubular boilers. In saying that the 
writers are well known gardeners, and who are apparently perfectly 
satisfied, no further testimony as to the usefulness and durability of the 
boiler mentioned need be given. 
-- Double Primroses.—H aving shortly to introduce the subject 
of the hardy Primrose before the members of au influential gardeners’ 
association, I should very much like to learn of any northern florist who 
has a fairly complete collection of these fine old double hardy flowers. 
I doubt whether anything like a representative collection can be found 
in England, in any case in the south or Midlands. That the plants are 
of the best coloured varieties difficult to keep in the south there can be 
no doubt. Still, in commenting on double sorts, it is desirable to know 
where they can be obtained. A complete collection would include 
white, blush, lilac, sulphur, yellow, rose, purple, violet purple, and 
crimson, with two others, platypetala plena, and something “ crousse,” 
which I have almost forgotten. I have had as many as twelve dis¬ 
tinctive sorts. It would be very interesting to learn of what varieties 
florists are yet offering. In the south the white and the lilac are 
common enough, but those only.—A. D. 
- A Flesh-eating Caterpillar. —Professor Perrier, of the 
Paris Museum, according to a daily contemporary, recently stated to 
the Academy of Sciences that Mr. Rouzand, of the Faculty of Sciences 
of Montpellier, has studied the habits and metamorphoses of a remark¬ 
able butterfly, whose caterpillar lives upon the Olive tree. This 
lepidopter was briefly described by Rambour sixty years ago under the 
name of Erastria scicula. Unlike its fellows, the caterpillar of the 
Erastria does not eat the leaves of the tree upon which it lives, but, on 
the contrary, despoils the latter of its parasites. It is not herbivorous, 
but carnivorous, and feeds upon the coccinellidre that abound upon 
the Olive tree, and often cause the death of it. In addition to this 
peculiarity, this singular animal presents others of great interest. In 
its adult state it is so coloured as to exactly simulate the excrement of 
the sparrow. While very young it hides itself under the carapace of 
the coccinellidse that it devours. When a little older it spins a ring 
of silk around such carapace, and thus enlarges its dwelling in such a 
way that it shall always be adapted to its own size. 
-Birmingham and District Amateur Gardeners’ Asso¬ 
ciation. —There was a very good attendance of members at the last 
week’s meeting of the above Association, held at their rooms, 116 
Colmore Row, Councillor Martineau (Vice-President), in the chair. 
Mr. Arthur Groves read a paper on “The Town Garden.” The Chair¬ 
man, in introducing the lecturer, said that as the prime object of the 
Association was to encourage the better cultivation of town gardens 
they would notice with delight the increased attention now given to 
the public gardens of the city as compared to a few years ago; this 
could not but help to stimulate the inhabitants to do more with their 
own little plots of garden. Mr. Groves thoroughly dealt with every 
phase of town garden, and gave information as to the best time to 
commence planting and sowing seeds, and also the varieties of plants 
with which amateurs are likely to be most successful. He said her¬ 
baceous plants rightly held the foremost position, as, considering the 
attention they required, what could give more satisfaction than such 
plants as Achilleas, Campanulas, Helianthus, Rudbeckias, Michaelmas 
Daisies, and Gaillardias? Creepers such as Clematis and Virginian 
Creeper were useful for covering bare walls; rockeries were very 
picturesque, and if properly formed not only reminded one of the natural 
scenery of the country, but would also hide any unsightly corners or 
spaces in the garden. A good grass lawn was also a great adjunct to 
a town garden. He gave a list of the plants most suitable for growing 
in a shady place. In conclusion, he strongly advised amateurs to grow 
plants of good quality, and not more than could be well and easily 
managed, as one good plant well grown would give as much or 
more bloom than half a dozen weakly plants crowded together. A 
vote of thanks was passed to Mr. Groves for his very interesting paper. 
Messrs. Hy. Beech, E. D. Clark, C. Daniell, C. Hartley, W. H. Peake, 
F. T. Poulson, A. Roe, H. Smith, and \V. H. Wilks exhibited plants in 
pots and cut flowers ; Messrs. W. B. Child and R. Sydenham exhibited 
Narcissi and Tulips not for competition. The Association is at present 
in a very flourishing condition, the membership having reached 210; 
the average attendance at the meetings is double what it was last year. 
The Secretary, Mr. Wm. B. Griflfin, will be pleased to nominate anyone 
who desires to become a member. His address is now Wychbury, 
Alcester Road, Moseley. 
