273 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 21,1888. 
Azaleas .—Early varieties generally ripen, although the plants may 
have been grown under Vines and Peach trees. The plants, however, 
will be greatly benefited if they are stood out. for two or three weeks. 
Expose later varieties to full sunshine, and let them have abundance 
of air. They will ripen rapidly with sun during the day, followed by 
a low night temperature consequent upon leaving the ventilators open. 
Be careful they do not become dry, and syringe those under glass 
liberally twice daily in bright weather. 
Camellias .—Be careful with those that are only just forming their 
flower buds. Maintain a drier atmosphere, and give no more water 
than is really necessary until it is certain the buds are swelling, when 
the plants may be treated more liberally in respect to moisture. The 
•object is to prevent their starting into second growth. Earlier plants 
should be swelling their flower buds rapidly. These should have weak 
stimulants occasionally, and abundance of water at their roots. The 
syringe may also be used freely twice on fine days. 
French and Fancy Pelargoniums .—All the early plants of these 
should, if not already done, be placed into 5-inch pots, their flowering 
size, using good loam, one-seventh of manure, and sand pressed firmly 
into the pots. They must not be over-watered or they will make 
growth too rapidly. Keep them on the dry side, give abundance of air, 
an i the growth will be of the sturdiest description. Cuttings that were 
Tooted together in pots and pans place singly in 2J-inch pots in the 
same compost, and grow them under the same conditions. Old plants 
shake out and place in smaller pots. They may be kept close for ten 
days or a fortnight afterwards, and then given the treatment advised 
above. 
Calceolarias .—Transplant all that need it into pans and boxes before 
the seedlings become crowded. Earlier ones may be transferred from 
boxes into 3-inch pots. The earliest of all if ready may be placed in 
5-inch pots, in which they will do very well until the close of the year, 
whe i they can be again shifted if large plants are needed. Late sown 
plants kept through the summer in a shady position have now four or 
five strong growths that have issued from the base. Bemove a few of 
the lowest leaves from such, pot the plants deeply, and they will quickly 
root from the stems, then with good cultivation produce heads of bloom 
3 feet in diameter. 
Bulbs .—Pot and box quantities of Hyacinths, Narcissus, and Tulips 
at intervals of three weeks or a month until the end of October. It is 
not advisable to delay the potting of Hyacinths after the middle of that 
month ; hut Narcissus Grand Monarque and double Tulips may be 
retarded until the middle of the next month. These will yield flowers 
for cutting until June if they are kept in a frame with a northern aspect 
a'ter they are removed from the plunging material and then placed out¬ 
side where the sun will not reach them. 
THE CLOSING SEASON. 
At last this abnormal and most disappointing season is nearing 
its end. AVe cannot in any way lament its dying moments. We 
rather rejoice that at last there is an end to our hopes instead of 
the continued and exasperating attempt to hope against hope for a 
change for better weather in order that a little surplus might be 
secured. After all, we do not think that there is any cause for the 
lugubrious comments which have appeared in some of the daily 
papers, pointing to a serious diminution in the number of stocks which 
will be found in health in the spring of next year. We are inclined 
to think that if proper attention is given to the wants of the apiary 
no great increase in mortality will be experienced during the next 
six months ; but if ever there was a year when care was necessary 
it is in the present autumn, when failure to give the necessary 
■attention must end in absolute disaster. “A Lanarkshire Bee¬ 
keeper” comments upon the greabdifficulty which has been ex¬ 
perienced in this most untoward season in getting young queens 
fertilised, and in doing so he has struck a vein which we had pur¬ 
posed working in the present article, but which may now be passed 
over with the remark that one of the greatest dangers with which 
we shall have to contend in March and April will probably be due 
io the giving out of the powers of worn-out queens. Now to a great 
extent even this danger may be averted by those bee-keepers who 
keep a record of the age of their queens, and who are also able by 
an intelligent use of their powers of observation to perceive which 
•queens are the more likely to be in health and power next spring. 
Our efforts must be concentrated upon the preservation of those 
stocks which possess valuable queens, and it would be also wise to 
save what would in other years be considered as practically worn- 
out mothers, in order that if any accident should happen to the 
younger queens at the head of our best stocks we may have a suc¬ 
cessor which may be able to perform the functions of a queen 
until some of our foremost colonies are strong enough to be 
devoted to queen-rearing. 
There is another point upon which it may be well to touch. 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper,” referring to the article on queen 
substitution in a past issue, comments upon the omission 
to furnish instructions for introducing queens. This was an 
intentional and premeditated omission, and for the following 
reason In the spring of the present year we discussed at some 
length the best means of introducing queens and gave some instruc¬ 
tions accordingly. Upon these instructions appearing a most in¬ 
teresting discussion sprang up, and it was our intention during the 
past summer to have tested once more the several methods and 
then to have given the result of our further experience. This 
has been impossible, for the simple reason that the weather has been 
of a kind to warn even the most careless bee-keeper that the fewer 
the manipulations the better the chance for the stocks, and another 
reason has been the great difficulty of obtaining fertile queens and 
their more than ordinary value when they had been secured. It 
seemed, then, a wiser course to allow those who have given the ques¬ 
tion of “ queen introduction ” an amount of attention far greater 
than it has been in our power to do, to give the necessary instruc¬ 
tions, than to instruct where we should ourselves like to have some 
further experience in view of the opinions expressed, when we 
did venture to offer an opinion which was based upon considerable 
practical experience in the apiary. For our own part we cannot 
conceive that a bee-keeper who really makes an earnest attempt 
can fail to introduce a queen provided he makes use of a “ safe 
method,” and this we should certainly advise every bee-keeper to 
do rather than run any risk with valuable queens. 
It is possible that “ A Hallamshire Bee keeper ” failed to 
convey his exact meaning in the article to which we made allusion 
a few weeks ago, and to our comments on which he refers in the 
last week’s issue, and we shall be glad if he will state more pre¬ 
cisely what he did mean his readers to infer, in order that no 
suspicion of making fun of him may again be allowed to drop 
from our pen Of one thing we can assure him, and that is, that 
few know more of the practical difficulties with which inventors 
occasionally meet in the endeavour to reap the result of their 
ingenuity than we do ourselves—in one capacity or another— 
although we are inclined t 1 think that some people attach a greater 
importance than it deserves to the piracy of inventions which is 
to some extent rife amongst us. Five shillings a piece for sections 
is a decidedly tall price, but if a bee-keeper can obtain it, why, he 
had better accept it. It is, however, in very few cases feasible to 
obtain so gigantic a price for a commodity which, although it may 
be scarce, is not by any means a necessity. Our sections are all 
sold, and at a price less than half that mentioned by “ A Hallam¬ 
shire Bee-keeper,” and if we could rescind the sale to-day we 
should prefer to let things remain as they are, feeling satisfied that 
the purchaser has lost nothing by his purchase, and that we have 
lost nothing by the sale.— Felix. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
MM. Ketten freres, Rosieristes, Luxembourg.— Catalogue of Roses. 
Robert Veitch k Sons, Exeter.— Catalogue of Dutch Bulbs and other 
Flower Roots. 
Thomas S. Ware, Tottenham.— A B C Bulb Guide. 
J. Linden (International Horticultural Company), Parc Leopold, 
Brussels.— Catalogue of Orchids and New General Plants. 
Benjamin Soddy, 243, Walworth Road, London. — Catalogue of 
Hyacinths and other Dutch Bulbs. 
G. H. Krelage k Son, Haarlem, Holland.— Catalogue of Dutch and 
other Flowering Bulbs and Plants. 
W. Piercy, 81), West Road, Forest Hill, London, E.C.— Descriptive 
List of Early Chrysanthemums. 
C. Kerkvoorde, Wetteren, Belgium. — Catalogue of Roses, Trees, and 
Flowers. 
Wm. Rumsey, Waltham Cross, N.— Catalogue of Roses. 
