Jane S7, 188S. .] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
513 
cumber of years. In course of time, early or late in point of age, 
tthey break or rectify into either feathered or flamed flowers, or 
into some confused and imperfect attempt at either. They do this 
without any reference to order of rank or time, and the laws which 
^govern this momentous change are not revealed to the children of 
•men. There is an old Indian proverb which states that the flowers 
Teveal all their secrets to the stars, but their communications fail to 
reach the ears of mankind in course of transit. The Rev. F. D. 
Horner informs us in reference to this singular transformation, that 
■the class the broken flowers will belong to “ is determined by the 
base colour of the breeder, or by the colour of the base and petal 
■considered together. If the base is a circle of yellow the flower 
will be a bizarre; if whity a rose or byblcemen, according to the 
body colour of the petal. Roses break from white base breeders 
with pink, rose, red or scarlet self-coloured petals ; byblcemens 
from a white base, with lilac or slate-coloured petals. Bizarre 
breeders have reddish and yellowish brown, dull red and a sort 
of mahogany colour on their breeder petals, and occasionally bright 
scarlet, wherein the flower will break into a red bizarre, a very 
lovely and more recent development. A seedling with, for instance, 
a. lilac body colour and yellow base is worthless, for it combines the 
colours of the two classes, and will break into an inadmissible 
flower known as a tricolor ; it will have two ground colours, white 
and yellow, streakily or otherwise mixed, deriving its white through 
the byblcemen lilac of the self colour, and its yellow through its 
base as a bizarre. Seedlings do not strictly follow the class of 
their parents, and in this sportiveness often fail through trying to 
belong to two classes at once. I have never raised or seen a bizarre 
body colour with a white base, but very often byblcemen body 
colour with a yellow base. Tricolors come from these, since 
the remaining variety of scarlet body colour with yellow base or 
white would be either a scarlet bizarre ora rose ; a pink petal, how¬ 
ever, with yellow base would not break into scarlet bizarre colour, 
and would be a rose-marked flower with impure ground colour. 
Some colours, especially in bizarre breeders, are dull, and might be 
thought even ugly ; but as a rule the plainer and weaker colours in 
the breeder flowers generally produce the richest flowers in the 
rectified state.” This passage is so clear, and gives so much useful 
information in a small compass, that I could not resist the tempta¬ 
tion to quote it. 
It is a singular circumstance that the colour of the flower in the 
breeder state does not enter into and combine to form the marking 
in the broken stage. It does not appear, as one might have sup¬ 
posed, in beautiful markings on the rectified petals ; but it disap¬ 
pears altogether from the flower, just as a mist which obscures 
a landscape is dispersed or lifted off before the sun. The base 
colour floods the whole flower with its pure white or yellow, and a 
new and marvellous colour strikes in to feather or flame the petals. 
In Mr. Samuel Barlow’s collection of Tulips at Stakehill he has 
two charming breeders that when in good condition almost invari¬ 
ably find a place in a pan of six blooms. One is a bybloemen 
breeder named Glory of Stakehill, raised from seed by the late 
Luke Ashmole, and named by Mr. Barlow ; the other is a rose 
breeder, raised by the late John Hep worth, and named Mr. Barlow. 
These, beautiful in the breeder stage, frequently disappoint when 
they become broken. I have already stated that there is great 
pncertainty when breeders will take on the broken character. Mr. 
Barlow informs me that he has grown several of the late Dr. Hardy’s 
seedling breeders for the last twenty years, and they remain in the 
breeder stage still. A byblcemen breeder named Mrs. Cooper has 
at the base of the beam a dull drab colour ; when it breaks into 
the feathered form, as it sometimes will, no trace of the drab is to 
be seen. 
While conversing with Mr. Barlow on Tulip 3 , I asked him if he 
had knowledge of broken flowers going back to the breeder stage. 
He said probably not more than twelve in the forty years in which he 
had been a Tulip cultivator ; but he instanced the cases of Heroine 
(rose) and Hepworth’s President (a flamed bizarre). In the case 
of President he stated it went back to a solid breeder (one of the 
rarest aberrations in the Tulip), and the next season it came a very 
fine flamed flower. It would appear that a flower which reverts in 
this manner changes again in a season or two. 
Mr. Barlow named two flowers that had never passed through 
the breeder stage. One is Mrs. Jackson, referred to above ; the 
other is the well-known bybloemen Yiolette Aimable. Other seed¬ 
lings have skipped in the same way, but were generally hopelessly 
bad when they bloomed. 
In answer to my inquiry as to whether anything can be done in 
order to hasten the breaking process, Mr. Barlow stated that it is 
generally considered breeders can be induced to rectify by changing 
the place, soil, climate, and general conditions under which the 
bulbs have been grown ; but it is not expedient to lay down any 
dogmatic opinions in regard to this point. 
I requested Mr. Barlow to give me the names of the choicest 
breeders in his collection, and he named the following :—Bizarres : 
Sir Joseph Paxton, Hepworth’s No. 27a, Horatio (Headly), William 
Lea (Storer), William Wilson (Hardy), and Richard Yates (Lea). 
Roses : Mr. Barlow (Hepworth), Miss Burdett Coutts (Hepworth), 
Lady May (Hepworth), Annie McGregor (Hepworth), Lady Gros- 
venor (Slater), and Mabel (Martin). Bybloemens : Glory of 
Stakehill (Ashmole), David Jackson (Jackson), William Parkinson 
(Hepworth), Alice Grey (Walker), Ashmole’s 112, and Adonis 
(Headly). 
Then followed a practical question. Of this selection, how 
many may be said to be in commerce, and therefore obtainable ? 
The following there should be no difficulty in obtaining from the 
northern growers of Tulips :—Bizarre Breeders : Sir J. Paxton, 
Horatio, William Lea, and Richard Yates. Rose Breeders : Mr. 
Barlow, Annie McGregor, Lady Grosvenor, and Mabel. Bybloemen 
Breeders : Alice Grey, Adonis, Beauty of Litchurch (Haynes), and 
Talisman ; but it will be observed neither of the two last-named 
finds a place in Mr. Barlow’s select list.—R. Dean, Ealing , W. 
DESTROYING FRUIT TREE INSECTS. 
CALIFORNIAN METHODS. 
In accordance with request I give you herewith a brief account 
of the plan adopted in California for the prevention of attacks 
by insect pests in our orchards, or a remedy for the injuries they 
inflict. 
The business of fruit-growing in California has assumed such 
tremendous proportions within the last ten years that we saw 
plainly that a vigorous policy must be pursued in combating these 
enemies to horticultural civilisation. It is customary to spray our 
orchards thoroughly in the winter with a strong caustic solution as 
follows :—Half a pound of caustic soda (Greenbank’s, 98 per cent.), 
half a pound of crude commercial potash, five gallons of water, to 
be applied hot, using a force pump with brass cylinder and a spray 
nozzle attachment. The whole apparatus is arranged upon a two- 
horse waggon driven down between the rows of trees, there being 
two separate hose anl nozzles, so that one side of two rows of 
trees is sprayed at once. Four men are required—one to drive, 
one to pump, and two to spray. This makes progress very rapid— 
quite an object when 500 or 1000 acres have to be gone over in one 
orchard For Peaches or Apricots this formula should be altered 
to read “ eight gallons of water.” Pears, Apples, and Plums will 
stand the full strength. This wash will kill the eggs of almost any 
insect and leaves the bark in a smooth healthy condition. 
In the summer we spray with a solution of whale oil soap and 
sulphur ; or the following formula is now being used as an improve¬ 
ment thereon :—14 lbs. of whale oil soap, 1 lb. of concentrated lye 
or caustic soda, 1) lb. of sulphur, 55 gallons of water. Dissolve the 
lye in one gallon of water, in which boil the sulphur until dissolved. 
Then dissolve the whale oil soap in the water intended for the wash, 
after which pour into this the dissolved lye and sulphur, mixing 
the two together, and boil for a short time. Use this as a spray 
with an ordinary spray pump while hot, say at 130° F. This wash 
we apply early in the summer, and it acts as a preventive against 
the perfect insect laying its eggs, or it destroys any that may be 
hatched out, having escaped the winter spray, and destroys any 
fungoid disease. It will not injure the foliage or young fruit. 
This applies to all deciduous fruit trees. Pear slugs, saw-fly 
larvae, diabroticas, and scale insects are some of our worst enemies. 
Of the last, Aspidotus perniciosus and Icerya Purchasii have given 
the most trouble ; indeed, the Icerya is proof against any but the 
strongest washes, and attacks chiefly Citrus fruits and evergreens, 
where we cannot adopt the harshest measures, and have therefore 
sent to Australia, its native home, to discover its natural parasite 
(I forget the name), and we are now breeding them, with a view 
of turning them loose in our Orange orchards. 
For the Apple worm or Codlin moth we have a different treat¬ 
ment. We spray the Apple and Pear trees as soon as the fruit has 
set with Paris green (arsenic), 1 lb. to 200 gallons of water, the 
solution to be kept well stirred while using. The worm, as it 
hatches out, will die at once after its first meal at the poisoned 
blossom end of the young fruit. 
This is, very briefly, a sketch of the main points illustrating our 
successful fight with injurious insects. I hope to meet with many 
fruit men in England, and acquire at least as much knowledge 
on the subject as I can impart.— Leonard Coates (Napa, Cali¬ 
fornia, U.S.A.) _ 
EFFECTS OF THE WEATHER OF LAST YEAR. 
It is generally conceded that the weather of one year has an 
influence upon the growth and development of trees the following 
