394 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October 1894. 
the fire add any flavouring ingredient desirable, keeping the same 
in a net bag. Now pour it into a cooler, and when milkwarm put 
it into a cask which has been thoroughly cleansed, and in which a 
sulphured rag has been burned, to destroy false ferments. This 
done, add some brewers’ barm, when fermentation will set in, and 
continue for three or four days. Keep the cask full with some of 
the preserved liquor during that time. Stop it closely, or if 
desirable less a small vent hole for two days more. After this 
make it air-tight and store in a warm place. When a year old 
taste the mead and if fined well it may be bottled and sealed, but 
two years in the cask is not too long when the mead has been strong 
enough at the first. The reason for bunging the cask so early is 
to give a more regular ferment than it does when allowed to stand 
exposed a long time.—A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
SPKING FLOWERS FOR BEES. 
No time should be lost in filling all spare beds and borders with 
spring-flowering bulbs and plants that yield both honey and pollen. 
The earliest of these is the Winter Aconite, bright golden yellow, 
flowering in this locality (a midland county), about the end of 
January. These, when once planted, do not need to be disturbed, 
as after the foliage have died down in the spring annuals may be 
sown in the same place. If in mixed borders or beds, with the 
result that the Aconites will appear again the following winter, and 
bloom freely without any further trouble. We also plant them on 
the turf under trees ; they grow admirably in this position. 
Snowdrops, both the single and double varieties, may be planted 
in the same way, and are usually in bloom in February, and 
Crocuses of various colours should not be omitted from the 
smallest garden. These we plant as edgings to beds and borders ; 
large masses of them are planted on the grass, also under trees, and 
by keeping the colours separate they are very bright and showy, 
and yield a large amount of pollen which is very acceptable to the 
bees. By the time these plants are in bloom in March the bees 
are breeding somewhat freely, and it is surprising what pollen the 
bees will collect on a bright day at that time of the year, this 
being necessary in the hive for feeding the young bees. Wall¬ 
flowers should be extensively planted, and are obtained by sowing 
the seeds in the spring, transplanting them when large enough into 
beds, to be now planted in their permanent places. If carefully 
lifted they will not suffer in the least, and will bloom freely 
throughout the spring. They have the advantage of being very 
hardy. Last winter we registered 3° of frost below zero, and very 
few plants were killed, but the snow protected the plants. 
Limnanthes Douglasi, usually called “ the Bee Plant,” is when in 
bloom a perfect paradise for the bees, as they will work on this 
in preference to any other plant that I am acquainted with. This 
is a dwarf flowering annual, seeds of which should be sown as soon 
as ripe, and seedlings may now be transplanted to their permanent 
position. The plants are not particular as regards soil, but do best 
in the full sun and bloom during May.—A n English Bee¬ 
keeper. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “ The 
Editor ” or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to 
Dr. Hogg or members of the staff often remain unopened 
unavoidably. We request that no one will write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, 
and we do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
Salad Vegretables (G. C.'). —Beet, Celery, and Tomatoes are 
admissible in a collection of salads for exhibition, unless specially 
debarred by the terms of the schedule. 
Blackened and Decaying: Pears (C. H. P.).—The fruits are 
infested with a destructive fungus (Glceosporium fructigenum), and we 
shall shortly publish an illustrated article on the subject by Mr. 
G. Abbey, 
IVlllllpedes (A. P. C .').—The “insects” you send are small milli¬ 
pedes (Julus terrestris), and although we should not apprehend they will 
injure the Vines, we should prefer them out of the house, and dead than 
ali7e. Prepare some clear lime water made from lumps of fresh lime, 
and with this syringe the marauders when they are “on the prowl” at 
night. 
Tacsonlas Dying- (Tacsonia). —We have no means of indicating 
the reason “ why you cannot succeed with Tacsonia Van Volxemi.” 
If the soil was of the right kind, and in the right condition when used, 
also that in the pot neither too wet nor too dry when the plant was 
placed in the tub, and if the new soil was pressed as firm as the old, and 
no mistake made in watering either by yourself or anyone else, we can 
only conclude the position is unfavourable. We have found this- 
Tacsonia one of the easiest of plants to grow. 
Naming Specimens (W. A. A.).—When specimens, whether of 
flowers or fruit, arrive on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, they are 
usually, if at once recognisable, named in the following issue, but when 
close and special investigation is needed some delay must of necessity 
occur. Specimens arriving on Wednesdays can seldom be named in the 
current issue, and not often if they arrive on Tuesdays, though they can. 
be sometimes. Some boxes of fruit which arrived on Wednesday 
morning this week could not possibly be named in the present issue. It 
is work which requires much more time than can be given when 
actively preparing for press. Procure your Journals as usual, and we 
hope you will have the pleasure of binding them for many years to 
come. 
Dinner Table Decoration (^Anxious'), — If you are directly 
re.sponsible to your employers for the dinner-table decorations certainly 
the butler should not be allowed to interfere in the matter, though 
obviously he must have space for whatever else may be essential 
connected with the dinner. At the same time some indoor servants take 
considerable interest in the decorations, and can occasionally suggest 
ideas of service to a gardener. It is desirable that gardeners and 
butlers should work amicably together, but undoubtedly neither have 
the “right” to interfere with the clearly defined work of each other. 
We shall shortly publish an article on dinner-table decorations, and if 
you like to send us a post-card directed to yourself we w'ill name a book 
that might possibly be useful to you, or at least suggestive. 
Forcing Xillac (A. A.).—White Lilac is obtained early in the year 
by placing well budded shrubs or bushes dug from the ground in a warm 
dark place, such as a well-heated shed or Mushroom house. Shrubs of 
the common pink Lilac are usually the most plentiful, and the flowers 
come white when they expand in darkness. A temperature between 
60° and 80° is suitable ; the higher it is the sooner the flowers appear, 
and we have known them quickly obtained in a temperature of 90°. 
The shrubs must be syringed occasionally till the growth starts, and the 
roots be kept very moist. In addition to the heat from hot-water pipes, 
some persons have heaps of sweet fermenting materials, consisting of 
leaves mainly, in the Lilac shed, turning them occasionally, for the 
diffusion of heat and moisture, but an excess of moisture must be 
averted or the flowers will suffer. If you have not any shrubs that you 
can dig up you must apply to nurseries for them. White Lilac can be 
forced in glass structures, when small shrubs of the White variety 
are obtained and potted. The best of these are grown in France, and 
imported and sold by English nurserymen. 
Culture of Stephanotls florlbunda (A, A.) —It is a great 
mistake to keep this plant too warm, for its growths are more sturdy 
and it flowers more profusely when grown under cooler and more airy 
conditions than the plant is generally subjected to. Cool, airy treat¬ 
ment after flowering is of the utmost importance to thoroughly harden 
and ripen the wood before the season for complete rest arrives. The 
plants that flowered early in the year have had no artificial heat for the 
last six weeks, and none will be given as long as the temperature can be 
kept from falling below 60° at night. Abundance of air should be 
admitted during the day, and a little ventilation allowed all night when 
the weather is mild. The atmospheric conditions of the house should 
also be much drier than is generally the case. If this plant is infested 
with mealy bug it should be thoroughly syringed once a week with 
petroleum and water, 1 oz. of the former being added to a gallon of the 
latter. If the oil is well mixed in the manner frequently described, 
and the plant shaded from strong sun for about two days after syringing, 
the bug may be thoroughly eradicated. Half measures are next to 
useless, and syringing with petroleum two or three times a year only 
reduces the bug and does not prove effectual in clearing the plants 
entirely of the pest. 
Trees and Sbrubs for a Wet Position (Amateur ').—For the 
low-lying ground, formerly a pond, and filled up with stiffish soil, about 
a quarter of an acre in extent, and which will always be rather moist, 
backed now by trees on all sides except that fronting the house, which 
stands on a much higher level, the planting of the old pond must 
depend something on the trees already round it, and whether it would 
be desirable to make that harmonise with the other trees, or to assume 
a distinct character of its own. In the latter case a quick and pleasing 
effect would be produced by using Willows and Poplars for light foliage, 
either without or in combination with some sombre-leaved Pines, and 
with an undergrowth of evergreens and other plants if desirable. Thus 
in such a place first there might be planted three good plants of the 
Babyloniac or Weeping Willow, one of the White and two of the Duke 
