238 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST, 
[ OCTOBEK, 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
CCORDING- to the returns of the Fruit Crop recently published in the 
Gardeners' Chronicle^ the results of the present season can only he described 
as uniformly bad. Neither latitude, nor protection, nor soil, nor elevation 
seems, speaking generally, to have availed aught in securing a crop of 
fruit. Apricots are almost everywhere below average, and in some cases an utter failure. 
Plums may generally be registered as utterly gone. Cherries are under the average, 
with the exception of Morellos, of which in many places the crop is good. Peaches and 
Nectarines^ as might be predicted, are almost non-existent. Apples, in by far the large 
majority of cases, are below average, while individual trees are heavily laden, this apparent 
capriciousness being probably traceable to the variety, rather than to either climate or soil. 
Pears, again, are very much below average, except on walls. Insect agency has much to 
do with the setting of fruit, and therefore it must not be forgotten that it is not the 
direct influence of untoward climate alone that has to be looked to, but also the effect of 
Gold and wet in keeping insects at home. Small fruits, such as Currants, Gooseberries, 
and Straivherries, have generally yielded a large crop. Nuts, again, in the southern and 
western counties promise an abundant return. The Potato Crop, from evidence collected 
through the same medium, promises to be an average one, although the tubers are 
smaller and later than usual; but disease has made its appearance almost everywhere. 
-^HE Alahmg of Ketchup being a work requiring some skill and experience, 
the following abridgment of Mrs. Hussey’s instructions, as given in her Illus¬ 
trations of British may be'useful:—All kinds of Agaric of which it 
is proposed to make use should be sound, not decaying and larva-eaten. Cut off the stems, 
for they possess no flavour, and afford little juice, but much dirt. If the caps are soiled, 
peel them. Do not cut, but break them small; powder every portion -with salt, and set 
the mass in an earthern colander, placed in a bowl. The precise quantity of salt is not 
of importance—excess is better than defect, it being only needful in cookery to remember 
that salt is not to be used when ketchup is. After twenty-four hours, press the pulp 
gently down in the colander; all the liquor that thus runs off is to be preserved, and no 
more. The liquor thus extracted will be a pure, fragrant, delicious ketchup. Many 
people would boil this till the aroma had disappeared, under an erroneous notion of 
“ making it fit to keepbut to this end the boiling by no means conduces, and almost all 
Agarics lose their “ bouquet ” by the continued action of heat. Instead of this, before 
the ketchup season comes, prepare by putting into a quart of spirits of wine, in a glass- 
stoppered bottle, any spices you prefer, in sufficient quantity to flavour the spirit strongly. 
After the ketchup has been strained off, let it settle twelve hours; then put it in half-pint 
bottles, filling them up to the shoulder, adding the spiced spirit to fill the neck, and corking 
the bottles tightly and steadily. They must not afterwards be shaken, because the spirit 
should be left floating at the top, to exclude the air, and prevent the formation of that 
other incipient fungus which cooks call “ mother.” When to be used shake the bottle 
thoroughly, and put as much of the contents as you like into the waiting soup or gravy; 
it should not be boiled up in it. The small quantity of spirit is unappreciable in the bulk 
of ketchup, not affecting the flavour at all. All who try this plan fairly will acknowledge 
they never tasted ketchup before. 
- ^HE Peach Wall at Chiswich is now becoming very interesting. While 
many of the old-established sorts are destitute of fruit, some of the new varieties 
raised by Mr. Rivers are, according to the Gardeners* Chronicle^ bearing good 
crops. The new and handsome Lord Napier Nectarine, of which we publish a figure, has 
been carrying on every tree a fine crop of fruit, large in size, brilliant in colour, and what 
is of most importance, in advance of all others. This was raised from Mr. Rivers’ Early 
Albert Peach, and as an early, good-looking, fine-flavoured variety, has no rival. Next in 
point of earliness to that good Peach, Hale's Parly [of which Mr. Austen, of Ashton Court, 
writes, “ I gathered three ripe fruits on August 7, from a tree on the open wall; in 1874 
I gathered from the same tree on July 7; I consider it in every respect equal to Royal 
George, with the advantage of being much earljer; this season, in an early Peach-house, 
