1874. J 
GAEDEN GOSSIP. 
91 
tlio Field :—A short time since lie had occasion to make a hot-bed for wintering 
roses, verbenas, &c.—the lower lining of it, 14 in. to 15 in. in depth, consisting of leaves of the 
lime-tree; the upper one, 9|- in. thick, of tanner’s spent-bark (fir mixed with a little oak 
bark). Over the two linings was spread a thin covering of the same kind of leaves, and upon 
this came the frame. Into the bed thus formed the pots were plunged up to the rim, and 
according to the state of the weather, the frame was either shaded and protected against the 
frost, or so arranged as to admit light and air. On taking up some of the pots at the end of 
March, the tan in the bed was found to be overrun with a network of fibres and threads 
resembling mushroom-spawn, and a tnonth or six weeks later a fine crop of morels sprang 
up. As the fungus is frequently met with in the neighbourhood of Bunzlau, some spores of 
the same had doubtless found their Way into the tan of the original hot-bed, and thus been 
placed under circumstances favourable for their development. M. Schollmayr, of Laybach, 
in Carniola, with a view to check the ravages of snails and slugs which year after year de¬ 
stroyed the buds put forth by young seedling fruit-trees in his nursery, covered the ground 
in the autumn of one year and the spring of the next a foot deep with spent-tan, chiefly con¬ 
sisting of fir bark and gall-nut meal. For a twelvemonth or more the ground was freed from 
the snails, and the young trees grew vigorously; great quantities of fine, delicately-flavoured 
morels also appeared, shooting up most abundantly wherever the top-dressing was thickest 
and consisted of bigger pieces of the bark. 
- 23archaed’s Seedling Apple was raised about thirty years ago at 
Putney Heath, by Mr. M. Higgs, then gardener to Joseph Henry Barchard, Esq.; in 
about five years it produced an abundance of fruit. Mr. Eobert Thomson pro¬ 
nounced it a first-class apple, and Mr. Dancer, of Fulham, also thought it a first-class variety, 
and had cuttings for grafting. In Mr. Dancer’s collection will also be found Higgs’s Seedling, 
a large, pale-coloured, beautiful kitchen apple, of a brisk flavour much wanted in culinary 
apples. Barchard’s Seedling was named after Mr. Higgs’s much-respected employer. 
- ®HE first number of a new work entitled Orchids^ and How to Grow 
Tliem^ by S. Jennings, Esq. (Eeeve & Co.), bas just made its appearance. Its 
object is to afford information to residents in tropical climates, such as will 
enable them to grow these beautiful plants successfully, instead of allowing them to perish from 
neglect; while the author’s experience of a tropical climate may, it is hoped, furnish some hints 
to English cultivators. The four subjects selected for illustration are first-class plants, but we 
can scarcely say as much of the drawings, which are coarse and rough, and very indifferently 
coloured. The text is written rather for the use of Indian than for home cultivators. We 
shall look with interest for the future revelations of the author’s Indian experience. 
- ®^HE pbenomenon of Gumming in Fruit Trees bas lately been studied 
by M. Soraner, wbo confirms the observations of his predecessors in referring the 
change in question to the conversion into gum of the secondary layers in the 
cells and vessels. Not only are the cellular’membranes transformed into gum, but new gum 
is foimed from the sap, which is thus diverted from its proper use. The gummy exudation 
is produced in consequence of the transformation of the secondary layer of the vessels into 
gum, and from the formation in the woody tissue (as happens normally in the bark) of an 
abnormal cellular tissue, which speedily becomes converted into gum. The bark cracks, and 
hence the justification of the practice of incising the bark. The cause of the disease, however 
—that which disturbs the balance—remains unknown. 
— Boussingault has communicated to the French Academy of 
Sciences some observations on the Cracking of Fruits^ which are of much interest 
to the horticulturist. The phenomenon is unfortunately too well known, and 
is undoubtedly attributable to an accumulation of water in the tissues, but as this cannot bo 
due to an arrest of evaporation alone, M. Boussingault concludes—and his conclusions were 
confirmed by experiment—that the cracking which occurs after or during continuous heavy 
rain is the consequence of an increase of volume occasioned by the introduction of water 
through the skin by moans of ondosmose. 
- ®HE Eevue Horticole strongly recommends Fuchsia syringceflora^ con¬ 
sidered by some as a variety of F, arborescens, as a fine decorative and market 
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