268 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ December, 
being full of brown canker-spots and pimples, bursting with gum. “Well,” I 
observed, “ I perceive you have but little fruit or foliage left on your wall-trees at 
this time.” “No,” was the reply, “since you were here last, the weather, the cutting 
winds and severe frosty mornings have indeed been terribly against the prospect 
of a fruit crop. I question if there will be any fruit left this season. We have 
kept the trees almost daily washed, to drive off the vermin, &c., but you see how 
they have suffered.” “ I fear,” I said, “ you rather encourage the enemy, 
instead of eradicating it. I never did or would allow any wall-trees under my care 
to be washed down after 10 or 11 a.m. till the month of June, and then never 
with cold, but always with tepid water, choosing genial mornings, in order to 
afford an opportunity for the trees, walls, and the surrounding soil to get entirely 
dry before sunset; and my general success for such a number of years is some 
proof that my ideas in this respect were not far wrong.” I was always grieved 
to see late afternoon and evening storms come on in April and May, and was 
immediately on the look-out to provide some means of averting their serious after¬ 
effects. My friend, too, seemed to dislike late evening storms followed by clear, cold 
nights and severe white frosty mornings, but still he did not seem to realise the 
fact that washing down his wall-trees late in the day had much to do with their 
bad appearance, for how were the vermin to be got rid of, fee. ? I found my simple 
reasoning had produced no very favourable effect, but I made a memorandum of 
it, knowing full well that this was not the only place where such a practice was 
carried out; and resolving that before another season came round, I would, if 
spared, just state these simple facts as a hint to other gardeners now in practice, 
and in the hope of inducing some of them to give us their candid ideas on the 
subject.— James Barnes, Exmouth. 
DEYMONIA TUKIALV-®. 
S his is a very desirable addition to collections of foliage plants, and being 
easily grown, should be in every collection; but being a plant requiring liberal 
f treatment and abundance of water when growing, it did not attract much 
attention when first introduced, for unless well grown, it has a soft, washy 
look. The plant seldom grows more than 15 in. or 18 in. in height, and when well 
grown, the large metallic leaves droop round the sides of the pot. The foliage is 
usually from 1 ft. to 15 in. in length, and about 9 in, in width; but the collector 
informed me he had seen it with much larger leaves, and that the plants varied 
much in character, some of them being much more silvery in the foliage than 
others. 
The flowers are a dirty white, set on short stalks in the axils of the leaves, 
and although something like a small fringed Gloxinia, are not very showy, 
so that we have removed them ; but the seed-pods, which are produced very freely 
in their native country, are said to be very ornamental. 
This plant roots very freely from cuttings of young shoots which are formed 
round the base of good-sized plants, and as the full beauty of the plant is deve- 
