1870. ] 
THE COLEUS AS A BEDDING PLANT. 
155 
blossoms, witli rougli brushes on their legs, would suffice to impregnate or set the 
fruit. What became of the artificial camel-hair brushes at the blooming-time last 
year ? Throughout the wet, cold, cloudy weather that we experienced, the bees 
could get out but very little, and thus, the flowers not being properly set, the 
young fruit dwindled and fell. It is no use for a gentleman or his gardener to say, 
“ Oh, my neighbour has got bees ; they will be sure to come and set the fruit.” In 
wet, stormy weather no dependence at all can be placed on their doing so ; to 
be of use the bees must be close at home. At this place we have three hives, 
and last summer we had six in the middle of the south wall, in which, when built, 
a hollow or niche, something like the arch or top of an oven, was made to take a 
rustic chair. This I got my employer to turn into a bee-house, and a capital 
one it makes, as with two wide shelves put across, it holds six hives well. In 
this position the bees have got one peach tree right and left, close at hand. From 
three trees, in 1869, we picked, as before mentioned, 11^ doz., all good fruit. 
In the case of orchard houses, a hive ought to have been carried into the 
house, and then the work would have been done in good style ; but instead of 
that, I suppose, the top and front lights were all thrown open, allowing a cold, 
cutting wind to rush through, and then, as in the case of an individual sitting 
between two open doors, they got chilled, and after a decline came death. That, 
in my opinion, is the most efficient cause of the failure. IVTr. Webster does not 
mention whether there is to his walls a projecting coping a foot wide to throw off 
the snow, sleet, or rain from the blossoms, nor whether he has got any of the 
active little creatures I have named to set the fruit. The gardener must not 
mind getting a prog with their dirks, occasionally: here, however, is a cure for 
a sting :—Immediately get an onion, cut it in two, and rub it in well; the juice 
will keep down the swelling. 
Besides setting the fruit, bees are useful in the summer time. It is an old 
saying, and a true one, that many hands make light work ; and a quantity of 
bees will gather a store of sweets, so that the gardener can take from 501b. to 
1001b. of beautiful comb and honey for his employer’s table.—G. L. Drummond, 
Neivhvidge Bath. 
THE COLEUS AS A BEDDING PLANT. 
« HIS beautiful foliage plant is universally accepted as a valuable addition to 
our materials for bedding out, and justly so, when we take into consideration 
its richness of colouring and general effectiveness, and the fact that it 
requires no especial treatment different from the generality of bedding-out 
plants, in which respect it differs greatly from many of those pampered pets, 
called sub-tropicals, which require perfect shelter from wind, and to be screened 
from the meridian sun to ensure their success. 
The cultivation of the Coleus is so simple that there is no need of special 
remarks on that head. Suffice it to state that the plants should be afforded free 
