28 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ February, 
To grow it successfully it should be planted in a very light and very sandy 
soil. The plants should be taken up annually and divided ; every small piece will 
grow. The best time for dividing the plants is after they have done flowering, 
which will be about the end of January. They should then be pulled to pieces, 
and planted in the open ground, in lines about 8 in. or a foot apart, placing the 
soil rather firmly about the roots. After this they will require no further atten¬ 
tion until the following October, when they should be potted up, and placed in a 
cool house—a resting vinery, or peach-house, or cold pit, or wooden frame. If 
the frost is just kept from them, they will abundantly reward the cultivator for 
the trouble. They must not be placed in heat—fire-heat is fatal to them ; but 
the flower-spikes will stand in rooms in water, the same as violets, or any other 
subject that will not bear fire-heat. 
If treated as above, they will commence blooming about the middle of 
November, and continue in great beauty until the middle of January ; large 6-in. 
pots are very suitable for them, as each pot will then contain from five to ten 
spikes of flowers, each flower being bright scarlet, and fully 2 in. across.— 
William Denning, Norbiton , Surrey. 
SOLANUM HUMILE. 
HIS Solanum was kindly sent me by Miss Hope, of Edinburgh, last year 
for trial; and in pots it has flowered and fruited continuously for the 
last five months, being yet in perfect health and vigour, flowering and 
^ fruiting as in the midst of summer. It is, and has always been, in a cool 
nectarine house, trained on the back trellis, and for this time of year it is really 
an ornamental plant, with its bunches of tiny honey-coloured berries, borne in 
the greatest profession on every twig, reminding one, except in colour, in some 
measure of Callicarpci purpurea. In taste it is 11 as sweet as honey.” Miss Hope 
informed me it was given her in Florence.— Henry Knight, Floors Gardens. 
THE CUCUMBER DISEASE. 
5f j (JOE some years past a disease of a troublesome character has infested the 
(jlir Cucumber and Melon, and so far has baffled all attempts to cure'it. The 
substitution of fresh soil, and a thorough cleansing and scalding of the 
structures, have been fairly successful as remedial measures, but even these 
have sometimes proved unavailing. 
The first account of this disease was published by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley in 
the Gardeners' 1 Chronicle (1855, 220), accompanied by figures of the diseased con¬ 
dition, and of the minute worm-like creatures producing it, these being at the 
time referred to as belonging to the genus Vibrio. In the plants then examined 
the leaves and stems had become infected with brown spots, while the roots, 
which had a hot, acrid smell, like that of some crucifers, were covered with knots 
or excrescences, varying from the size of a pin’s-liead to that of a nutmeg. The 
tubercles when cut open were found to contain cysts filled with elliptic eggs, in 
