414 
COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
that they had made fresh roots into the soot, above the part affected 
by the grub, which never appeared to have penetrated the stem fur¬ 
ther than the part below where the soot was laid. This material I 
have found beneficial to all the brassica tribe, on land where the 
plants are subject to grub. W. Mathers. 
Method of flowering Hydrangeas blue. —In the month of 
July, 1833,1 took the plants out of the pots, shortened their roots, and 
shook the soil from them ; after which, I repotted them in pots, 
which held four quarts of soil each, and, adding four ounces of 
pounded alum to each pot of soil, mixed them well together. In 
the spring of 1834, the plants began to show their flower-buds, which 
were tinged with a fine light but rich blue colour; the plants grew 
very fine, and flowered to very great perfection : they were kept in 
the greenhouse the whole of the winter and spring, indeed, until they 
had done flowering. The soil was a light sandy loam. 
W. Mathers. 
On the Retarding of the Ripening of fruit. —Numerous 
and various as are the methods in daily practice to obtain the best 
kinds of fruit earlier than their natural season, yet it seldom hap¬ 
pens that much pains is taken to retard them in perfection beyond 
their usual time of duration, though this would be frequently de¬ 
sirable, and of easy attainment. This subject is, at the present time, 
brought to my mind by reading the following passage in Lyson’s 
Environs of London. The insertion of it in your journal may, l 
hope, lead some of your correspondents to make known methods of 
keeping fruit long in perfection. J. T. 
Lyson, in his account of the Environs of London, has, in his de¬ 
scription of Beddington House, Surrey, Yol. 1, page 58, formerly 
the seat of the noble family of Carew, the following passage : “ Sir 
Hugh Platt tells an anecdote in his garden of Eden, relating to one 
of the visits of Queen Elizabeth to Beddington ; which shows the 
pains Sir Francis Carew, took in the management and cultivation ol 
his fruit-trees. Here I will conclude, (says Platt) with a conceit of 
that delicate Knight, Sir Francis Carew, who, for the better accom¬ 
plishment of his royal entertainment of our late Queen Elizabeth, 
of happy memory, at his house at Beddington, led her majesty to a 
cherry-tree, whose fruit he had for the purpose kept back from ripen¬ 
ing, at least one month after all cherries had taken their farewell of 
England: This 'secret he performed by straining a tent, or cover of 
canvass, over the whole tree, and wetting the same with a scoop or 
horn, as the heat of the weather required; and so, by withholding 
the sun-beams from reflecting on the berries, they grew both great 
