238 
CALENDARIAL memoranda for .tone. 
and so become useless for the service of the next. This is the more 
likely to happen when it becomes necessary to stop the leader. All 
the fruit-bearing side shoots should be stopped beyond the fruit, and 
they also denuded of tendrils and superfluous shoots; for if these be 
allowed to hang from the wall, and become entangled with each other, 
it is a task of great labour and difficulty to get the shoots into order 
again. 
Cherry-House , Pinery, and Figgery .— In all these the fruit are 
ripe, or ripening, and receive that care and attention which their pro¬ 
gress towards maturity require. Fruit quite or nearly ripe, require to 
be kept dry and airy, to heighten the flavour; those swelling off, a 
higher temperature both night and day. 
Small fruit-trees, as gooseberries and currants, are greatly assisted in 
producing large and high-flavoured fruit, by freeing them of all redun¬ 
dant summer-shoots at this time. This is not unnecessary labour, when 
the cultivator is desirous of supplying the table with the finest specimens 
of even inferior fruit. 
Strawberries in the open ground being now in flower, require, in 
dry weather, good soakings of water to insure plentiful crops. Slugs 
are a pest to this crop, but not many will show themselves, if the beds 
have been drenched once or twice with lime-water during the month 
of April. 
Preserving fruit from birds is a necessary precaution. Cherries, as 
well as strawberries, are particularly inviting, and must be netted, or 
the pilferers scared away by some means or other. 
The attack of insects must also be guarded against, as well those 
which live on the juice of the leaves as on that of the fruit. In the 
hot-bed frames, where cucumbers are now plentiful, and melons setting 
and swelling, wood-lice are troublesome. Small flower-pots filled with 
soft hay, damped with sugared water, are good traps for the capture of 
wood-lice, as well as earwigs. Entomologists preserve their insects in 
cabinets, by keeping the latter saturated with the effluvia of camphor, 
which proves offensive to all living insects which would prey on the 
dead. Why should not this be tried in frames and hot-houses ? 
BUSINESS OF THE FLOWER GARDEN IN JUNE. 
Dahlias .—If not already turned out of pots into the places where 
they are to flower, should now be done. Stake the brittle stems, if 
there be danger from wind ; situation sheltered, but not shady; fresh 
soil, and not that, if possible, where they grew last year. Rich loam 
and road-sand is a good compost for the dahlia. Prick out seedlings, if 
not done before. 
