THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 22. 
larva emits. He had found, that in a plantation, in the 
Royal Botanical Society’s Grounds, in the Regent’s 
Park, out of 240 trees only ninety had been found free 
from the attacks of that insect. He bad found the only 
available plan was to follow its track, and cut it out of 
the solid wood, and it was surprising how soon the 
wounds thus made were entirely healed. A long dis¬ 
cussion among the Members ensued. Mr. Newman 
considered that the Scolytus certainly attacked healthy 
trees; instancing the row of Elms in Camberwell Grove, 
which he had carefully watched. Mr. Curtis, on the 
other hand, considered that the trees attacked by the 
Scolytus were previously in a state of disease ; espe¬ 
cially noticing a row of these trees in Lisson Grove, 
which had been destroyed, large pieces of the bark 
falling off. He attributed the attacks of the insect, in 
this case, to the old age of the trees, which were already 
in a diseased state. Mr. Westwood supported the views 
of the late M. Andouin, that the females first brought 
the trees into a state of disease by attacking them in 
search for food; and when they became actually dis¬ 
eased they then deposited their eggs in the burrows. 
The subject was considered of such practical importance 
that it was arranged to be continued at the next 
meeting. 
MEETING OF THE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY.— Deoember 6, 1853. 
There was a full meeting on this occasion. The 
room was gay all round with flowers, and the tables 
were loaded with fruit, Dessert Pears being one of the 
things for which a pitched-battle was to be fought on 
that day. Her Majesty’s uniform success on this field, 
has, at last, stirred up the old feudal jealousy of some of 
the great chieftains. For ages past, it was not considered 
as a mark of high bearing, or practical superiority on 
the part of exhibitors, to take the shine out of royalty in 
this country at horticulturals. Peter Pindar says, that 
the good old King George III., did not even know as 
much as that Pears and Apples grew on trees at all. 
“The first gentleman in Europe” was probably too 
much so to allow him to beat a subject of his own in 
the field or garden; and the sailor-king was so much 
afloat before he hoisted the horticultural flag, that we 
could not expect him to have much reliance on the 
“stations” of his standard hearers, so that the magical 
influence of “ turning the tables” remained for the days 
of Queen Victoria; but no sooner is this influence 
exerted on the part of her Majesty than it is disputed 
by her own Privy Councillors, in the matter of table 
Pears, and in this race her Majesty came up second best 
to the winning post by the split of a hair. There is 
one influence, however, in which her Majesty has no 
rivals yet—the influence of early rising—she is never 
behind the appointed time, bo it early or late; and if 
this influence were to be disputed with equal zeal, we 
should have less cause, or no cause at all, for the heart¬ 
burnings about rules and regulations on the part of the 
Society, from which even Majesty itself cannot be 
exempted without prejudice to the cause we have in 
hand. The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl de Grey com¬ 
peted against the Queen for the best six kinds of dessert 
Pears ready for the table, and two Pears of a sort. The 
duke was behind time, and lost his chance; and although 
the early won this time, we have a score against him for 
being too late, also, not more than ten months back; so 
215 
that, de facto, as the lawyers say, her Majesty is not 
beaten yet. 
Mr. Hill, of Keele Hall, Staffordshire, competed also 
in this class with very good fruit. Mr. Lauglour, the 
great Pear-grower, in Jersey, sent seventy-four kinds of 
named Pears, most of which were very good, but not so 
fine as those from our own great private establishments. 
The Horticultural Society itself came out strong with a 
fine dish of Pears in the sixes; two Forelle, or Trout 
Pears in this dish were the richest coloured I ever saw; 
this is a very small Pear, a famous bearer, quite hardy 
for a standard, and as good as most of the November 
Pears, and makes the prettiest dish in a first-rate dessert 
of all the Pears, if it is dished properly, keeping the 
bright cherry-cheek-coloured side towards London all 
the way up. No one who takes a pride in a succession 
of changes for a shooting party should be without this 
Pear. It is now altogether out of the fashion to see 
ladies come down to dinner two nights running in the 
same dress, when there is company, and the gardener 
who does not study the fashions, and dress up the dessert 
table accordingly, ought never to have a dressing for the 
fruit borders. Mr. Solomons, of Covent Garden, sent 
foreign fruit as usual, not to compete against home 
growth. The most beautiful kind of Apple in Covent 
Garden that day was in this lot—the Winter Oolville; 
we shall never excel the French in colouring this 
beautiful fruit, which looked as if cut out of the purest 
wax, and then varnished over with a tint between cream 
and light orange. The colour of the Dutch Mignonne, 
from France, was more orange and perfect than we can 
hope for here. But, as a sign of the times, we had Pears 
all the way from Kilkenny; and we were told in the 
lecture, that if our friends in that part of Ireland, at 
least, were to make up their minds for a stand up fight 
in London, they could and would beat the French and 
the people of Jersey in many kinds of produce, if not 
always in Pears. It appears, from this competition, 
that the following Pears are thought by our best gar¬ 
deners to be all first-rate at the end of November:— 
Glout Morceau, Passe Colmar, Napoleon, Marie Louise. 
Beurre Diet, Chaumontel, Leon le Clerc (Van Mon’s), 
Knight’s Monarch, and Vicar of Wingfield. Uvedale’s 
St. Germain, we are told, is the best stewing Pear after 
all; but being so monstrously heavy as to require a wall; 
examples to back this opinion were on the table from 
the Rev. J. E. Grey, of Wembley Park, Middlesex, one 
weighing one pound seven ounces, and another, one 
pound four ounces. 
Grapes —There were three very beautiful bunches of 
Grapes in a basket, from Mr. Nash, of Bishop Stopford; 
a large Blach Hambro’, a ditto Muscat of Alexandria, 
in beautiful colour, and a Cannon Hall Muscat, not ripe, 
of a greenish-white colour, and we were told that the 
vines were treated at first by a labourer in a tan-yard, 
but whether or not the tanner looks after them to this 
day I know not; they were certainly good enough for 
the highest dessert table in the land, it the Cannon Ilall 
had more sun to bleach the colour. Respecting the new 
white seedling Grape that was shown on the 18th of last 
October (page 70), I received the following interesting 
account from Mr. Busby himself, the gardener who 
raised it. The Society highly recommended this new 
Grape, and I subscribed to all they said about it, but I 
was the only party who doubted the parentage, and now 
I am confirmed in the opinion that it is a sport and not 
a cross. I had a similar sport myself, in 1849, the very 
same season, and also in a Blach Hambro, one berry 
in a bunch being at least three times larger than the 
largest berry I had ever seen of the kind before. I was 
so 'bent on saving this berry, to see what the seeds 
would come to, that I told Sheppard, the foreman in the 
forcing department at Shruhland Park, that 1 would 
knock his head off if this berry miscarried ; two seeds 
