May 6. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION. 
103 
cellar, or an upper room better ? What is the maximum 
and minimum temperature (which might be regulated by 
introducing ice), within which the fruit will not deteriorate? 
If shelves, what is the best material—wood, basketwork, 
wire, or netting? Do Pears require a different treatment 
from Apples, Ac. ?—William McGowan.” 
[To these queries, Mr. McEweu has much obliged us by 
sending the following reply “ The main requirements of 
a fruit-room are an equable temperature from 40° to 45°, 
dark rather than light, close rather than airy, at the same 
time strictly avoiding damp. Remember that air and damp 
are aids to decomposition. 
“ In building a fruit-room, let the walls be thick or 
hollow, and use thatch for covering the roof, rather than 
slate or tiles. If shaded by trees, or buildings, and the walls 
covered with creepers, all the better. The windows should 
I be fitted with shutters, and no fire-place is required. 
| Common drawers are very useful, and shallow tin drawers 
are also first-rate. These prevent evaporation. Wrapping 
the fruit up in clean paper also keeps Apples and Pears 
fresh and plump, but slightly deteriorates their flavour. 
“ Another excellent plan for long keeping, is to select the 
freshest fruit about Christmas, not sooner, and wrap them 
in paper, put them in silver sand, and bury them in the 
earth, in a dry place, or on the floor of a cool cellar or barn. 
“Fruits will also keep well in glazed earthenware crocks 
in similar positions. 
“ These remarks have met most of the questions put, 
and those not replied to, I proceed to answer, viz.:—Is a 
dry cellar or an upper room better ?—The dry cellar. What 
is the lowest temperature within which the fruit will not 
deteriorate ?—Frost will not injure it much if the room is 
kept dark ; but for immediate use, the covering or protection 
should be such as not to allow the cold to go to that point. 
If shelves, what is the best material?—Any well-seasoned 
wood, it does not matter which, and have it painted, say a 
stone colour, so as the shelves can be nicely washed, at 
least every season. 
“ Do Pears require a different treatment from Apples ? 
No, not generally. Packing in sawdust is certainly bad.— 
George McEwen, Arundel Castle."'} 
LINUM GRANDIFLORUM. 
“ I notice a letter in your Journal concerning Linton gran¬ 
diflorum rubrum advertised in many seed catalogues as 
1 Scarlet. Flax.’ Now, as real Scarlet Flax would be a beau¬ 
tiful thing, I should be glad if any of those who advertise it 
will tell me where I can see it. For the last two years I 
have bought the seed from good-rate houses, paying a 
shilling for about twelve seeds. Though I attended most 
carefully to them, out of two packets none came up. From 
a third, bought from a dealer, in whose catalogue it was de- 
cribed as ‘ bright scarlet,’ ‘ new,' ‘ true,' and ‘ splendid,’ I 
raised several plants, which produced flowers of a pale 
sickly pink, not worth a place in any garden, and which 
showed no disposition to be perennial, as described by some. 
—C. W.” 
[There is no such thing as a scarlet Linum. Any man 
who sold plants or seeds under such a name is liable to the 
penalties due to dishonesty. The Linum grandiflorum is far 
from being a “ sickly pink" flower. We have all along 
warned amateurs from depending upon seeds or seedlings 
of Linum grandiflorum. There are but few of our very 
cleverest gardeners who have not failed with these seeds; 
but some one, by accident, will discover the right treatment, 
and then we shall have beds of it, and every one can grow 
it. Till then, let the plant rest as it is; but all who have 
plenty of money to risk, and time at command, ought to 
join the gardeners in experimenting on it. Twenty years 
were spent by the profession trying to raise the Lilittm 
giganteum from seeds, and about twenty other years may be 
spent on this Linum, before ordinary people can manage it.] 
BULBS FOR AUTUMN-FLOWERING. 
“AVould you be good enough to name a few Bulbs that I 
could plant for flowering after the Verbenas, Ac., in the 
autumn?— A. Smith.” 
[This is altogether impracticable in our climate. ‘ Ver¬ 
benas, &e.,’ have not done flowering till October, and Snow¬ 
drops are the first bulbs that will flower after that time. 
It would not be a bad idea, however, to plant a bed with 
“Naked Ladies” (Crocus nudijlorus, serotinus, and salivus), 
and then plant it with T r erbenas only. The green of the 
Verbenas would well compensate for the want of leaves to 
these Crocuses while they are in blossom in the autumn. 
There are many more kinds of Crocuses which bloom only 
in the autumn, but we are not aware of their being on sale.] 
CULTURE OF CALANDRINIA UMBELLATA, AND 
RICINUS RUTILANS.-PEACH AND NECTARINE 
BLOSSOMS. 
“ Can you give me any information about the Cttlandrinia 
umbellata. I had a plant given me last year, which never 
flowered, has survived the winter, and is now like a mina- 
ture Furze-bush—does it require peculiar soil? Do you 
know Racimts rut Hansl Have you had complaints about 
the destruction of the blossom of Peaches and Nectarines ! 
In these parts (Kingsbridge, Devon), where we are not 
often called on to shelter, all the blossom has fallen off, 
after a beautiful show.—E. H. C.” 
[If your plant is really the Calandrinia umbellata , you 
will have a perfect little gem ere long, thickly studded with 
little rose-coloured flowers. It is seldom kept over the 
winter, but is generally grown as a half-tender annual, and 
when sown in the open ground, about the end of April, or 
under glass, in March, and pricked out in May, produces its 
flowers very freely in summer and autumn, on little, trailing, 
succulent plants, a few inches in height. 
There is no Racinus rutilaus, but there is a Ricinus rutilans, 
a half-hardy biennial, with reddish stalks and reddish-white 
flowers, belonging to the Palma Christi group. Seeds sown 
in a mild hotbed in spring, will give plants that, if placed in | 
the borders in June, will bloom about September. The ! 
Ricinus communis is the castor oil plant. 
Peaches and Nectarines have been but little injured in 
some places, so far as we are aware, but Apricots, in many 
places, have suffered severely. AYe lately saw a fine erop 
set, but even of these a vast number of blossoms, at a dis¬ 
tance from the wall, had been completely scorched up, the 
frost acting towards them as a blaze of lightning might be 
supposed to do. In Bedfordshire, the Peaches and Nec- ; 
tarines promise a good crop; so they do in Cheshire, and 
on high-lying gardens in Hampshire, but in the low grounds 
the failure is total.] 
HINTS TO YOUNG BOTANISTS ON THE 
LEADING FEATURES OF THE LINNAiAN 
SYSTEM. 
A reoinner in the study of plants naturally adopts the 
Linnocan or Artificial System of classification as being less > 
difficult (or generally considered so) than what is called the 
Natural System. The Linnsean System is, however, not 
wholly an artificial one, and it is better that the beginner 
(as well as the student who has made some progress in it) 
should be informed how far it is so, so that he may be led to 
study not so much the system, or arrangement of Linnaeus, 
as the plants themselves, and be taught to use his “ Flora,” 
with the plants arranged in their classes and orders, not so 
often as a mere catalogue or index, but as a help to his own 
observation and study. 
The whole A’egetable Kingdom falls naturally into two 
great divisions: 1. Plants with, and 2. Plants without, 
flowers. The great Swedish naturalist divided the first of 
these into twenty-three Classes, making the second a twenty- 
fourth Class. The latter (the non-flowering plants) have 
been divided by Dr. Lindleyinto two Classes : 1. Thallogens, 
which includes Seaweeds, Funguses, Lichens, and similar 
plants; and 2. Acrogens, including Mosses, Ferns, Ac. 
AA'ith the plants belonging to these two Classes we are not, 
at present, concerned; their natuial divisions are so well 
marked that artificial classification is there unnecessary; 
but with the flowering plants it is otherwise: there the 
natural affinities of many of the genera are obscure and 
