October 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
OCTOBER 3—9, 1854. 
Weather near London in 1853. 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. {^hes* 1 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon Moon's 
R. & S. Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
3 
To 
Scaphisoma agaricinum. 
30.043—29.988 
55—28 
N. 
5 a 6 
33 a 5 
1 42 11 
10 
54 
270 
4 
\V 
Staphylinus olens. 
29 . 965 — 29.608 
58—52 
S.W. 
33 
7 
31 
3 8 12 
11 
13 
277 
5 
Ta 
Aleocliara impressa. 
29 . 407 — 59.263 
57—38 
s. 
33 
9 
28 
4 32 13 
11 
31 
278 
6 
F 
Mycetophagus undulatus. 
29 . 461 — 29.371 
53—47 
S.W. 
08 
10 
26 
rises. Q 
11 
49 
279 
7 
s 
Death's-head Moth. 
29-418—29.389 
56—47 
S.W. 
12 
12 
24 
6 a 7 15 
12 
6 
280 
6 
Son 
17 Sunday after Trinity. 
29 . 475 — 29.469 
60—41 
N.W. 
46 
14 
22 
6 24 16 
12 
23 
281 
' 9 
M 
Feathered Footman Moth. 
29-743—29.586 
62—35 
S.W. 
— 
15 
20 
6 44 17 
12 
39 
282 
Meteorology of tiie Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-seven years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 61.7°, and 42.9°, respectively. The greatest heat, 80°, occurred on the 5th, in 1834 ; and the lowest cold, 29°, on 
i the 5th, in 1850. During the period 93 days were fine, and on QQ rain fell. 
One of the most important objects which can engage 
the gardener’s attention at this season is the perfect 
maturing of the bearing wood of his frees and shrubs. 
This maturing, or ripening, is equally essential to 
success, whether the produce of the tree or shrub be 
either fruit or flowers. 
By the maturity or ripeness of wood, the gardener 
means a cessation in its growth, and a completion of 
the storing up in its cells of the materials out of which 
the next year’s fruit or flowers are to be formed. 
Many of our readers consider, probably, that the plant 
generates the materials from which its flowers and fruit 
are formed only just as those materials are required. 
But it is not so. Every plant, of which the life is not 
limited to one year, forms fruitful buds now, and 
digests and elaborates, and stores up sap for the next- 
year’s development of those buds. The completion of 
this storing up, as wo have already observed, constitutes 
what is termed “ripening of the wood,” and its im¬ 
portance is so patent that it needs no argument to win 
an acknowledgment of its desirability, even if such 
ripening had influence over no other circumstance of 
the plant’s life. 
This, however, is not the case, for on the well-ripening 
i of a plant's wood largely depends that plant’s power to 
defy the frosts of winter. This may be explained upon 
chemical principles, for the well-ripened wood of plants 
contains more of solid matters and less of water than is 
contained by wood unmatured. Consequently, it i3 less 
liable to be frozen and have its sap vessels burst by the 
expanding ice. There is, however, another reason; 
namely, that so soon as a plant has completed and 
perfected its growth, it becomes dormant, and like the 
| Bear and the Dormouse, whilst thus torpid it can endure 
j unharmed a degree of cold that would be fatal to it 
whilst its functions were active. 
It is this disparity of power in ripened and unripened 
wood to resist frost which causes, in most instances, 
j the discordant statements as to the hardiness or tender- 
I ness of plants of the same species, and it was never 
j more impressed upon our attention than during a recent 
visit to the garden of Dr. Gamier, the Dean of Win¬ 
chester, at Bishopstoke, near that city. 
This garden slopes gently to the south and is well 
| sheltered from all winds blowing from any points of 
either the north or east. All this promotes the ripening 
of the wood, but it is still more effectually promoted by 
the thorough drainage of the soil, and by all the 
specimens, of which we shall specify a few, being grown 
singly. Esccillonia Jioribnnda , in noble bushes, grows 
there all the year unprotected, and it was blooming when 
we were there in the third week of September. Pinus 
insignis, one of the quickest growing, and most perma¬ 
nently of a beautiful deep green of all the genus, was 
quite unaffected by the last winter and spring frosts. 
Ilex latifolia, until last winter, had the protection of a 
mat during that season, yet it was quite unharmed. 
Escallonia macrantlia had a single mat over it, but its 
young shoots were killed. The tips of the spray of 
Taxodium sempervirens were turned brown. A fine 
specimen of Pinus Hartivegii, twelve feet high, was 
matted in the winter, yet bore uninjured, without that 
protection, the severe frosts of April and May. Pinus 
pindrow endured, unhurt, a frost, when the thermometer 
fell to 23°, before it was matted, and the still severer 
frosts of April and May after the matting had been 
removed. Magnolias grown as standards are good sized 
trees, bloom freely, and are uninjured by the winter. 
Before passing from our notice of this garden, which 
should be visited by every one who can stop at the 
Bishopstoke Station, on the South Western Railway, we 
must notice one or two other specimens on account of 
tlieir beauty, and first of the Cedrus deodar a. It is not 
more than fifteen feet high, owing to the loss of its 
leading shoot, but that loss has given to it a massive 
habit of foliage, strikingly rich and beautiful beyond 
that of any other we ever saw. Next, we must 
notice the Biota, or Cupressus pendula, for so large a 
specimen is very rare. Lastly, there is a Yucca gloriosa, 
strikingly resembling an Eastern Palm tree, for its 
elephant-skinned stem is full seven feet high from the 
ground to its crown of leaves, and nine inches in 
diameter. 
Returning to our theme—the importance of ripening 
young wood—we must observe, that Mr. Duramer, the 
Deau of Winchester’s gardener, is quite alive to the 
subject, and to the promotion of that object by frequent 
removals, root-pruning, and other modes of checking late 
autumnal growth Upon these, and other relative topics, 
we have just received the following from Mr. Errington. 
“ People are continually complaining of the barren¬ 
ness of their trees, or their shy setting, and yet do not 
take the moans at hand to remedy it—do not even recog¬ 
nise fully those principles on which a crop of healthy 
blossom depends. To be sure, after all our pains, it is 
not possible, we know, to command a crop; the blossom 
No. CCCXIY., Vol. XITL 
