January 16. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
295 
President, whose term of office had expired, should | 
be replaced by Mr. J. Curtis ; and that Mr. Edwin 
Shepherd should he joined with Mr. Douglas as joint 
Secretary. 
The President nominated the auditors of the 
Treasurer's account of the past year. He also exhibited 
a small piece of a new silken texture recently received 
from Vienna, spun by the caterpillars of the great 
Emperor Moth, Saturnia Spini, and forming a kind of 
felt impervious to wet. The caterpillars of this kind of 
Moth are not provided with a large stock of silk, but 
they are very common, and the object of the experi¬ 
mentalist has been to compel them to deposit their 
silk in flat layers, by confining them in low cages, by 
which means they are unable to spin a regular cocoon, 
and when a caterpillar has completly discharged its 
stock of silk, another is introduced, until the layer has 
acquired sufficient strength and thickness. He also 
exhibited a specimen of Hclobia impressa, from Ben 
Nevis, a species of local variety which Mr. Dawson had 
omitted in his recent work upon the Geodephaga 
Britannica, or ground beetles of this country. 
Mr. Douglas exhibited the nidus formed of a fungoid 
substance in the interior of a decayed Oak-tree by the 
larva of Cratonychus castanipes, a species of click 
beetles ( Elatericlcc ), not hitherto recorded as a native of 
this country. The larva itself, of which the cast skin 
remained within the nidus, proved that the insect itself 
is closely allied to the common wire-worm. 
Mr. Downie exhibited a model bee-hive, shewing the 
improvements which he proposed in bee-hives, consist¬ 
ing of a modification of the mouth-piece, allowing 
partial or complete ventilation, and also of the floor¬ 
board, which, by means of a grating and movable tray, 
might be removed with the least possible trouble, and 
the dead bees and refuse of the hive removed, and 
which he was convinced was often the cause of the 
deaths of the stock. By his improvements, he had saved 
the lives of his stocks during the past year, which had 
been most disastrous to bee-keepers, as, within a circuit 
of nine miles from his residence at Barnet, he had 
ascertained that as many as five hundred hives had died 
off during the past year. 
Mr. Samuel Stevens exhibited specimens of the 
magnificent Jumnos Buckeri and Dicranocephalus 
Wallichii, from India. 
Mr. Curtis continued the reading of his Short Notes 
on the Economy of various Insects, the most material 
of which was the observation, that Garabus glabratus, a 
rare ground beetle, and the larva of one of the species 
of Staphylinidae, or Rove beetles, had been observed in 
the act of devouring earth worms. 
Mr. Waterhouse read a memoir by himself and Mr. 
Janson on the nomenclature of the forty-four British 
species of the genus Stenus, belonging to the family 
Staphylinidae. 
Mr. F. Smith read a memoir containing descriptions 
of a new species of ants, collected in Brazil by Mr. 
Bates, accompanied by notices of the habits of some of 
the species ; one of these was remarkable for building 
| its nest within the nests, of the white ants; whilst 
another, belonging to the genus Myrrnica, had occurred 
in such immense numbers, that its dead bodies were 
observed lying in masses along the banks of rivers for a 
distance of eight or ten miles. Mr. Edward Brayley 
suggested that this circumstance threw considerable 
light upon the origin of the occasional accumulations of 
fossil insect remains of which Mr. Westwood had 
recently given some curious instances at the Geological 
Society. If, by any chance, the bodies of these ants 
had been covered by a deposit of salt, they would in 
course of time have become fossilised, and then would 
exhibit a very similar appearance to that of the Purbeck 
fossils noticed by Mr. Westwood. Mr. W. W. Saunders 
also mentioned, that on one occasion the shore of 
Norfolk was observed to be covered with such immense 
numbers of dead specimens of Galeruca Tanaceti, as to 
be rendered black by their presence. 
SEASONABLE ADVICE AS TO HARDY FRUITS. 
Although, perhaps, nothing particularly new can be 
be said on this head, there are certain sound maxims 
connected with fruit-culture which are ever in danger 
of being forgotten, or neglected, by the inexperienced. 
Everybody knows that this is the season for pruning, 
and that almost every fruit-tree requires a little of this 
necessary proceeding at least twice a year; that is, 
] during the growing season, and the season of repose, or 
rest. It is not long since I offered a few practical hints 
on pruning, and there is little necessity to repeat them; 
indeed, the chief object of my present remarks will be to 
direct attention rather to the proper management of the 
root than the branch. So much about modes of pruning 
has, I am afraid, had a constant tendency to decoy the 
attention from those fundamental principles in root- 
culture, on which, above all other proceedings, success 
can be rationally based. 
And first, as to depth of soil. This much vexed 
question irresistibly reminds one of the controversies 
in the agricultural world about the depth of drains; 
for, after all, it is by no means proper to insist on a 
given depth for fruit-trees ; localities so much differ as 
to the natural depth of the soil, and the general 
J character of the atmosphere, as to moisture or dryness, 
that even in the matter of depth it is highly improper 
to be pertinacious as to any precise depth. Notwith¬ 
standing this, lest I should be thought of latitudinarian 
notions, let me repeat, that what are termed deep 
borders are averse to the object of the cultivation of 
tender fruits; and, moreover, that what are generally 
termed shallow borders are highly favourable, providing 
the course of after culture be adapted thereto. To 
avoid still further misconception, let me observe, that I 
consider a border a yard in depth, deep; one of two 
feet, a reasonable one; and one of little more than 
a foot, too shallow. 
But, then, depth is not a mere abstract question; after 
that arises another of even graver importance; and it 
is this;—How much is the soil provided below the 
ordinary surface level ? 
I must here candidly confess, that I have many times 
been struck with the indifference with which even very 
good gardeners have regarded this part of the question. 
Our situation here, indeed, is dry beneath, and we have 
little reason to complain of water below, although vexed 
enough by climate above, especially in the month of 
April. But not to leave England for an example, let us 
consider such gardens or localities as Trentham, in 
