THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
191 
June 9. 
mite, Acarus hortensis (Curtis in (Hard. Chron., 1844, page 316). The 
larger insect is one of the small species of Dung-beetles, Aphodius mer- 
darius; and the smallest individuals sent, which you have confounded 
with the Acarus hortensis, are a very different species, found only on 
beetles, Acarus coleopterorum ,—Repeated fumigation, and powdering 
the plants with sulphur, will probably have the effect of driving the 
former away. The Aphodius is only an accidental visitor.—I. O. W. 
Cucumbers rotting at the end wuen from Three to Six 
Inches long, and yet the Vines vigorous (A Subscriber since 
January, 1851).—We should almost fear that the roots have got too near 
the hot-water tank, and that the soil is, in some places, rather poached 
with moisture, at least, we once had many young fruit going off in that 
manner, and we attributed it to two causes—the soil getting too hot at 
times, and also in parts too wet; drainage would help in both cases. 
The foliage is less easily injured, though even that will be influenced in 
time.' It is possible to have the vines too strong, so that the juices are 
unfit to nourish the fruit. In that case, extra air and clear-water water¬ 
ings will furnish a remedy. 
Vine-leaves turned White (F. D. H .).—The specimens sent have 
been scalded, either from want of air, glass full of burning spots, very 
languid root-action, or a combination of all, during these very hot days. 
Many vines, such as the Sweetwater, Frontignans, &c., are the better for 
a little shade when very sunny weather succeeds suddenly weather that 
has been dull. If shading, in such circumstances, is inapplicable, more 
care is necessary to keep the atmosphere of the house moist, and yet give 
plenty of air. If you intend grow ing fruit on young canes next year, 
you may prune aw<ay all the matter from the old barren rods by degrees, 
say in the course of three weeks, and then the rods themselves, but do 
I not do it now all at once, or you will give a check to the plant. If on 
the spur-system, the barren side-shoots, after being shortened to from 
five to seven eyes, must be retained. 
Vinb-leaves Mildewed (Ibid). —There is nothing so effectual as 
sulphur. If used in a dry state, mix a little fine lime with the sulphur. 
Use the application as soon as the disease appears. You W'ould see lately 
how to apply a mixture of lime and sulphur when boiled together. If 
the disease is not inveterate, the dry form is as good as any ; but in no 
case can you expel it without injuring the foliage, after it has been 
allowed to eat itself into the plant, whether it attacks leaves or fruit. 
Vines and Peaches not Fruiting (Ibid). —-The chief reason, since 
both showed, the one bunches, and the other bloom, is want of the wood 
being properly ripened the previous year : that is, provided the manage¬ 
ment has been at all right. 
Engine-house Gardening (A I,earner ).—See page 134 for much 
that will suit you. You would find the lumber-room, with windows, a 
gooil help to the engine-room, because you could raise things in the 
iatter and transfer them to the former to bloom, &c., or many might be 
wintered there. The means of giving more air will enable you to grow 
the plants better in the engine-room; but we must just reiterate, that 
the extent of your gardening must, so far as flowering-plants are con¬ 
cerned, depend upon the extent of light you can command. True, you 
may raise many things from seed ; but just to the extent of direct light 
you can give them will they succeed with you afterwards. If you cannot 
keep down the high temperature in your tool-room by opening the sky¬ 
light; or shading it. or letting in air by other means, then we can suggest 
no other mode. The large window, without direct sun, would do for 
keeping plants in bloom in summer, and for keeping many things in 
winter. Your Mignonette will succeed just as you can give it a cool 
place after it is up. The Capsicums will stand more heat; but after they 
are two inches in height they will do little good, unless you get them 
near the window, though you might forward them sufficiently to plant 
out-of-doors. The same may be said of flowering plants in general. 
What was said in answer to your other letters contained the whole gist 
of the affair. Lycopodiums are not flowering plants, but different kinds 
of interesting mosses, that do not require nearly so much direct light as 
1 blooming plants. They would do well at the back of the flowering 
plants, near the window. Some of the commoner you may purchase for 
about one shilling per plant, and from that to five shillings, and we 
really cannot say how otherwise you are to procure them, unless you can 
get them for nothing. There have been full instructions about mush¬ 
rooms ; your ideas are correct enough, but we do not think it would be 
worth your while attempting them except from September to April. We 
fear the heat in summer would be too much for them. One thing more : 
keep in mind that time is valuable ; express your wishes in few words ; 
and come at once to the point. The next correspondent is quite an 
example ; he just says—Name 
Six best Fuchsias grown at the present Time (A. B., Essex). 
—We cannot say ; but under correction, would name the following as 
not likely to disappoint— Alpha, Nil Desperandum, Clapton Hero, Prin¬ 
cess, Ariel (Banks), Delicata. And for three more— Pearl of England, 
Don Giovanni, and Elizabeth. We cannot yet say much of new ones. 
Bees — Preventing Swarming. — Clericus, Beds., says— “I had not 
read Mr. Payne’s Calendar in to-day’s number much more than a couple 
of hours, when I was called out to hive a swarm from my strongest hive. 
I saw drones from it on the I lth of May, and put on a ten-inch glass 
super the next day, nevertheless, it has swarmed. Alas ! I descant, on 
every opportunity', to the cottagers in my parish of the merits of the 
non-swarming system, and shew them, in ivords, how much to their 
advantage bee-keeping on such a system would be (only this very morn¬ 
ing an old bee-keeper yielded to my persuasion, cut a hole in one of his 
hives, and put on a super that I had given him for the purpose) ; but, 
in practice, I cannot keep my own bees from doing the very thing (that 
is, swarming) which 1 tell my parishioners to prevent with theirs. I like 
the depriving system (and the beautiful white honey it has afforded me, 
in spite of disappointment), and wish to carry it out, but it docs not 
seem as if I should succeed in doing so thoroughly, or-with any certainty. 
Mr. Payne, if he saw the hive from which the swarm issued to-day, 
might ascribe failure with it to its height. Three swarms and a cast 
went together Inst year from neighbouring apiaries. I purchased them, 
and having no hive that would nearly hold them, was forced to put the 
greatest part of one large hive under another, and fasten them together, 
for a habitation for the enormous colony, with a glass on the top ; the 
height, of course, is great; but that, or something else, displeased the 
bees, for in the glass they have u'orked not, and I must add this to other 
instances of want of success in inducing the bees to stay at home.” 
[Your ten-inch glass super was much too deep; one-half the depth 
might have been put on first, and when the bees had established them¬ 
selves in it, another might have been put below it; but, it must be 
remembered, that simply putting on a super will not prevent bees 
swarming, unless they are induced by some means to work in it ; and, 
perhaps, after fixing on the most proper time, is the nicely adjusting a 
few pieces of guide-comb inside it, some at the top, and a small piece 
the whole way along the zinc-tube, and made to touch the combs in the 
stock-hive. The white fragments enclosed, arc grained or crystalized 
honey, caused by extreme cold. Honey, in this state, is useless to bees 
for any purpose whatever, and must be brought out of the hive by them 
to make room for brood, or storing honey. Driving bees never succeeds 
but in full, populous hives. Had a little fungus, instead of brimstone, 
been used, there would have been no difficulty or loss.—J. H. P.] 
Camellia not producing Flower-buds (An Old Subscriber). — 
Y'ou would have seen, at page 139, how Mr. Errington causes his plants 
to set their buds, and he has been a noted grower of them for many years. 
\ r ou would also observe, at page 120, that Mr. Beaton thinks that it is 
possible to keep Camellias from setting their buds for years by too much 
kindness. We, ourselves, once caused about forty young Camellias to 
make four distinct growths in one season, two of which would cause any 
Camellia to go without buds that season. When a Camellia makes its 
growth in too hot a place, with proportionate dampness, it will not set 
flower-buds, if it is a healthy plant. Therefore, it depends on the health 
of your plants, and on the w ay they were forced to finish the growth for 
this season, whether they will yet set flower-buds before it is too late. 
Keep them rather dry till the end of June, and you may succeed. 
Double White Hepaticas (Ibid). —We do not know where they 
can be procured, or whether they are procurable at all. 
Old Double-blossomed Furze or Gorse (E. F ). —By all means 
save your double old Furze, and now is just the time. When the bloom 
is over with this rich, rough customer in June, cut it back as much as 
you please, and it will soon break again, make a fresh young growth, and 
on that growth will flower next May richer than ever. If you cut any 
large limbs of it, sec it is done very carefully, and with a smooth cut. 
Luurustinus and Holly-leaved Berberis should be pruned, when they 
require it, only in May, just as they are going out of bloom, like your 
Gorse, and at no other time, except, perhaps^ at the end of July, for re¬ 
gulating the shape. All the pruning for flowers must be done by the 
end of May, or soon lifter. Cuttings of the young wood of tlie double 
Gorse put under a hand-glass behind a north wall, in sand, early in July, 
J will root as surely as cuttings of Verbenas do in a hotbed in April, and 
; they will be ready to transplant the following spring. 
Old Standard Rose (10it 1).—Instead of cutting away all the bead, 
as you propose, cut only the three or four main branches close to the 
“stump;” and instead of grafting, rather bud on the young shoots, of 
which there will be more than enough, if the roots are good ; cut at the 
end of February. 
Creepers for Vases (W. F. A'.).—Y r ou propose adopting one of 
the very worst systems of the present day in gardening, to put a blue 
and a scarlet creeper into pots seven or nine inches through, and to place 
the pots in vases out on the lawn. When a lady wills it, she can have 
a fancy stage, opposite the drawing-room windows, to roast little plants 
in pots on, from week to week, and my lord must supply the spit; but 
when a gentleman proposes to pot climbers to put into vases on the 
lawn, we ought to tell him conscientiously the plan will not pay ; rather 
let the vase be filled with mould, and the climbers be planted out round 
the sides, and the other crops in the middle, all of them out of pots. 
The best red for the purpose is Lophospermum Hendersonii, or the red 
Maurandya; and the old purple Maurandya is the nearest to blue that 
is fit for the particular place. If the vases arc of cast-iron they can be 
bored to let off the drainage water. 
Genista fragrans (Ibid). —After flowering it should be pruned, and 
In three weeks after that, at this season, be repotted in good loamy soil, 
and be out in the open air, or in a cold pit, all the summer. 
Garrya eliptica (An ohl Subscriber). —It is a had plant for moving 
after it is grown to a good size, and you must he very careful w ith the 
roots. The first rainy day after the 10th of September is the best time 
in the year to remove it. Three weeks before that, all the young shoots 
on the plant ought to be cut back to one-half their length ; and, in the 
meantime, or, rather, just now, let some of the roots be cut, and they 
will make more young ones time enough for the change. 
Roup. — B. B. P. wishes the enclosed to be inserted :—“What treat¬ 
ment have the different readers of The Cottage Gardener found most 
efficacious in the roup ? The number of recoveries in a given number 
affected ? And the usual time in which a fow'l affected recovers ? I 
think you will agree with mo that some light may be throw n on this; at 
present, fatal and obscure disease.” We shall be obliged by any in¬ 
formation relative to this plague of the poultry-yard. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, Winchester High-street, 
* in the Parish of Saint Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, of Church Hill, Walthamstow, in the County of 
Essex, at the Office, No. 2, Amen Corner, in the Parish of Christ 
Church, City of London.—June 9th, 1853. 
