May 15. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
117 
hard, instead of soft and luxuriant; they have not been 
shaded. They look as if they wanted more moisture over 
the foliage : when is this to be applied ? and how is the end 
of the house to be managed ? 
“X. Y. r A. finds that if ho syringes at the usual time, when 
the house is closed in the afternoon, that the surface of the 
soil, the pots, stages, Ac., are covered with a nasty green 
slime, though it is only done once or twice a week; the 
plants seem to be too dry over head, and yet the slime 
shews that too much moisture, or else moisture at the 
wrong time, has been applied.” 
[Never mind the green slime, disperse it with air, and 
syringe night and morning, as usual; do not saturate the 
pots, however. Most likely your Fuschias have not been 
cut down. If left nearly their full size, they will not present 
you with luxuriant foliage so early, but you will have bloom 
earlier. Very likely the house will require to be shaded 
always for a few hours in the morning ; but as other things 
answer well enough, we do not blame the house altogether. 
Of course, such a house is not equal to one facing the south, 
or even the west, but with a little management, such plants 
as you mention may be grown well.] 
TOMATO PLANTS PERENNIAL. 
“ E have two Tomato plants growing against the back 
wall of a Vinery. They have been setting and ripening 
fruit nearly all the winter, and still are going on well. Is it 
an unusual thing for them to live more than one year, or 
not? I have struck some cuttings from the same plants, 
they are going on very well at present; will they go on and 
bear as well as seedling plants ?—A Constant Reader.” 
[The Tomato plant will live long enough, provided you 
give it heat enough. Few can furnish them will) house 
room so long. We have tried cuttings, and we think you 
will find them superior to seedlings in fruiting earlier, and 
not growing-so much to leaf.] 
LAPSED SUBSCRIPTION.—MOLE. 
“ In a Cottage Horticultural Society, the Committee, at a 
meeting, fixed a day for closing the list ot members (a much 
earlier day than in previous years). A regular subscriber to 
the Society for the two previous years, being in service six 
miles off, not aware of the new regulation, sent the amount 
of his subscription to his wife, who lived near where the 
meetings are held. She had not heard anything ol the day 
fixed for closing the subscriptions, and did not pay the sub¬ 
scription in time. Should this man bo excluded, under the 
circumstances ? 
“ Seeing a mole at work in the strawberry-bed, the other 
day, I inserted a spud under him, and lifted him gently out 
to show to my children. He immediately began to burrow 
in the earth. I turned him out gently twice, when he 
remained quiet, and in a few minutes died. Can it have 
been of fright ? I am sure I did not hurt, for I wished to 
save him.—W." 
[If the Society’s Committee abide by the letter of then- 
resolution, the intending subscriber to the Society has no 
remedy. Under the circumstances, if you have told us all 
the facts, the committee will act with unnecessary strictness 
if they refuse to receive the subscription. 
We think you must have injured the mole by pressing 
him between your spud and the soil.] 
THE ORANGE WOOD OF MILIS. 
I nAD seen orange-trees growing in the open ground. I 
had even breakfasted one morning under these trees laden 
with fruit on the shores of Phcenicea, the most adorable 
spot of the earth, where the sea came murmuring upon 
golden sands at my feet; but I had never experienced the 
bewilderment, the intoxication, which accompanied my visit 
to the gardens of Milis. FTere there is nothing hut oranges, 
—not, if you please, fruit placed at regular intervals along 
the branches, and encompassed by verdure—but huge 
clumps of thirty or forty oranges dragging the branch 
which bears them toward the earth. Do not imagine a 
group of orange-trees here and there, the perfume of which 
comes and goes as you approach and leave it; but try to 
realise the idea of a wood — a veritable forest! As far as 
the eye can reach under this balmy forest, it meets with 
nothing but oranges. Oranges in the foreground ; oranges 
in the half distance ; oranges gild the horizon ! Here, too, 
we perceive the abuse of riches. You stumble over oranges, 
lying everywhere about; — you wish to indicate a distant 
point, you naturally pick up an orange, and cast it in the 
desired direction ; you eat the quarter of one, and, in the 
very excess of wealth, throw the rest away. The perfume 
of the blossoms intoxicates you. The mind dies to the 
gardens of the Hesperides:— you become so confused by 
the penetrating perfume, that you feel almost delirious; 
wonder whether you are not yourself turning to an orange 
tree. You feel the leaves budding upon your arms ; you 
grow weary, with the exertion of bearing so much fruit, and 
ardently look forward to the picking season. We were in 
the wood precisely at the time when the peasantry of Milis 
gather the oranges, to sell them. A gathering is a very 
simple process. A cloth is spread under the tree; and a 
man, having climbed the branches, precipitates the golden 
harvest to the earth, whence an inconceivable aroma arises. 
To give a simple idea of the extent of this forest, as large 
as the Bois de Boulogne (I ask pardon for my comparison 
of those readers who do not know this wood), it took us two 
hours to trot round it, at a smart pace, on horseback. At 
the end of our journey, we arrived before the king of the 
orange-trees. A man can hardly clasp the trunk of this old 
tree in his arms. Its huge branches stretch boldly out, like 
those of an oak. It bears an inscription to commemorate a 
visit from Charles Albert, on the 13th of March, 1829. 
But orange-trees do not entirely monopolize these enchant¬ 
ed regions. ITei’e and there you come upon glades, where 
tall poplars protect their noble hosts from the violence of the 
winds ; or upon clumps, where the wild vine creeps round the 
trees, to breathe the perfume of their fruit, and the cle¬ 
matis falls about in cascades, caressing the breeze with its 
sweet odour. The earth is sprinkled with Violets, the Peri¬ 
winkle and Forget-me-not :—it is a fairy land,—something 
fabulous, heroic, which is alone worth a journey to Sardinia, 
and ivell rewards the trouble of travelling over the barren 
plains and desolate hills of the northern part of the island. 
The woods of Milis are, in their way, one of the wonders of 
the world; and 1 owe to this oasis, loved of the gods, the 
grateful remembrance of the wildest enjoyment. Of the 
forty-eight hours we gave ourselves at Milis, I spent at least 
thirty in the orange woods, gathering in a store of sweet 
perfume for less happy times, and envying Sardinia so great 
a treasure! — Six Weeks in the Island of Sardinia, by 
Delessert. 
HOW THE IRISH “DRESS” THE POTATO. 
The cabin-boiled potato was dressed in two ways; with and 
without the bone or the moon, as it is universally called by 
the genuine Irish. In the lattfer form, the potato was done 
to the heart, equally mealy throughout, and bursting its skin 
with fatness. This was the supper when children and young 
persons were to partake of the meal; but when much work 
was to be done, or a long fast to be endured, the heart or 
central nucleus was allowed, by checking the boil at a 
particular period, to remain hard and waxy; and when the 
rest of the potato had been masticated in the usual manner, 
this hard lump, about the size of a small walnut, was bolted; 
and in this manner nearly a stone of the root was taken 
into the stomach of the Irish labourer per diem. Now, 
although this practice might be bad cookery, it was grounded 
upon a certain knowledge of physiology. The stomach 
digested the well-boiled farinaceous portion of the potato 
within the space of a few hours, and that having been all 
disposed of, the half-boiled lumps remained behind, and a 
second digestion commenced to assimilate this portion of 
food, and convert it into nutritious, life-sustaining materiel; 
which latter process lasted some hours longer, and thus the 
cravings of hunger were warded off for five or six hours 
after the original meal. Every girl in an Irish cabin 
| possesses instinctively, what the most celebrated chef de 
