September 4. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
CURE OF VINE MILDEW. 
Vine mildew lias been very injurious in many parts of 
I the kingdom this season, and many different opinions have 
I been passed as to what will cure the disease. I myself was 
asked this question by a friend who had two vineries well 
stocked with fruit, and both leaves and fruit were quite 
white with mildew. He had had the opinion of all his 
neighbours. Some of them advised him to dust the bunches 
and leaves with dry sulphur; others said, wash them with 
j whitening and sulphur mixed together. He tried both 
j plans, but they still got worse. When I went to see them 
i the sulphur had been on them more than a month ; the 
berries were just finished swelling, and he had given them 
up as lost. But, having taken part in the treatment of one 
about two years ago, I resolved to try what was to be done 
with the one before us; but, as I live some five miles off, I 
could only give my friend the directions how to proceed. 
The first thing was to get up a steady fire, and then, with 
the use of the garden engine, to well wash the Vines, in fact, 
swill them, maintain a good heat until the Vines were 
nearly dry, and then to mix up a portion of sulphur about 
the thickness of cream, and well paint all the brick flues, 
and keep the house close for a day or two. 
I was glad to receive a note from him the other day, 
to say that the disease was quite stopped, and the fruit 
ripening fast; but there remains a little taste with the fruit 
at present, but I hope, by the time the fruit is quite ripe, 
that that will disappear also. 
My friend tells me that some of the bunches are begin¬ 
ning to shank off; perhaps you can inform me the cause. 
Is it from not being dried quickly enough after washing?—A 
Subscriber, C. S. T. 
[Our own experience of the efficacy of flowers of sulphur 
in curing the Vine mildew induces us to think that our 
correspondent’s friend had really vanquished the disease 
before the fumes of sulphur, raised by putting it on the 
flue, were brought to hasten and complete the cure. We 
have cured Grapes violently affected, by having each berry 
rubbed all over between fingers covered with flowers of 
sulphur. 
We consider the shanking caused by excessive heat and 
moisture applied to the branches and leaves, causing in 
them a rapidity of growth with which the colder situated 
roots could not keep pace.] 
THE PRESENT HONEY SEASON. —CHLORO¬ 
FORM FOR STUPIFYING. 
I have seen with surprise that Mr. Payne says, “ the 
present season has been by no means a good one.” This 
part of the world is not favourable for bees, but, after keep¬ 
ing bees for twenty years, I have never had so good a season 
as this. I began the year with only three stocks, from 
which I have taken, in glasses and boxes, 12Glhs. of pure 
honey; of course, not killing the bees, and leaving them an 
abundant supply for the winter. 
Only one of the stocks has swarmed, and the swarm has 
done sp well, that I doubt not 151bs. or 201bs. of honey 
might safely be taken from it. 
In looking over my bee notes of past years, I find that 
the most favourable season next to this was 1846, when I 
took llOlbs of honey from four stocks. I have used chloro¬ 
form this year, exactly following the directions which ■were 
given some time back in The Cottage Gardener; it 
answered admirably.—A Lancashire Man. 
I terceive, in the Bee-keepers’ Calendar for August, that 
Mr. Payne has heard of no instances of good glasses of 
honey being obtained this season. I have taken one straw 
super containing 71bs. and another containing 81bs., in all 
lolbs., from the same hive. The honey is exceedingly 
fine, and although some delay was caused in consequence 
of brood comb existing in the super, I expelled the bees 
without much difficulty.— Sagitarius. 
415 ' 
DERIVATION OF NEMOPHILA. 
I 
As the original, though most unintentional stirrer-up of 
the “storm in a teapot,” aboutNemophy 11a or Nemophila— j 
“ call it what you will ”—I am quite willing to acknowledge 
my stupidity in forgetting, as 1 ought not to have done, the 
iv ve/j.f'C oKttpy of the line to which your correspondent, 
“ D. B.,” in the number of July 31, refers. 
I must, however, secondly, beg “ D. B.” and your readers 
to believe, that I am as entirely innocent of the strange 
phraseology contained in the letter signed “ Quis,” in the 
number of July 17, which “ D. B.” evidently considers mine, 
as I am of the same writer’s cricket-killing propensities, or 
of “ 1). B.’s” (or the printer’s ?) far stranger accentuation, 
punctuation, and nomenclature. Poor Hesychius! 
And now, Sir, peace and sunshine to the pretty plant in 
question; for all the storms ever brewed in an inkstand will 
never draw another word on the same subject from your 
entirely unconvinced, but very repentant correspondent.— 
QaAAtcrSai Se rci <pi>AAa icutf vAnv t/8’ ivl K’fjTrcp' 
Ktjv wptS* 8’ ayaSobi/ aSpSa <pvAa tplAwv. 
H. G. M. 
P.S,—Can you tell me the proper time to sow Fern seeds ? 
Should it be done now, or in the spring ? I wish to sow 
them, according to the directions of Mr. Moore, in his 
“ Handbook,” on squares of sand stone, for the convenience 
of microscopic observation. 
[We differ from you, if you think the discussions about j 
Nemophila either insignificant or uninteresting. It has I 
elicited much that many of our readers were well pleased j 
to learn, and we always like to know the truth, even if about j 
the naming of a plant. 
Sow the Fern-spores as soon as they are ripe. It is best 
to have them under a bell-glass, and in a place where the 
sun will never shine upon them.] 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
GARDENING. 
BEE-MANAGEMENT. 
“In The Cottage Gardener for July 24th, 1855, I see 
that a correspondent (Frank Giant) says, that he has got 
two swarms this year from every one of his stocks of bees 
he has removed as recommended by a ‘ Country Curate.’ 
“ I should feel much obliged if he would state in what 
consists the removal of the bees referred to above. 
“ If any of your readers, this season, have carried out 
the system of artificial swarm making, by driving the queen 
and bees into an empty hive, &c., as set forth by a 
‘ Country Curate ’ some time before he left England, would 
favour the readers of The Cottage Gardener with an 
account of his experience in forming such swarms, and 
how the swarms and stocks have prospered since, would 
much oblige, I am sure, all the bee-keepers who read The 
Cottage Gardener, and myself in particular, by such in¬ 
teresting particulars. 
“When bees are working, does the same bee carry both 
honey and pollen at the same time? or does the bee 
confine itself to the collecting of only honey or pollen, the 
one, and not both, each time it goes abroad for stores ?— 
Abeille.” 
RATS DEVOURERS OF GOOSEBERRIES. 
“ Will you state whether you have ever heard of rats eat- 
ing Gooseberries off the bushes in a garden ? My gardener ! 
informs me that such is the case in my garden to a great 
extent, and never having heard of such a thing myself, I am 
equally unwilling to doubt my gardener as to be imposed 1 
upon. I am shown their runs (in a Parsnip bed), where are j 
hundreds of Gooseberry husks. If rats eat the Gooseberries, j 
would they not eat the skins ?—G. F.” 
[There is no doubt that rats will eat Gooseberries, Rasp- 
* Viz. The Cottage Gardener. 
