July 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
223 
roots, in addition to the stem being bound up, as you say it was, 
before forcing. This protection would be more particularly required 
in early forcing in such a spring as the last, abounding as it did in 
cold and heavy rains. If your vines were then in flower, the inequality 
as to circumstances between the root and top would produce such a 
result. In alluding to a likely cause, we thus point out a remedy. 
The fact of your vine throwing out so many shoots, and many of them 
now shewing fruit, is evidence that the plant is both luxuriant and 
productive. If you did not mean to force before January or Febru¬ 
ary, these bunches, if good, might be allowed to become matured for 
early winter use. The other rambling wood must be thinned out by 
little at a time, so as to give no great and sudden check, ever keeping 
in mind that roots and branches act relatively and correlat.ively to 
each other. You must make up your mind how you intend pruning 
—whether by long rod, short rod, or spurring close—and then, what¬ 
ever shoot interferes with the due exposure to sun of those leaves on 
the wood which you intend for producing next season, must be gra¬ 
dually removed. Then you will not only have strength in your vine, 
but that strength will be concentrated into certain parts for effecting 
a definite object. General statements on the whole subject will 
shortly appear. 
Bees {Peter). —Your placing a bell-glass upon your stock after it 
had swarmed was useless ; you must never expect to have both honey 
and swarms from the same stock in the same season. A piece of 
guide-comb should always be put in the glasses, as directed in p. 42 
of the present vol. Should your weak stocks swarm, hive them in the 
usual manner, and when the second swarms come, unite them to the 
first ones, as directed in p. 104. You must wait until another year, 
we fear, for honey, and then, by following the directions already 
given in The Cottage Gardener, you will, we doubt not, have a 
plentiful supply, unless you should already have put glasses upon 
your swarms, as directed also in p. 104. We have three swarms, all 
of which are working up into glasses ; one has already stored in the 
glass 10 lbs., another 14 lbs., and a third 6 lbs.; the latter we have 
been obliged to supply this morning (July 12) with more room, by 
placing a glass (described at p. 105) between the one now nearly 
filled and the stock, for the bees showed it to be necessary by clus¬ 
tering at the mouth of the hive beyond the usual time. By no means 
fumigate at this time ; if you must have honey, and from your own 
bees, fumigate your weak stocks in the autumn, take their honey and 
unite the bees to your strongest stocks, directions for doing which 
will be given in a future calendar. 
Names of Plants (T. T. L.). —We think your specimen is An¬ 
tirrhinum minor, but the specimens were too dry for us to be certain. 
Where did you find it? Our correspondents would save us much 
trouble if they would give all the information they can about the 
plant of which they wish to know the name. (A Young Beginner, 
C. L.) —The single leaf and the very dry flower you sent is not suffi¬ 
cient for us to judge of your tropical plant from. The parts sent 
agree nearest with the characters of Ipomcea ochracea. Send us 
another specimen, and tell us the habit of the plant: is it a shrub, or 
a twiner, or what is it ? (A very Cockney.) —The plant, of which you 
saw “ a cart-load in the London streets,” is black henbane, Hyoscy - 
arnus niger. (A Cheshire Rector.) —The plant of which you sent us 
a leaf, describing the flower, is Melia azederach, or bead-tree. It is 
scarcely sufficiently ornamental to deserve the space it occupies in a 
small greenhouse.' The name of bead-tree is given because its nuts 
are used by Roman Catholics in making their rosaries. ( J. B .).— 
Your plant is Ccelestina ageratoides, a greenhouse, somewhat shrubly 
plant, and nearly always in flower. It is a really good bedding-out 
plant, for its blue flowers are also thick and handsome. 
Marie Louise Pear {J. B. R .).— You are noways singular in 
your Marie Louise blooming freely but fruitlessly; the fact is it is a 
very shy setting pear as a standard, and capricious enough on the 
walls. Your climate (Lancaster) is too cold for it; we would advise 
you to cover it with a coarse canvas in the spring, only taking care 
to remove it daily. You had better commence grafting or budding 
other and safer kinds on its branches. Your soil, a good loam, with 
a porous gravelly subsoil, appears unexceptionable. We have a case 
similar to yours, a tree nearly 30 feet high ; we have not gathered a 
peck of pears in seven years, yet those on our walls, covered with 
canvas, bear abundantly. 
Peach Shoots {Rev. P. W .).—If your peach shoots, having fruit 
at the foot, are growing very strong, and have produced as much as 
one foot in length, you may shorten their tops by pinching, in the 
first week in August. Do not cut out your two-years’ wood now if 
possible; try and lay in as much of the annual shoots as are requisite 
without. All really surplus ones must be removed, or cut back to a 
couple of leaves. 
Plumbago Larpentai ( H. Savage). —A high shelf in a green¬ 
house, with such weather as we experienced from the end of May to 
the middle of July, is, perhaps, the very worst situation for any small 
plant, and particularly for this plumbago. A cold pit, and slightly 
shaded in the middle of the day, with abundance of air, would have 
made a different thing of it. The light powdery appearance of the 
leaves is peculiar to the genus, and is rather a sign of good health. 
Rosa multiflora {Ibid). —This is too general a name, as there 
are many of that section ; a conservatory is too hot and close for all 
of them. However, the best plan would be to bud a collection of 
tca-scented roses on this multiflora, as it will never succeed as it is ; 
also the Cloth of Gold and Solfatare, two which are known to do 
better in a cool conservatory than anywhere else. 
Fuchsia serratifolia {Ibid). —The roots of this, planted in the 
border near the flue, got.too drv, or were pinched with liquid manure. 
The leaves of all fuchsias die off more or less as the wood ripens, but 
the top of the young shoots are only killed in ordinary cases by a 
derangement at the roots. One plant of the same fuchsia in a pot, 
you say is losing some leaves and the others are curling. If the pot 
is quite full of roots an hour’s sun striking on it would have caused 
the leaves to curl, at any rate they exhausted the nourishment or sap 
faster than the roots supplied it a dump, cool, shady place, in or out 
of doors, will soon recover it, but some of the curled leaves will fall 
off, and others, probably, will keep the curled form. This fuchsia 
generally flowers late in the autumn and through the winter, 
Cotton’s Hives {II. F. B.) —There appears to be very little doubt 
but that your bees have flown away this year, certainly; and, unless 
they have afforded you a good supply of honey, for the preceding three 
years also. There is no necessity for bees to swarm, if sufficient and 
timely room be given them, but then there is always a large accumu¬ 
lation of honey. We admire both Mr. Cotton and his book ; they are 
exceedingly amusing, but not practical. He tells Mr. Payne that his 
bees are doing admirably in New Zealand ; lie would not write such 
a book now, after the experience he has had. You had better buy a 
swarm of your neighbours next year, and be contented with honey 
only from Cotton’s hive. Put the swarm into one of Mr. Payne’s 
hives, or into Taylor’s. 
Roses {Pegasus). —The roses not flowering, with leaves “not 
green,” were taken from a hotforcing pit or some close place, and the 
sudden change to an open S. aspect proved too much for them ; put 
them in the shade for a month, and syringe them over the stems 
every evening. 
Fuchsias {Ibid). — These not flowering, or having small flowers, 
require more room at the roots, or more water, or else their roots are 
bad. If the former, shift them ; otherwise patience and long night- 
dews will bring them round. The soil is likely to be at fault. 
Roses (H. F. B.). —Those not climbers may have the points of the 
shoots, which have not flowered this season, cut back a little now; 
not much, however, as, if we get a wet autumn, all the lower buds 
would start, and not ripen the young growth. R. Devoniensis, and all 
the tea-scented roses, will stand our frost, with a slight covering, if 
the borders are dry and sheltered. 
Fuchsias {Ibid). —These should not be cut down after flowering 
until the growing season is over, as they would begin to grow imme¬ 
diately. 
Salvia patens {Another Novice). —This will flower the first year 
from seeds, if sown early, and well-treated till the end of May. 
Seedling Fuchsias {Ibid). —These, if very small, should not be 
cut down the first winter, nor till they begin to grow in the spring. 
I pom-F. as {Ibid). —Iporaaea learii, Horsfalii, and Nil, will not do 
in a greenhouse like yours ; Mandevilla suaveolens, &c. will, and you 
will find how by looking at our index. 
Climbers for S.E.Wall {Ibid). —Clianthus puniceus, Tweedia 
cocrulea, and Erythrina, will do very well on a south-east wall, well 
sheltered, if you keep the frost from them in winter; of all you 
name, the Clianthus is the best for pots, and also the best evergreen 
climber or rather trainer. May is the best season to plant these 
climbers, as we have said long since. Limnanthes are poor weedy 
annuals, which grow as freely as mignonette, if sown in the autumn 
or spring. 
Solving Flower Seeds (A Subscriber). —You ask when you may 
sow Coreopsis Tinctoria, Collinsia bicolor, China asters, Bartonia, 
&c. The China asters sow in the open ground about the beginning 
of May ; the others any time in April, to flower in June, July, and 
August; and the collinsia will do to sow about the end of August, to 
flower next April and May. 
Name of Plant {An Amateur Gardener). —We cannot make out 
whether your name is meant for Leptosiphon or Lasiopetalum. The 
former a dwarf, hardy annual, to be sown in the spring ; the other a 
greenhouse shrub, from New Holland, of no great beauty. Lupinus 
polyphyllus is a fine, hardy, perrennial plant, of great beauty in its 
way ; plant out your seedlings of it next September, where you in¬ 
tend them to flower next summer ; in good soil the flower spikes will 
reach from three to four feet high. 
Double Yellow Rose {Salford Priors). —The freaks of the old 
double yellow rose have already baffled all inquirers ; perhaps double 
working might do something ; that is, first, to bud the single yellow 
Austrian on a dog rose, close to the ground, and in the following year 
to put a bud of the double yellow rose into the Austrian. We should 
like to hear of this experiment tried in every parish, or where the old 
yellow rose refuses to flourish. 
Schizanthus retusus {Mark). —In'the spring sow it thinly in 
the open ground, where it will flower in the autumn ; and about the 
end of August, in pots, to be treated like mignonette, will flower 
next April and May: too rich soil and too much water causes the 
damp, just at the surface of the ground. 
Fuchsias for September {An Amateur). —These beginning to 
bloom in June, you nipt off the tops with their flowers ; and you 
have done perfectly right, to get them into flower for the September 
show. If the pots are very full of roots, give them one more shift 
now, otherwise water them freely and sprinkle it over their leaves in 
the afternoon, two or three times a week, and they cannot fail to be 
in fine bloom; or, if they show flowers too soon for the show, remove 
them to a north aspect, and keep the air cool around them by pour¬ 
ing water on the ground in the evenings of hot days. 
Pyramidal Saxifrage (W. Smythe). —Your plant is the old 
pyramidal saxifrage from Italy, and should be kept in a window or 
cold pit in winter; it only flowers once, and is increased by offsets 
and seeds. Good strong offsets taken off in the spring, grown well 
through the summer, will, or should, flower the following season, if 
potted in light rich soil and well drained. The seeds may be sown in 
August or March, and will either flower the second or, at farthest, the 
third season. Give some of it to your friends. It is one of the good 
old plants that ought to be more grown. It has been grown with a 
flower-stem upwards of a yard high, and a perfect pyramid from the 
pot upwards. 
Iris Xiphioides (W. T.). —The piece of a flower sent is part of 
the bloom of Iris xiphioides, a bulbous hardy perennial. The price 
for named separate kinds is 3s. per dozen ; for mixed kinds, 9d. per 
dozen. The named sorts are most beautiful. 
Giant Stocks {Ibid). —Your removing the fine plants you possess 
now, and putting them in a place to protect them through the 
