20 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, April 14, 1857, 
it with tobacco smoke, closing the vessel down upon 
the soil; or they may be killed by scattering on them 
some strong common snuff, washing it off with a syringe 
as soon as the insects are dead. 
These are all the operations necessary at this season 
and for two or three months to come. At that time I 
will, if spared, return to this subject again. It only 
remains to give my promised list. 
T. Appleby. 
(To be continued.) 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
PHOTOGRAPHING THICK PLANTS. 
“ Many thanks are due to Mr. Copland for his article in 
your number for the 17th instant, which I have no doubt 
will set many of your readers to work at nature printing. 
There is one thing requires explanation. It is this—the 
leaves or flowers to be printed will, as I read the article, 
be subject to pressure, and that pressure, if the leaves are 
at all thick, will cause their juices to exude. Query, what 
effect will the juices or sap of the plants have on the pre¬ 
pared paper if they are to be pressed firmly ? and how is 
any damage arising from such a cause to he avoided ? ”—A 
Constant Reader. 
[The flowers and leaves are subject to pressure, but not 
sufficient to cause the juices to exude. Only push up the 
Avedges until the specimen lies perfectly flat on the prepaerd 
paper. It would be well to pare down a thick stalk. If ex¬ 
pressed the sap would darken the paper a little. Although 
I have copied many plants, every vein being distinctly 
delineated, I have never been inconvenienced by Avliat you 
mention.—E. A. Copland.] 
GRECIAN HIVE.—EOOD FOR BEES. 
“ May I ask your opinion of the Grecian Hive , so much 
recommended by Mr. Golding ? 
“ Also, do you disapprove of sugared ale for feeding bees ? 
I have been using barley-sugar as recommended in your 
pages, and find it much more suitable than anything else.” 
—Rustioa. 
[The “ Grecian Hive,” as it is somewhat ambiguously 
called, has, doubtless, been improved by Mr. Golding; but 
Ave are not quite reconciled to a garden-pot shape in a bee¬ 
hive—rather too high, as many think, for its Avidth. The 
bars are pegged down to the straw sides, which renders 
them less readily adjusted to the proper distances than when 
a notched hoop is used, with the correct interspaces indicated 
on its upper edge, in a hive made broader, shallower, and 
cylindrical in form. 
As regards “ sugared ale " for feeding bees, it might often 
do as a substitute in small quantities for a better mixture. 
All artificial compounds are, however, rendered more ac¬ 
ceptable to the bees if flavoured with honey. Mr. Taylor 
says, “ I have used good sound ale sweetened with sugar 
and honey, and boiled for a minute or two. The usual pro¬ 
portion is a pint to a pound of refined sugar, adding a fourth 
part of pure honey. A table-spoonful of rum still further j 
improves the compound. Mr. Golding recommends a very I 
similar mixture, to which, however, he adds a tea-spoonful of 
salt and a glass of wine. Mr. Payne uses lump sugar in the 
proportion of three pounds to a pint of water, boiled for two 
or three minutes, and mixed with a pound of honey.” After 
all, barley-sugar appears to find most favour, as the least 
troublesome, and the most easily introduced within the hive 
at this season of the year more especially.] 
CONSTRUCTION OF A PEACH HOUSE. 
“ I intend erecting a Peach house large enough to contain 
twelve standard trees, say six to be trained under the lights, 
and six on the back wall; but, as I wish to build the best 
and most approved house, will you be so obliging as to let 
me know what sort of a house you think the best? I am 
not tied to any shape or plan, and have sufficient space and 
accommodation for any sort of house.”—P each. 
[We should like to understand more thoroughly what you 
really intend before Ave would take the responsibility of 
advising you. Several plans of houses have been given in 
this work. You would find something on training standards 
across the house in Mr. Fish’s notes last year on Scone and 
Dunkeld, and groAving them loosely as standards, like an 
Apple tree, as practised at Lord Panmure’s. The difficulty 
chiefly consists in the different ideas suggested by standards. 
You mean to cover at least a part of your back wall, and the 
trees are to be trained there, and can hardly, therefore, be 
called standards. If the front trees are grown loosely, with¬ 
out tie, or ligature, or support, then they ought to be suffi¬ 
ciently low not to shade those on the back wall; and when 
thus grown loosely the fruit is brought too much doAvn, and 
shaded by its own weight. After having tried this and many 
other plans we prefer the following for Peaches. For a lean- 
to house, say back Avail fourteen feet, front Avail two feet, on 
arches, width twelve or fourteen feet. Plant the back wall 
Avith dwarf-trained trees. Four feet from that have a fruit 
trellis; height at back four feet, and at front one foot. The 
trees in front will not shade the back wall to any extent. 
Give each tree a space in length of fourteen feet; that is, 
place them at that distance apart. The best plan of all is to 
have a span house with east and west sides, say sixteen feet 
wide, side walls eighteen inches high, path doAvn the centre, 
height to ridge from path, say nine feet, Avith means for 
plenty of ventilation there. Prepare the border inside, build 
the side Avails on arches, so that the roots go out to the 
outside border. Plant the trees inside, and train to a trellis 
on each side about sixteen or eighteen inches from the 
glass. There is no method Avill beat this for securing fine- 
looking, well-coloured, fine-flavoured fruit. Mr. Ferguson 
has several of such houses at Stowe, and in a previous 
volume has given a section either of them or others like 
them. When such houses are in fine order it is a treat to 
Avalk along their centre. If, hoAvever, you decide on having 
the trees grown as standards Avithout trellis, and we can do 
anything to assist you, Ave Avill gladly do so. Even in such 
a case, had Ave our choice, we Avould have a span-roofed 
house running north and south, the walls along the sides, 
and the trees in the centre; or, if the house did not rise 
high at the sides, the walk in the centre and trees on each 
side, or meeting overhead. From the weight of the Peach, 
however, and the slenderness of the twigs, it will always be 
better exposed to the sun from having a support.] 
SHADING GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 
“ ‘A Regular Subscriber ’ will feel very much obliged for 
any information respecting the best and most inexpensive 
way of shading a greenhouse during the summer months. 
The building for AA T hieh it is required is about forty feet in 
length, and fifteen feet in width ; it is attached to one end of 
the dwelling-house; aspect full south. There is a bed in the 
middle, in Avhich some very valuable Camellias are planted 
out, and it is chiefly for their benefit that the information is 
requested, as their beautiful foliage suffers every year from 
being scorched by the sun.” 
[All things considered there is nothing so good as a 
blind, because when the sun is not shining the plants Avill 
have more light merely by rolling it up. If your Camellias 
were four or five feet from the glass we do not think they 
would suffer much if the glass was good; if spotted and 
speckled it would cause them to be scorched. Whitening 
is of no great use of itself, and it looks bad, and Avould fall 
on the leaves Avlien syringing. Do as follows : — Melt some 
jelly size, with scarcely any Avater, say half a gallon of it, and 
use say half a pint of water. If you have not jelly size use 
glue or other size, so as to make a strong solution. Into 
that quantity place about the size of a walnut of whitening, 
half a drachm glass of turpentine, and as much boiled 
linseed oil. Stir it all well together, and when very hot 
draw it over the glass when dry, and, if possible, when the 
sun is shining. This put on outside Avill remain until the 
heai'y rains of autumn help to loosen it. Placed inside it 
will remain longer. If daubed with a dry brush as put on 
it will look like rough glass. A little soda in the water will 
soon remove it when that is necessary.] 
