THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 19,1857. 
larly to the preventive system : a due attention to this 
will save much trouble and loss. Such consists in 
good maxims of culture, in cleanliness, in sustaining a 
healthy root action, and, above all, in taking care that 
the subject suffer not from drought at the root. With 
regard to the open air, a very frequent use of the 
syringe or engine, and in-doors by abundance of 
evaporation of moisture and a free circulation of air. 
I may here refer to a fly on Peach trees that made its 
appearance occasionally in the month of September. 
This is a somewhat novel affair, and when once it com¬ 
mences generally smothers the whole tree, so that 
scarcely an inch of the foliage can be fairly seen. We 
received a visitation from it last autumn, and also in 
the one previous, and found it exceedingly difficult to 
extirpate. Tobacco water is, I suppose, as usual, the 
only remedy, for it appears it is of the aphis family. 
These insects do immense damage at this period by 
sucking up the sap which should go towards the perfect¬ 
ing of the buds for the ensuing year. 
Before leaving this chapter on the ailments of fruit 
trees during summer I may just advert to those per¬ 
nicious fungi which do so much mischief to many of our 
fruit trees. Their attacks assume the character of a 
rust or a burnt appearance, and, indeed, by many prac¬ 
tical men it is termed “ rust.” There is no doubt that 
most of these appearances are produced by parasitical 
fungi, which in the main live on the elaborated sap—that 
very material which it has taken weeks for the plant to 
prepare, and which is of such eminent service in the 
feeding and maturation of both fruits and the future 
blossoms. Such rusts generally commence during dry 
weather in June or July, and frequently spread over 
the whole tree by the middle of August. I am not aware 
of any remedial measure except sulphur, alike the enemy 
of the red spider and of many of the fungi. Pre¬ 
ventive measures are best. It will be found that drought 
at the root is the most fertile source of the evil. Eruit 
trees planted in warm and light soils are ever the 
most liable to it; those in materials of sound texture 
the least. R. Errington. 
VISITS TO NURSERIES. 
PINE APPLE PLACE, EDGWARE ROAD, LONDON, 
MESSRS. ARTHUR HENDERSON & CO. 
( Continued from page 50.) 
The newest thing in this nursery is from an original 
idea—a rare thing in gardening—a thirty-paned propa¬ 
gating house, forty feet by thirty-five feet, which will be 
in three divisions, the tanks for bottom heat being the 
novelty. They are to be eighteen inches deep, with two 
flow aud one return-pipe in each, and will be heated with 
Mr. Thomson’s new retort boiler by the Messrs. Gray 
and Ormson. The new idea for bottom heat is as much 
improvement on all other modes of hot-water bottom 
heating as the new rule for allowing practical gardeners 
to become F.H S. on the same footing as their em¬ 
ployers. It is this :—After the three pipes are proved 
in each tank, that tank is to be filled on the principle of 
the filter , first with big stones in the bottom, or say as 
large as ducks’ eggs, then another layer of stones not so 
big, after that a layer of very rough gravel, and another 
layer of gravel not so rough, and so on till the top is of 
the finest sand; then a foot of water is let in, and the pipes 
will heat the mass to 80°, more or less ; and, when once 
that heat is got, a few hours’ firing daily will keep it up, 
and a constant moist bottom heat is as certain as from a 
dung bed. Three inches of clean sand will keep down 
the vapour, and be the best way of bottom heating and 
plunging, and in the autumn the water will be with¬ 
drawn by turning a cock, and then a dry bottom heat 
99 
is secured for the winter, the mass of stones and gravel 
retaining the heat for days and days at little cost. This 
is a vast improvement on the old way of throwing in 
steam among stones for bottom or for more permanent 
heat, as was practised just at the time when the hot- 
water system was introduced. 
The stock of stove and greenhouse plants, Orchids, 
and Ferns is very much larger than I have ever seen 
here, and the health, cleanliness, and training are in 
the first style of plant growing. The whole of the 
ground is now nearly covered with glass, and there are 
from thirty to forty more hands employed than during 
the last reign. The Orchids are removed to another 
house, which is crammed full of healthy, sizeable plants 
for sale. As in the Clapton Nursery, the enormous 
quantities of Heaths, Azaleas, and greenhouse plants 
show the extent of the country trade with this nursery, 
and they have an excellent way of making selections 
from all the tribes in their different catalogues, so that 
one can always pick out the best plants with little 
trouble. 
There is a sick club among the men, to which each of 
them pays only one penny every pay night, and for 
which he is insured 10s. a week if he falls sick. At 
that rate above £20 were distributed since last No¬ 
vember. This is a most excellent scheme where many 
hands are employed by one firm. 
Mr. Eancourt, the father of British propagators, and 
the best of that profession in Europe, looks better than 
he did twenty years since. This is the third, if not the 
fourth reign under which he has been prime minister; 
but who can count the number of heads he cut off even 
under one reign ? 
Hanging baskets were first introduced here I believe, 
and now they find it a regular branch of business. All 
the iEscliynanths they grow that way now; also Thyr- 
sacanthus rutilans; Hoya hella; Cactus or Epiphyllum 
truncatum Russellianum , and the crosses from them; Rus- 
sellia juncea, which blooms in these baskets, or basket¬ 
like pans with holes in the sides and bottom, better 
than in pots. Campanula Qarganica they force in the 
stove in these baskets, where it rambles like a climber, 
and when it comes into bloom it is removed to a cool 
house, where you would hardly know it; and so with ten 
times more kinds than I can find room for, down to 
Aaron’s Beard, the Saxifraga sarmentosa. 
Jasminum dianthifolium, with a slender habit and 
sweet starry white flowers, was quite new to me as a 
stove plant, which everybody buys for its manageable 
size and most deliciously sweet blossoms. Ripladenia 
uropliylla and Allamanda Aubletii are spoken of as very 
superior; Ardisia hymenandra and AEschynanthus splen- 
dens the same; Ixora floribunda, a close grower, with rosy 
flowers, ditto; Rogeria thyrsiflora, much after Ixora, 
the same; Tecoma spectabilis, Meyenia erecta, and the 
magnific Medinilla, with Maranta Warscewiczii, the 
Hexacentris, Gesnera Roncklarii, Ripladenia acuminata, 
Nepenthes phyllamphora, the two Sonerila margaritacea, 
and Impatiens Jerdonice, are all of the first water. 
The best six stove plants for hanging baskets, their 
own selection, are AEschynanthus splendens, Hoya bella, 
Impatiens repens, Isolepis gracilis (also in the green¬ 
house and out of doors in summer), Margravia dubia, 
with uncommonly fine foliage, and Torenia Asiatica. 
The best twelve stove climbers, Allamanda Aubletii, 
yellow; Clerodendrum splendens and speciosissimum (two or 
three kinds of splendens are not worth growing); Com- 
bretum purpureum; Ripladenia acuminata, crassinoda, 
and splendens; Hexacentris Mysorensis, Hoya imperialis, 
Ipom<ra Horsfallice, Passiflora princeps or racemosa, 
P. Recaisnea, and Stephanotis floribunda , 
In the same way they go on to give selections of the 
best twelve variegated plants, the best twelve winter- 
flowering stove plants, the best thirty-six stove and 
