THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 0, 1857. 
15-> 
DOUBTS ON STEWARTON WOODEN HIVES. 
As the “ Country Curate,” as well as many others, 
thinks the Stewarton hives made of thinner wood than re¬ 
commended by bee authors, a few results of my experience 
with them may satisfy those who have got them that they 
need not be afraid. Bees, when properly managed in their 
boxes, will keep in winter or thrive in summer as well as in 
any other hive. 
I have used the same hives as advertised in The Cottage 
Gardener these last ten years, and have never seen a single 
instance of one suffering from cold in winter, however severe. 
My bee house, holding six hives, is twenty-one feet long by 
five feet wide, the back and ends built of stone, the front of 
wood three-eighths of an inch thick, and an aperture of nine 
inches by six inches in each end for ventilation. 
Now, the way I keep the boxes in this house is without 
covering of any kind, and they thrive remarkably well, while 
some of my neighbours cover theirs up with old clothes and 
such-like, and yet I consider my hives better kept than 
theirs who use such precautions. 
A friend of mine of thirty years’ bee experience, and whom 
I consider no mean authority on bee matters, told me last 
week, when talking to him on the thickness of wood for boxes, 
that he never knew a single instance of a hive suffering from 
cold any more in our box than in straw hives; but he thinks 
they are more hurt by being kept in damp, ill-ventilated 
houses than in dry, airy ones. 
I tried a new plan last winter to help ventilation, and 
never saw the bees keep better. I bought your manual, 
“ Bee-keeping for the Many,” the best little treatise on bee 
management I have ever seen, though I have read every¬ 
thing on bees I could get, and I saw therein recommended 
an empty box put on the top of the hive, with a slide drawn 
at each side of the upper box containing the bees. I intended 
trying one of my hives as recommended, but before doing so 
I asked my friend if he had ever heard or tried the same 
plan. He replied that he had tried it often, and considered 
it good; therefore I put an empty box on every one of my 
hives last winter, both in and out of doors, and have never 
seen them keep better as regards the bees, and the comb is 
as good as if it was only newly made, although a person 
with ten or twelve hives must think himself pretty safe 
if no more than two are weak in spring out of the same 
quantity. 
I think Mr. Wilson’s remarks on uniting weak hives in 
spring will give the storifying system the preference over a 
good many others in saving the brood of both hives. 
I shall be glad to become a member of the British Apiarian 
Society, and hope to have the pleasure of appearing among 
our English apiarian brethren this season with a good 
Stewarton box of honey-comb.—A. Ferguson, Stewarton. 
THE NEW WINTER GARDEN. 
MESSRS. WEEKS AND CO.’S NURSERY, CHELSEA. 
The foundation of this most beautiful aud most 
appropj iate plant house in the British Islands was 
being dug out when I called at the beginning of 
February, and by the middle of April the structure was 
completely finished and furnished. We have not another 
house like it in the kingdom, nor a better house for the 
growth of plants, or for showing them off to the best 
advantage,^ and for exercise and recreation in bad 
weather. I his is just the style of show-house for a 
large nursery. 
Perhaps the ugliest and the worst-arranged house of 
this kind in England is the “ large conservatory” in the 
garden of the Horticultural Society. That in the garden 
of the Botanical Society in the Regent s Park was the 
most useful house we had; but, like the first Crystal 
I a I ace, there is no beauty in the elevation or design. If 
we could shut our eyes to everything but the cheapest 
and most useful things, why should a duke wear any¬ 
thing about his hurdles except corduroy ? or what better 1 
could you find for a duchess than a comfortable, home- 
spun linsey-woolsey dress? or what could you require 
better for the growth nf exotic plants than a plot of 
ground covered with glass exactly as at the Regent’s 
Park? It is a linsey-woolsey dress for such plants to 
the very last stitch. I make all comparisons on a 
natural basis, as between one flower and another. I 
compare the Queen’s dresses with three flowers—those of 
Allamanda cathartica, Ecliites suberecta, and Argyreia 
\ ornata. The former is satin, the second silk, and 
1 the third the ephemerals, or useful, elegant, and 
j ornamental, but all of the most beautiful form and 
| symmetry. 
Comparing one plant house, then, with another on 
this principle, and well knowiug how differently-con¬ 
structed houses affect collections of plants—beginning 
with the first large house at Hackney by the Messrs. 
Loddiges, and going on in the order of time to the large 
conservatory by Mrs. Beaumont, of Breton Hall, York¬ 
shire; the same in the Botanic Garden in Birmingham, 
the Horticultural at Chiswick, the Ducal at Chatswortb, 
the Royal at Kew, the Loyal in the Regent’s Park, and 
the Regal at Sydenham; and knowing the gardeners 
who managed all these houses, as well as the houses 
themselves—I say, knowing all this, and comparing one 
with another and with the result, I affirm, without the 
smallest hesitation, that the new “ Winter Garden ” at 
Chelsea is the only Allamanda in the catalogue—the 
most useful aud the most beautiful of all the lot except 
the Regal. 
I claimed the privilege of being first fiddle for this 
