THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY' GENTLEMAN, AuGrsx 30, 1859. 
323 
We would keep the tenderest and best of your Geraniums, Ver¬ 
benas, and young struck Fuchsias in such a pit. We would put 
scarlet Geraniums, large old Fuchsias, Calceolarias, &e., in the 
flue-heated greenhouse. The potting now is purely a question of 
room; but in small pots they will make nice plants, and require 
room and labour accordingly. On account of want of room wo 
always keep them in the cutting-pots all the winter, take all the 
cuttings from them in spring, and then turn them out on a 
border, where they can receive protection before they arc trans¬ 
ferred to the beds. We scarcely ever pot at all the plants you 
mention.] 
PRUNING OLD PEAR TREES ON WALLS AND 
ESPALIERS. 
“ How would you manage Pear trees, wall and espaliers, that 
have filled their space and are full of long spurs, although young 
trees. Being a young hand and just come into this situation, 
my master’s way of treating them does not agree with my practice, 
a3 they will soon get a foot from the wall. They made a good 
deal of breast-wood this year, and I stopped it in two or three 
times to about two or three eyes, intending to cut them close in 
winter; as also all the wood that had no fruit-blossom or buds. 
There is no room for more wood, being already too thick. Being 
a young hand I do not like to be too confident, although my 
practice and all the best I have seen, and also what I can learn 
from your works, confirm me I am right. I may as well state 
what is my master’s plan. He stops four or five inches from the 
base of the shoot, which, in some cases, is at the end of a long 
spur, and expects thp fruit-buds to form about half-way up. 
“ I have also a large Bilbergia that will not bloom. Can you 
inform me the way to make it ? Cambridge, the locality, is fifty- 
seven miles north-east of London.”—G. W. X. 
[Both plans of treating the Pears are best according to circum¬ 
stances. Yours where thero is plenty of fruit-spurs and fruit- 
buds, and securing neatness and closeness to the walls : such close 
stopping, however, is apt to make even fruit-buds start, especially 
in a dripping summer or autumn. The master’s plan is the best 
for securing the fruit-buds on the spurs, and causing fruit-buds to 
form on the lower part of the young shoots. When so stopped, 
the shoots wilt push again; but that is of no consequence, as 
these may also be stopped and removed, provided not so early as 
to start the lower buds into wood-growth. By such modes, 
shoots will generally be fertile in the second season after, and 
often at the first. 
Towards autumu limit the supply of water to the Bilbergia, 
just keeping it from flagging. If stunted for pot room, it will 
soon show its flower-stalks, then water.] 
VENTILATORS. 
About two miles from Baltimore is Clifton Park, the residence 
| of John Hopkins, Esq.—the outline, certainly, ot one of the finest 
I places in the United States. We say the outline , as we should 
suppose it would take double or treble the number ot hands now 
employed to bring out all the nice points bo grand a place is 
! capable of affording. 
The sheet of water is a magnificent affair, being, we believe, 
entirely artificial, and designed and kept up in a beautiful and 
natural manner. 
Somo of our best gardeners have, at various times, been engaged 
here—Leuchars, Frazer, Patterson, Saunders and others. The 
: present gardener, Mr. Fowler, has been here for some time ; and, 
i considering the force at his command, had everything under his 
control, in wonderful good order and high keeping. 
Ono of the prettiest objects here was an Araucaria imbricata ; 
i the most perfect specimen we had before seen. It was about six 
1 feet high, very symmetrical, and well furnished with branches to 
j the ground. The leaves were rather narrower than usual, and 
struck us at first as being a very luxuriant specimen of A. Cun- 
I ninghamii. Every lover of rare and beautiful trees should beg 
I the privilege of seeing this fine specimen. 
In the long range of vineries we noticed a very simple contri¬ 
vance for giving air. The houses are on the lean-to principle; 
and ventilators are fixed in the back wall, immediately beneath 
1 the apex and under the sliding sashes. These ventilators, or 
registers, slide vertically; but what we thought a novelty was, 
that all of them were attached together by a thin iron plate, with 
a rope and pulley at each end, by which the whole might be 
opened or shut together. See cut annexed. 
Some modification of this simple idea might be applied on the 
top of vineries with fixed roofs, instead of many of the clumsy 
contrivances now in use .—(American Gardener's Monthly.') 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
{Continued from page 305.) 
Manures sometimes assist plants by destroying predatory 
vermin and weeds. This is not a property of animal and vegetable 
manures ; they foster both those enemies of our crops. Salt and 
lime are very efficient destroyers of slugs, snails, grubs, &c. It is 
astonishing how ignorantly neglectful are the cultivators of the 
soil, when their crops are devastated by the slug, not to dress 
them with caustic lime, bo as to render the surface of the soil 
quite white during the promise of a few days’ dry weather: it 
is instant destruction to every slug it falls upon ; and those that 
it misses are destroyed by their coming in contact with it when 
moving in search of food. 
It is a common practice to burn Couch-grass, Docks, Gorse, 
and other vegetables, which are very retentive of life, or slow in 
decay: a more uneconomical, unscientific method of reducing 
them to a state beneficial to the land of which they were the 
refuse cannot be devised. In breaking up heaths, such exuviaj 
are very abundant; but, in all cases, if the weeds, leaves, &c., 
were conveyed to a hole or pit, and, with every single horse-load, 
and with barrow-loads in proportion, a bushel of salt and half a 
bushel of lime were incorporated, it would, in a few months, 
form a mass of decayed compost of the most fertilising quality; 
the lime retaining many of the gases evolved during the putre¬ 
faction of the vegetable matter, and the salt combining with the 
lime to destroy noxious animals, which might form a nidus in 
the mass. By this plan nearly all the carbonaceous matters of 
the refuse vegetables are retained; by burning, nearly all of them 
are dissipated. The forming of a compost, such as that recom¬ 
mended, is justified and approved by the experience of many. 
Stable-manure, and all decomposing animal and vegetable 
substances, have a tendency to promote the decay of stubborn 
organic remains in the soil, on the principle that putrescent sub¬ 
stances hasten the process of putrefaction in other organic bodies 
with which they come in contact. Salt, in a small proportion, 
has been demonstrated by Sir I. Pringle to be gifted with a 
similar septic property; and that lime rapidly breaks down the 
texture of organised matters is well known. 
There is no doubt that rich soils, or those abounding in animal 
and vegetable remains, are less liable to change in temperature 
with that of the incumbent atmosphere than those of a poorer 
constitution. This partly arises from causes already explained 
when treating of the influence of the colour of soils upon vegeta¬ 
tion. Some manures, as salt, protect plants from suffering by 
sudden reductions of temperature by entering into their system, 
stimulating and rendering them more vigorous, impregnating 
their sap, and consequently rendering it less liable to be congealed. 
Other saline manures are beneficial to plants from similar 
causes; but, as is justly observed by Professor Johnston, “we 
have also seen that all our cultivated crops require the ingredients 
of several saline compounds to form a healthy plant. Hence we 
naturally draw the inference, that artificial mixtures of two or 
more saline substances are likely to be still more useful, and 
more generally so, than any one substance applied alone. 
“ This has been confirmed by numerous experiments. Thus,— 
“ 1°. Sulphate with nitrate of soda .—If instead of dressing 
Potatoes with dry sulphate of soda alone, a mixture of 
this salt with an equal proportion of the nitrate of soda be 
applied at the rate of 2 cwt. per imperial acre, the produce is in 
the same circumstances much greater. Thus Mr. Fleming, in 
1841, obtained in the same Potato field, all equally manured with 
farmyard dung, the following different results— 
