THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 11 , 1859. 
25 
.even In its outline. Skin of a uniform straw colour, 
(Considerably covered with large russety dots, and traces 
(Of pale brown russet. Eye wide open. Stalk an inch 
long, slender. Flesh white, coarse-grained, gritty, half- 
melting, and not very juicy ; sweet, sugary, and rather 
richly flavoured, and 'with a musky perfume, Ripe in the 
.end of October and November. 
Charlotte de Brouwer. — Fruit large, roundish, in- 
'dining to ovate, similar in shape to a large Ne plus Meuris. 
Skin entirely covered with a coat of light brown russet, 
with a little of the yellow ground shining through on the 
shaded side. Eye very small, with short, erect segments. 
Stalk very short, placed in a knobbed cavity. Flesh 
white, half-melting, and rather crisp, very juicy, but very 
astringent. Eipe in October and November. 
Charnock ( Drummond; Early Charnock; Scot’s 
Cornuck). —Fruit small, pyriform. Skin greenish-yellow 
in the shade, and entirely covered with dark dull red 
next the sun. Eye small and open. Stalk fleshy, obliquely 
inserted. Flesh yellowish, lialf-buttery, juicy, sweet, 
and with a high aroma. 
A Scotch dessert pear, ripe in September, but soon 
becomes mealy. 
Chartreuse. See Catillac. 
Cliaulis. See Mcssire Jean. 
(To be continued .) 
PLANTS FOR THE BACK WALL OF A SMALL 
GREENHOUSE. 
On the back wall of my little conservatory is a border or pit, 
eight feet long by two feet broad. The wail behind is six feet 
high to the foot of the rafters. On this I have in the centre an 
Ivy-leaved Geranium, which has grown so obstreperously rampant 
that I have served it with notice to quit. I shall give it a first- 
rate character, however, for a roomy situation. On one side of 
the Geranium I have Clematis Sieboldi, which lias run up the 
wall and half the rafter this season, and bloomed famously. On 
the other side Tacsonia ignea, raised from seed in spring last 
year. It has three stems, say ten feet long, and plenty of foliage, 
but not the slightest hint of a flower! I mean to give it another 
year, and then enter it among my select list of humbugs. Owing 
to my stupidity or the enterprise of your London nurserymen I 
have had to make a good many entries there of late. But that 
is not what I was to consult you about. It is to decide for me 
among the candidates put in nomination for the vacant place of 
Geranium Ivy-leaf. The candidates in my mind are :— 1 , Physi- 
anthus albus, a climber I saw the other day in an out-of-the-way 
place, with which I can find no one acquainted, and in no cata¬ 
logue. It has a leaf not unlike Hardenbergia monoyihglla; and 
its flowers, wdiioh are profuse from the axils, are pure white, and 
the exact shape of the prettiest vase you can imagine. 2 , Eugenia 
Ugni. This will not do out of doors here (Dundee); and as I have 
a largish plant which seems supplicating more pot-room, it occurs 
to me the back border would be clover to it. 3, 1 have seen a 
Heliotrope look well on a similar position : its fragrance would 
be an object if I could be sure it would not get naked or unsightly 
at times. Such are my candidates (in the conservative interest); 
but if you will kindly bring forward another, and put him in 
.over their heads I shall not demur. 
When you are in the way of answering, would you permit me 
to ornament the edge or whole surface of the border aforesaid by 
small bulbs or Mignonette for early spring effect, or would such 
a practice rob or injure the roots of the climbers ? The house, I 
should say, is kept just clear of frost in winter.— Mac. 
[As your conservatory is small, the Tacsonia would bo rather 
rampant, and would bloom better on the rafters than against the 
back wall. Ripen these shoots as well as you can by refraining 
from watering. Nip out the points in December, and a foot or 
so of the end of the shoot in spring; and most likely the young 
shoots next season will show bloom. In such a house the Helio¬ 
trope would be apt to look bare by losing its foliage in winter. 
Whatever plant you use you should, by brick divisions, give it a 
place to itself, so that you can treat the roots just as you wish. 
The Acacia armata would cover the wall nicely with its dark- 
green foliage in winter, and its yellow flowers in spring. The 
Physiantlius we know very well, and we fear it would be rather 
rampant. Its seed-veesel is as singular as the flowers. Eor 
winter blooming we would prefer IlaLrolhamnus elegans; for 
summer blooming the sweet Mandevilla stiaveolens. Unless 
your Eugenia were pretty well up the back wall, it would scarcely 
get light enough. We would prefer giving it a larger pot, so 
that we could give it a sunny spot in winter, even. We would 
also grow Mignonette in pots instead of sowing it on such a 
border, as it too would damp in winter from being so far from 
the light. We should not have the same objection to bulbs ; but 
we should bring them on in small pots first, and place them in 
the pots on the border, and cover all over neatly with moss. 
This, with care in watering, would not interfere at all with the 
roots in the border. Eor neatness and beauty why not cover the 
back wall with Camellias ?] 
PLANTING SPRING-FLOWERING BULBS. 
Would you kindly tell us whether we ought to understand 
from your observations on spring bulbs that it is better to place 
Tulip roots in the ground in September, and afterwards dig them 
up and transplant them than to keep them dry until November, 
and then plant them where they are to bloom ?—C. W. 
[Decidedly better to put Tulips and every kind of spring 
flowering bulbs into the ground in September, and by November 
two-thirds of the bulk of their roots will have been made. Some 
kinds will flower better that way, and some not; but all of them 
will make a greater number of offsets and stronger ones, besides 
adding considerably to the strength and size of the old bulbs. 
The old Tulips die when they bloom; and when they ai'e kept 
out of the ground till November their offsets are only half the 
size and strength they ought to be. All our dwarf Tulips make 
flowering offsets just as good as those we buy. A friend of ours 
bought eight Hyacinths in Haarlem in 1831, and kept them till 
he died in 1853. His method wa 3 to have them in the ground 
by the last week in August. The offsets from these eight 
“ roots ” filled his own beds and borders, and he had abundance 
to give away. The bedding system will not admit of spring 
bulbs being planted at the proper time; but direct experiments 
to prove the plan under our own eye have proved conclusively 
that all these bulbs can be lifted from November to the end of 
February without the smallest hurt to them or to their offspring. 
Our Tulips for the/ vases are generally an inch in leaf above 
ground before we put them up in the vases at the end of February. 
Our plan is to make beds in the framing ground of sifted, light, 
rich odds and ends of composts, old linings, dead rotten vegetable 
refuse, and all the balls of Cockscombs, Balsams, Cinerarias, 
Primulas, and what we shake off at pottings. The beds of this 
are four or five inches thick, and on a hard bottom, which is 
essential to the safe lifting of the bulbs whenever the beds are 
ready for them, and the weather is mild and suitable for the 
work of transplanting. But there is another advantage in buying 
the bulbs as soon as they come over—one gets the best “roots.”] 
PROTECTING PEACH TREES WITH GLASS- 
PRUNING EIG TREES. 
I live in a part of the west of Ireland, where Peaches do not 
do well in the open air, and are a very uncertain crop. I have 
heard of sashes being placed over the trees against the wall, 
and should feel very much obliged if any one reading this could 
give me some information respecting them. I have a south wall, 
over twenty feet high, near a range of glass ; would the sashes do 
to range with the last house, which is fourteen feet high -— that 
is, would Peach trees grow to that height, and bear well? Should 
the sashes he of wood or metal ? What pitch should they have ? 
and should there be a wall for them to rest on at bottom ? 
Is this the best time of year for pruning Fig trees ?—N. P. 
[Had not so much lately been said on orchard or cool fruit- 
houses we would have entered more on the subject in detail. At 
present we must just shortly answer your questions. 
1. Fourteen feet high will not be too high for Peaches, nor yet 
twenty feet either; but if you wish the latter quickly filled you 
must use riders on the wall as well as dwarfs. Good dwarfs will 
in a few years get up to fourteen feet; but even in that case 
many would use riders, removing them as the dwarfs grew. 
2. The house may with great propriety range with the last 
house, both as to height and width. The more form is of no 
