291 
TllE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
GENTLEMAN, February 
of cider was given by the corporation of Lyme to tiie soldiers at 
a cost of 2bs. 
W ine, beer, and cider were given away at Minchinliampton 
upon the accession of King George in 1714. 
In 174-5-6, the accompt of Robert Henley, Esq., Mayor of 
Lyme, exhibits:— 
April 28. Two hogsheads of cider supplied for the populace on the 
association (to support his majesty George II.), and on the victory obtained 
over the rebels, £2. 
The Mayor purchased this cider at Pinney Farm, of Walter 
Oke, a country gentleman, who farmed his own land, and had 
planted some of the now far-famed Cleeveland, late Pinney-under- 
Chff, with Apple trees. 
Ihe farmers of the Somersetshire parishes near Sedgemoor, so 
soon as they heard that the king’s forces had won the battle 
and defeated the Monmouth men, sent hogsheads of cider to the 
victors. The price of a hogshead of cider given away at Ax- 
minster in 1689 was 17s. 6cl. 
The excellence of the cider made throughout the breadth of 
the cider-growing West is very great; the quantity is enormous. 
Some localities which have a good name for their eider send 
out much more cider than is produced therein, like in wine 
countries, so much does man resemble man in all countries and 
ages. The growers iu the localities in question buy Norman 
Apples at a cheap rate, and mix them with their own fruit. 
Some gentlemen, travelling from Strasbourg to Freybury, 
stopped at the village of Altenheim, in Baden, at an inn kept by 
a respectable man who farmed his own estate of 100 acres. 
Perceiving how loaded the trees of this orchard were, the English 
gentlemen spoke of the great crop of Apples and of cider. The 
German informed them that no cider was made in that country ; 
the juice was mixed with the juice of Grapes, and made into wine ! 
In 1854, some growers of cider in Devon and Somerset make 
much more than a thousand hogsheads in one year when the 
crop is good.—( Roberts s Social History of the Southern Counties.) 
CONSERVATORY ON A NORTH ASPECT. 
My house faces the north. On one side of the hall-door is the 
drawing-room, 19 feet by 18 feet; on the other side the library, 
18 feet by 16 feet. I am anxious to erect a small conservatory 
which might open into either of these rooms. If it opens into 
the drawing-room it would run towards the east, but if it opens 
into the library it would run towards the w r est. Which do you 
prefer ? I merely want it to keep Geraniums. Do you think that 
15 feet long and 10 feet w ide would be in proportion ? I could 
not make it more than 10 feet wide.—A Subscriber from the 
First. 
[If there is no shade, nor any other thing objectionable, we 
should prefer the east side, as securing the morning sun, and 
avoiding the stronger rays in the afternoon. The size will do 
very well. But if in either case the glass slopes to the north, 
you cannot expect plants to grow well, though they will keep a 
long time in bloom. If the spaces respectively at the ends of the 
libmry and drawing-room are open, then your house, if a lean-to, 
may face the south; or if a high north wall were objectionable, 
you might have a span, or a hipped roof. In either case, the east 
side, other things being equal, would be the best.] 
BRITISH POMOLOGrICAL SOCIETY. 
A Meeting of the British Pomological Society was held at the i 
Hanover Square Rooms on Thursday the 2nd inst. Robert Hogg, 
Esq., Vice-President, in the chair. 
The following gentlemen were elected members :— 
Alfred Smee, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., Bank of England. 
Mr. James F. Robinson, Frodsham, Cheshire. 
Mr. W. Pridham, Montacute Gardens, South Petherton. 
Mr. Shirley Hibberd, Stoke Newington. 
Mr. Thomas Foster, Benningbrough Hall, York. 
At this Meeting prizes of Two Guineas and One Guinea were 
awarded for the best collection of six varieties of Dessert Pears, 
three of each. The first prize was taken by Josiali Moorman, 
Esq., of Clapham, for Old Colmar, Winter Nelis, Ye FI us Meuris , 
Glou Morceau, Easier Beurre, Jean de Witte. The second 
prize was taken by Mr. Ingram, gardener to J. J. Blandy, Esq., 
of Reading, with Knight's Monarch, Winter Nelis, Ye Plus 
Meuris, Glou Morceau, Easter Beurre, and Beurre d'Aremberg. 
Prizes of One Guinea for the best, and Half a Guinea for the 
second best Kitchen Apples, were also awarded. These remained 
over from the previous Meeting to afford an opportunity for 
having the different varieties cooked : and after examination of a 
grea,t number of sorts, the first prize was taken by Mr. Saltmarsh, 
of Chelmsford, with Bess Pool; and the second by Mr. Cameron, 
of Goodwood, with Blenheim Pippin. 
Mr. Newton, of Enfield Chase, exhibited a very line variety of 
Rhubarb, admirably adapted for forcing. The stalks were about 
a foot long and upwards of an inch broad; of a fine, deep, blood- 
! red colour, and were highly commended. 
Mr. Spary, of the Queen’s Graperies, Brighton, exhibited his 
sulphurator for the prevention and cure of the Vine disease in 
vineries. It consists of an iron cylinder, about eighteen inches 
high and six inches in diameter, into the top of which an iron 
vessel or pan is inserted : this pan contains the sulphur compo¬ 
sition. At the bottom of the cylinder is a small door through 
which a lamp is introduced, the llame of which heats the sulphur 
composition above; and the fumes that are evolved have been 
found by Mr. Spary effectually to prevent the attacks of mildew 
and other diseases. Considerable discussion arose on the point 
whether the sulphur composition might not become ignited, and 
the residt might be the total destruction of the plants contained 
in the house submitted to fumigation. Mr. Spary stated that 
with careful management this would not be the case. The 
Meeting then adjourned. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Double Primroses (A., West Essex ).—The double white, double dark, 
and very dark Primroses, are extremely dainty in their choice of soil. Where 
it suits them they do just as well as the double lilac ones; but we may 
j make for them ten kinds of imitation soil from composts, and still be beaten. 
Try them in pots in Pelargonium compost, but more sand—say turfy yellow 
loam, as that in Epping Forest, very rotten dung, and about a sixth part of 
any gritty sand; use No. 32-pots, and keep the pots plunged in a sheltered 
west aspect from the end of September till they come nearly into bloom ; 
then take them to where you want them to he seen ; and when they have 
, done flowering, plunge the pots in a north aspect, and keep the place 
’ damp about them in hot weather. It is the red spider that kills them. 
J Early in March is the only time to increase them by parting the roots, 
j We shall shortly treat of them in full. 
| Waltonian Case ( The Glen). — Wc sent your letter to Mr. West, the 
manufacturer of the Waltonian Case. You want more heating power, 
that is all. The candle was a failure, as we foretold ; but other experi¬ 
ments, we hear, are in progress. 
Patchouli ( Clericus ). —Your plant No. 1 is Disandra prostrata , trailing 
Disandra. No. 2 is probably Pogostemon patchouli; hut that species is so 
like to P. plectranthoides, that we cannot be certain from the specimen 
sent to us. If it be P. patchouli, it produces the well-known Indian scent 
Patchouli, or Pucha-pat. Specimens of the scent and of the living plants 
are in the museum and stoves at Kew Gardens. Professor Tenore called 
the plant Pogostemon snavis. The Arabs dry the leaves, and stuff pillows 
and mattresses with them, believing that they prevent contagion and 
I prolong life; a belief which attaches among the ignorant to Sage and 
other odoriferous plants. As a scent Patchouli is used by perfumers 
| chiefly for mixing with other aromatics. Sachets de Patchouli arc made of 
cotton-wool, among which a few grains of the powdered Patchouli leaves 
are mixed, and folded in paper. Placed among clothes they are said to drive 
away moths, lee. In Ilindostan Patchouli is used by the women for 
scenting their hair, and it is also mixed with tobacco for the hookah. In 
this country the Patchouli leaves, it is said, will retain their scent if dried 
in the dark by being placed singly in a drawer, and turned daily for a 
fortnight. ' 
Cows and Pios (IF. Wilson). — Two of “Richardson’s Rural Hand¬ 
books’' treat of these animals. 
Cerastiuji tomentosum—Variegated Alyssum—Crimson Verbenas 
( A Four Years' Subscriber).— It is the true Ccrastium tomentosum and the 
“ sprigs” were large enough for the kind of cuttings that should be made 
of it soon, and treated like Verbena cuttings. The variegated Alyssum 
will not come variegated from seeds any 'more than any other variegated 
plant. It would come from seeds just the same as the common Sweet Alys¬ 
sum. When it first appeared as a sport from the Sweet Alyssum the best 
botanists were not aware that variegated sports concealed their origin 
in the difference of their leaf and style of growth from the plants whence 
they originated—as, for instance, Brilliant. No one could guess that 
Brilliant was a sport from Tom Thumb until Tom came up again as a 
sport from a shoot of Brilliant; and no botanist could then guess that the 
variegated Alyssum was an Alyssum at all, and one of them committed 
himself so far as to make a new'genus of it, and called it Koniga maritima. 
The Cerastium is the nearest and best substitute for the variegated 
Alyssum ; hut they are both best. One of the best dark crimson Verbenas 
is decidedly Grant des Batailles. There is no pale crimson Verbena; 
you must choose a crimson-scarlet instead. Sims Reeves or Sir Joseph. 
Paxton would give you the rise from Giant des Batailles ; and Standard 
Bearer or Syren are the nearest to your next colour, but they are bluish- 
purple. 
Lantanas.— “Rose ” will find a reply to her inquiry respecting Cannas 
in another of our pages. The subject has received little notice hitherto, 
and therefore, the reply is rather full. The inquiry as to Lantanas is 
rather vague—“Any information would be acceptable.” If “ Rose ” would 
be more definite, so would be our answer. However, in a week or two we 
will say somewhat respecting Lantanas, as plants for cool stoves, for green¬ 
houses, and for bedding out at the end of May. 
