THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
■wliei'e they can get plenty of sunlight; hut the pots should be 
protected from the sun by some plunging material. Here 
| they will require a good supply of water, and a good syring- 
! ing overhead once or twice a week. 
As soon as the flower-stems begin to show themselves 
j they should be again put under glass where they can get 
plenty of light and air. Here they will last a long time in 
bloom. A few ten or tw’elve-inch pots well tilled with strong 
bulbs, and treated as above, make a fine display in the 
conservatory or show-house through the autumn months. 
After they have done blooming the plants may be set out 
under a south wall until they go to rest, or until the wet 
weather indicates that it is time to house them in a pit or 
frame, where they should have plenty of air and light, and 
! very little water. 
The Tntonia aurea will stand our winters planted out 
under a south wall, and will then flower in autumn; but the 
blooms are not to be compared with those of plants grown 
| under glass. 
Should the frost reach them when at rest in pots it kills 
| them completely, as I once saw a fine pot of bulbs wintered 
in an old coach-house. During the winter the pot got frosted 
j through, and in spring the gardener found every bulb dead. 
I may remark that this Tritonia cannot be too highly 
| recommended for autumn decoration to every one that has 
: a greenhouse or pit.—W. Dyment, Hcadingley , Leeds. 
CHLOROFORM FOR STUPEFYING BEES.—THE 
STEWARTON HONEY HARVEST. 
That I may not he again guilty of dazzling Mr. Wilson 
with the “ brilliancy of my effusions,” and in order to reach 
as speedily as possible those things in his communication 
I should like to touch upon, I will admit that he has 
| “ closed me up,” and that to him I am indebted for that 
j flood of light which has recently illumined my dark intelli¬ 
gence in the matter of giving room below. I am willing to 
make these conceits over to him as a New Year’s gift, and 
may the flattering unction please his soul as much as his 
inuendoes displease not mine; and first, again, for chloro¬ 
form. While I hail Mr. Wilson’s permission of its use in 
certain cases, and by certain kinds of people, as a step in 
the right direction, and as indicative of a change coming 
“ o’er the spirit of his dream,” as W'ell as being well nigh 
fatal to his objection to it in toto, I am at a loss how to 
account for his not succeeding with it, unless through some 
defect in the article itself, or in his mode of administering 
it; or may not his, at one time complete, hut now partial, 
condemnation of it proceed from that feeling which the 
poet has thus expressed ?— 
“ I do not like thee, Mr. Fell; 
The reason why I cannot tell. 
I do not like thee, Mr. Fell.” 
He says it is “ good in the hands of those who have a 
wholesome dread of wounds and swellings.” Nothing could 
be more for me, and against himself, than this remark. 
Wounds and swellings attend not the use of chloroform, 
ergo his belter plan is prolific of both, and we know that the 
life of the bee which stings is generally forfeited to its 
temerity. The most satisfactory way of dealing with this 
matter is to make both plans known; your readers can then 
decide the matter for themselves. I have already described 
the system I adopt in preference, after trial, to the reversing 
plan. I will leave it to Mr. Wilson to describe the method 
he selects in preference to chloroform. 
I proceed now to notice what he says about “ fixed rules 
for the management of bees,” and assure you I read 
and re-read that paragraph, and every time with increased 
surprise. That he should adopt that stereotyped dogma 
passes my comprehension when I remember that in his first 
explosion he admitted that, in one particular, I acted accord¬ 
ing to Cocker; following this up by laying down a rule 
which ought to have guided me in my after proceedings, 
and attributing my failure exclusively to not having followed 
: it, permitting neither “ time, season, nor locality ” to enter as 
ingredients therein. 
I do not believe in this doctrine. It may he all very well 
for people who, having no scientific knowledge and no 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, January 13, 1857. 255 
scientific principles to guide them, work their bees at sheer 
random, and whose great success is in spite of, and not 
consequent to, their management. It may be all very well 
for such persons to hold this faith, but not for so talented a 
member of the illuminati as Mr. Wilson will have me to 
acknowledge him. For certain seasons and localities cer¬ 
tain rules, the deductions from practical and enlightened 
experiments, may be framed, and be no more burdened with 
exceptions than ail other rules are. 
Even were I able I would not cavil with Mr. Wilson’s 
statements about the quality of the Stewarton honey, nor, 
for the present, with the quantity, as they prove most ad¬ 
mirably how correct we both are—lie in calling himself an 
“ ungrateful sinner;” I in describing the country as Eden- 
like. Mr. Wilson is in danger, I fear, of attributing to the 
system what ought to be ascribed to the locality. What 
system, however excellent, will yield such gatherings, unless 
practised in first-class localities (if then), as those he states 
having had ? 
I may favour Mr. Wilson with a few “figures ” when he 
has given me the inside dimensions of the boxes in which 
these collections were made. Till then I shall freely con¬ 
fess that my bees have never yielded me such deliciously 
plentiful harvests. 
This profitless “ chawing ” up of one another, as the 
Yankees have it, is as much opposed to my mind as I con¬ 
ceive it to be opposed to the objects of The Cottage 
Gardener, which I look upon more as a vehicle for dis¬ 
seminating useful practical information than as a medium 
for controversial strife; and when I look over Mr. Wilson’s 
last remarks, and find them so full of the last element, and 
so devoid of the first, I fear lest his example may have led 
me to be guilty of the same, in which fear I beg to apologise 
for encroaching so much upon your space. I shall, there¬ 
fore, conclude by shortly remarking that until both the 
anatomy and physiology of the bee are better and more 
generally understood than they yet are, the name of novice 
is very applicable to many who may not think so; and the 
farther apiarians proceed in the study of the iusect they will 
see cause to use the words of the author of the “ Night 
Thoughts,” and say, were an apiarian— 
. “ To live coeval with the sun 
The patriarch pupil would be learning still ; 
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half unlearn’d.” 
—D. G. M‘Lellan. 
[We know the difficulty of keeping to facts exclusively in 
controversy, yet they are the only portions of a controversy 
from which any benefit is to be derived. If Mr. Wilson 
would oblige our readers with his system of management, 
and if Mr. M'Lellan would do the same, much more in¬ 
struction would be derived by our readers than from thus 
seeing these skilled apiarians running the nibs of their pens 
into each other.— Ed. C. G.] 
THE POTATO CROP. 
Your correspondent, Mr. Weaver, has furnished some in¬ 
teresting particulars relative to the Potato crop of last year ; 
and as the kinds used, the modes of cultivation, and the 
success attending them vary considerably in different dis¬ 
tricts, I beg to submit to your readers my notes on the sub¬ 
ject. The soil in the garden from which I write is light and 
rich, and has been under spade cultivation for many years. 
Our mode of planting is very similar to that of your cor¬ 
respondent, except that we allow two feet between the rows, 
ancl we still adhere to the earthing-up system. 
A plot of ground was planted on the 9th of February, 
1850, with Haiyh's Seedling, or, as we call it, the Lapstone Kid¬ 
ney, and these turned out remarkably well; a good crop, no 
second growth, and very little disease. York Begents by their 
side were equally satisfactory ; they were planted but a few 
days after the others, and raised about the same time (the 
middle of October). Now, with us these two kinds super¬ 
sede all others. Midsummer, Conqueror, Salter’s Seedling, 
Fluke, Trout, and Blush Kidneys, and the Imperial and 
other Blues, Blythe's Seedling, Hen’s Nest, and Early Oxford 
Bound varieties have all had a fair trial, but fall short of the 
two kinds first named in point of general utility. 
