THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 7, 1858. 
155 
and the suii warms it, and brings things on more rapidly, as well 
as to better maturity. A Louise Bonne carried twenty-five 
dozen of fruit. It is a handsome pyramid, about sis feet high, 
and was, when in fruit, a great beauty. A Soldat Laboureur, of 
the same size, had forty dozen, and a smaller one twenty-five dozen. 
Dut this is cruel to the little trees, and I shall take care to 
thin them well another time. A Buchesse d'Angouleme, the roots j 
of which I covered with glass, carried eleven dozen (many of them i 
9 ozs. iu weight), and was the wonder of the Tweedside world, j 
as well it might be. I hold that the warming of the tree, by the 
glass covering over the roots, enables it to set better, and to bear 
better and larger fruit. That is a thing demonstrated by the ex¬ 
periment I have made. When the glass remains on during the 
summer, it is necessary to apply -water to the roots. The Marie 
Louise, for the first time this year, has carried fruit on pyramids; 
but they appear to me to be on the Pear stock, and not on the 
Quince ; and this is, probably, the reason why they have been so 
long in doing anything. Therefore, the Marie Louise will do 
here as a standard, both on the Pear and Quince: for a tree, 
which I gave to a gentleman, on the Quince, carried a crop of 
good Pears, and I have also seen them, in another place, on the 
Quince. 
I have an Urbaniste, which I removed from the orchard to a 
wall, and I think of all the fruits I ever tasted (I do not mean of 
Pears, but any other) it is the finest. The fruit is large, and 
handsome, too, and its quality unapproachable; far superior, in 
my opinion, to any Marie Louise I ever tasted. There is, evidently, 
something in locality which brings out the peculiar qualities of 
fruit. What is good for you, may not be good for us ; and what 
may be good here, may prove worthless with you. So -we must 
just try, and try again, and often fail, but sometimes succeed ; 
and I do believe that it is all but impossible to tell beforehand 
what will absolutely suit any one place. 
The Napoleon is wonderfully shy about setting. I must try 
the power of a glass cover for the roots. I have three trees, but 
have not had six fruit from them all in ten years. Even this 
year, I had but four Pears. Some fruit trees form pollen at a 
lower temperature than others,—this is a constitutional difference; 
and for some of the French Pears we have not heat enough in 
our climate to burst the pollen. This appears, to me, to be the 
real difference between hardy and tender sorts. Where the 
blossoms arc large, their cup reflects heat upon the parts of fruc¬ 
tification, and helps to burst the pollen ; and, I observe, when¬ 
ever we get thus far, we get farther, for we get fruit. Now, you 
will be inclined to laugh at this, but I have been watching it a 
little, and it is a track of thought which I shall follow out, if 
spared till another season. 
The Winter Ruby is a valuable Apple for this county. It is 
large and handsome when ripe, a very good bearer, and will keep 
on till April, and would be still better in the South. The tree 
grows little wood. The Cockpit is well known iu the North 
of England, and on the Paradise stock is a prodigious bearer. 
It is the most certain Apple we have, and, though but of medium 
size, yet is very desirable here. It keeps well on towards March, 
and is useable now. The Alfriston yields large crops of fruit, of 
the largest size, from the Paradise stock. The Golden Noble is 
one of the most beautiful Apples we have. 
Now, you have, no doubt, better Apples than these, and 
can afford to overlook them ; but some of your best would be 
useless as standards for us. There are some noble - looking 
Apples which do well with us, such as Bedfordshire Foundling, 
Mere de Menage, Reinette du Canada (first-rate) ; but, usually, 
the larger and more enduring sorts are but shy bearers. Atkins's 
Seedling, apparently from the ITaivthornden, is a dwarf grower, 
on a free stock, a great bearer, and, though smaller than its parent, 
will keep in good condition up to March, and be useable the 
whole winter.—R. O. IS., Kelso. 
THE LATE REV. W. C. COTTON. 
I leabn from a paragraph in a local journal, that bees were 
introduced into Wellington, New Zealand, in 1842, and into 
Canterbury, in 1852. The first-mentioned is the year in which 
“ My Bee-book” appeared, and astonished the apiarian world 
by the profuseness and beauty of its illustrations. It will be 
remembered, that the lamented author anticipated being the 
first to introduce the honey-bee into the colony, and entered very 
fully into the various contrivances he intended to adopt, with the 
view of preserving his little favourites during then’ voyage to the 
Antipodes. It now appears, that, if successful, he would have 
found himself forestalled, and this may, perhaps, in some measure 
have consoled him for his failure; the circumstances of wliich 
were rather singular, and are not, I believe, generally known. 
It seems the voyage out was so remarkably stormy and pro¬ 
tracted, that the sailors, with the usual surperstition of their 
class, insisted that some sinister influence was the cause of the 
adverse war of elements. This sinister influence was ascribed to 
the presence of the poor bees, and so strong was the belief, that 
ultimately the hives were taken forcible possession of, and all 
thrown overboard, to the indescribable grief and disappointment 
of their amiable and enthusiastic owner. 
These particulars, with which I have only recently become 
acquainted, may possibly be as interesting to others as they were 
to—A Devonshire Bee-keepek. 
NOTES FROM ASHTON-UNDER-LINE. 
In No. 525, I see an article by Mr. Appleby, on the best mode 
of removing the Holly, in wliich I entirely concur. Four years 
ago last May, my employer ordered me to get up about two 
hundred, from fences and woods. They had never been prepared, 
and had to be brought three miles to our place. They were from 
two feet to twenty feet in height. 
Being near to plenty of grey bog moss, I secured a quantity, 
for the purpose of laying over the roots of the large plants. They 
were got up with as convenient balls as possible, and sowed in 
what are here termed “ cotton bags.” They are formed of a kind 
of cloth that cotton comes in from India. The roots were 
covered with moss before being stitched up. One half we never 
unstitched, but planted them with both bag and moss. We lost 
about 15 per cent, of those unstitched, and 50 per cent, of 
those not so treated. Some that wo never unstitched did noc 
lose a leaf more than was natural, and are fine trees, at present 
looking very healthy Mr. Appleby’s plan is far better; but 
circumstances alter cases. 
In this neighbourhood, Apples are smaller this year than they 
were last year. This season, the weight of the largest was 
seventeen ounces and a half; last season, twenty ounces and a 
half. The kinds chiefly grown here for exhibition are— Lord 
Suffield, Grenadier, Pomeroy, and Alexander. 
Wo have few kinds of Pears near the town, and I do not re¬ 
member any special shows of them, as of Apples. 
Potatoes and other vegetables are good. At one of our shows, 
some Fluke Potatoes were exhibited, weighing twenty ounces 
each; and a gentleman farmer had 420 pounds of Potatoes from 
seventeen pounds of sets, or seed. Here, the kind is called 
Rigby's Seedling : it is nearly like the kind called Radicals, and 
said to be good boilers. 
At the same show, Celery was not so heavy as last year, about 
eleven pounds being the largest shown for weight; whilst there 
wa3 some shown last season weighing sixteen pounds. 
For Peas, or flowers, outside, the season just passed has not 
been very good. The Peas were scarcely half a crop. Kidney 
Beans, with me, are first-rate, planted on a heavy soil. 
Mr. Beaton is quite right about Clievereul and his arrange¬ 
ment of colours. I tried to follow his rules in our geometrical 
garden, and to some extent succeeded, when I viewed it from one 
position ; but it was a great failure when seen from any other 
place.— John Hague. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Variegated Hoi.lt (A Country Subscriber ).—It is very beautiful, and 
we advise you to propagate it by grafting on stocks of the common Holly. 
We think it is a novelty. We have long had a general index under con¬ 
sideration. If you wish’ to complete your set, do not delay long, as the 
earlier volumes are becoming few, and cannot be reprinted. 
Salt, &c., eor Asparagus Beds (P. IS .).—House sewage and salt are 
both very beneficial to Asparagus. Salt may be given at the rate of ten 
bushels to the acre, three or four times between March and October. House 
sewage, such as you mention, diluted with an equal quantity of water, 
may be given once a-week during the same period. 
Book-keeping (Short of (Education). — 1 he treatise in “Chambers’ 
Educational Course ” will suit you. 
Alma Potato. — S. C. M. writes to us as follows:—"Will your coi- 
respondent ‘Mr. E. Bennett ’ say, whether he knows of any really cross¬ 
bred kinds besides tlmt named Alma. Of course, I mean sorts of good 
quality. I would also be much obliged, if he can tell me when they were 
raised; whether, in crossing for them, the anthers were removed from 
the mother plants; and whether and where it would be possible to get a 
