278 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 1, 1859. 
Runner. The pod, while ripening, gets beautifully striped, crim¬ 
son and green. The treatment exactly like the Scarlet Runner, 
but, being a strong grower, may be planted further apart 
—say, six inches Bean from Bean, and six feet row from row. 
The ripe Beans I have cooked twice, as well as a lady near here: 
they cook mealy, and have the flavour something like a Spanish 
Chestnut. Should this Bean turn out to be a good forcer, its 
value will be great indeed.” 
Mr. Cuthiii has sent us some of the ripe Beans, and they im¬ 
mediately struck us as resembling those we had seen many years 
ago, of the Phaseolus Tunkinensis. We cannot be more assured 
of this until we have seen the plant in its maturity. 
The Phaseolus Tunkinensis is a native of Cochin China, and, 
therefore, not unsuited to the climate of New Zealand. That 
those of our readers who may grow Mr. Cuthill’s Bean may 
compare it with the Phaseolus Tunkinensis, we extract a descrip¬ 
tion of the latter from Loureiro’s Flora Cochin- Cldnensis :— 
“ Phaseolus Tunkinensis. —Stem annual, twining, and very 
branching. Leaves trifoliate, conical, small, thick, glabrous, and 
flat. Elowers white, racemose, axillary; vexillum revolute. Pod 
somewhat lunate, compressed, smooth, pendulous, and three- 
seeded. Seeds ovate, pale, variegated with red. Eatable.” 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
RE-INVIGORATING OLD YEWS. 
“ A number of old and noble specimens of Yew trees, in the 
North of Scotland, suffered considerably by frost in the severe 
winter of 1854. They have made less foliage than formerly, and 
many of the smaller branches, towards the top, have died, ancl those 
yearly produced are few and feeble in growth. For a year or 
two past, they have been much injured by bleak easterly winds, 
very prevalent here in the spring; and, being in a debilitated 
state, it is well through the summer before they assume their 
natui’al hue. Could they bo made to grow more vigorous, I am 
convinced they would withstand the ordinary climate of the dis¬ 
trict. My worthy master is in great trouble at seeing their de¬ 
clining health, and 1 beg to consult you what is best to be done, 
to save them from apparently rapid decay. They stand on a fine 
lawn, kept in low grass, well sheltered. The soil is a gravelly 
loam, resting on clay, slightly damp, but not in excess. Draining 
could be done, if advisable. Abundance of good compost, or 
liquid manure, from a tank in the farmyard, can be applied in 
any way your valued experience may suggest. I may state, that 
some of their trunks measure from ten to thirteen feet in girth, 
three feet from the ground, and very proportionable for their 
habit. The wood is quite sound, as several of the shabby ones 
have been felled lately, when there was not the slightest appear¬ 
ance of internal decay visible. 1 am sorry I am unable to state 
the exact age of these noble witnesses of a past generation.”—A 
North Briton. 
[Your trees were planted about the time when the “ old 
Church” at Beauly was built, and probably by the same parties, 
or kind of people. At all events, it is a consolation that ex¬ 
tremely old Yews can, like the old eagles, be re-invigorated. The 
ancient Yews, in the Dutch garden at Hampton Court, were, 
before the Crimean war, in a much worse condition than yours; 
but now they are getting green from the very face, or bark, of the 
oldest rugged parts, as well as from the stumps of ol I rotten 
branches, and such boughs as were worth preserving. The 
process of recovery must necessarily take some years to ac¬ 
complish, as these Yews are opposite the very garden entrance to 
the Palace. But on Highgate Ilill, in the nursery of Mr. 
Cutbusli, a row of worn-out Yews, of immense size, were cut into 
the quick—that is, every bough, shoot, and branch, were cut to 
near the old wood, and parts of the old top wood also. That 
was done thirty-five years back ; the soil was renewed, or trenched 
round the roots; and that row is now, and has been for the last 
thirty years, one of the most luxuriantly healthy Yew hedges in 
the kingdom. The heads of the old trees, at Hampton Court, 
can only be thinned and cut in very sparingly from time to time, 
so as not to bo missed ; but their roots have been reached, and 
every particle of old soil over them, and among them, and all 
round them, has been picked out, or forked, and removed ; and 
many of them, outstretching too far, were cut back to several 
lengths. Tho best bedding soil was placed next these roots, and 
over them, in various depths, according to the inequalities among 
j the roots. The surface was perfectly level, and covered with 
bedding plants in summer. Tom Thumbs do as well as Holly 
under the shade of old Yews, that are undergoing the process of 
renewing their age, in one-third loam, one-third leaf mould, and 
the rest of the best mixtures from the general rubbish heap. The 
gardener’s receipt is this : cut, clean, and thin, the top of the 
tree, and remove the soil from the roots, regulate them, and give 
them good stuff; that is all that is necessary.] 
PELARGONIUMS TO BLOOM IN JULY. 
“ I would like my Geraniums to be in full flower about the 
first of July. I have a flue through my greenhouse, so that I 
could assist them with a little heat, if needful. When should I 
start them ? They are fine bushy plants, struck in March.”— 
Verbena. 
[If your plauts are bushy enough, and you do not wish them 
! extra large, they will come in at the time you wish, with common 
greenhouse treatment. If some of the shoots are more forward 
than the rest, they should be stopped to have uniform growth ; 
and in that case, the plants might want a few degrees more heat, 
in March. If, in addition to this stopping, you contemplate the 
repotting the plants again, the stopping should be done at once, 
and the repotting a fortnight or three weeks afterwards. Then 
increase the heat to from 45° to 50°, with plenty of air to en¬ 
courage free rooting and compact growth.] 
AIR PIPES FOR HOT-WATER HEATING—MAKING 
VINE BORDERS. 
“ I have two vineries heated by hot water, and at tho highest 
end of the pipe I have a tap, to let off the air when the pipes are 
filled up. The man that put the pipes in, said that the taps 
would answer instead of air pipes. But it seems to me that they 
would not answer; for the water, instead of circulating, boils 
over at the top of the cistern. I have a Vine border to make, 
and shall be obliged to you for a few remarks on the subject. 
I have drained the border five feet deep, and filled the drains up 
with chalk two feet, with six inches of chalk all over tho border, 
and two inches of concrete on the top of that; and I intend to fill 
up with sods out of an old pasture, and with lime rubbish, brick¬ 
bats, rotten manure, three-quarter bonedust, and leaf soil. I 
have two dead horses, that I mean to put in ten feet from the 
Vine. I think to put some quicklime in with them, and in three 
or four years time I think to turn the soils up altogether, to see 
whether it will be right, for tho Vines to run into ; if not, I shall 
put them further back.”—A Constant Reader. 
[We do not consider taps so good for letting off air as a small, 
open air pipe, higher than the position of the cistern, because 
taps require attention, and open pipes do not. If you turn your 
tap, and find no air issuing out freely, the air is not the cause of 
want of circulation, nor of tho overflowing of (he cistern; but 
that cistern is either unsuitably placed, or is too small to allow 
of the expansion of water when heated. In making a Vine 
border in ordinary circumstances, we would sink less than the 
half of five feet, drain and concrete, ancl have a portion, at least, 
of the border above the ground level. We would most certainly 
have nothing to do with dead horses in making Vine borders, 
though we would not turn aside from their skeletons, when the 
flesh was decomposed from them. The bones broken up, we 
would mix witli the bricks and lime rubbish. Your other ideas 
we agree with.] 
LILIUM JAPONICUM GREEN IN WINTER- 
GENERAL JACQUEMINOT ROSE. 
“ Last March, I plant ed out, iu a bed in my garden, a lot of 
small bulbs of Lilium Japonicum. Several of them, to my 
surprise, showed flower late in the season, but the frosts of 
November prevented them from opening. The buds, however, 
are still plump, and the leaves green ; hi fact, the plants are still 
growing. What am I to do with them, so as to get them to 
flower next season in pots ? This is not the first time I have 
been puzzled by these Lilies ; as, on a former occasion, when 
growing large roots in pots, the same foliage lasted for two 
seasons. The second season, of course, they did not flower, and 
this is what I fear may be the case with those referred to. 
