134 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 1, 1858. 
Drummond.—Erect, and gross in habit. Branches triangular ; 
younger ones glaucous, and covered with a granular ex¬ 
crescence. Phyllodia obliquely ovate, or obovate, angled, and 
much attenuated at the base, coriaceous; margins thickened, 
bluntly mucronate. Inflorescence capitate, in axillary spikes, 
or racemes. Heads of flower globose, large, sulphury yellow. 
This species presents distinctness of character, early and 
profuse blooming, and highly fragrant flowers, as claims to 
general and extensive cultivation. The same soil and mode 
of propagation, as stated for A. graveolens, are also applicable 
to this species. It blooms in March and April.—S. G. W. 
THE COTTAGE BEE-KEEPER. 
A Letter 
To all simple Folk who keep, ok. intend to keep, Bees. 
By P. Y. M. F. 
(Continued from 'page 85.) 
Section 5.—Winter Treatment op Beehives. 
Protection op Beehives. —As the winter approaches, 
even as early as September, when there is little for the bees to 
collect, narrow the entrance holes. Leave just room enough 
for two or three bees to go in and out together. This will 
prevent their enemies from troubling them. Open the 
entrances again in March and April, by degrees. Bees require 
but little care in winter. The chief thing is to keep them 
warm and dry. For this purpose, beehives should have new 
hackles of fresh straw overy autumn. Let the hackle hang 
some way down the hive, all round, so as to carry off all wet 
and snow. Snow should be swept off at once from the top of 
the hives, neither should it be allowed to remain about the 
hives on the ground. There is nothing so hurtful to bees as 
damp , next, perhaps, to strong winds and an exposed situation. 
I have now pretty well said my say. If you, reader, will 
only carefidly follow my instructions, and do as I have re¬ 
commended, you will find bee-keeping far more sure, not more 
troublesome, and much more profitable than you have found 
it yet. You must, however, pay attention to the bees, and 
not mind a disappointment now and then, as unforeseen ac¬ 
cidents will happen to spoil the best calculations. 
I said, at the beginning, that you ought to pay your rent 
by your bees. I mean, of course, if you keep a good number 
of hives, and look after them well. For let us see. In very 
good years, your swarms, managed as I tell you, may and 
ought to give you fifty pounds of honey each; in middling 
years, from thirty to forty pounds; in bad years, from ten to 
fifteen pounds. This gives an average of thirty pounds per 
hive per annum. Thirty pounds of the pure honey you will 
get out of your swarms, will fetch from Lv. to Is. 6d. per lb., 
at least, in the London market, taking it together ; and from 
8 d. to Is. in the country, if sold in the comb. If, therefore, 
you sent it up to London every year, the produce of ten 
swarms of thirty pounds each, at no more than 1.?. i\d. per lb., 
would make up a sum of £18 15s. per annum. Sold at 8 d. 
■ per lb., the produce would be £10 per annum; enough to pay 
the rent of your cottage, and of a small piece of garden ground 
besides. 
One piece of advice more, and I have done. Cottagers have 
got such a filthy way of preparing their honey for sale, that, if 
the gentlefolks only knew how it was handled before it came to 
their breakfast-tables, not a pound of it would be bought at any 
price. My advice, then, is, to be tery clean in pressing out the 
j honey. Have clean hands, clean cloths, clean dishes, clean 
spoons, clean everything. The London tradesmen will seldom 
buy honey out of the comb, because " they cannot trust the 
j country people. If, therefore, you want a good price for your 
| honey, cut all the best and cleanest combs into good-sized 
1 square pieces, and pile them up on end side by side, not one 
upon another. If put into earthenware jars or pans, the 
honeycomb will keep a long time. Anyhow, cut up the comb 
into pieces, but do not squeeze out the honey. Those parts 
of the combs which contain young bees, or are black and 
i dirty, put bye. You may cut them up and press the honey out 
j for your own use. 
But it is time to close, so I shall only say good luck to the 
j bees and their owners, and “ God Save the Queen.” 
(To be continued .) 
GIDNEY’S CUCUMBER SLICER—GIDNEY’S ' 
HORSERADISH SCRAPER. 
There are certain minds which have an aptitude for pro¬ 
viding things convenient, and Mr. Gidncy has such a mind. 
His “Kidney Bean slicer ” is admirable, for it enables even a 
cook “whose fingers are all thumbs,” to cut the beans into 
slices perfectly uniform; and now Mr. Gidney presents us with 
two other instruments, one of which cuts Cucumbers into 
slices thin and uniform, “ even in the hands of the most 
clumsy operator,” and the other scrapes Horseradish “ to one 
uniform tliickness, excluding those knotty pieces which are 
usually found when a knife is used.” We strongly recomend 
all these very efficient, and cheap instruments. 
•NEW BOOKS. 
♦ 
The Gardener’s Assistant.* —We took up the two 
parts of this work, which have already appeared, with an ex¬ 
pectation that we should find it characterised by great ex¬ 
cellence ; and we have not been disappointed. We expected 
such merit, because the author, though he has omitted to state 
the fact in his title page, has for many years been a most trust¬ 
worthy officer of the Chiswick Gardens, and ought to have 
long since been brought into more prominent notice, if for no 
other acquirement than his great knowledge of fruits. 
The work commences with a calendar of operations, required 
to be performed each month in every deparment of the garden. 
This is followed, as far as the work extends at present, with a 
description of the various parts of plants, and their functions ; 
information relative to the food of plants, soils, manures, tools, 
and other garden instruments and utensils. The whole is 
very copiously illustrated with engravings ; these are good, 
but the coloured portraits of flowers are costly and useless. 
We recommend the work cordially to our readers, for it will 
be intelligible to the amateur, and full of information, useful 
both to him and the professional cultivator. 
British Grasses.! —This relates only to our Meadow and 
Pasture Grasses, and will be found useful by those who wish 
to know the relative value of those grasses as food for stock, 
and how to discern the species. 
THE BEE SEASON AND THE WEATHER, 
The accounts are unfavourable from the hill country, as a 
great many stocks of bees have perished from the extreme 
mildness of the winter, and the great consumption of honey 
in consequence. I wrote a few lines on this subject in Fe¬ 
bruary last. 
The late sudden change to rainy weather has retarded the 
swarming in this neighbourhood, as at this time last year we 
had numerous swarms. I have not heard of any up to this 
date, and, should this wet continue, the season may turn out a i 
very bad one. 
1 am pleased to hear that your correspondent, Mr. Teget- 
meier, is preparing a new and comparatively cheap wooden 
box for bees, a tiling very much wanted, as most of the pretty 
fancy hives are beyond the reach of moderate people; 
I should very much like to hear from some of your cor¬ 
respondents of t)\civ first swarms m May and June, 1858. 
We have had severe storms of thunder and lightning, 
which, as they have extended a great many miles simul¬ 
taneously, is generally indicative of a month of very changeable j 
weather, or, perhaps, a break up (excepting a few hot days in 
June) until the end of July. I trust my prognostic may be 
wrong.—H. W. Newman, Cheltenham. 
[The earliest swarm we know of, near Winchester, came off ; 
May 26th.—E d.] 
* The Gardener's Assistant: practical arid, scientific. —A guide to 
the formation and management of the Kitchen, Fruit, and Flower ! 
Garden, and the cultivation of Conservatory, Greenhouse, ancl Hot¬ 
house Plants. With a copious Calendar of Gardening Operations. 15y 
Robert Thompson. Blackie and Son. 
+ The Natural History of British Meadow and Pasture Grasses, 
with an account of their economy and agricultural indications. By 
James Buckman, F.L.S., &c. Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 
