263 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 27, 1858. 
The Raby Castle Red.— A variety so generally 
well-known and esteemed as to require no comment or 
description. 
Long Grape. —Also well-known as a large and 
useful, long-bunched, and large-berried variety, rather 
pale in colour. 
Brown’s Seedling. —A very distinct, but little- 
known variety, having a long bunch; berries large 
and full coloured ; flesh more solid than the Old 
Dutch ; flavour very peculiar, having a slight smack 
of the Black Currant. It was considered likely to be 
valuable for culinary purposes. 
Versailles Red. —A new kind, very little known, 
but promising remarkable characteristics, the fruit 
being deep crimson in colour, bunches rather short, 
berries very large and transparent, and remarkably 
regular in size ; the flavour was good, and, altogether, 
it was considered a very showy kind for dessert. 
Mr. Paul brought a dish of the White Trans¬ 
parent, which was found equal in flavour to the 
AVhite Dutch, and was reported to be equally pro- 
| ductive, and a better grower. Mr. Paul also con¬ 
tributed dishes of three kinds of Black Currants. 
The Old Black. 
Odgen’s Black.—H aving much larger berries, and, 
from being over ripe, appeared to be an earlier variety 
than the former. 
The Black Naples. — Generally esteemed the 
sweetest and best for eating, where this fruit is used 
for other than culinary purposes ; it has the advantage 
also of hanging longer on the bushes. 
gooseberries. 
Mr. Paul also brought, from a large assortment, a 
selection of those kinds he considered most distinct, 
best in habit, most productive, and finest for size or 
flavour. 
The Bough Bed varieties were Rifleman, the largest 
of this class ; Keens’ Seedling, a large and very fine- 
flavoured fruit, but which, from the thinness of its 
skin, has the unfortunate property of splitting after 
rain ; Warrington, the well-known, late-keeping va¬ 
riety ; and, under the name of Old Rough Red, the 
true Champagne, which is probably the highest 
flavoured of all Gooseberries : it is well known by its 
i erect habit of growth. 
Of Smooth Bed varieties, those selected were 
Steward, considered the best large kind after the 
Bough Beds ; and London, one of the sweetest and 
best. Slaughterman and Roaring Lion were too 
nearly like the preceding, and inferior in flavour. 
Of Bough Green varieties, Conquering Hero is a 
handsome fruit, but not remarkable for flavour. 
Of Smooth Green sorts, Angler was esteemed the 
j best flavoured and thinnest skinned, and is a variety 
which hangs well. Freedom, Cossack, and King 
William were too nearly like it to be distinguished, 
and were not equal in flavour. 
Some other fruits were sent to be named. 
BEES IN TASMANIA. 
Your correspondent “ T.,” in The Cottage Gardener 
of July 6, seems to wish for some account of my bee expe¬ 
rience in Tasmania, whether acquired from external observa¬ 
tion or from personal management of my own apiary. Want 
of time has alone prevented me entertaining your readers 
on the subject before; but I hasten now, under the influence 
of “ T.’s ” stimulus, to record such experiences as I have 
gathered during my residence of three years and a half in that 
island. 
Bees are not natives of the southern hemisphere; yet so 
abundantly have they multiplied, since the time when an 
Englishman (of the name of Wilson, I believe), about forty 
years ago, brought out the first hive from England, that they 
are to be found naturalised all over the various colonies of 
Australasia. Tasmania is no exception to the rule, for there 
they thrive so marvellously that the woods and forests are 
full of them, from which issue such a multitude of swarms 
every year, that any of the settlers may commence bee-keep¬ 
ing, or restore their failing apiaries in any season, without 
looking beyond the limits of their own homesteads and 
gardens. 
It was my good fortune to find “ the lines fallen unto me” 
in a very pleasant place, so far as the richness of the land, and 
the productiveness of a large thirty-years-established orchard ' 
and garden, were concerned. At the back of our residence 
was a plain of considerable extent, backed by a range of 
mountains, whose highest “bluffs,” or “tiers,” rose about 
4000 feet from the level of the plain. These mountains, bare 
at their summits, were clothed at their bases, and for two or 
three thousand feet, with magnificent forests, more or less 
thinned by the hand of man ; but the plain was, in some places, 
very free of timber. 
So rich is the soil here,—they say more than twenty feet 
deep of alluvial deposit,—that it is inexhaustible. It is 
covered everywhere with the Dutch or White Clover for 
many miles, and being, for the most part, meadow land (or 
“ swamp,” as it is unpleasantly termed), it retains its moisture, 
and consequent luxuriousness, long after the drier parts of the j 
country are burnt up. Owing to the great abundance of J 
white Clover, not to speak of Gorse and Sweet Briar, all of 
which spread over the country with great rapidity, as if they j 
delighted in the soil, there is a vast quantity of honey 
annually spread out by the bountiful hand of Nature, for the 
feast of the bees; and you may be sure our little “ busy ” 
friends are not slow to avail themselves of the treasure thus 
placed before them, especially as the great amount of sun, in 
that splendid climate, enables them to work with at least five 
times the success of English bees. There is also a great 
abundance of Apple, Peach, Plum, and other fruit blossoms, | 
in all the cultivated districts of Tasmania, owing to the extent 
and productiveness of the settler’s orchards and gardens. 
In those districts, therefore, where the native trees also 
produce honey, there are usually tivo honey harvests. The 
first extending over the months of November, January, and 
February ; and the latter over March and April. The honey 
collected during the former period is similar, as might be ex- ; 
pected, to the finest of our English honey—very pure and 
delicate in colour and flavour. 
But the autumn season, which begins towards the end of 
March (by which time all European blossoms had failed), l 
found the bees collecting a totally different kind of honey, j 
highly aromatic, and very dark coloured—almost as dark as 
tawny port wine. The flavour of this honey being not so 
palatable as the other, was, by myself, always left to the bees. J 
Their first harvest I invariably plundered towards the end of 
February, leaving the bees to replace their store, as they best 
might, before winter. This second harvest, however, was i 
never so large as the first, and in very rainy seasons (not 
common), in great measure, failed. Of course, in the drier 
parts of the island, wliere sand or light soils prevailed, bee¬ 
keeping was not so productive as in my own country; yet 
nowhere did bees fail to thrive and collect a plentiful supply 
of honey.—B. & W. 
{To be continued.) 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
YOUNG PINES STARTING INTO FRUIT 
PREMATURELY. 
As in your {A Lover of the Garden) case, the plants are 
so small as not to be large enough to be termed successions, 
such starting must be looked upon as a misfortune. This, | 
no doubt, has arisen from a sudden check to the growing 
system of the plant, which check might be produced from 
various causes; for instance, if the young plants were well- 
rooted, and growing nicely, and you overheated, or scorched, 
the roots with bottom heat. This is very easily done in 
summer, and, therefore, if the pots are plunged, the trial 
sticks, or bottom-heat thermometer, should be daily, and 
