i 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 7, 1858. 
annoyance of its running all off, which is the case where 
j Strawberries or anything else is much watered on a steep hill 
side. Besides, a bank of Strawberries of this sort would 
form an excellent screen-work to any unsightly object, and, if 
the material forming the bank be good, there ought to be a 
larger quantity of Strawberries grown there than on the plot 
of ground occupied at its base. 
There were several such stages at Chatsworth, with a good 
gravel-walk around them, rendering them accessible to com¬ 
pany. And I was told the plants bore remarkably well, and 
the fruit being more than usually exposed to the air, they 
were likely to be well-flavoured. The plan is certainly worth 
adoption in very low, damp situations, where the plants are 
liable to damp-off during the winter ; while in exceedingly dry 
ones, the greater mass of earth the plants have to grow on, 
and that of a kind suitable for them, when it can the more 
easily be made so, will be equally beneficial. The plan, I 
believe, is not new, for I have seen forced Potatoes grown on 
; the same plan, twenty years ago ; but its adoption for Straw¬ 
berries is not so generally known as it deserves to be; as it 
will be easily apparent to all observers, that, with a little ad¬ 
ditional fixings, a few spare lights placed against such a bank 
must hasten the growth and ripening of fruit facing the sun, 
while the north side will be an excellent place for the late 
sorts, being kept in a bearing condition for a longer period 
than usual.— J. Robson. 
QUERIES ANTE ANSWERS.' 
NEAPOLITAN VIOLETS. 
“ I had a pot of Neapolitan Violets given me in November 
last, which, in consequence of being kept too long packed, lost 
I every leaf, and, although I gave them the most careful treatment 
with the means I could command,—I had no bottom heat,— 
it was the beginning of June before they were grown suffi¬ 
ciently to make cuttings. Even then I could not do as Mr. 
Fish directs, in one of your former volumes,—that is, tear 
them to pieces, and so have crowns with roots to them. I 
was obliged to cut each separate tiny crown, for my plant 
much resembled an old Seakale plant* standing high out of 
the ground. I then planted them in thumb-pots, with plenty 
of sand, placed them in a pit, on slate, about eight inches from 
the light, covering them also with a flat handglass, the 
slate being covered with fine charcoal. They have only just 
now begun to root. Would you recommend me still to plant 
them out on a prepared bed* and pot them at the end of 
September ? or to shift them now into somewhat larger pots, 
and again into four or six-inch ones, about that time?”— 
R. S. X. 
[Under the circumstances, you should have kept your plant 
in the pot, or planted it out without dividing. As it is, you 
had better keep potting on, if you mean to flower them in 
pots. If in a bed, plant out as soon as rooted. From your 
description, we can hold out few hopes of many flowers this 
season. Instead of nursing up a poor, sickly, starved plant, 
you should have tried to get a handful of runners in spring, 
which, struck in a handliglit, would have been fine plants by 
this time.] 
BEES PLUNDERING HIVES. 
“ A hive of bees in the garden yesterday morning (Aug. 23) 
were observed to be very excited, and, at about eleven, turned 
out, and commenced worrying each other,—two clinging to 
one, and fighting till it was dead. In a short time they 
brought large pieces of comb out of the hive, and pulled it to 
pieces. This continued till night, and has been resumed 
again to-day. There are now some hundreds dead on the 
; ground. They threw out a large swarm in June. The bees 
j of an adjoining hive have been living outside the hive nearly 
; all the summer.”—C. J. 
[Your bees have been attacked for the sake of plunder by 
those of some neighbouring hive. The fighting is thus ac¬ 
counted for, and it may go on till the stock is destroyed, or, at 
| all events, much weakened. The assailants may be distin- 
367 
guished by their hovering about the hive, watching an oppor¬ 
tunity to force an entrance. In such cases it will give the 
defenders the advantage if the mouth of the hive is contracted, 
so as only to allow a bee or two to pass at a time. As you 
say, “ the bees of an adjoining hive have been living out¬ 
side nearly all the summer,” they are probably the enemy. 
Mr. Taylor says, “ An assault from robber bees is a much 
more formidable evil than one from wasps. If but one or 
two strangers gain admittance into a hive, they will return 
again and again, always with an accession of force; and for a 
day or two it is often necessary entirely to close the entrance 
against them, opening it only at night. A supply of honey, 
given on the top, or even sprinkled among the combs of con¬ 
tending hives, will often divert the attention of the com¬ 
batants : smoke is sometimes effectual, puffed into both 
hives. Others have found it advantageous to remove, for 
some days, a plundered hive to a distance ; or even to make 
the belligerent hives change places, which gives a new turn to 
their ideas of meum and 
PIT FOR MELONS AND CUTTINGS. 
“ My master is going to erect a Melon pit, of which the 
length will be fifty-six feet, width thirteen feet, outside 
measure. Inside there will be five feet for a Melon bed, then 
a nine-inch wall, with two feet and a half of passage, then 
another nine-inch wall, with two feet and a half of bed, for 
cuttings and different other things to grow upon. Now, 
would two-inch pipes be enough for bottom and top heat, and 
how many of them ? 
“ You would oblige by stating what sized pipe, and what 
sort of boiler you would recommend, and what the cost of 
heating. 
“ We intend to keep plants in it in the whiter, and turn it 
into a propagating house in spring, as we have a large flower 
garden to furnish.”— Thomas Kelly. 
[Without more details, we cannot say that w r e approve of 
the proposed arrangement of your house. You will not 
succeed well with cuttings in such a house, without bottom 
heat, and, hence, it would be advisable to heat the narrow 6ide 
separately. There seems to be no difference in the two sides 
of the house, unless the wall at the narrow pit side is a 
foot or two higher, and the glass roof rather shorter there. 
If the house stands east and west, there may be some reason 
for that, but if it stood north and south, why not have a 
span-roof at once, equal on both sides, with the pathway down 
the middle, and the two beds on each side of the pathway 
equal in width ? Then your heating would be equal on both 
sides. With your proposed arrangement you would require 
double heating power under the wide side. 
Even if your house stood east and west, we should propose 
having the walk in the centre, and the two beds alike in width, 
more especially as you speak of turning the whole into a 
propagating house in the spring months. That would make j 
each bed three feet nine inches,—ample space enough for | 
holding soil for Cucumbers or Melons, and not too wide, as 
five feet would be, for reaching across and taking care of 
tender cuttings. 
We would also advise, as much as possible, not to grow other j 
things, when any size, with the Melons. It would be far J 
better to divide your house into two or three divisions* and to 
have the plants in one, and the Melons in another, than to place ; 
Melons in both beds. When Melons are ripening they must | 
have a dry atmosphere, and a hot one, to give them flavour, 
and that would neither suit cuttings, nor the generality of 
hothouse plants that could be grown there. 
A small boiler of Weeks’s, or Ormson’s, or a middle-sized 
retort of Thompson’s, or a common saddle-back or conical, 
costing some four or five pounds, would heat such a house 
admirably. We have no notion of heating by two-inch pipes. 
Assuredly a two-inch pipe would do little for you in impart¬ 
ing bottom and top heat to such a house. The amount 
of piping will depend on the time you commence propagating 
in spring, and the time also you commence Melon growing. 
If you commence Melon forcing in January, you would re¬ 
quire much more command of heat than if you commenced 
in April. To make sure for any purpose, we would recom¬ 
mend three such pipes, and two of each,—a flow and return 
