373 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
recollect, only the Gold and Silver-edged, and these were kept in 
pots, and were favourite window plants with those that, had the 
good fortune to get them ; but they were not more thought of a 
little before that time than the Crimson China Rose, which had 
not been long introduced then. The Variegated section did not 
receive any particular accession of strength until 1845, or there¬ 
abouts, when Mangles' Variegated appeared ; and this excellent 
variety is second to none yet for general effect, and I wisli more 
attention was paid to the free-growing, prostrate habits, of which 
this kind is so good a representative. Prior to Mangles' there 
was a naked, indifferent-flowering kind, of upright growth, that 
was sometimes used as a bedder, but it had no great merit. And 
the introduction of Flower of the Fay in 1850 has been followed 
by that of several other kinds more or less improved. And to 
say how far this improvement may be carried is a difficult matter; 
certainly the wants of planters are yet far from being satisfied, 
many points being yet imperfect in our best and most popular 
varieties, and the nearer approach to perfection will of course be 
more difficult than mediocrity. It is to be feared that it will be 
some time yet ere we have a Golden Chain of the habit of 
Mangles'; and the flowers of Golden Chain itself are far from 
being favourites with the lovers of such things. Some consider¬ 
able advance must also be made in the way of improving the 
Oak-leaved variety ere they become so useful as they deserve; 
and the Ivy-leaved class are open to much advance. Perhaps 
some one some of these days will be announcing a kind with 
entirely white or yellow leaves ; and if so, the fewer flowers they 
have the better. 
But I must leave this subject to other hands; and if, in my 
historical notice of the Geranium, I have omitted to mention 
varieties of deserving repute upwards of twenty years ago, I have 
a good apology in not being supposed to have known them all; 
besides which, the naming may be at fault, for the common 
passing events of the day are not always thought of thirty years 
afterwards. My purpose has been to show the young gardener 
that bedding out Scarlet Geraniums is not so modern an invention 
as he may have supposed; and at another time I may, perhaps, 
narrate how other features in gardeping were performed long ago. 
—John Robson. 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
(Continued from page 355.) 
_ Solak light is essential to the ripening of all fruit; it will not 
ripen in the dark, and the greater the light’s intensity and the 
longer its daily endurance, the sweeter and the higher is the 
fruit’s flavour. No fruits are so luscious as those grown within 
the tropics, and the fruits of the temperate zone are excellent in 
proportion to the brightness of its seasons. 
That light is essential in causing the colour of the leaves and 
other parts of plants has been noticed already; and it aids the 
ripening process of fruits. In a similar manner, to convert their 
acid and mucilaginous constituents into sugar, much carbon and 
hydrogen have to be got rid of, and this i3 effected, if light be 
admitted, by the evolution of carbonic acid and watery vapour. 
How much light promotes the ripening of fruit is well known to 
all who deal in it. They keep their dessert Pears, which ripen 
after gathering, in drawers and other dark storing-places. 
Flavour, however, is promoted by light and warmth ; and fruit 
from the store-room has its flavour intensified by exposure to 
them for a week before being placed among the dessert. 
How light operates in promoting this and other decompositions 
which are effected by the vegetable organs is at present a mystery, 
but so it is; and the gardener promotes its access as much as 
lies within his power by removing overshadowing leaves, by 
employing the best glass in his forcing-houses, and by having 
their interior whitened, for white surfaces reflect all the rays of 
light back upon the objects those surfaces enclose. 
The angle formed by the glass roof of the hot-house is of very 
considerable importance, because rays of light are reflected in 
proportion to the obliquity with which they fall upon any given 
surface; those which fall upon it perpendicularly from the source 
of light pass through with very slight diminution, but those falling 
upon it in a slanting or oblique direction pass into the house re¬ 
duced in number in proportion to the obliquity of that direction. 
To ascertain how a glass roof may be constructed so as to receive 
the greatest number of rays of light from the sun perpendicularly 
or near to perpendicularity at any given time of the year, it is 
necessary to know the latitude of the place where the hothouse is 
erected, and the sun’s‘declination at the period when most light 
GENTLEMAN, Septembee 18 , 1860. 
is required. The latter information may be obtained from most 
almanacs, and if it be subtracted from the latitude, the remainder 
will be the angle desired. 
If London be the place, and May the 6th the time about when 
the most light is desired, the latitude being 51° 31' and the sun’s 
declension then 16’ 36' north, therefore the roof ought to slope 
at an angle of 34° 55'. 
In latitude 52° Mr. Knight 
found, from lengthened ex¬ 
periment, that the best angle 
is about 34°, considering the 
services of a hothouse through 
the year; and to illustrate 
this, he gave the annexed 
diagram. 
About the middle of May 
the elevation of the sun at 
noon corresponds nearly with 
the asterisk A ; in the begin¬ 
ning of June and early in July 
it will be vertical at b, and at 
midsummer at c, only six degrees from being vertical. The 
asterisk d points out its position at the equinoxes, and e its 
position at midwinter.— (Fort. Society's Transactions.) 
If the best glass be employed it is an excellent plan to have it 
put double in each sash, an interval of half an inch being left 
between the two panes, and a small hole at the corner of the 
inner one to prevent the glass being broken by the expansion or 
contraction of the air between. This confined air is one of the 
worst possible conductors of heat, keeping the house from being 
rapidly cooled during the coldest weather ; and thus is effected a 
very great economy of fuel, whilst little or no extra interruption 
is caused to the entrance of light. 
Moisture. —Every fruit-bearing tree requires a larger supply of 
moisture during the growth of its fruit, and in proportion to its 
abundance, than at any other season; and for the obvious reason 
that, as the fruit is a reservoir of accumulated and elaborated 
sap, that sap requires for its formation an extra supply of mois¬ 
ture, inasmuch as that its chief ingredient is water. 
Though abundance is required it must not be excessive ; for if 
this does occur, the sap poured into the fruit is so abundant that 
it cannot elaborate it sufficiently fast, and, instead of exhaling 
the superfluous moisture, its cells enlarge, and the fruit greatly 
increases in size, but at the expense of its flavour. In very wet 
seasons the supply of moisture is so great that the cells of the 
parenchymous or fleshy part of the fruit swell faster than its 
epidermis can expand, and this consequently bursts. This is 
continually occurring to the Plum and Cherry. When this 
happens to the Green Gage, and its extremely saccharine juice is 
exposed to the air, vinous fermentation speedily takes place, and 
an appreciable quantity of spirit of wine (alcohol) is formed— 
a discovery to which we were led by observing, what every 
gardener must have observed, that wasps, after feeding plenti¬ 
fully upon the juice that has been thus exposed, usually fall to 
the ground stupifled and inebriated. 
Fruit has also the power of imbibing water through the pore3 
of its epidermis, a power taken advantage of by those Gooseberry 
growers who aim at size rather than flavour. They keep the 
calyx end of the berry dipped in a saucer of water. 
Fruit for storing should be gathered before it is quite mature, 
for the ripening process—the formation of sugar, with its attendant 
exhalation of carbonic acid and water—goes on as well in the 
fruit-room as in the open air, at the season when the functions of 
the leaves have ceased, and the fruit no longer enlarges. In 
gathering fruit every care should be adopted to avoid bruising; 
and to this end, in the case of Apples, Pears, Quinces, and 
Medlars, let the gathering-basket be lined throughout with 
sacking, and let the contents of each basket be carried at once to 
a floor covered with sand, and taken out one by one—not poured 
out, as is too usual, into a larger basket, and then again from 
this into a heap; for, this systematic mode of inflicting small 
bruises is sure to usher in decay, inasmuch as that it bursts the 
divisional membranes of the cells containing the juice, and this 
being extravasated speedily passes from the stage of spirituous 
fermentation to that of putrefaction. To avoid this is the prin¬ 
cipal object of fruit storing, whilst, at the same time, it is 
necessary that the fruit shall be kept firm and juicy. 
Now it so happens that the means required to secure the one 
also effects the other. To preserve the juiciness of the fruit, 
nothing more is required than a low temperature and the exclusion 
