August ?, 1897. THE GARDENING WORLD. 775 
Ripe Grapes, or others which are ripening off, will 
need a good deal of careful watching. With the 
gathering of the small fruit crops, the birds are 
induced to turn their attention to something else, 
and now and again they make their way into the 
vineries, where they soon work a deal of havoc. As 
the month goes on, wasps too are becoming 
increasingly numerous and troublesome. Cracking 
of the berries not infrequently causes trouble, but 
this may be obviated by extra care being taken with 
the watering, since it is lack of care in this direction 
that is mostly to blame for the malady. The 
borders are allowed to get dry perhaps, and a soaking 
of water is given. A rush of sap to the berries is the 
result, and cracking inevitably follows. It is a good 
plan to allow some of the laterals freedom to grow 
a little, for these will act as a safety valve and 
prevent much mischief. 
Pot Vines. — As the plants that are intended for 
forcing next year show signs of approaching matura¬ 
tion, the house may be ventilated more freely, and a 
good circulation of air may be left on throughout the 
night with advantage. Finally they may be placed 
out of doors in a sunny spot to complete the ripening 
process. As long as they have leaves on, however, 
they must not be allowed to suffer for lack of water, 
as flagging is distinctly injurious to them at any time 
of the year. 
Strawberries. —Supposing the layers to be well 
rooted, no time must be lost in transferring them to 
their fruiting pots The size generally favoured is 
6-in., for this contains sufficient soil and does not 
take up too much room. A good substantial compost 
is required, but we do not advise the mixture of 
chemical manure with the soil. Two parts of mellow 
loam such as that which has been used for growing 
Melons, and one part of manure from a spent Mush¬ 
room bed rubbed through a J-in. mesh sieve with a 
fair addition of coarse river sand will make a capital 
medium. A sprinkling of soot may be added if 
desired. The soil should not be too wet at the time 
of potting, but the particles should adhere to each 
other when squeezed in the hand, and fall apart 
when thrown down. In soil such as this, the 
rammer may be pretty freely plied without danger. 
The pots must not be filled fuller than to within ^ in. 
of the top of the rim. Pot Strawberries are very 
thirsty things and plenteous supplies of water will be 
needed presently, therefore the need for room to 
contain the water. 
Varieties. —Although the number of varieties is 
legion, even the largest establishment has need for 
only a few. Of these Royal Sovereign is the best 
for all general purposes. It forces well, and the 
fruit has a fine appearance, large size, and excellent 
flavour. British Queen for flavour is of course 
magnificent, not so its constitution and cropping 
qualities. Laxton's Noble is a first-rate forcer and 
the fruit is of fair quality. La Grosse Sucres, Keea’s 
Seedling, President, and Sir Joseph Paxton, have all 
been favourites for forcing purposes for some years, 
and are likely to remain so. 
Orchard House.— The cultivation of Apples, 
Pears, Plums, Cherries, etc., in pots has received 
considerable attention of late years, and it has been 
demonstrated over and over again that even hardy 
fruits such as Apples and Pears may be brought to 
magnificent condition under glass. Air the house 
liberally, see to pinching and stopping as required, 
and give the trees support, should this be needed. 
Naturally with such a strain upon them liquid 
manure must be liberally given. Plum and Cherry 
trees from which the fruit has been gathered may be 
removed outdoors. — ^. S. G. 
•<^5! 
Strawberries.— Now that the layers have rooted 
they should be severed from the parent plants at 
once and removed. This gives the chance of 
trimming the plants and cleaning the beds. With 
some growers the barbarous custom prevails of 
cutting the whole of the leaves off the stools, leaving 
the latter quite bare. This is too drastic treatment 
unless in the case of the plants being attacked with 
fungoid pests. All the runners and a large quantity 
of the leaves may be cut away, but a few should be 
left to carry on the work of the plants. Rubbish 
and weeds should then be straightway carted off and 
burnt out of the way. The spaces between the plants 
may subsequently be lightly pricked over with a fork 
—deep digging would not be admissable on account 
of the proximity of the roots to the surface. 
New Plantations. In establishments of any 
size where there are several Strawberry beds there 
is usually a fresh one to be made up each year 
Some cultivators prefer to treat the plant altogether 
as an annual, and to fruit it for the one year only. 
There is much to be said for this system in cases 
where only very fine fruit is of much value. Good 
fruit is yielded by plantations in the second and 
third year of their existence, and if it is used for 
nothing else the authorities in the kitchen will 
usually take all that they can get for preserving 
purposes. 
The making up of new beds should be attended to 
as early as possible in August, that is as soon as it is 
possible to obtain well-rooted layers. The site for 
the plantation should be well manured and trenched 
beforehand, although it is not a good plan to employ 
a lot of rank manure which would only tend to 
produce unduly gross growth. The distance allowed 
the plants will depend upon the variety, whether 
strong-growing or not. For varieties of average 
vigour, 2 ft. between the rows and rS in. between the 
plants in the rows is plenty of room. Some growers 
adopt the plan of putting three plants together to 
form a clump, and giving a little more room each 
way between the clumps than they would were the 
plants put out singly. 
Pears on Walls that are carrying heavy crops of 
fruit will stand in need of plenty of water, for 
although we have had heavy thunder showers in 
various parts of the country, the moisture thus 
obtained will not last long. Some of the cordons 
particularly are carrying plenty of fruit, and there is 
a good deal of strain upon the trees. Liquid farm¬ 
yard manure will be of inestimable service now. 
Small Fruits on Walls. —Gooseberries and Red 
and White Currants are always in request both for 
the dessert table and for culinary purposes as long 
as they can be obtained. On bush trees, however, 
the fruit does not keep for loDg; Gooseberries 
particularly soon falling off the trees. A few 
trees on north walls are therefore of value, for 
in such a position the fruit will hang a long time. 
Gooseberry trees, however, will require to be 
covered over with mats, otherwise the fruit soon 
goes wrong. The old Red Warrington or Rough 
Red, as it is popularly called, is one of the best 
varieties for keeping in this way. 
General Work.— Continue the syringing of wall 
trees that are not carrying crops of ripe or nearly 
ripe fruit. Cut out the surplus suckers from Rasp¬ 
berries. See to the netting of ripening Plums and 
Morello Cherries. Gather early Apples and Pears 
as they become fit. If gathered too soon they never 
become sweet but remain sour and nasty. On the 
other hand if allowed to haDg on the trees for too 
long they become mealy and insipid. After gather¬ 
ing, a few days on a warm dry shelf will improve 
them immensely. Carry on the training of shoots of 
Peaches, Nectarines, Cherries, etc., and in the cases 
of Peach and Nectarine trees from which the fruit 
has been plucked, cut out a good deal of the old 
bearing wood. Proceed with the budding of Apples, 
Plums, Peaches, Nectarines, Cherries, etc., taking 
care to select stout and plump, but dormant buds 
for insertion.— A. S. G. 
-- ^ - — 
®[eattitnj0 from tfji» iPorlb 
of Sriencq. 
The undermentioned subjects were brought up at the 
meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Royal 
Horticultural Society on the 13th ult. 
Malformed Fungi in Mushroom Bed.—A 
letter was received from Mr. Taylor, Pembedw, 
Mold, criticising the reports sent to the last meeting 
with reference to the loam, as he had splendid 
results last year with the same loam cut from the 
open pasture. As the specimens have been lost in 
transit to Kew the Committee has been unable to 
receive the report of an expert upon the fungi them¬ 
selves. 
Cucumber with Adherent Leaf.- A specimen 
was received from Mr. E. Horsley, gardener to Rev. 
W. Wilks. The petiole of a leaf had become fused 
with the base of the fruit, the result being a 
distortion in the latter—a not uncommon procedure. 
Cattleyas, synanthic.—This was a fusion 
between two flowers, the effect being to arrest some 
parts of the whorls, so that each flower became 
dimerous. There were two lips. 
Poppy with Pistilloid Stamens. — A flower of 
Papaver Rhoeas was exhibited with this peculiarity 
It is rare in this species, but not infrequent in some 
others, as the Icelandic. 
Chemical Composition of Cattleya — Two 
papers prepared by Mr. Smee were laid before 
the Committee by Mr. Veitch, to whom they had 
been addressed, as Chairman of the Orchid Com¬ 
mittee The first contained some figures connected 
with the composition of the atmosphere ; analyses of 
old and young pseudobulbs were also given, and of 
the flower including observations upon the colouring 
matters of plants. Prof. A. Church, having given 
careful consideration to the first of the two papers, 
reserving the second for a future meeting, remarked 
that Mr. Smee had scarcely paid sufficient attention 
to the more recent analyses of the atmosphere and 
of rain ; the amount of CO., in the free air over land 
and sea being now found to be almost absolutely 
uniform everywhere (except where locally con¬ 
taminated), and less in quantity than three parts in 
io.oco, so that no conclusions could be drawn from 
the data furnished in the paper on this point. With 
regard to the amount of ammonia in the air, it is so 
infinitessimally small in quantity, that it can only be 
estimated by the most modern and refined chemical 
operations, so that he was obliged to express some 
hesitation in accepting Mr. Smee’s statements on 
this point. 
With regard to Mr. Smee’s analyses of pseudo¬ 
bulbs and of flowers, Prof. Church observed that 
they agreed fairly well with average results hitherto 
obtained from terrestrial and epiphytic plants, but he 
thought that the percentage of undetermined ash 
constituents—viz., about one-half, was far too great, 
and he questioned ihe presence of aluminium, 
observing that though terrestrial species of Lycopo¬ 
dium contain much of this metal, epiphytal species 
of the same genus contain none. He felt sure that 
some ingredient was wanting which had not been 
determined. With regard to floral colouring matters, 
Mr. Smee did not appear to have consulted recent 
researches. Prof. Church had proved that a number 
of reds, blues and purples, though called by different 
names— e.g., colein in the Coleus, erythrophyll in 
Copper Beech, fruits, etc ; oenolin in black Grapes 
and anthocyan were absolutely the same thing, being 
represented by the formula, C. 20 H 20 O 10 . These 
became purplish in neutral cells, blue in alkaline 
and red in acid cells. Even the blue-green of a 
certain Ixia was due to an alkaline solution of the 
same substance. 
With regard to the Beetroot, however, and plants 
allied to it, as the Amaranthus and Buckwheat, he 
found that the red-purple was of a different nature, 
and he had called it " amarantbin.” It gave neither 
a scarlet nor blue reaction, neither green nor yellow 
with acids, but Prof. Church had as yet not 
determined its actual chemical composition, although 
he had found it to differ from anthocyanin by its 
insolubility in absolute alchohol, and by the absence 
from its spectrum of definite absorption bands 
With regard to nutritive solutions, Prof. Church 
thought that the ordinary solutions for plant culture 
containing phosphates and salts of lime should be 
used for Orchids, not the solution surcharged with 
nitrogen compounds recommended by Mr. Smee. 
He would suggest spraying with “ pulverised" 
solutions the epiphytic Orchids, for he had proved 
with Echeverias—as Boussingault had also long ago 
with other plants—that salts if moist could be 
absorbed by the surface of the leaf, so that when a 
lithium salt was placed upon a lower leaf it was 
detected in others above Dr. McNabhad previously 
proved the transmission of lithium salts imbibed 
by the roots throughout the plant, following the 
suggestion of Prof. Church to use this salt. 
Mr. Veitch and Dr. Masters called attention to 
the practice carried out by amateur Orchid growers 
of suspending a bag of carbonate of ammonia 
(smelling salts), so that the vapour might be 
absorbed. Mr. Henslow suggested that it might be 
absorbed with the aid of vapour of water, as he had 
found by experiments that this can be absorbed by 
leaves .—(Transpiration in a Saturated Atmosphere, 
Journ. Lin. Soc. Bot., xxiii, page 303). 
