996 
of that period it loses the elements that are dele¬ 
terious to plant life simply by tire chemical 
changes it undergoes by exposure to the heather 
or air. You Trill probably have some trouble with 
various things for a few years until the present 
enemies have been more or less destroyed by culti¬ 
vation and dressing's of lime or gas lime. Wire- 
worm is usually a very troublesome pest on virgin 
soil. 
Edelweiss. 
I want to grow Edelweiss; must it be from 
seeds or plants? If the latter, where could I 
obtain them? Any cultural information will 
oblige. I should like it for pot culture. (Pachuca.) 
You can readily obtain either seeds or plants. 
If grown out of doors plants are not usually long- 
lived in this country, but if kept in pots it is 
rather more easy to manage, as you can keep it 
dry overhead in winter. You can get plants from 
any nurseryman who deals largely in herbaceous 
plants. Consult the pages of The Gardening 
World for dealers in such plants. Any good 
seedsman would be able to supply you with seeds. 
The latter may be sown in pots or pans of rather 
light loamy soil, with a fair proportion of leaf 
mould. If you have a cold frame the seeds could 
be sown towards the end of March or beginning 
of April. They grow slowly at first, and flower 
the second year. You do not tell us what conve¬ 
nience you have for growing the plants in pots; 
but in any case, you must fully expose them to 
all the light and air possible. Under these con¬ 
ditions they will take a good deal of watering in 
summer, especially if grown outside. In the early 
stages of cultivation you will have to prick off the 
seedlings in a seed pan or pot, using plentj' of 
drainage, so that the superfluous moisture will 
dram away. About five plants in a 6-in. pot 
would be sufficient to give them the necessary 
room for flowering during the second year of their 
growth. If you have a cold frame or a cool green¬ 
house there woidd be no difficulty in preserving 
these young plants through the winter, but they 
must have all the light and air possible. 
How to Grow Mistletoe, j 
Mistletoe is very much in evidence at this 
season of the year. I have an old orchard which 
produces small and inferior crops of fruits, and 
at present I am not hr a- position to renovate it.' 
How slioidd I get to work to grow Mistletoe? 
(Want to Know.) 
The berries of the Mistletoe should be allowed 
to remain on the twigs until perfectly ripe, then 
select portions of the tree with a smooth bark and 
on the under side of branches. We urge this so 
as to hide the berries as much as possible from 
birds. The berry may simply be squeezed with 
the finger and rubbed on the bark until it sticks 
there. You will make it very secure from dis¬ 
turbance if a piece of cloth of any kind is wrapped 
round the branches for a month or two until the 
juice of the berry has quite dried up, and offers 
no further temptations to birds. The bark should 
not be cut in any way. The seed, in commencing 
to sprout, will push its way into the bark, and 
for the first year nothing will appear, but during 
the next a small shoot bearing a pah of leaves 
will make its appearance at one or possibly two 
places on the branch on which the- seeds were 
gummed. We presume all this' if the berries were 
actually good, or, in other words, contained a 
perfect embrvo when you placed them in position. 
We are sorry that you should apply the time to 
planting Mistletoe, which will in all probability 
be destroyed when you commence to renovate the 
orchard, unless you select a young tree or two for 
the purpose, so that you can transplant them if 
need be when abont- to renovate the orchard, 
which we presume you intend to do. 
Insects in Coleus. 
Enclosed are a few grubs or insects which I 
found inside a cutting of Coleus. There were 
two or three holes, through the stem, the inside 
of which was entirely eaten away from the root 
for 5 in. upwards. Can you please tell me the 
name of the grub, and what remedy to adopt for 
its eradication? If you will insert the above 
through your valuable paper I shall be pleased. 
'(J. H. Horner.) 
The box had been knocked about in coming 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
through the post, and the grubs had escaped. We 
have little doubt, however, that they belonged to 
the weevil known as Otiorhynchus sulcatus, which 
is a common pest in hothouses, and destroys the 
roots of a large number of plants. The eggs are 
laid either hi the potting soil or in the manure, 
and the grubs hatching out commence to feed upon 
the roots of whatever may be grown in the pots. 
Any cuttings that show signs of distress should be 
destroyed, being careful not to throw down the 
old soil in the potting-shed, where it is likely to 
be used. You can more successfully fight against 
the pest by destroying the old weevils. Pieces 
of board might be laid down hi likely places over¬ 
night and examined in the morning, where, if 
any of the pests are present, they will be found 
hiding. They carry on their work of destruction 
during the night, so that it would pay you to go 
round with a lantern during the evening, having 
previously laid some sheets of white paper or 
cotton close to the plants likely to be infested. 
Suddenly turn the light upon the plants a.ndffihake 
them, when the weevils will drop on the white 
paper or cloth, and you can catch them. At the 
same' time, you might remove everything in the 
way of unnecessary lumber in the house, so as to 
leave no hiding-place for these weevils. You 
should also fill up every crevice in the wall of 
the house, so as to prevent them hiding in such 
places. General cleanliness in the above respect 
would save you a deal of trouble. By thus 
destroying the old weevils you prevent them from 
laying their eggs in soil and manure to breed 
further trouble. 
Garden Walks. 
Whenever it rains my garden paths are converted 
into a kind of swamp. How could I proceed to 
remake them with a. view to good drainage and a 
hard, even surface after wet weather? I presume 
this would be a good time to undertake such 
work. (Dites moi.) 
The strength of the walks necessary will depend 
upon what they have to carry. We presume there 
will be a considerable amount of foot traffic over 
them at least, and probably wheeling of manure. 
Under such conditions it would be advisable to 
take out the present material to the depth of 
12 in., making the bottom of this trench some¬ 
what convex, so that water will always run 
towards the sides'. It will also form a proper 
foundation for tire bed or body of material placed 
oil the top. On this solid bottom place about 
6 in. of any hard material which you may happen 
to have, such as brickbats, pebbles gathered from 
the fields, flints, or even chalk. The last-men¬ 
tioned is a good material to lay over the top of 
the brickbats or stones, as it is very porous, and 
allows water to run away. If you can get chalk 
more easilv than brickbats, then 3 in. of the latter 
might suffice, putting 6 in. of chalk on the top. 
Make this level, and tread or roll it quite firm. 
Then the rest of the walk might be made up with 
gravel, placing the rougher material over the 
chalk and the fine gravel on the top. Roll it 
fiimly, and repeat the operation from time to time, 
just when the paths are getting dry after it has 
heen raining. This will soon get them into a 
solid condition, fit to walk on at all periods of the 
year. The centre of the paths should be suffi¬ 
ciently convex to run the water on to the sides. 
Provision should also be made for the water to rim 
off the paths. If you have no convenience for this, 
then one or two large holes should be dug in the 
ground and built round the sides with bricks, so 
that the surface water can run into this and filter 
away through the gravel or subsoil. A grating 
on the top will make a suitable finish to such catch 
pits. 
Cultivation of Smilax. 
I should be glad if you could give me a little 
information regarding the cultivation of Smilax. 
I have two roots of this plant in my conserva¬ 
tory, but have no heat. Last year the plants 
kept well through the winter, but in the early 
summer the trails turned yellow, and seemed to 
get blighted I cut them down, and repotted 
both plants and treated them with Clay’s ferti¬ 
liser. They came up very well after this, and 
have been growing splendidly all the summer. I 
should like to know now whether I Ought to cut 
them down for the whiter or leave them till the 
December 30, 1905. 
spring ! The leaves now are beginning to look 
yellow, and the trails are not therefore of much 
use for decoration. Thanking you for any hints 
you can give me. (Shamrock. )' 
The proper name of the so-called Smilax is 
Asparagus medioloides. It should at least have 
an intermediate temperature—say about 50 degs. i 
to 60 degs. in the winter—and ruider those condi¬ 
tions it would be evergreen. The reason why 
the stems die down is because the temperature is 
too low. You did well in repotting the plants 
last summer. The trails may not be of much use 
for decoration, but we should leave them until 
the leaves have fairly turned yellow. By so doing 
the root stock of the plants is benefiting by the 
reserve food in the leaves and stems which get 
conveyed to the persistent portion of the plant 
when the temporaiy structures die away. If the 
crowns are sufficiently large to justify the opera¬ 
tion you should give them a shift into larger-sized 
pots, but if the same pots seem large enough the 
balls of soil could be turned out and the soil 
'Tightly reduced without injuring the roots and 
repotted in fresh compost, using some well- 
decayed cow manure in the loam or some of the 
other fertiliser you mentioned. This operation 
should be done in April, so as to encourage fresh 
growth, and give them the whole length of the 
season in your cool-house. Sometimes the spring 
is sufficiently warm in March to justify repotting 
at that time, but it will be sufficient if you per¬ 
form the operation when growth appears^about 
commencing. 
Canterbury Bells. 
What is the best time to plant Canterbury 
Bells? We have a bed of them, but they are 
too crowded to flower well where they are. 1 
have been told that March is a good time. 
(A. L.). 
They might with advantage have been planted 
in their permanent positions in September or 
October, and this would have given them room 
to make good growth while the ground was yet 1 
warm. Crowding is always highly detrimental 
'to such plants, and if you left them where they 
are you could not expect them to flower well in 
July next, because they can now scarcely make 
any more growth if they are as crowded els you 
state. The advantage, therefore, of planting 
these biennials early is that they can form a 
number of crowns with large leaves. The stronger 
the plants the first season, the more flowers will 
they have next year from each root. We should 
advise you, therefore, to dig and manure the 
ground, if not already done, and plant them out 
at, once a foot apart in the lines and 15m. to 
18in. between the lines according to the strength 
of the plants. 
Names of Plants, 
(H. W. J.) 1, Cotoneaster Simonii; 2, 
Osmanthus Aquifolium ilicifolius (not a Holly); 
3, Cupressus lawsonia.ua picta; 4, Jasminum 
nudiflorum; 5, Pernettya.—(R. G., Warwick) 1, 
Vinca major variegata: 2, Agapanthus umbella- 
tus variegatus; 3, Begonia incarnata insignis; 4, 
Centropogon lucyanus.—(T. Webb) 1, Adiantum 
Ghiesbreghtii; 2, Ophiopogon Jaburan varie¬ 
gatus; 3, Pelargonium denticulatum. 
Trade Catalogues Received. 
Sutton & Sons, Reading.—Sutton’s Amateur’s 
Guide in Horticulture for 1906. 
Webb & Sons, Wordsley, Stourbridge.—Spring 
Catalogue for 1906 
Dickson & Robinson, Cathedral Street, Man 
Chester.—Seeds, 1906. 
James 1 eitch & Sons, Ltd., Chelsea, London, 
S.W.—Seed Catalogue, 1906 ; also List of Border 
Carnations and Picotees ; Novelties for 1906 : and 
New Chrysanthemums for 1906. 
Frank Lilley, Guernsey.—Chrysanthemum 
Catalogue for 1906. 
John Peed & Son, West Norwood, Londcn, S.E, ' 
—Peeds’ Seeds. 
William J. Unwin, Histon, Cambs.—Catalogue 
of Giant-flowered Sweet Peas. 
Scremerston Coal Co. Ltd., Berwick-on-Tweed. 
—Illustrated Catalogue of Pottery. 
Fidler & Sons, Royal Berkshire Seed Stores, 
Reading.—Seed Catalogue for 1906. 
