6 THE FLORIST. 
early will ripen better, it is important to secure it by all means. One 
advantage this plan presents, even should front protection be given, 
is that from the construction of the frame the trees can at all times 
be examined, and even dressed, without interfering with the pro- 
tection. When the weather becomes settled, the whole may be taken 
away, the framework marked for putting up when again required. 
A coping of this kind could be so cheaply and easily fixed, that 
it would be no great job to fix it on any wall on which fruit 
trees are growing which are not usually covered, as Pears, Plums, 
&e.; in which case, as only the top coping would be wanted, the 
frame might be supported by bracings secured to the front rail and 
let into the wall below. Its application to espaliers would only require 
that it be stretched in a continuous line along the rows and | foot above 
the trees, which could very easily be done by driving stakes at intervals 
on each side the espaliers the required height, and securing a rail of 
ashen rods to their tops on which to fasten the tiffany, which in all 
cases should be stretche1 tight and well secured. 
We believe this simple appliance of a simple material may be the 
means of preserving to us much fine fruit now frequently lost from 
the want of some such cheap article. We have strong hopes of em- 
ploying tiffany as a fruit retarder, particularly for Peaches, Apricots, 
&e., but this must await the result of the necessary experiments to 
satisfy us on the point. | 

THE SIX OF SPADES. 
My Lord Dufferin, in his “ Letters from High Latitudes,” tells the 
affecting story of a conscientious cock, who, perplexed by the perpetual 
sunshine, and unable to discharge the vocal duties which seemed to 
ensue therefrom, eventually crowed himself mad, and put an end to 
_ his existence with his own wings, by abruptly flying into the sea. 
‘‘As we proceeded north,” he writes (the nobleman, not the fowl), 
‘and the nights became shorter, the cock we had shipped at Stornaway 
became quite bewildered on the subject of that meteorological pheno- 
menon, the dawn of day. In fact, I doubt whether he ever slept for 
more than five minutes at a stretch, without waking up in a state of 
nervous excitement lest it should be cockerow. At last, when night 
ceased altogether, his constitution could no longer stand the shock. 
He crowed once or twice sarcastically ; then went melancholy mad ; 
finally, taking a calenture, he cackled lowly (probably of green fields), 
and leaping overboard, drowned himself! ” 
It is, I say, a sorrowful story, especially when we reflect that under 
happier circumstances, this cock might have reached a good old age, 
and seen his daughters laying peacefully around him, and his sons a 
fighting one another like anything. 
Analogously, I goon to consider whatever would become of us gardeners 
and florists if we were sentenced to an everlasting summer, if our con- 
servatories within and our gardens without were, day after day, and 
