burning of turf-land may still be practised at any time 
till the end of May. Old plantations of hops must 
now be poled; and new plantations cleaned, and 
earthed up. The formation of irrigated meadows 
may be successfully achieved in any time of the year 
except during severe frosts; but it is done most 
economically, and with least risk of failure or disap- 
pointment, in the month of May. Very forward 
tares, or well manured lucerne, may, after a mild 
spring, yield a mowing toward the end of this month. 
The balancing of the yearly accounts of the farm is 
done with most convenience and suitableness in 
May. 
The Kitchen Garden.—The produce of the natural 
ground of the kitchen garden available in May com- 
prises cabbages, cabbage-sprouts, borecoles, broccoli, 
| cauliflower, cress, water-cress, turnips, turnip-tops, 
chervil, corn-salad, beet, carrots, parsnips, beans, 
pease, garlic, onions, leeks, chives, eschalots, balm, 
borage, sea-kale, asparagus, tansy, thyme, fennel, 
endive, burnet, horse-radish, marjoram, lettuces, 
Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, spinach, sage, sor- 
rel, mustard, mint, rocambole, radishes, and parsley; 
and that of hotbeds and other forcing appliances com- 
prises pease, potatoes, carrots, melons, cucumbers, 
lettuces, kidney-beans, purslane, and mushrooms. 
In May, sow lettuce, cresses, mustard, radishes, 
rape, spinach, turnips, carrots, cauliflower, broccol, 
borecoles, savoys, cabbages, beans, pease, endive, 
| parsley, and celery; plant out from the hotbeds to 
| the open ground vegetable marrow, pumpkins, 
gourds, kidney-beans, capsicums, love-apples, and 
lettuces ; transplant cabbages, savoys, borecoles, 
| celeriac, celery, and cauliflower; cut shoots of as- 
paragus for the table; tie up early lettuce; thin and 
clean carrots, parsnips, onions, turnips, skirret, 
salsafy, scorzonera, large-rooted parsley, and car- 
doons; stick pease; propagate lavender and other 
| perennials by slips and cuttings; support the stems 
of such plants as are intended to run to seed; water 
newly planted crops; continue a watchful care over 
growing melons and cucumbers; plant out melons 
| and cucumbers under hand or bell glasses ; and sow, 
| either on a hotbed or in a warm part of the open 
ground, cucumbers intended for pickling. 
The Fruit Garden.—The home-grown fruits avail- 
| able for use in May are apples, pears, walnuts, and 
almonds from last year; gooseberries and currants 
from the open ground; and apricots, nectarines, 
|| cherries, figs, melons, grapes, peaches, and straw- 
|| berries, from hot-walls, hotbeds, and hothouses. In 
May, clear away from fruit-trees all such new shoots 
as are ill-situated or useless; train good shoots of 
fruit-trees on walls and espaliers; break off the 
points of the young shoots of fig-trees; thin such 
fruit of apricots, peaches, and nectarines as appears 
too thickly set ; prune all redundant shoots, thin out 
the crowded fruit, and handpick the caterpillars, of 
gooseberry bushes; destroy snails from apricot-trees, 
peach-trees, and nectarine-trees; destroy by fumiga- 
tion or otherwise the aphides on fruit-trees; destroy, 
by caustic sprinklings or by picking, such slugs as 
can be found about the roots of pease, the base of 
walls, or in any other situation; water recently 
planted fruit-trees; clear away all useless shoots 
from vines; profusely water blooming-strawberry 
plantations twice or thrice a-week; and remove all 
shoots from the lower parts of grafted stocks, and 
from stocks of last year’s budding. 
The Flower Garden.—In May, continue to shade 
and shelter choice beds of tulips, anemones, and ra- 
nunculuses; take up the bulbs of hyacinths which have 
ceased to flower, and have become embrowned in the 
upper part of the leaves; remove the seed-vessels 
from such tulips as have dropped their petals; take 
up the bulbs of crocuses, crown-imperials, and other 
early flowering bulbous plants which have begun to 
a 
. CALENDAR. 
637 
decay in their leaves; transplant, toward the end of 
the month, autumnal crocus, autumnal narcissus, 
colchicums, and other autumnally flowering bulbs ; 
stick and dress carnations ; transplant into the open 
ground, or plunge in pots into the open border, half- 
tender annuals; prick out, and transplant into a hot- 
bed, cockscombs, balsams, and other tender annuals 
sown in April; sow, in the early part of the month, 
a succession of balsams and other tender annuals on 
hotbeds, and of mignonette, china-aster, Indian 
pink, ten-weeks’-stock, candytuft, Lobel’s catchfly, 
clarkia pulchella, African marigold, French marigold, 
and some other hardy annuals, in the open ground; 
dress and remove to the open air such auriculas as 
flowered in pots upon stages; propagate hardy, per- 
ennial, fibrous-rooted plants by cuttings; propagate 
double-wallflowers, and double rockets, by slips of 
the terminal young shoots; plant tuberoses for au- 
tumnal bloom; transplant seedling biennials and her- 
baceous perennials; sow stocks, wallflowers, ear- 
nations, columbines, pinks, sweetwilliams, holly- 
hocks, Canterbury bells, French honeysuckles, and 
other biennials and perennials ; support all drooping 
and climbing flowering plants ; and maintain the 
walks, flower-borders, and entire garden in perfect 
order, 
JUNE. 
Phenomena. — June competes with August the 
character of being the most pleasant month in the 
year. In rare instances, most of June is cloudy and 
comparatively cold; and in a few, the early part of 
it, even though preceded by a warm May, is unge- 
nial; but, in greatly the majority, some period of it 
between the 6th and the 18th days, is the commence- | 
ment of the fervid heat of summer. The tempera- 
ture has never been known, in the vicinity of Lon- 
don, to fall lower at night than 37°; and it has re- 
peatedly been observed to rise in the shade by day to 
90°. The thermometer usually ranges between 40° 
and 60° by night, and between 58° and 78° by day ; 
and it has a mean height, in the average of many 
years, of about 50°. The mean height of the baro- 
meter is 29°90. The prevailing wind is from the 
south-west; and if it have been dry and northerly 
during May, it now not unfrequently brings heavy 
showers. The average depth of rain is about the 
same as in May; and the average evaporation, in 
consequence of the superior heat and the great length 
of the day, is not less than about four inches. 
In the early part of June, wheat is in the ear; the 
broom, the nettle, the Scotch rose, the water-lily, the 
round-leaved mallow, and numerous other plants are 
in flower; in the middle part, many of the pasture- 
grasses bloom, and the bulbous irises, the hardy ixias, 
the Byzantine gladiolus, and numerous other plants of 
the parterre come into flower ; and in the latter part, 
oats and barley are in flower, the bottle-flower and 
numerous other plants come into bloom, the shoots 
of ligneous plants are quite or nearly at their full 
height, strawberries are abundant, and some varieties 
of red and black currants are ripe. Among the multi- 
tudes of conspicuous flowers which lend their beauty 
and magnificence to June, some of the best known 
are, in the shrubbery, magnolias, azaleas, Guelder- 
rose, jasmine, roses, rose-acacia, lilacs, leriodendron, 
snowdrop-tree, sage-tree, lavender, kalmias, honey- 
suckle, horse-chestnut, and scarlet maple; and, in 
the parterre, fritillaries, saxifrages, calceolarias, By- 
zantine gladiolus, feverfew, convolvulus, stocks, 
amaranth, globe-flower, lilies, martagons, carnations, 
larkspurs, scarlet lychnis, tulips, sweetwilliams, 
pinks, ranunculuses, poppies, gnaphalium, fraxinella, 
foxglove, campanulas, bear’s-breach, irises, honesty, 
mallow, spiderwort, American cowslip, golden-rod, 
scabious, snapdragon, orchises, lupines, nasturtium, 
poeonies, sweet pease, and a great multitude of others. 
