March  4,  1897. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
175 
“yellow  spot”  (Cladosporium),  wireworm,  and  eelworm  attacks. 
All  these  troubles  I  have  had  to  face,  and  therefore  am  no  stranger 
to  the  sensations  they  bring  about. 
If  I  remember  rightly  the  drooping  or  sleeping  disease  and 
black  stripe  were  at  one  time  considered  synonymous.  The  same 
cause  was  at  work  in  both  cases,  only  the  effect  differed.  That 
theory  appears  to  be  exploded — rightly  so,  I  think.  Then  a  very 
minute  species  of  eelworm,  so  small  as  to  be  invisible  unless  viewed 
through  a  microscope,  was  blamed  for  the  drooping  disease;  but 
this  view  of  the  case  does  not  appear  to  meet  with  favour  among 
the  savants.  The  ordinary  eelworm  causes  galls  to  form  on  the 
roots,  and  is  unmistakeable  ;  the  invisible  form  was  supposed  to 
attack  the  collars  of  the  plants,  and  so  cut  off  the  supplies  of  crude 
sap  to  the  top  growth — result,  collapse.  What  particular  form  of 
disease  or  nematoid  that  eventually  finishes  up  the  plants  I  am 
unable  to  determine,  nor  am  I  greatly  concerned  about  the  correct 
nomenclature.  What  I  do  know  is  that  no  reliable  remedy  has 
yet  been  offered.  Plenty  of  suggestions,  nothing  positive.  Can 
I  supply  the  deficiency  ?  Probably,  but  not  positively,  till  yet 
another  season  has  passed.  Is  my  presumable  remedy  expensive  ? 
No,  nothing  cheaper.  With  me  the  price  is  lOd.  per  1000  gallons, 
and  it  is  applied  through  a  hose.  Be  sparing  of  water  at  the 
roots,  and  drooping  plants  will  be  seen  by  the  score  every  day  till 
such  times  as  those  surviving  have  reached  the  moister  soil  below. 
Mr.  Abbey  is  of  opinion  that  “a  dressing  of  quicklime,  a  peck 
per  rod  to  soil  where  plants  are  growing,  and  as  a  winter  dressing 
£  cwt.  per  rod,  mixing  it  thoroughly  with  the  soil  to  a  depth  of 
15  to  18  inches,  coupled  with  a  careful  selection  of  seed,  is  all  that 
is  necessary  to  avoid  ‘black  stripe,’  ‘sleepy’  or  ‘drooping’  diseases 
as  caused  by  Fusarium  solani.”  That  is  positive  enough,  but, 
unfortunately,  unreliable.  Neither  under  glass  nor  in  the  open  is 
lime  really  effective  as  a  preventive.  It  may  do  good  service  from 
a  manurial  point  of  view,  but  was  powerless  as  tried  by  me  against 
the  drooping  disease.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  been  repeatedly 
warned  against  employing  solid  manure,  or  that  obtained  from 
stables  and  farmyards,  in  Tomato  culture.  We  have  been  told  it 
must  not  be  dug  in,  or  the  growth  of  the  plants  will  be  rank  and 
disease-inviting  ;  it  must  not  be  used  as  a  mulch,  as  this  would 
favour  the  spread  of  diseases  of  a  fungoid  nature.  When  a 
gardener  can  provide  fresh  turfy  loam  each  season  for  the 
comparatively  few  plants  he  grows,  solid  manure  is  uncalled  for  in 
the  soil,  and  might  easily  do  more  harm  than  good  ;  but  the  case  is 
very  different  with  the  market  grower. 
The  advice  is  sometimes  given  to  wholly  <  bange  the  soil  in 
houses  devoted  principally  to  Tomato  culture.  Has  it  ever  been 
practised  by  those  offering  this  advice,  or,  say,  more  than  once  ? 
Wheeling  out  the  top  spit  from  a  house  130  feet  long  and  20  feet 
wide  would  be  no  light  undertaking,  and  where  is  the  soil  to  come 
from  to  take  its  place  V  We  find  it  absolutely  necessary,  and  are 
content  to  double  dig  the  borders  each  season,  bringing  a  little  of 
the  fresh  subsoil  to  the  surface,  and  forking  in  a  liberal  supply  of 
half-decayed  manure  into  the  subsoil.  Firmness  in  the  soil  is  most 
desirable,  and  if  other  details  are  properly  carried  out  there  is  little 
likelihood  of  the  plants  being  grown  too  strongly.  Not  content 
with  the  manuring  mentioned,  suitable  chemical  manures  are  also 
forked  in.  Lime  may  be  needed  in  some  cases,  though  not  oftener 
than  once  in  five  years,  and  scarcely  then  if  superphosphate  of 
lime  is  one  of  the  manures  forked  into  the  surface. 
So  much  for  the  preparation  of  the  soil.  We  have  next  to 
consider  what  other  preventive  measures  are  likely  to  act  bene- 
Scially.  One  experienced  Tomato  grower  is  a  firm  believer  in 
corrosive  sublimate.  If  he  still  finds  this  disinfectant  effective  he 
will  render  good  service  by  again  referring  to  it  in  these  pages. 
Last  season  I  spent  12s.  on  corrosive  sublimate,  and  failed  to  see 
any  gain  thereby.  We  dissolved  2  lbs.  of  it,  and  diluted  with 
1000  gallons  of  water,  about  a  week  before  planting  the  Toma¬ 
toes,  and  from  first  to  last,  no  difference  was  seen  in  the  behaviour 
of  the  plants  treated  to  the  corrosive  sublimate  and  those  which 
received  none.  Sleepy  and  diseased  plants  were  fewer  than  usual 
a  each  case,  thanks  to  the  heavier  supply  of  water.  We  also 
..ried  the  effects  of  gas  liquor,  or  ammoniacal  water  obtained  from 
*'he  gasworks.  This  appeared  rather  strong,  and  35  gallons  was 
diluted  with  700  gallons  of  water.  Perhaps  we  watered  our  liquor 
oo  much — “drowned”  it,  as  the  topers  say.  Anyway,  nothing 
■oteworthy  came  of  it.  It  was  given  what  may  be  considered  a 
"air  trial,  and  I  should  have  been  glad  to  find  it  a  good  remedy,  as 
t  is  cheap.  Yet  another  large  breadth  of  border  under  glass  was 
watered  with  soluble  phenyle  at  the  rate  of  1  gallon,  costing  6s. 
(six  shillings),  to  160  gallons  of  water,  and  as  this  was  an  expen¬ 
sive  experiment  only  one-half  of  a  house  was  watered  with  it. 
Once  more  nothing  very  encouraging  resulted.  Evidently  phenyle 
applied  prior  to  planting  is  not  a  preventive  of  disease.  Kainit  we 
have  used  freely  for  the  past  four  years,  and  it  is  an  important 
element  in  any  cheap  and  effective  mixture  of  Tomato  manure.  If 
it  has  the  effect  of  stimulating  root  action  then  it  contributes 
towards  warding  off  disease  ;  otherwise  it  cannot,  in  my  estimation, 
be  rightly  classed  as  either  a  fungicide  or  insecticide. 
Only  in  one  long  house  were  no  experiments  tried,  and  strange 
to  relate  the  crops  in  that  instance  were  second  to  none.  Viewed 
with  »trict  impartiality  the  only  conclusion  we  could  honestly 
arrive  at  is  that  no  chemical  or  other  preparations  are  of 
avail  by  themielves.  If  we  starve  the  plants  at  the  roots  a  few  or 
many  of  them  will  fail.  With  us  it  has  invariably  been  the  most 
heavily  cropped  plants  that  were  the  first  to  succumb,  and  if  we 
take  into  consideration  the  great  weight  of  fruit  each  plant 
produces  in  proportion  to  the  foliage  ought  we  to  wonder  if  they 
do  break  down  under  the  strain  ?  They  must  be  kept  constantly 
moist  at  the  roots,  and  in  order  to  save  the  watering  pot  or  hose 
considerably  a  good  mulching  of  strawy  manure  should  be  applied 
before  the  plants  are  far  advanced.  This  serves  to  conserve 
moisture  in  the  soil,  to  keep  the  atmosphere  drier ,  and  the  roots 
active  near  the  surface. 
It  will  thus  be  seen  I  hold  nearly  the  same  views  concerning 
the  treatment  of  Tomatoes  as  expressed  on  page  130  in  relation  to 
Cucumber  culture.  By  all  means  start  with  plants  raised  from 
seed  saved  from  fruit  grown  on  healthy  plants.  Build  these  up 
strongly  and  sustain  them  in  their  vigour  by  means  of  abundance 
of  moisture  and  liquid  manure  applied  to  the  roots.  With  plant*, 
as  with  individuals,  it  is  those  weakly  in  constitution  that  break 
down  the  first  if  subjected  to  adverse  influences.  If  in  spite  of 
all  that  is  done  signs  of  drooping  and  black  stripe  are  observable, 
then  lose  no  time  in  applying  medicine  in  the  shape  of  phenyle, 
using  enough  of  this  properly  diluted  to  well  saturate  the  already 
moistened  soil  about  all  the  plants  in  that  particular  quarter  or  house. 
Altogether  we  used  6  gallons  of  phenyle  last  season,  and  consider 
we  were  well  repaid  for  the  outlay.  There  is  so  much  yet  to  be 
said  about  Tomato  troubles  that  I  propose  to  again  return  to  the 
subject. — W.  Iggulden. 
HARDY  FLOWER  NOTES. 
The  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  has  come,  and  with  it  the 
delights  of  the  garden  appear.  The  snow  has  vanished,  and,  though 
nights  are  sharp  and  chill,  the  warm  sun  by  day  lights  up  the 
glowing  Crocus  and  spurs  on  the  other  early  flowers.  All  around, 
while  the  great  pulse  of  Nature  hardly  seems  to  beat,  there  are 
faint  movements  which  show  that  she  is  beginning  to  wake  from 
her  winter’s  sleep.  The  trees  still  stand  gaunt  and  leafless,  their 
great  limbs  and  traceries  of  twigs  casting  happily  little  shade  ’twixt 
us  and  the  sun.  The  hedges  are  bare  and  still  unclothed  with  their 
greenery,  but  the  Willows,  though  leafless  still,  are  dressing  them¬ 
selves  with  their  silvery  knobs — their  infant  “  Palms  ” — that  glisten 
in  the  February  sun.  In  the  garden  the  borders  still  look  bare 
without  their  towering  or  lowly  plants  in  leaf,  but  there  are  shoots 
astir  and  pointing  through  the  dark  earth.  Nor  are  these  all  that 
tell  us  of  the  uprising  of  the  flowers,  for  already  the  more  daring 
have  come  and  are  hastening  away. 
The  Snowdrops  no  longer  hang  their  pure  flowers  eardrop-like 
from  their  flexile  stems,  but  in  wanton  mood  spread  out  their  petals 
to  woo  the  bee  to  explore  their  blooms  in  search  of  hidden  store. 
The  pale  gold  cups  of  the  Winter  Aconite  look  faint  and  dim 
beside  those  of  the  deeper  yellow  Crocus  which  joyously  greets  the 
welcome  sunlight.  The  early  Irises  unfold  their  graceful  petals  to 
charm  the  gazer  as  he  passes  by.  The  yellow  Crocus  has  found 
companions  of  other  hue*.  Imperati’s  one  acts  as  rival  to  the 
Snowdrop  in  her  attractions  for  the  bees,  but  not  unaided  nor 
unrivalled  itself,  for  the  Scotch  Crocus  with  its  honeyed  odour 
draws  to  its  white  blooms  many  of  the  winged  foragers. 
The  early  azure  Grape  Hyacinth  (Muscari  azureum)  shows  it® 
blue  cones  amid  their  attendant  leaves,  and  the  Spring  Meadow 
Saffron,  as  Bulbocodium  vernum  is  called,  is  about  to  make  a  brave 
mass  of  violet-purple  flowers  on  one  of  the  rockeries.  About  to  do 
it,  we  say,  but  ere  this  is  in  type  it  will  be  in  full  beauty.  The 
Winter  Heath  is  beaded  over  with  white  or  flesh-coloured  blooms, 
beautiful  on  their  green  branches.  The  Glory  of  the  Snow  has  not 
yet  favoured  us  with  its  exquisite  colouring,  but  it  has  peeped 
through  and  is  on  the  way,  so  that  we  shall  soon  see  its  pale  blue, 
deep  blue,  blue  and  white,  pink,  or  white  flowers.  These  are  all 
given  by  the  varieties  here.  Seedling  Hepaticas  are  beautiful,  too, 
with  their  deep  purple,  crim*on,  pink,  or  pale  blue  blooms.  The 
catalogue  might  be  extended,  though  the  year  is  but  early  and  the 
season  a  little  late.  It  is  a  tempting  thing  to  think  of  and  writ© 
of  our  favourites  in  such  a  general  way,  but  other  things  are  wished, 
and  we  must,  perforce,  obey. 
The  Snowdrops  will  soon  be  over,  and  while  they  are  with  us 
we  may  not  unprofitably  speak  of  two  or  three,  saying  a  word  as 
we  go  about  their  relative  merits.  If  one  is  not  mistaken  it  was 
