144 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
August  25,  1898. 
wool  growing.  If  the  young  tree,  instead  of  being  cut  so  hard  (the 
hard  cutting  is  necessary  for  two  years,  but  no  longer),  is  allowed  to 
retain  a  much  greater  length  of  its  year’s  growth,  say  two-thirds  in 
place  of  a  quarter,  it  will  at  once  commence  forming  bloom-buds,  and 
the  year  following  will  probably  bear  a  little  fruit.  At  the  same  time, 
if  treated  well  in  the  matter  of  manure,  it  will  also  make  plenty  of 
new  growth  to  continue  building  up  the  foundation  of  a  good  tree. 
The  foregoing  is  what  one  might  describe  as  advice  for  general  treat¬ 
ment,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  no  two  varieties  of  any  of  the 
fruits  have  quite  similar  habits,  and  the  grower  must  exercise  discretion 
to  a  great  extent  in  the  management.  For  instance,  a  few  kinds  of 
Apples,  like  Lord  Suffield,  Stirling  Castle,  &c.,  are  such  prolific 
croppers  that  unless  they  are  heavily  pruned  every  year  they  make 
no  new  growth.  On  the  other  hand,  such  kinds  as  Bramley’s 
Seedling  make  such  vigorous  shoots  that  it  is  best,  as  soon  as  a  tree 
has  shaped  out  a  little,  to  cease  cutting  it  altogether.  The  grower 
must  himself  learn  to  distinguish  between  the  sorts  and  the  treatment 
they  require,  and  it  is  just  the  care  bestowed  in  matters  of  this  kind 
that  makes  a  successful  fruit  grower. 
A  Good  Lime-wash  Compound. 
Lime-washing  trees  is  advocated  by  all  our  best  authorities,  and 
doubtless  does  a  great  deal  of  good.  I  should  prefer  to  do  it  either  in 
the  autumn,  so  that  it  might  be  fresh  during  November,  when  most 
of  the  winter  moths  go  up,  or  in  February  or  March,  in  order  to  stand 
a  better  chance  of  killing  some  newly-hatched  insects.  The  lime 
should  be  freshly  slaked,  and  to  every  4  gallons  of  wash  a  quart  of 
paraffin,  a  pint  of  common  salt,  and  a  pound  of  softsoap  should  be 
added.  The  softsoap  should  be  dissolved  in  boiling  water  first,  and 
the  lime  mixed  with  the  liquid.  The  salt  in  the  mixture  helps  to  kill 
any  insects  coming  into  contact  with  the  wash,  and  also  assists  the 
preparation  to  penetrate  deeper  into  the  bark.  The  paraffin  makes 
the  tree  distasteful  to  all  insect  life  for  a  long  time,  and  the  softsoap 
imparts  a  certain  greasy  nature  to  the  compound  which  resists  the 
action  of  rain,  and  thus  makes  it  last  fresh  so  much  longer.  I  think 
very  few  of  us  use  lime  half  enough  in  fruit  culture.  Dusted  over  the 
trees  a  few  times  it  is  unquestionably  a  first-rate  thing,  and  if  it  does 
no  other  good  its  manorial  properties  on  reaching  the  soil  are  worth 
considering. 
POTATO  POTENTIALITIES. 
Some  few  weeks  ago  the  editor  hinted,  in  a  footnote,  that  he 
thought  I  could  a  tale  unfold  with  regard  to  the  preparation  of  early 
Potatoes  on  a  scale  calculated  to  give  a  fit  of  the  staggers  to  the 
throw-them-in  brigade.  The  tale  in  question  dribbled  down  my  pen 
many  a  time  subsequently,  but  for  one  reason  or  another  never  got  off 
it.  And  so  it  came  about  that  the  mountains  of  boxes  finished  their 
work,  the  sets  were  carted  from  the  store,  and  lo,  and  behold  !  at  the 
middle  of  June,  I  found  myself  brought  up  with  a  round  turn  by  seeing 
something  else  cleared  beside  the  boxes,  and  that  was  the  land  itself. 
“  As  of  a  dream,”  indeed  !  I  rub  my  eyes,  and  try  to  realise  that  it 
is  not  exactly  yesterday  that  I  was  gazing  with  a  gratified  eye  around 
the  store,  but  that  weeks  have  flown,  and  the  Potatoes,  hastened  to 
early  maturity  by  a  process  of  forcing  that  is  good  because  it  goes 
hand  in  hand  with  Nature,  have  disappeared  down  the  throats  of  the 
hungry. 
W  hen  lusty  crops  of  Potatoes,  even  in  size,  of  beautiful 
texture  and  delicious  flavour,  are  being  dug  in  the  open  fields  before 
May  is  out,  money  is  generally  coming  in.  Perhaps  the  buyer  looks 
askance  at  them  just  at  first,  and  even  breaks  into  a  smile  of  unspeak¬ 
able  knowingness.  The  '‘new”  Potatoes  which  we  trustful  islanders 
import.,  cheerfully  paying  200  per  cent,  over  their  proper  value,  are 
often  only  old  seed  sent  to  the  Continent  for  the  express  purpose  of 
being  sent  back  to  us.  I  have  seen  these  hoary  imposters  go  out  of 
Dover — I  have  seen  them  come  in  again.  They  leave  the  shores  of 
perfidious  Albion  venerable  with  age;  they  return  with  the  bloom  of 
youth.  But  “  uncommon  hard  to  scrape,”  says  cook,  “  for  new 
Pcrtaters,”  not  knowing,  worthy  soul,  that  they  have  been  on  a 
voyage  for  the  benefit  of  their  health,  and  come  back  again  “  as  hard 
as  nails.” 
So  the  buyer  assumes  his  unspeakal  ly  knowing  air  when  the  May- 
dug  Potatoes  are  brought  in,  and  while  he  listens  his  horny  thumb 
eently  and  insinuatingly  wanders  over  the  tubers.  Then,  somehow, 
he  loses  a  little  of  his  ah-you-can-tiy-this-game-on-with-me-if-you- 
1  ike  sort  of  air.  The  skin  has  rubbed  off  under  slight  pressure;  he 
loses  his  vision  of  the  voyage  across  the  Straits  of  Dover,  and  buys — 
at  a  thumping  price.  Other  buyers  do  the  same,  glad  to  get  such 
stuff,  for  they  know  that  it  will  go  just  as  fast  as  they  can  get  it; 
and  so  it  comes  about  that  at  the  middle  of  June  I  stood  gaping  at 
empty  acres,  where  already  brown -armed  men  were  throwing  out 
trenches  and  throwing  in  manure,  planting  Celery  as  if  their  lives 
depended  on  it.  m 
Let  us  muse  a  little.  That  big,  well-built,  brick  building  over 
there  is  the  Potato  sprouting  store.  It  is  plain,  but  substantial,  and 
there  was  little  change  out  of  £150  for  the  building  of  it.  It  holds 
within  a  few  of  1000  boxes.  They  also  are  plain,  but  substantial,  and 
they  cost  Is.  each — another  £50.  The  extra  cost  in  labour  of  filling, 
stacking,  and  emptying  the  boxes — the  difference,  I  mean,  between  so 
treating  the  tubers  and  clamping  them — will  probably  average  at  least 
a  penny  a  box,  say  another  £5 ;  so  that  it  has  cost  £205  to  bring  about 
the  state  of  affairs  exemplified  by  the  dazed  stare  of  the  present  writer 
and  the  vigorous  labours  of  the  Celery  planters.  A  good  deal  of  type 
could  be  used  up  in  speculation  as  to  whether  it  pays,  but  if  the 
printer  will  just  mention  that  the  grower  is  putting  another  wing  to 
his  house  and  ordering  another  100  sprouting  boxes,  the  concentrated 
essence  of  wisdom  represented  by  a  Journal  subscription  will  not  be 
long  in  coming  to  a  conclusion. 
There  are  not  quite  so  many  varieties  as  there  are  boxes,  but  there 
are  a  good  many.  Of  course  it  would  be  easy  to  say  that  this  is 
wrong,  but  il  new  sorts  were  not  being  tried  good  things  would 
sometimes  be  missed.  For  instance,  there  are  Myatt’s,  and  Victors, 
and  Puritans,  all  tried,  true  and  profitable  (the  first-named  old  war- 
horse,  by  the  way,  has  done  particularly  well  this  season).  But  there 
are  likewise  those  two  grand  new  first  earlies,  Harbinger  and  Duke  of 
York.  It  was  wonderful  to  see  the  way  the  former  lifted — fifteen  to 
twenty  nice  tubers  to  each  hill,  and  as  early  as  the  most  precocious  of 
them.  There  is  also  the  best  all-round  early  Potato  grown — the  sure 
cropper,  the  compact  grower,  the  yielder  of  large,  blunt,  kidney-shaped 
tubers  of  the  finest  eating  quality,  within  two  or  three  weeks  of  the  first 
earlies,  and  that  is  Webber’s  White  Beauty.  Carters’  First  Crop,  too, 
is  one  of  the  prizes.  You  may  say  it  is  wrong  if  you  like,  this 
spending  of  money  on  expensive  new  sorts  for  market  work,  but  there 
is  the  new  wing,  anyway. 
Dimly  realising  that  it  is  not,  after  all,  a  dream,  I  look  back 
to  the  time  when  that  editorial  foot-note  appeared.  I  stand  in 
the  fine  brick  store  and  let  my  eye  wander  up  and  down  the  long 
tiers  of  boxes,  each  with  its  half  bushel  of  sprouted  sets.  I  peer 
between  the  stages  and  see  a  bristling  array — a  miniature  forest — of 
stiff  purple  sprouts,  each  about  an  inch  long ;  each  as  thick  as  the 
little  finger  of  the  fat  lady  at  the  show;  each  with  a  hard,  business¬ 
like,  almost  assertive  look,  for  all  the  world  as  though  he  were  making 
out  that  he  didn’t  care  whether  he  had  a  Potato  underneath  him  or 
not,  but  was  good’to  feed  any  ordinary  family,  and  leave  an  odd  one 
over  for  paterfamilias,  who  has  a  weakness  for  surreptitiously  impaling 
a  cold  Potato  on  the  end  of  a  fork  when  supper  is  on  the  way. 
Yes,  Mr.  Editor,  I  could  unfold  a  tale  about  all  this,  but  you  must 
make  what  you  can  of  a  touch-and-go  story.  The  later  sorts,  I  am 
glad  to  say,  look  well,  and  none  so  well  as  those  where  the  muriate 
has  gone.  Of  course,  we  must  still  wait  on  waxiness.  But  of  late  I 
have  been  inspired  with  a  theory  — which  is  based  on  practice  and 
experiment — that  1  shall  take  an  opportunity  of  propounding  in  the 
near  future  if  time  permit.  In  the  meantime  the  shadow  of  disease 
threatens,  and  I  never  look  over  ray  muriate-fed  rows,  with  their 
8 tout  sterns  and  thick  leathery  leaves,  without  rejoicing  that  I  did 
not  crowd  in  the  fat  dung  like  my  neighbours,  and  so  get  their  soft, 
squat,  plethoric  growth. 
But  it  is  still  too  early  for  exultation. — W.  Pea. 
REGENT’S  PARK.  • 
It  has  been  said  that  when  a  person  has  seen  one  of  the  London  parks 
he  has  seen  the  whole,  or,  in  other  words,  that  they  are  very  similar  in 
arrangement.  To  my  mind  this  is  a  great  error.  It  is  possible  to  find 
similar  plants  used  for  the  embellishment  of  the  gardens  and  beds,  but 
there  are  new  features  in  each  and  all  of  them,  while  the  methods  of 
arrangement  are  widely  diversified,  and  anyone  interested  in  the  subject 
of  garden  decoration  would  do  well  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  majority  of  the 
parks.  Mr.  Jordan,  the  able  superintendent  at  Regent’s  Park,  evidently 
endeavours  to  keep  his  charge  up  to  date  in  all  matters,  whether  in  the 
shape  of  new  ideas  or  new  varieties. 
The  Carnation*,  which  are  largely  employed,  will  give  an  instance  in 
point ;  such  favourites  as  Germania,  Alice  Ayres,  Raby  Castle,  and  the 
old  crimson  Clove  are  in  abundance,  as  are  also  the  more  recent  varieties, 
King  Arthur,  Yule  Tide,  and  others.  Again,  while  the  older  forms  of 
Violas  are  in  evidence,  there  are  beds  of  the  new  ones  sufficient  to  please 
a  Viola  fancier.  These  are  evidently  trial  beds,  and  no  doubt  will  be 
weeded  out,  so  that  the  most  suitable  varieties  only  will  be  retained. 
The  large  mixed  beds  have  been  admirably  planned  ;  one  containing 
huge  single  Hollyhocks,  white  Tobacco,  tall  Heliotropes,  with  white 
Phloxes  and  single  Dahlias,  formed  an  interesting  and  attractive  picture. 
The  beds  of  Celosias  leave  nothing  to  be  desired,  and  the  strain  is 
certainly  an  advance  on  the  general  run  of  such  plants.  The  colours  are 
chiefly  red  and  yellow,  both  of  which  are  superb.  A  few  Cockscombs  in 
one  of  the  beds  give  variety,  and  as  utilised  here  did  not  appear  too  heavy 
and  cumbersome. 
Beds  of  Begonia  Corbeille  de  Feu  were  a  mass  of  flower.  It  is  a 
bedding  plant  of  the  first  class,  and  one  that  will  find  its  way  shortly 
into  many  gardens.  Fuchsias  are  as  largely  employed  as  in  the  other 
