December  7.  1899. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER . 
495 
Apart  from  the  general  interest,  there  is  an  educational  aspect  of 
great  value  in  the  collecting  and  exhibiting  of  fruits  of  such  importance 
as  Apples  from  different  parts  of  a  county,  with  particulars  of  soil, 
aspect,  and  treatment.  It  seems  as  though  we  do  not  as  yet  thoroughly 
realise  the  capabilities  of  the  country  for  the  production  of  fruit,  and 
such  illustrations  as  the  one  under  notice  will  do  more  to  emphasise  it 
than  a  great  deal  of  writing.  Few  people  perhaps  treat  Monmouth 
seriously  as  a  fruit  growing  county,  and  yet  Mr.  Basham,  a  thoroughly 
practical  man,  points  out,  and  also  proves,  that  it  possesses  great 
possibilities  for  the  production  of  Apples. 
It  may  be  the  same  with  other  counties,  whose  fruit  growing 
capabilities  are  little  known  of,  and  it  seems  as  though  the  R.H.S. 
authorities  might  make  a  point  of  encouraging  this  kind  of  thing, 
which  would  be  a  means  of  making  its  meetings  still  more  interesting 
as  well  as  of  educational  value  to  those  who  are  engrossed  in  the 
important  question  of  British  fruit  culture. — G.  II.  II. 
Kentish  Pippin. 
There  appears  to  be  quite  a  number  of  distinct  Apples  under  thls 
name,  an.l  by  distinct  I  do  not  mean  such  distinction  as  some  pretend 
to  find  between  Beauty  of  Hants  and  Blenheim  Pippin,  but  a  totally 
different  class  of  Apiple.  In  many  places  in  the  west  of  England,  what 
is  locally  termed  Kentish  Pippin  is  a  very  green-skinned,  white-fleshed 
Apple,  not  unlike  a  Blenheim  in  general  appearance,  but  of  more  acid 
flavour.  At  a  local  show  recently  1  saw  a  little  round  Apple,  some¬ 
thing  like  Devonshire  Quarrenden,  labelled  Kentish  Pippin,  and  on 
expressing  a  doubt  as  to  its  being  true,  was  told  that  the  grower  had 
grown  and  shown  it  for  twenty  years  under  this  name.  This 
argument  was  quite  unanswerable.  But  there  is  another  and  a 
different  variety  with  rather  conical  fruit,  streaked  with  red,  and 
with  streaked  flesh  as  well,  that  is  so  called.  I  should  like  to  know 
what  Kentish  Pippin  really  is  like,  for  I  have  never  met  with  the 
Apple  we  used  to  grow  in  the  west  under  any  other  name.  It  was  a 
most  useful  'Apple,  keeping  well  into  the  new  year,  excellent  for 
cooking  and  eating. — II.  R.  Richards. 
[Dr.  Hogg  thus  describes  Kentish  Pippin  in  the  “  Fruit  Manual :  ” 
— “  Fruit,  medium  size,  inches  broad,  and  2jr  inches  high;  conical 
and  slightly  angular.  Skin,  pale  yellow,  with  brownish  red  next  the 
sud,  studded  with  specks,  which  are  greenish  on  the  shaded  side,  but 
yellowish  next  the  sun.  Eye,  small,  aud  partially  open,  set  in  a  wide, 
shallow  and  plaited  basin.  Stalk,  very  short  and  fleshy,  almost 
imbedded  in  a  deep  and  wide  cavity,  which  is  smooth,  or  rarely 
marked  with  russet.  Flesh,  yellowish  white,  delicate,  very  juicy, 
with  a  su7eet  and  briskly  acid  flavour.  A  culinary  Apple  of  first-rate 
quality  ;  in  use  from  October  to  January.”] 
Splitting  of  Apples. 
“  W.  G.”  page  442,  alludes  to  this  matter  as  “  not  a  common 
occurrence.”  This  statement  rather  surprises  me,  for,  unfortunately, 
much  of  the  produce  of  British  Apple  orchards  is  so  scabbed  and 
cracked  as  to  be  worthless  for  marketing.  To  this  your  correspondent 
-does  not  allude,  though  one  of  the  greatest  defects  of  Apples  from 
orchard  trees,  the  scab  fungus,  Cladosporium  dendriticum,  often  ruins 
one-half  of  the  crops. 
The  splitting  of  Apples  is  not  very  common,  and  is  confined  to  the 
clear-skinned,  such  as  the  Codlin,  Ilawthornden,  and  Harvey  (yellow¬ 
skinned)  races.  The  splitting  sometimes  occurs  on  the  trees,  especially 
on  the  late  summer  being  wet  after  a  period  of  drought.  In  such  case 
the  fruit  would  have  the  skin  hardened  by  the  heat  and  dry  atmo¬ 
spheric  conditions,  and  correspondingly  retarded  in  swelling,  then  on  a 
recurrence  of  growing  weather  when  the  fruit  was  almost  ripe  the 
moisture  on  the  hardened  skin  and  the  flow  of  sap  from  within  would 
conduce  to  splitting.  Thus  the  splitting  is  clearly  a  case  of  endosmose, 
and  analogous  to  the  bursting  of  Gooseberries  at  the  nose  in  rainy 
weather,  and  the  cracking  of  Melons  grown  hard  and  ripened  in  a 
moist  confined  atmosphere. 
In  the  case  of  cracking  after  storing  the  exhaustion  of  the  juices 
consequent  on  keeping  dry  to  allow  superfluous  moisture  to  pass  off, 
and  then  suddenly  closing  the  store-room,  as  certainly  results  in  the 
fiuits  absorbing  moisture,  as  their  tissues  have  become  dry  and  possibly 
splitting. 
Fuzzy  Apples,  or  “  fuze-balls,”  aa  I  understand  the  term,  is  due  to 
the  irritation  set  up  by  the  Apple  maggot,  Trypeta  pomonella,  which 
feeds  indiscriminately  •  through  the  pulp  of  the  fruit,  causing  an 
abnormal  growth  of  the  cells  in  the  large  air  spaces,  so  that  the  flesh 
is  soft  and  dry,  meal-like,  and  very  poor  in  flavour.  Such  fruit 
sometimes  split  right  from  the  woody  tissue  of  the  core ;  the  cells 
there  absorbing  the  moisture  of  the  fruit,  this  readily  abstracts  from 
the  atmosphere,  especially  when  the  greasy  coating  on  the  skin  has 
been  rubbed  off,  or  this  has  hardened  by  dry  conditions  so  as  to  crack. 
The  insect  confines  its  attentions  to  the  soft-fleshed  Apples,  seldom  or 
never  attacking  the  firm-fleshed  or  even  the  late  varieties,  and  beyond 
very  faint  tracks  in  the  flesh,  leaves  little  evidence  of  the  work 
resulting  in  fuzzy  Apples.  It  is  only  in  warm  and  dry  summers  that 
the  Apple  maggot  does  much  harm,  and  it  is  mostly  confined  to 
certain  trees  or  orchards,  not  travelling  far.  No  spraying  is  of  any 
use  against  this  pest,  as  the  insect  deposits  the  eggs  under  the  skin 
of  the  fruit,  and  the  tiny  maggotp,  whitish  or  greenish  white,  are  not 
more  than  a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  length.  But  the  maggots  go  into 
the  ground  to  pupate,  and  may  there  be  reached  by  a  dressing  of 
kainit  in  the  late  summer  or  early  autumn,  15  cwt.  per  acre,  or 
10^  lbs.  per  rod. — G.  Abbey. 
A  GARDEN  IN  NEW  ZEALAND. 
One  bright  spring  day  we  wended  our  way  to  Mr.  M - ’s  garden, 
hoping  that  we  should  not  be  too  late  for  the  Narcissi  and  other  spring 
flowers  that  are  grown  in  such  quantities  here.  I  put  the  gentleman’s 
initial  only,  because  he  is  one  of  those  who  love  flowers  for  their  own 
sake  and  not  for  show.  We  found  we  were  rather  late  for  the  Narcissi, 
but  some  interesting  and  new  varieties  were  still  in  flower.  The  flower 
gardens  cover  about  ten  acres,  but  part  of  this  is  taken  up  witn 
ornamental  trees,  which  help  to  provide  shelter  for  the  choice 
plants.  The  soil  is  good,  and  almost  all  hardy  plants  seem  to  thrive 
in  it;  perhaps  this  is  due  to  the  excellent  cultivation  received  from 
the  owner  and  his  staff. 
The  collection  of  Narcissi  comprises  a  great  number  of  new  and 
old  varieties,  and  being  special  favourites  are  grown  in  quantities,  as 
they  should  be  grown,  in  clumps,  left  down  for  years.  We  could  not 
fail  to  notice  the  masses  of  Hoop  Petticoats  (variety  Corbularia 
conspicua)  and  single  yellow  Jonquils  in  clusters,  containing,  I  suppose, 
hundreds  of  bull  s.  The  effect  was  truly  fine,  reminding  one  of  a 
sheet  of  gold.  Part  of  these  were  seedlings,  and  I  was  told  that  this 
variety  of  Hoop  Petticoat  comes  almost  or  quite  true  from  seed. 
Flowers  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  B.  M.  Camm  were  still  out,  and  we  noticed 
a  few  flowers  of  that  superb  variety  Madame  de  Graaff  also.  Some 
other  interesting  varieties  (because  mostly  new  here)  were  Madam  Plemp, 
Sophia,  Capt.  Nelson,  Edith  Barber,  and  Mabel  CowaD.  Space  forbids 
a  note  on  each,  and  most  of  your  readers  will,  I  suppose,  know  them. 
Fig.  87.— Apple  Bassaleg  Pippin. 
What  lovely  varieties  are  \he  Triandrus  section  of  this  flower, 
and  how  seldom  seen  here;  tnerefore  I  took  more  notice  of  a  clump 
ofT.  pulchellus.  This  is,  I  might  mention,  very  hard  to  acclimatise, 
and  what  we  saw  were  seedlings.  Speaking  of  seedlings  Mr.  M. - 
showed  us  several  lots  of  his  own  raising,  comprising  some  hundreds, 
several  of  which  showed  distinct  variations. 
The  Rhododendrons  -were  just  past  their  best,  but  several  late 
varieties  were  still  fine.  Roses  were  making  fine  Growths,  and 
promise  a  profusion  of  bloom  for  the  coming  season.  How  lovely  the 
deciduous  Magnolias  of  the  conspicua  type  are  avhen  well  flowered  ! 
Several  of  these  and  also  M.  stellata  were  at  their  best,  and  seemed  a 
sheet  of  white.  Oranges  and  Lemons  are  grown  here  (more  for 
ornament  than  their  fruit  I  believe),  and  bear,  more  or  less,  all  the 
year  round.  Clematises,  including  that  chaste  native  sptecies  indivisa, 
were  opening  their  pretty  flowers,  and — but  I  have  already  taken  up 
too  much  of  your  valuable  space,  l  am  alraid.  ^  our  readers  must  not 
think,  however,  that  we  have  plenty  of  gardens  here  like  the  one  we 
visited.  It  is  one  of  our  few  really  good  big  gardens. — Weymouth. 
