JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
238 
September  12,  190]. 
quite  fresh  again  in  a  few  weeks,  requirin'?  only  a  little  trimming  in 
August  to  make  even,  and  have  a  very  neat  appearance. 
Of  late  years  strong  objection  has  been  taken  to  Box  edgings  on 
account  of  their  harbouring  slugs  and  other  predatory  pests.  There 
is  something,  and  often  a  great  deal  in  this,  therefore  recourse  has  been 
had  to  edgings  that  give  no  trouble  after  forming,  always  providing 
they  are  substantial,  not  abused,  and  weather-proof.  Badly  burned 
brick,  tile,  and  similar  edging  that  are  liable  to  suffer  from  severe  frost, 
are  worse  than  useless.  Such  edgings,  however,  are  much  in  vogue, 
especially  for  kitchen  gardens,  and  when  the  bricks,  tiles,  or  other  article 
are  well  burned,  so  as  to  withstand  all  weather,  very  suitable.  Even  the 
back  paths,  or  thoroughfares,  ought  to  have  boundary  marks  to  denote 
how  far  they  ought  legitimately  to  extend  ;  these,  however,  had  better 
be  of  either  brick  or  stone  of  some  kind  sunk  in  the  ground.  Hard- 
burned  or  blue  bricks  make  a  very  good  edging,  laid  either  edge  or 
endways  up,  where  truffle  is  supposed  to  pass  over  them.  For  gardens 
they  look  best  when  laid  angleways  up,  like  the  ridge  of  a  house,  and 
if  done  carefully  they  look  remaikably  neat.  Rough  stones  or  flints 
will  do  in  certain  situations  where  there  is  not  much  traffic  to  displace 
them,  but  in  a  wilderness  or  other  romantic  situation  they  are  the 
most  proper.  In  the  precincts  of  the  mansion  or  dressed  grounds  a 
prepared  substance,  or  something  that  represents  it  in  terra  cotta  or 
plaster  way,  wculd  doubtless  be  preferred.  Stone  edging,  perhaps  best 
of  all,  is  expensive,  ranging  from  2s.  3d.  to  5s.  6d.  per  yard,  with  an 
extra  3d.  to  Is.  for  curves,  according  to  pattern.  Garden  border 
edging  or  tiles  cost  3d.  to  4£d.  per  yard,  or  12s.  to  15s.  per  100,  and 
when  properly  set  are  neat  and  durable. — G.  A. 
Somersetshire  Notes. 
Apple?. 
Journeying  through  the  eastern  portion  of  the  county  one  cannot 
help  being  struck  with  the  well-laden  orchards,  scattered  in  some 
places  thickly,  in  other  districts  in  isolated  farmsteads;  nor  could  the 
thought  escape  one’s  notice  that  little  progress  seems  to  have  bten 
made  in  the  improvement  and  extension  of  fruit  culture  on  grass. 
The  trees,  a  great  many  of  them,  are  by  no  means  young,  and  the 
varieties  not  those  likely  to  command  a  good  and  remunerative  sale. 
I  am  told  that  great  quantities  find  their  way  to  northern  and 
midland  cities,  packed  in  barrels,  but  the  prices  rule  so  low  that 
expenses  are  not  met  in  their  packing,  carriage,  &c.  There  are  a 
quantity  grown  of  local  Apples  whose  names  are  absolute  strangers  to 
the  garden  and  general  Dursery  catalogues.  There  were  in  some  of 
those  ripe  and  ripening  a  very  refreshing  and  appetising  aroma  arising 
from  heaps  lying  in  the  orchard  and  from  the  trees  themselves  ;  this 
perfume  pervaded  the  air  for  some  distance,  carried  on  the  wind. 
Somerset  has  long  been  famous  for  its  cider,  and  no  doubt  much  ol 
the  fruit  now  growing  will  become  cider  in  course  of  time,  for  the  use, 
if  not  the  enjoyment,  of  the  rural  population. 
When  it  is  remembered  what  the  fruit  crops  of  last  year  amounted 
to  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  to  see  the  orchards  bearing  such  heavy 
loads  this  season  ;  the  markets  were  full  then,  they  would  appear 
to  be  not  much  less  so  now.  Pears  are  not  much  grown  as  an  orchard 
fruit,  and  Plums  are  seldom  seen.  In  North  Somerset,  at  least  in  some 
portions  of  it,  trees  in  the  orchards  were  very  partial,  some  I  examined 
without  finding  a  trace  of  fruit,  in  others  the  crop  was  a  full  one.  This 
was  apparent,  too,  in  orchards  but  a  short  distance  one  from  the  other ; 
indeed,  on  one  side  of  the  highway  was  written  “plenty,”  on  theothei 
“sparsity,”  in  very  plain  and  clear  examples.  Shelter,  and  the  absence 
of  it,  no  doubt  accounted  for  this  variety,  n  t  so  much  from  frost  as 
from  the  cold  winds  of  spring. 
This  alternate  dearth  and  plenty,  though  belonging  most  to  the 
orchard  land,  was  still  not  altogether  unknown  in  the  garden,  for  some 
there  are  in  which  the  fulness  of  the  season  is  clearly  exemplified,  in 
others  there  is  a  disappointing  dearth.  In  one  notable  instance  this 
latter  state  has  been  repeated  now  in  two  succeeding  summers,  and 
what  is  so  remarkable  is  that  the  same  garden  formerly  seemed  so 
favoured,  bearing  crops  of  handsome  fruits,  when  others  in  the  same 
locality  were  bare  and  almost  fruitless  from  the  action  of  spring  frosts. 
Generally,  however,  there  are  good  returns  in  all  fruits,  even 
Strawberries,  which  are  so  sensitive  to  weather  changes,  responding 
well,  though  the  season  was  a  short  one.  Apples  here  on  the  whole 
have  been  fine  and  plentiful  ;  one  has  only  to  visit  the  summer  flower 
shows  to  prove  this  happy  state.  They  have  been  not  only  large  and 
numerous,  but  fine  in  colour.  Beauty  of  Bath,  now  so  popular  as  an 
August  fruit,  were  beautifully  coloured,  so  were  Red  Astrachan  and 
others.  Peasgood's  Nonesuch,  not  generally  a  heavy  cropper,  has 
this  year  made  an  effort  to  claim  an  advance  step,  there  being  more 
of  this  than  any  other  shown  for  culinary  purposes.  Potts’  Seedling 
has  been  very  good,  so  also  has  Lord  Suffield  and  Grosvenor, 
Ecklinville  and  Warner’s  King. 
Tomatoes. 
The  season,  droughty  as  it  has  been,  has  suited  the  outdoor  crops 
of  Tomatoes  admirably.  Near  Worle  I  saw  a  comparatively  small 
plot,  which  the  grower  estimated  would  yield  him  over  a  ton  of 
marketable  produce.  In  other  places,  both  in  private  and  market- 
gardens,  Tomatoes  everywhere  bear  heavy  loads  of  clean  fruit.  Nor 
is  there  but  little  disease  of  any  Bort ;  in  fact  it  could  scarcely  be- 
hoped  to  have  an  outdoor  crop  more  free  from  ailment.  What  is 
needed  now  is  fine  weather  to  make  this  uncertain  speculation  a 
complete  success. 
Soot  as  a  Fertiliser. 
In  this  age  of  fertilising  manures  in  manufactured  forms  it  was 
instructive  to  come  across  an  instance  where  the  virtues  of  that 
homely  article,  soot,  showed  such  marked  value  on  the  growth  of  fruit 
trees  and  Tomatoes.  A  good  quarter  of  Gooseberries  had  been  planted 
on  a  level  piece  of  ground  that  had  all  been  treated  alike  in  its 
earlier  preparations  and  planting,  but  from  unavoidable  causes  the 
soot  dressing  given  was  interrupted,  one  portion  being  so  treated  at 
an  early  period  of  the  winter,  and  washed  in  by  heavy  rains  ;  the 
other  put  on  later  in  the  same  quantity,  but  was  followed  with 
a  dry  period.  The  difference  in  the  growth  of  the  trees  was 
most  marked,  those  having  the  benefit  of  an  early  appli¬ 
cation  being  quite  twice  the  size  and  strength  of  the  others,  and 
their  bearing  capacity  no  doubt  in  the  forthcoming  years  will  show 
the  value  of  an  investment  in  soot.  Apparently  it  is  a  fertiliser  that 
need  be  used  early  in  the  winter,  so  that  its  property  is  early  trans¬ 
ferred  to  the  soil,  and  not  wasted  by  evaporation.  The  Tomatoes 
show  similarly  good  results  Irom  the  soot  dressing  given. 
Wasps. 
Despite  the  annual  destruction  of  nests,  these  appear  as  numerous 
as  ever  in  fruit-growing  centres.  One  gardener,  by  paying  a  bronze 
coin  for  each  queen  wasp  brought  him,  found  that  there  were  over  a 
thousand  captured  by  the  end  of  May,  mostly  by  his  own  workmen 
and  lads  ;  and  despite  this  slaughter,  he  still  finds  himself  the  victim 
of  the  wasp,  a  great  many  nests  also  being  destroyed  by  the  use  of 
cyanide  of  potassium.  We  have  found  the  Abol  syringe  a  most 
economical  aid  in  the  application  of  this  poison  to  wasp  nests,  as  the 
fine  spray  injected  into  the  nest  passage  makes  it  more  deadly  in  its 
action,  and  requires  less  to  effect  the  same  ende. 
Border  Flowers  and  Annuals 
have  been  unusually  fine  in  some  of  the  Somerset  gardens.  Asters  in 
particular  being  exceptionally  good.  Some  gardens  around  Bridgwater 
produced  many  prize-winning  stands  at  the  west  country  shows,  and 
this,  too,  in  the  company  of  those  who  make  Asters  a  speciality.  This 
is  due  to  one  of  two  reasons,  either  there  was  ample  water  to  be 
given  by  hand,  or  the  moist  nature  of  the  ground  supported  plant 
growth  well  without  so  much  aid  from  irrigation.  The  meadow  land 
intersected  by  the  railways  demonstrated  clearly  in  the  greenness  of 
the  herbage  the  presence  of  more  natural  mo.stme  than  many  have 
been  favoured  with  in  gardens  and  fields  elsewhere.  Roses  were 
wonderfully  good  in  their  first  flower,  but  the  later  crop  was  retarded 
by  the  drought  and  tropical  nature  of  the  weather.  Rain  coming  later 
developed  latent  growth,  and  the  results,  though  not  equal  to  that  of 
some  more  favoured  summers,  were  on  the  whole  satisfactory. 
Birds. 
Tomtits  and  blackbirds  in  particular  have  been  most  voracious, 
and  attack  and  destroy  such  a  quantity  of  fruit ;  and  late  sown  Peas 
have  also  suffered  considerably  from  small  birds.  It  is  the  gardens 
that  are  situated  near  woods  and  plantations,  favouring  their  nesting, 
which  suffer  so  much  from  their  depredations.  The  shooting  and 
trapping  of  them  do  not  appear  to  diminish  their  numbers  appreciably. 
Much  comp  aint  is  heard  of  the  blackbird  atta.king  winter  Pears  on 
the  trees  ;  Apples  and  Plums,  even  those  on  the  walls,  have  not 
escaped  molestation.  For  Strawberry  beds  one  Somerset  gardener 
found  coloured  flags  a  good  bird  scare  ;  another,  by  fixing  up  some 
wire  netting  around  his  beds,  so  that  they  could  not  reach  the  beds 
without  flying  over  it,  and  having  a  chair  and  gun  close  by,  managed 
by  a  little  early  morning  effort  to  effect  a  saving  of  his  fruit.  In  this 
instance,  however,  it  must  be  said  that  his  garden  was  not  surrounded 
by  woods,  and  his  Strawberry  beds  not  sc  ittered  about  the  garden,  as 
is  often  the  case. 
The  cry  raised  by  non-fruit-growing  bird  loverB  that  these  take 
fruit  because  of  thirst  is  a  very  foolish  and  unqualified  one,  because 
so  often  there  are  natural  water  sources  in  or  near  gardens  from  which 
they  can  easily  obtain  drink.  I  have  myself  tried  the  plan  advanced 
by  these  bird  advocates  of  placing  water  in  suitable  receptacles  for 
their  use,  but  it  did  not  by  any  means  diminish  their  lruit-eating 
propensities.  Whatever  good  may  be  done  by  these  particular  birds, 
it  is  much  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  damage  done  in  the  fruit 
time,  and  certainly  they  deserve  to  be  “  struck  off  the  rolls  ”  among 
those  that  are  scheduled  for  protection. — S.  W. 
