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THE VINERY.

AINTAIN a moist growing atmosphere and a temperature of 65 to 70 deg. at night, with a rise of 5 or 10 deg. during bright days. The house may be shut up between four and five o'clock in the afternoon-that is, if it faces south, as most vineries do. But if west, it must not be closed on bright days till 6 o'clock. Give 1 inch or more of ventilation at the top between six and seven in the morning, before the sun hits the house. Great evil is wrought in the way of scorching the leaves and injuring the Grapes, by allowing the sun to raise the temperature within the vinery, before any movement of the air is effected by ventilation. Tender, that is, fast growing, leaves fringed with delicate drops of water, like ropes of pearls, as the foliage of Vines in well managed vineries during the height of the growing season often will be, are readily scorched in a stagnant atmosphere. If it be gently agitated, the water is partially dried up and the danger of burning removed. A moist regimen is not only the best for fully developing the fruit, but likewise for preventing red spider, one of the greatest pests to inexperienced Vine growers. It can hardly establish itself in a genial atmosphere. Dry, hot air seems to develop, as it undoubtedly strengthens and multiplies, red spider. It appears on the under sides of leaves, in almost invisible hosts, and lives and fattens upon their nourishing juices. If the leaves exhibit reddish specks, partially hidden by a minute and almost invisible web of the most gossamer texture, be sure the spider is there, and hasten to smother it with dry sulphur, or, better still, choke it with sulphur fumes. The sulphur must on no account, however, reach the point of ignition, else it will destroy every leaf within the house. The safest way to apply it is to convert it into a thick paste with water, and smear the surface of the hot-water pipes with it. Then put a brisk fire on at night or during a dull day, and keep the house as close as possible while the strength of the sulphur is being carried by the heat with death-dealing power to the mischievous hosts of red-coated spiders. In adopting this mode of diffusion by the aid of flues, great care must be exercised not to overheat them, and the sulphur must not be applied to the hottest end, next the fire. On flues, danger may occur at a temperature far short of visible ignition, and the sulphur remedy is hardly a safe one to apply to flues or stoves by villa gardeners. On hot water pipes it can do no harm, and is the best remedy for the pests in question. But prevention is

the safer course, and by providing wet surfaces o path, borders, and walls, for the dry air to drink at, red spider will be unknown.

An excess of moisture must, however, be avoided, else the villa Grape-grower may call up or down a worse foe than red spider. It will be small gain to keep out spider if we let in Fungus or mildew. This shews itself in blotches on the leaves, and a black, spreading, dirty-looking dust, or mould, creeping over the bunches and berries. The moment it appears, or seems to appear, dust the spots or bunches with dry, fine sulphur, and paint the pipes the same as for spider. Keep the atmosphere dry at the same time, and this worst of all diseases, like the worst of all Vine pests, yields almost immediately to the sulphur remedy.

Continue to stop the side or fruit-carrying branches at each new leaf formed, and allow the leading shoots to ramble along without stopping. When they reach the top of the house, give them the run of the back wall. These strong growths generate equally strong roots, and do much good work in drawing up a supply of food within consuming range of the fast-swelling berries and in keeping up to a maximum standard the general stamina of the Vines. Before the end of the month, the growth of the Grapes will be completed, and next month the ripening process, and the treatment most conducive to the perfecting of the same will be described.

THE ORCHARD HOUSE.

The orchard house can hardly be kept too cool and open during the month. In consequence of this thorough ventilation, many amateurs are disappointed to find that the fruit from the orchard house trees are later in ripening than that on open south or west walls. But this is no disadvantage, but very often the reverse. The chief use of a cool orchard house is not to force the crop out of season, but to ensure a crop at any time. By guarding against the extremes of cold and heat, the blossoms and embryo fruits are protected, and the crops matured leisurely, but surely and well. By growing the largest and later sorts under glass, the orchard house fruit may be made to succeed the crops from warm walls, and add a month or six weeks to the end of the Peach season. Again, by growing early varieties, and giving less ventilation, the crops may easily be ripened a month or six weeks before the general crops on walls. Free ventilation is essential to the health of the trees and the certainty

of a crop. But its absolute amount will be largely regulated by the time when the fruit is wanted to be ripe. Nothing is easier than to retard fruit under glass by partial shading and constant thorough ventilation. Few things simpler than the forwarding of it—by the abolition of draughts, and the adoption of early closing. Pears or Apples, and Plum trees, if not previously removed outside, may now be arranged in sheltered, sunny quarters out of doors: so may be Cherries also that have been gathered, or all may still be left in the house. In that case, very free ventilation must be given to fully develop the flavour of Pears, and rather severe pinching back must be indulged in to hinder the trees from overcrowding, or smothering the other with their new growths.

Top dressings of rich composts or mulchings of rich manure may still be applied to heavily laden trees that push their roots through the surface in search of fresh food. And every watering during the swelling period should be of sewage or manure water. As soon, how. ever, as the ripening process begins, no more foul water must be given. The rule in these matters is first to develop size, then quality. Plenty of moisture at top and bottom is favourable to size, a tolerably dry atmosphere is essential to high flavour.

THE GLASS HOUSE.

Keep clean and cool, shade during bright sunshine to prolong the blooming season of Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, &c. Net the ventilating space, to exclude humble bees. Water with care, giving Fuchsias and late Pelargoniums clear manure water to enlarge the late bloom, and prolong the period of flowering. Sprinkle plants not in bloom, such as Camellias, Heaths, &c., finishing their growth with water. Remove the latter to shady places out of doors as soon as they have made their young wood. Heaths do best out of doors in summer. Young or free growing plants may now be shifted. Use only poor heath soil and silver sand for Heaths. This is different from the turfy peat, which, with fibrous loam in equal portions, is the chief mixture used by plant growers for all sorts and sizes of other plants. A useful rule in potting is, the larger the specimens the rougher the soil and the less sand, and vice versa.

Some of the earliest Pelargoniums may be removed out of doors as soon as they are done flowering. Towards the end of the month these may be cut down and converted into cuttings, to be inserted either in pots filled with light soil and surfaced with silver sand, or planted out on a small prepared border. Either way, insert the, cuttings firmly in firm ground. Consolidate the earth around them, and drive out the air by making the ground level with water, and leave them full in the sun until rooted. Water when dry, just as you would a rooted plant, only with more care and greater caution not to water to excess.

The space vacated by these early Pelargoniums should be forthwith filled up with specimens of zonal and variegated Pelargoniums, either in flower or advancing towards it, or with Balsams, Cocks

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combs, Celosias, Achimenes, Gloxinias, &c., from the hot pit or vinery.

Many almost fill the glass house during summer with Ferns, Palms, variegated Begonias, and other foliage plants. If possible, the house should be made beautiful at all seasons. Very often, where it is chiefly made a winter store for flower garden plants, it looks cold and bare throughout the summer. With a little care it might mostly be filled with sweetness, or wreathed with beauty, even though nothing better than Mignonette, night flowering Stocks, Jasmines, Convolvuluses, or other common things, were grown for that purpose. I have seen a capital effect produced by simply sowing and shifting into large pots a few of all the largest bedding plants at planting out time, and growing them on in the glass house.

PITS AND FRAMES.

·Hot Pits.-As soon as Cucumber plants have nearly filled their allotted spaces, stop every shoot at every leaf made. At the base of every leaf will be one or more fruits. It is not wise to allow too many fruits to swell at one time. Six in a light 5 feet by 31⁄2 or 4 feet is a fair average. Cut the fruit young if you wish for juicy crispness and sweetness. Water freely, and damp the leaves over every day about four o'clock, when you shut up.

Melons. Similar treatment will suit Melons. Only these do not go on bearing in succession as Cucumbers. Having secured, say six good fruits under a light, proceed to develop them to their full size, and ripen them perfectly. For the former, encourage a free healthy growth, and preserve as many leaves as can be fully exposed to the light. The leaves should be selected as close to the swelling fruit as possible, and all weak, lateral or side growths stopped at once. A moist-growing atmosphere should be maintained until the fruit has reached its full size. To ripen perfectly, gradually dry the air, and withhold water from the roots. The change must not be too sudden, else the plants will wither or die, the leaves scorch up, and the fruit ripen before its time. Also raise the fruit up from contact with the wet ground, or a brick or pot. It should not, however, be placed too close to the glass, and it is well to let the leaves partially overshadow it, else the sun may scald or burn, and so ruin it. Finally, as soon as it smells very fulsome, and begins to crack round the stem, cut it and keep in a room a day or two before eating. Melons should never be handled by the stalk, as if good for anything, that will instantly come off to the disfigurement of the fruit.

Cockscombs, Balsams, Celosias, Seedling Ferns, &c. Shift into larger pots, water freely, and encourage growth with a temperature of 70 deg. Propagate and grow on choice cuttings. Keep small Camellias or Azaleas close, to force a second growth.

Cold Pits.-Sow seeds of Cinerarias, Calceolarias, Chinese Primroses, for late flowering next spring. Shift small plants of Heartsease, Polyanthus, Pinks, Carnations, and sow more seeds of the same as they

ripen. Propagate Pinks, perpetual Carnations, Picotees, Phloxes, Pentstemons, Antirrhinums, Wallflowers, Rockets, and Auriculas, either by division or cuttings, and pinch in Chrysanthemums, and winter blooming Salvias, such as splendens, Gesneriflora and fulgens variegata.

THE FLOWER GARDEN,

Push forward growth by every available aid, such as watering with sewage, surface stirring of the soil, picking off each flower before it is fairly faded, or has had time to think of seed-bearing. The great object is first to get the ground covered with the plants. Few things look worse in summer time than bare earth. A free growth ensured, the second important point is almost sure to follow, that is, a rich harvest of blossom. If not, growth can be checked by witholding water, and other means. The most provoking thing about many flower garden plants is that they will flower first, if allowed, and grow afterwards. The result is a scant harvest of early flowers, and a full meal of rank shoots for the early frosts. We want as much as possible to reverse this order. Use all possible means to encourage early growth. Profuse and continuous flowering even into the beginning of winter is well nigh sure to follow. The plants need skilful culture, much care, and skilful training, for the first two months of their life out-of-doors. Afterwards, they can to a great extent take care of themselves. Of course, they must ever be kept free from weeds, fixed in their proper places, and pegged down, or tied up according to their habits, and the objects for which they are grown. Some may like wise need thinning or stopping. But these operations are simple and easy, compared to that of making stubborn or stunted plants grow freely, and occupy their allotted areas, filling them to repletion.

Hardy herbaceous plants should have their flowering shoots thinned and carefully tied. Few things deteriorate the quality of their flowers so much as the too common mode of tying up all the shoots they throw up from their root stools into one huge bundle like a Birch broom. By thinning the shoots of Phloxes, and such plants to from three to six, the spikes are much finer, and the effect more pleasing. The same rule holds good with Dahlias, Hollyhocks, and most other flowers. A good easy way of tying Carnations is to use corkscrew-looking wires for the purpose. If these are inserted early, and the growing points of the flower stalks introduced into the lower curves, the flower stems require no tying, and the effect is neat and dressy.

Make layers of Carnations and Picotees, take pipings of Pinks, and root them under Rendle's Protectors, or hand-lights. Complete the budding of Roses. Hunt for caterpillars and maggots, and soak such plants with sewage in dry weather. It can hardly be needful to add, mow short grass every week; sweep and roll gravel, likewise, once a-week at the longest, and see that neither weed, dead leaf, nor flower,

nor dirt of any kind, is seen within sight of the flower garden.

THE FRUIT GARDEN.

Vines. In many southern villa gardens Vines are grown on the villa or garden walls. The young shoots will now require attention. Where there is more wall to cover, let the leading shoots run as recommended in houses. In cases where the space is already covered, they can be stopped at five or six leaves above the fruit. All side shoots to be stopped at one leaf beyond the bunch. Those in exposed positions will need tying or nailing to the wall, else the first high wind will probably tear them off.

Peaches, Nectarines, and Plums.-Should the weather prove hot and dry, the size and quality o these fruits will be much improved by a daily washing with the garden engine or syringe, at from 5 to 7 P.M. This not only enlarges the fruit, endowing it with new life and vigour after the dust and heat of the day, but it cleanses, refreshes, and strengthens the leaves likewise. Moreover, if copiously syringed, the water not only refreshes the trees once, but twice assuredly, and it may be many times. It evaporates from leaf, wall, and ground surfaces, genializes, as it were, a local atmosphere for the trees in which they luxuriate, and thrive comparatively free from the surrounding aridity.

Attend to thinning shoots and fruits alike. The greatest dangers in fruit growing are an overcrowding of shoots and an overweight of fruit. The one weakens the trees by an extreme sub-division of its growing force, and the shutting out of the strengthening light by the darkening shadow of the branches, the other by sheer exhaustion. Leave no branch that cannot have light and space to grow without dooming its nearest neighbour to semi-darkness, and no frui that cannot have a sufficiency of food without robbing the one next to it.

These remarks are as applicable to Apples and Pears, as to the fruits named. Thin freely on cordons, pyramids, &c., if you wish to have fine fruit, that is providing the April frosts did not do it for you.

Stop the young wood on Apples, Pears, Cherries, &c., cutting or bending it back to three or four eyes from the base of the shoot. This removal of breastwood, as it is called, admits more light to the fruit, and often transforms the wood buds at the base of the stopped branch into fruit buds before winter. On walls, the young wood of Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, Plums, Cherries, &c., ought to be carefully tied into its proper place. Some, however, prefer leaving the young wood of Cherries growing out from the wall. It is useful as a buffer to keep the nets off the trees, when the birds, determined for a Cherry, fly with full momentum against the net to bring their open mouths within reach. Fruit buds seem also more plentifully manufactured, and greater strength thrown into the wood by this mode of leaving the wood free till the autumn.

Strawberries.-Copiously water and carefully protect from birds the late crops. Lay down runners for new plantations. Remove the runners and top-dress with rich manure those that have finished fruiting, and are to be left for another crop. Those condemned, dig down at once, and crop the land with winter Brocoli.

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to three or six shoots.

Gooseberries, Currants.—Remove breastwood carefully protect from the birds and gather ripe fruit. Beware of bruising it in the process of gathering, and see that everything that touches or comes near it, either in the garden or the store room, or in the transit from one to the other, is perfectly sweet and scrupulously clean.

THE KITCHEN GARDEN.

Sow, once or twice during the month, Peas, making the last sowing of all of Carter's First Crop. Sow also Turnips, Lettuces, Endive, Summer Spinach, Walcheren Brocoli, Horn Carrots, Coleworts, and Parsley. Plant Celery, Lettuces, Cauliflower, Savoys, Scotch Kale, and Brocoli, as more ground is cleared from early crops of Peas, Beans, and Potatoes. Some also plant some withered sets of the latter this month,

In dry weather, abundance of water ought to be given to growing crops, sewage, if come-at-able, but if not, then soft water; and if that also is beyond reach, spring water exposed to sun and air for at least twenty-four hours before being applied.

All vegetables should be gathered in a young and tender state. Though less bulky, they are so much better and pleasanter when crisp and sweet. And if crops, such as Peas and French Beans are gathered young, the plants yield a greater weight of food than if the produce was left till it neared maturity. In the latter case, we gather but one crop, in the former many, and as 'mony meikles mak' a muckle," the gross weight gathered would be greater by taking the produce young. While, as to quality, young vegetables, as everybody knows, are beyond compare superior to old.