The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-06-29 00:00:00

GRJLENHOUSI. PITI, AND FRAME&

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In all gardens where there is a greenhouse, the tempera-
ture in which during the winter months is kept up to
50. or 55., preparations should be made at once for
providing a stock of zonal pelargoniums for dowering
during that time Spring struck cuttings of any free-
dowering sorts, should be transferred at once into 33.aised
pote, using a fairly rich compost Stand the plants ou a
of athwi in • sunny position, keep them regulerir
stopped to encourage • bushy habit. have the blooms
regularly picked off; let them want not for water during
hot, dry weather; and they will do all that is required of
them.
PLOWIR GLADIN.
Climbing plants on walls, pillars, ec., are now growth
fast, and their training and tying in should be attended
to in time, or the process of disentangling them will be
tedious Rowe and clematises will be all the better for •
good surface dressing of well-rotted manure, or • liberal
application of some stimulant in • liquid form. The
clematis is a very gross feeder, and maims • handsome
return for liberal treatment If the ninntlai out is
completed, let the beds be carefully hoed at rsquent
intervals, and shrubbery borders should also have • good
hoeing at this time.

HARDT FRUIT .1140 TIGITABLI GAILDLY.
The showery weather has provided an excellent oppor-
tunity for planting all kinds of winter stuff, and it is to
be hoped that full advantage ham been taken of it, for
however much such plants may be watered after being
planted in dry weather, they never start so freely, or do
so well subsequently, as those which have the benefit of
warm showers to begin with. The earliest planted celery,
and indeed all pleats that have a good hold of the soil,
should receive abundant supplies of liquid manure, given
while the ground is moist; stimulents given at such a
time being far more beneficial la their action than when
applied while the ground Is dry.
COUCH.

If a field is thoroughly overran with couch. I see no
bettor way than killing it in the sun; this oan easily be
done if the plough is rightly handled, but if the land is
badly ploughed small bite of couch will be let t at the
bottom, and these will be enough to plant the whole field
&Pim Repeated ploughing in dry weather, and the con-
stant use of other implements so as to expose all parts of
the soil, will in time kill every bit of couch. But the
general practice is to leave here and there a little bit alive,
which will cost great labour and expense again in • Ter/
short time; to avoid this care must be taken to have every
bit killed. A field thus cleaned will be rightly cultire
afterward, continue No long a time, but to insure this the
headlands and outsides from which the couch generally
spring must be watched, and an extra ploughing given in
dry weather, even before the stooks are removed, it time
can be spared. Care should be taken also that the drill
and harrows do net take the couch from the outside into
the field again ; when little bits do show themselves, time
is well spent by forking these to the surface, and U the
weather is wet removing them ; this can be done in spring
between the rows of potatoes, beans, turnips, hc. Also in
autumn it is well to have the land looked over, and every
bit of couch, together with duckweed, dug up and taken
away. Another way of almost totally destroying couch,
and every other weed that multiplies from its roots, is
never to let it have any top during summer, nor even to
approach the surface of the ground; this can be done by
ploughing early, and then broedsharing the land about
once • week. If this course is followed through the whole
of summer the destruction of couch, thistle., he., will be
surprising to witness —PADDISON, In Agrteulturat Gazette.

THE SHOOTING OF WHEAT.
Nearly 20 years' observation in the county of Dorset has
shown that June 12 may confidently be looked to to supply
some shot ears of autumneown wheat, It may be that
this year they are few, but occasionally whole fields with
us have shot before this time. This year the scanty
amount of shot ears on the 12th were very rapidly
augmented by some gentle showers and warm nights, so
that while we are writing on the 16th, • whole field is
fairly shot, and looking highly promising. While on the
subject of wheat it may be well to glance at the prospects
of the wheat crop for 1880, and we would first remark that
from the difficulty which was everywhere experienced in
getting good new seed from the crop of the disastrous and
ever memorable 18714, there was great reason to fear that
the crop of this year would be unfavourable. There was
then no wonder that on coming up the present wheat
crops should be weak and spindly, and so it remained
during a very severe winter, in which little protection was
afforded by snow. The unusually dry season of April and
May, however, exerted • beneficial effect upon the wheat,
as it checked the slug which here and there was very
destructive to the young plant. Then, as the plants began
to tiller, they gained in strength, and it is cheering to
note that this tillermg has done much to mend up what at
one time threatened to be a very poor crop indeed. At
the present moment, then, wheat is looking unexpectedly
well, it is strong and healthy, and of • fine colour, and its
ears are shooting out boldly and well, and all that is now
wanting to ensure a tolerable crop will be flne weather for
its flowering. A fine haymaking season is just the one for
benefitting the wheat, as, unless the important operation
of fecundation be aided by dry, warm weather and
welcome sunshine, • poor, starved grain (resulting in too
much tail, and consequent diminution of head corn) is •
certain result; and this was so to such an extent last year
that many • crop in this district was less than live sacks
an acre, weighing 551 k the bushel, in fields where the
yield in a fine season has been 10 sacks, weighing as
much as tillb, the bushel. At present, matters look
gloomy in the South; so little sub and constant drizzle
are retarding the haymaking, and it is not what we should
prefer for aiding the fecundation of the wheat crop. It is
thus that the uncertainty of the weather becomes a
hindrance to the farmer, affecting, indeed, the better
farmer more than the poorer one. While, then, we
confess that we have been perfectly astonished to notice
how inferior seed may come forward in a line spring
season, and how nature can mend up poordooking wheat.
better than can the farmer, even with re-sowing, yet we
confess that this very uncertainty, from having been
intensified for seine few years, has made the land less
productive, even under the highest farming; and
consequently, at the present moment, farming cannot be
said to be paying its expenses, • condition of toinjis which
seem. to us to call for an improved arrangement in the
matter of rent, either by a corn rent or otherwise, as it can
hardly be met by a present in the shape of a return of ld
per cent, up n the rental, which is but • poor return for
the loss of £l,ooo—a.