OTAGO GARDENERS' CALENDAR FOR SEPTEMBER.

Otago Witness, Issue 823, 6 September 1867, Page 14

OTAGO GARDENERS' CALENDAR FOR SEPTEMBER.

Kitchen Garden. — The wet weather during the last months when moßt of 'the principal crops of vegetables should have been sown, has interfered -seriously with this work, and no time is now to be lost. Still, in districts where the rains yet f ill, it will be better to defer sowing, than ti touch the earth while it is saturated with moisture. Sow onions and leeks in

a rich light earth, which should have been mamired in autumn, and laid up in ridges during the winter, to soften. It should now be levelled, and dug small, and well mixed : sow the seeds regularly, cover lightly with a fine soil, and if the land is not strong and loamy, tread ii all over lightly with your feet, then rake it smooth. Shallots and garlic should now be planted. Put them in good ground, four inches from plant to plant, and a foot row from row. Sow carrots and parsnips in a light deep soil where well rotted manure has been dug in very deep — rows twelve inches apart. Sow a good crop of peas and broad beans, but not in a soil that has been lately heavily manured, as they are apt to grow all haulm. Dwarf peas, two inches apart, and two and a half or three feet from row to row. Broad beans, three inches apart, in drills a yard asunder. Sow rhubarb seed in drills two feet apart, by one inch in depth ; plants of the small variety being thinned, when well up, to a foot apart, and of the large to eighteen inches. The soil cannot be too rich or too deep. Sow beet in deep rich roil, the seed having been soaked for twenty-four hours. Rows eighteen inches or two feet apart, the plants to be singled from eight to ten inches apart when in the second leaf. Sow lettuce, radish, turnips, mustard, and cress ; also, cabbage, cauliflower, &c. Plant early potatoes, and transplant cabbage, cauliflower, and pot herbs.

Fruit Garden. — There is now no time to be lost in completing the work of transplanting and pruning. The holes for fruit trees, where the soil is not very good, should be dug out six feet square, and three feet deep, and then filled in with the best of loam. Over-planting of trees in small gardens is often the cause of failure in their subsequent management.

Flowes . Garden. — Plant out shrubs and hardy flowering plants, and sow all hardy seeds in the open grounds. Thin out former sowings, and transplant. Plant bulbs and rooted cuttings. Early in the month is a suitable time for the planting of roses, fuchsias, dahlias, hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, pinks, carnations, &c.

Torpedo Experiments. — Some interesting torpedo experiments were made at Chatham on the 18th, with results exceedingly satisfactory, as showing the enormously destructive power possessed by this new and, until recently, comparatively unknown agency. In the experiments made some time since at Chatham, under the direction of Mr Beardsley, who was at the head of the torpedo department of the army during the American civil war, the torpedoes were fired by percussion, and possessed the fatal defect of being equally destructive to both friendly and hostile ships, and consequently sealing a harbor or xiver against vessels of all kinds. The torpedo experimented upon on the 18th by the Royal Engineers is fired by means of the voltaic battery, and consequently its destructive powers are controlled from the shore. The explosion is unerringly made at the right moment. The torpedoes being completely submerged, with nothing to indicate their position, the exact spot in the harbour where each lies concealed is ascertained, with mathematical accuracy, by means of bearings and cross-angles taken from various positions, the result being that although the passage of a harbour may be thickly studded with any number of torpedoes, friendly vessels would proceed in and out with safety,' while the moment a hostile step attempted the entrance the torpedo would be fired with fatal exactitude. Instead of laying the torpedoes down in the.harbor, the experiments made on the 18th wore carried out on the field works, with results in all respects similar to those which would have taken place in the harbor. About a dozen charges, representing as many torpedoes, were laid in different parts of the field works, each charge being connected with the voltaic batteries by concealed wires. A number of men were then selected and .ordered, in various directions over the works, each man for the occasion supposed to represent a vessel. Observations' during this time were being taken, and • the instant a man apprusiched and was over what was supposed to ' be a torpedo the fuse was tired, care, of course, being taken. that tfle explosion should prove harmless. In this manner the whole of the charges were, fired, while in every instance they were exploded with unerring exactness at the instant the man's foot was on that part . of the ground beneath which ' the charged fuse was concealed. There was but > one opinion expressed by General Sir John Burgoyne. and the officers who witnessed the experiment, that with a powerful ageny of this kind in. our hands the defences of our naval ports and har-, bours would be effectually provided for, irrespective of granite and armour-plated batteries.