64 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



put down all the items I liave paid for worthless strains — worthless, 

 indeed, they proved, even when assured I was purchasing the finest 

 strains in the world. However, I have at last secured the right one, 

 as last season fully proved by a most beautiful and unmistakable 

 bloom. Louis the Sixteenth has held considerable pretensions, if its 

 price could command them to a place on the bed of every respectable 

 grower. But I never saw a good bloom of it — being always flamed, 

 and always dirty in consequence. It is now pretty generally discarded, 

 I believe, on account of its discoloured bottom, although at one time 

 it was considered cheap at twenty guineas. There are growers at 

 present who can boast of possessing a pure strain in the feathered state, 

 and who state it to be the finest feathered Bybloemen in cultivation. 

 It is of Dutch origin, I believe, and may have figured amongst those 

 varieties which are mentioned as having been bought and sold as 

 bargains at quite fabulous prices. I am intending, in a future paper 

 — that is, should the Editor be persuaded to admit this rambling effu- 

 sion — to advocate the raising of seedlings more generally than at pre- 

 sent ; but I would not for a moment desire to raise the expectations of 

 those who may be persuaded to make the attemj)t, that they are likely 

 to obtain such extraordinary sums as the people of Scotland realised for 

 their seedlings during the Tulipomania of 1634. In one instance, 

 a Bizarre named Viceroy was sold for a sum equal to £250 ; and we 

 find recorded Semper Augustus at more than twice that sum ; whilst 

 Admiral Leifken and Admiral Van der Eyck are more modestly 

 valued at £125. 



When we read of Sir Thomas Gresham drinking a diamond of great 

 value, dissolved in a glass of wine, to the health of Queen Elizabeth 

 on the occasion of her opening the Royal Exchange, we find him en- 

 tirely outdone in extravagance by the sailor who munched up with 

 his breakfast of a herring the root of the celebrated Semper Augustus, 

 valued at the time at three thousand florins, and which no doubt 

 proved more delicious than Sir Thomas's glass of wine. 



Omicron. 



INSECTS. 



If any one were to calculate the labour and expense incurred in one 

 year in combating those insect pests and diseases which beset the 

 gardener in every department of the garden, it would be found to be 

 a very large item, indeed, of the general expenditure. And it is a 

 question of serious import to the gardener, whether all the scraping, 

 scrubbing, painting, &c., which has for so long been considered an 



