82 THE FliOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. [ April, 



A. SESQUiPEDALE* {Madagascar). — Of all the species in cultivation, this must 

 certainly be considered the noblest and the most curious in structure, although 

 the spur is hardly a foot and a half long, as its specific name would imply. This 

 plant grows from a foot to nearly three times that height, and bears closely 

 an-anged dark bluish-green foliage, from the axils of which the stout flower- 

 spikes are produced. These spikes bear from two to four great waxy flowers, 

 which are often seven to eight inches across ; when they first open they are 

 greenish, but eventually turn to a waxy white, and like most of the other species, 

 are perfumed very strongly at night. A well grown plant of this superb species 

 is a noble object for exhibition, or valuable for choice cut flowers. It lasts 

 about three weeks in perfection. Three or four plants of this species, and a like 

 number of A. eburneum, have lately (January) been flowering very profusely 

 with Mr. Mitchell, gardener to Dr. Amsworth, of Lower Broughton. — F. "W. 

 BuEBiDaE, Fairfield Nurseries., Manchester. 



NAILING versus WIRED WALLS. 



|FTER close observation, and carefully weighing the advantages which each 

 of these systems possesses, I have come to the conclusion that the old- 

 fashioned nailing is the best. This conviction has been gradually forced 

 upon my mind through the frequent recurrence, within the last dozen 

 years, of disastrous spring frosts, that have repeatedly disappointed the reasonable 

 hopes of many a careful Peach-grower. The advantages of Nailing, on a sharp 

 frosty night, whilst the trees are in bloom or after they have set, and by which the 

 shoots are made to lie in absolute contact with the bricks, cannot fail to have 

 been observed by anyone interested in these matters ; but with me it was more 

 apparent last spring than before. In common with the greater part of the 

 kingdom, we experienced in this locality a frost that scattered destruction right 

 and left, just when the Peach-bloom was fully open, and from which few escaped. 

 So far as my own observation, through the season, went, I did not see a single 

 tree on a wired wall with a dozen fruit upon it. 



We had here a good crop on all our trees, except two of Teton de Venus (a 

 favourite late Peach with me, and one that is not sufficiently weU known), but 

 four-fifths of the flowers that escaped the frost were produced on the side of the 

 shoots next the wall, and were in absolute contact with the bricks, so much so 

 that we had to go over the whole of the trees and loosen and re-nail a great 

 portion of the bearing wood, so as to give the fruit room to swell. I have no 

 doubt I speak within the mark when I say, that we had not fifty Peaches or 

 Nectarines that were not produced on shoots that were in absolute contact with 

 the wall. The trees are partially spurred by summer jDinching, but I did not see 

 a single blossom that escaped on the spurs. This, it will be said, is nothing new, 

 and only what always occurs more or less in similar seasons. I am aware that it is 

 so, but the advocates of the wire system seem to lose sight of the fact. The loss 



* For the accompanying figure of this plant, taken from a specimen exhibited by W. Terry, Esq., of 

 Fulham, we are indebted to the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



