46 THE FLOBIST AND POMOLOGI3T. [ February, 



THE GLADIOLUS IN 1868. 

 CHEEEFULLY sit down to give our floral friends a short resume of my 

 doings -with the Gladiolus for the year just closed, feeling hopeful that the 

 interest in this most beautiful of autumn flowers may continue steadily to 

 increase, as it has done for some years. In my notes at the close of 1867 I 

 expressed a belief that my habit of planting very early, and covering deeply 

 (6 inches), was a mistake. In 1868 I adopted a totally different system with 

 the chief portion of my stock, and I think I am justified in saying with 

 complete success, so far as success was possible in the very hot year 1868. 



I planted my five best beds, of 100 bulbs each, at the end of the third week 

 in February, in rich fresh loam, intermixed with about one-fourth of the veiy 

 heavily manured soil of the previous year, covering the bulbs two inches. This 

 was very different from the deep planting of previous years, and I am of opinion 

 it will be found better practice. The green shoots began to show, thick and 

 strong, early in April, and when about one-half were well up, I gave a dressing 

 of one inch of the same soil, and one inch more about the end of May. I com- 

 menced watering about the middle of May, and continued to do so in moderation 

 every evening all through the season, up to the time of our exhibitions, about 

 the end of August. This, and a liberal mulching of well-rotted manure in July, 

 kept my stock alive and well, in the face of the great heat of last summer. The 

 main bloom came early ; the spikes were less tall than usual ; the colouring of 

 the flowers was, all through, more brilliant, and, I may safely add, more evanes- 

 cent, than I ever remember to have observed before. The bulbs were ripe early, 

 and took up large and in prime condition, generally ; the quantity of spawn was 

 greatly in excess of any year I ever remember ; while seed was plentiful, and 

 ripened early, and in fine condition. Such of my readers as are growers of the 

 Gladiolus will observe a marked difference in the foregoing, on several points, 

 from the results of preceding years. The past year was a bad one for shallow 

 planting, and where it was possible to succeed moderately in 1868, the chances 

 of obtaining a fine bloom in ordinary seasons by the same course of action will 

 be greatly increased. I have said my bulbs took up well, — large, and good and 

 dry. Their average depth from the surface, before being taken out of the ground, 

 was not more than an inch, the soil having been gradually washed away by the 

 incessant waterings. I had all placed in boxes, made specially for them, like 

 those for Tulips, on a larger scale, by the middle of October, and I left them out 

 for a month, lying on a Tulip bed, with the canvas over them whenever rain came. 

 When I got them into the house, and had leisure to go over them to clean them, 

 I found fully as many bulbs as usual dead, shrivelled up, and utterly worthless, 

 and this in many cases, as my note-book tells me, where the growth had been fine, 

 and the spike or spikes of bloom splendid. This is a heavy blow to young 

 beginners. I know several friends whom I have induced to order 50 or 100 

 bulbs to begin with, and whose little stocks I have supplemented with a few of 



