March SI, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



241 



but have confined myself to those which were sent out last 

 season ; for notwithstanding the taunts that are thrown out 

 year after year that no advance has been made, there can be 

 no question that it does take place ; and although the improve- 

 ment may seem slight, yet we have but to compare the pro- 

 ductions of one season with those of a few seasons back, and the 

 improvement will be at once seen. — D., Deal. 



WINTER-BLOOMING PLANTS. 



In winter a gardener has so many calls upon him for bouquets, 

 and for cut flowers and plants for the decoration of the dinner 

 table, that it is of the greatest importance that he should have 

 plants that will produce flowers and foliage in abundance at 

 that season. It is not my iutention to notice Azaleas, Ca- 

 mellias, bulbous and other plants, the value of which is well 

 known, bat plants which when well grown, and mixed with 

 those just mentioned, add greatly to the beauty of the con- 

 servatory or stove. I grow no plants but such as flower freely, 

 and have sterling qualities to recommend them. 



DiiECEAiipiA Ejezliana rosea. — This was introduced from 

 Vera Cruz. It blooms very freely, even on plants a few inches 

 high. I once saw a shelf of two hundred little plants just 

 potted off, and all of them were showing bloom. It differs from 

 the majority of its congeners in its erect stem. I keep my plants 

 continually pinched back in order to form bushy specimens. 

 Its foliage is very beautiful ; the first time I saw it, it reminded 

 me very much of our Chestnut trees in a young state. The 

 large rosy bracts are extremely handsome, and are produced in 

 great profusion all the winter. In summer I pick off the 

 flowers to encourage growth. My plant has been plunged in 

 cocoa-nut refuse, and during the autumn I took up several 

 young seedlings, so that a good stock of plants can soon be ob- 

 tained. It is very effective upon the dinner table, under the 

 chandelier. 



I grow it in fibrous peat and loam, with a liberal sprinkling 

 of silver sand and good drainage of charcoal. In this soil it 

 thrives well, and soon makes a specimen. 



Hoteia (Spiilea) japonica. — This is an excellent plant for 

 early forcing, its erect shining green foliage, and numerous 

 graceful panicles of white inflorescence giving it an elegant ap- 

 pearance. It is perfectly hardy. I plant about three dozen in 

 a nursery bed a foot or bo square, and do not allow them to 

 bloom during the summer ; they then form fine crowns. These 

 can be so managed as to furnish two or three successions of 

 plants from October till April. I take up a dozen at a time, 

 pot them in rich fibrous loam in 7-inch pots, and place them 

 either in a Cucumber house or stove. It is best to force the 

 plants gently at first. Hoteia japonica is one of the easiest plants 

 I ever had to force, and one of the best, and I have had as many 

 as fifteen spikes of flowers on one plant. It is valuable as a 

 decorative plant, as well as for cut blooms, and is a general 

 favourite. When the beauty of the flowers is over, the plants 

 are turned out of the pots, a spade run through the centre of 

 each, and the divisions planted out in the nursery. 



Schizostilis cocctnea. — This is a hardy plant, with spikes 

 of brilliant crimson, cup-shaped flowers, very much resemb- 

 ling those of the Gladiolus. When in flower, it is a highly de- 

 corative plant for the orchard houBe or conservatory. I have 

 had plants from which I have kept cutting flowers from Oc- 

 tober till March. It requires no forcing, for as soon as it is 

 taken up and placed in a house, it begins to bloom. I plant 

 out some strong plants in the nursery in spring, and the only 

 attention they require is to keep them free from weeds, and I do 

 not allow them to bloom. The plant only requires to be seen 

 in flower to be generally grown. — F. P. L. 



THE FIG AND ITS CULTURE. 

 In a paper on this subject at page 205, the writer observes 

 that " the great difficulty to contend against is over-luxuriance 

 of growth, arising chiefly from the influences of soil and climate, 

 but somewhat, also, under the control of the pruner." Agree- 

 ing as I do with this teaching, I cannot but feel some regret 

 that bo much stress is laid on the correct pruning of the shoots, 

 while any attention or care for the roots is quite overlooked. 

 From my own experience in Fig culture, I am quite sure that 

 Fig trees planted in deep rich soil cannot be kept in, or even 

 brought to, a state of fruitfulness by simply thinning the shoots. 

 I have seen this tried year after year with precisely the same 

 results, and there were extremely robust shoots, clothed with 



foliage of a proportionate size, but with very little fruit. The 

 effects of the thinning process were plainly visible in the greatly 

 increased vigour of growth imparted to the shoots that were left. 

 Very different is the appearance presented by such gross shoots 

 from that of the wood of a fruitful Fig tree ; firm and com- 

 pact in its texture, its medium-sized short-jointed growth pro- 

 claims to the experienced eye, that the even balance of vigour 

 is maintained between the roots and branches, which is of 

 primary importance in the culture of all fruit trees, and in none 

 more so than the Fig. 



The roots of a Fig tree growing in a deep rich soil must there- 

 fore be kept well in hand, and this can easily be done, either by 

 an annual pruning, or by the formation of an impenetrable 

 concrete not deeper than 18 inches under the surface. The 

 latter method is the preferable one, for by adopting a concrete 

 bottom, and so keeping the roots in a shallow soil, an occasional 

 examination and cutting back of any roots found rambling 

 beyond the concrete are all that is required. — Edward Luck- 

 hurst, Egerton House Gardens, Kent. 



BLUE HYDRANGEAS. 



Having read several articles lately about blue Hydrangeas, I 

 send the following remarks, thinking they may be interesting 

 to some of your readers. 



It is now upwards of twenty years since I first saw a blue 

 HydraDgea, and that was a fine old plant about 2 or 3 feet in 

 diameter. It stood in a mixed bed, called an American bed, 

 containing Rhododendrons, Azileas, Arbutuses, Evergreen 

 Oaks, &c. — a kind of bed often met with then, but seldom now. 

 On first seeing the plant I thought it a new variety, but a garden 

 labourer, with whom I was at work, told me it was the old 

 Hydrangea, but the soil caused the difference in the colour. 

 When he first saw i; he thought it was a new sort, and he had 

 some offsets from it for his little flower garden at home, but 

 when they bloomed they were of a pink colour. The gardener 

 told him the peat soil was the cause of the difference, and after 

 tiking the plant up and replanting it in peat soil the colour was 

 blue, as with the parent plant. The peat in that part of the country 

 was dug from a neighbouring wood, was of a very dark colour, 

 and showed plenty of white grit like silver sand ; it was far 

 different from what I have met with since under the name of 

 peat. 



Having grown the common Hydrangea, and I may say with 

 some success, I will here state the treatment I have found suit 

 it best. 



I take cuttings in spring from the young growths as soon as 

 these are large enough, and put them in very thinly in a cut- 

 ting pot or pan. As soon as they are struck, which will be in 

 from two to four weeks, I pot the young plants in 3-inch pots, 

 and put them where they will have plenty of light and air, in 

 order that they may make that short and sturdy growth so 

 essential to render them fit for the dinner-table as well as the 

 conservatory. As soon as the pots are filled with roots the 

 plants should be shifted into larger pots, using some fibrous 

 loam and one-third rotten stable dung, with some broken char- 

 coal and a little silver sand. 



After shifting I place the plants in a cold frame, where they 

 will have plenty of sun and air to keep them sturdy and short- 

 jointed, and as soon as the pots are filled with roots some good 

 strong manure water may be given once or twice a-week. Afl 

 soon as the leaves begin to decay, water should be gradually 

 withheld, and in the following spring the pots should be top- 

 dressed, and the plants brought slowly into flower with plenty 

 of air and light, as it is on these that the good colour of the 

 heads depends. 



If the above directions be followed out, plenty of water 

 given, and the plants kept free from insects, they will amply 

 repay the little trouble bestowed upon them, both in the size 

 and continuance of their bloom. — A Subscribes, Lancashire. 



Alternation of Generation in Fungi. — M. Gauriel Rivet 

 records in the "Bulletin dela Societs Botanique de France" a 

 remarkable illustration of this phenomenon in some very in- 

 teresting observations on the " rust " of cereals. He finds 

 that the fungus which canses one of the common forms of 

 this disease, Puccinia graminis, will not reproduce itself, but 

 that if the spores are sown on the leaves of the common 

 Berberry, they give rise to the well-known orange spots of 

 jEcidium berberidis, generally considered as a fungus belong- 

 ing to an entirely different group. The spores of the jEeidium, 



