October 14, 1869. ] 



JOtJRNAX OF HORTICtJLTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



greens. There is something positively distasteful in the same- 

 ness, the uniformity, the repetition one meets with at flower 

 shows. Some plants come over and over again, looking just the 

 game ; it needs only a slight stretch of fancy to think the Pelar- 

 goniums are the very same plants that stood in the same place 

 the year before, perhaps a little fuller in bloom, or requiring a 

 few more supports, a greater care in management lest the shaky 

 petals should fall away, and the leggy branches be too much 

 revealed. AVe hear of' new varieties, but they come not to our 

 pro\-iucial shows, not even as cut blooms, which would be most 

 interesting to many, who have neither money nor time to run 

 up to the great shows of the metropolis. I think Orchids, with 

 their dried bulbs and stems, and ungainly shoots, and speaking 

 liowers, ever resist the gardener's taming process, growing after 

 their own fashion, and retaining even under the highest cul- 

 tivation, a certain rare wild beauty, which never loses its 

 attraction." 



'' We could not get up a great show of Orchids alone. I know 

 of old, they drew you against your wiU to the very shows you 

 ab»3e." 



"Certainly not, Frank," replied bis brother, "very unde- 

 sirable if you could, for it would not pay ; it takes a high stage 

 of culture to find real pleasure in gazing upon Orchids, more 

 than the great bulk of visitors to flower shows possess. But you 

 could offer prizes for smaller specimen plants grown in a more 

 natural form, with fewer, nay without any, green-painted sticks 

 — an outrage, as they undoubtedly are, upon good taste and 

 skilled growth, for the best of all work is that where the worker 

 is lost. AYhen hundreds, nay thousands, might come in to com- 

 pete, poor curates and working doctors like myself have a chance 

 — possessors of small lioiises and unheated pits, in which the 

 prize-taking monsters would be out of all proportion ; and then 

 the poor man-of-all-work, who must tend his mare, and milk his 

 cow, and weed his garden, might possibly after all realise his 

 ambitious hopes and become a prize-taker, without having the 

 pleasint cup of success dashed aside on his return by the sight 

 of neglected work." 



" I suppose, Harry, you would make it so easy to win a prize, 

 th»t everybody could receive one ?" 



" I would make it a possibility, which at present it is not. I 

 would bring it in many of its arrangements within the reach of 

 busy, hard-working, practical men. There are many such gar ■ 

 denors about small villa residences in the neighbourhood of large 

 towns, possesied of a considerable amount of knowledge and 

 skill, and often fired with a laudable desire to try their luck in 

 prize-taking." 



" I do no"t wonder, Harry, it is the hit of fire that keeps them 

 alive, that breaks the dull monotony of their existence." 



" To the danger of striking out a less pleasant kind of fire. All 

 Tory well if a man has the time and the means, if the thing ii 

 not 10 far beyond his reach but that he may fairly hope to win 

 it ; but if a man's hands are full he should not try to grasp 

 more, lest he lose the needful substance reaching out for the 

 pleasant shadow. To me there appears an absurdity in the little 

 dark lean-to, like my own across the garden, competing with a 

 larje span-roof all light and air ; that is why I had rather my 

 Bian had nothing to do with flower shows, for all his labour can 

 but end in heartache and disappointment. When committees 

 offer prizes for plants of one or two year*' growth, then my 

 cr»»k{ng may possibly blossom into an enthusiasm even sur- 

 paming my gardener's ; but I cannot give up my house to large 

 show plantt with their detrimental shaio over younger and 

 smaller, and yet in my eyes more beautiful plants." 



" Well, after all, Harry, I am afraid you would make it too 

 easy to win a prize ; you bring down the standard rather than 

 lift up to it." 



" I would bring the standard within the reach of the mul- 

 titude, and 80 increase the interest, and most certainly, Frank, 

 the returns. It will come to it by-and-by. In flower show", as 

 in CTerything, we weary of the old, and look out eagerly for the 

 new." — Maud. 



LADYBIRDS. 

 I HAVE been greatly troubled with aphis this season, par- 

 ticularly on Melons and Cuonmbers. I fumigated to such an 

 extent that the plants succumbed before the fly did, and I con- 

 sidered my case hopeless, and determined to try no more. 

 Having heard of the lady-birds feeding on aphides, and notic- 

 ing one of them on a Cucumber frame, I took a leaf with some 

 aphides on it, placed the lady-bird in the midst of them, and 

 watched the result. No sooner had the little creature recovered 



its equilibiinm than it set to work and devoured the insects as 

 fast as it could swallow them, and several not being within 

 reach of its mouth, they were hooked towards it with its "fore 

 paw," in the same manner that a cat will do with a mouse. 

 " Here, then," said I, " is an end to all my troubles ; no more 

 trouble with tobacco now." 



I instantly set to work, and with the assistance of one of my 

 men in a very short time collected upwards of a hundred lady- 

 birds ; these were quickly transferred to a three-light Cucum- 

 ber frame, and it was astonishing to see the rapidity with 

 which they dispersed themselves among the leaves in search 

 of their favourite food. In a few days not an aphis was to be 

 seen, and when the frame was opened during the day, I found 

 occasionally some of the lady-birds making their exit, no doubt 

 to find a fresh field for operation. The plants soon recovered, 

 their health, and are now succeeding well. A few lady-birds 

 still remain, and seem to be very happy in their new quarters. 



I tried the same experiment in a small Cucumber house, but 

 not exactly with the same results; the lady-birds disappeared as 

 fast as I put them in, and I was not long in discovering that the 

 depredator was a fine large toad I had kept there for another 

 purpose. I need scarcely add that he was soon removed to 

 another department, and, perhaps, at a future time I may call 

 upon him. — G. S. 



THE CHEROKEE ROSE. 



The legend of the Cherokee Rose is as pretty as the flower 

 itself. An Indian chief, of the Seminole tribe, taken prisoner 

 of war by his enemies, the Cherokees, and doomed to torture, 

 fell BO seriously ill that it became necessary to wait for his 

 restoration to health before committing him to the fire. And 

 as be lay prostrated by disease in the cabin of the Cheroliee 

 warrior, the daughter of the latter, a young, dark- faced maid, 

 was his nurse. She fell in love with the young chieftain, and, 

 wishing to save his life, urged him to escape ; but he would not 

 do so unless she would flee with him. She consented. Yet 

 before they had gone far, impelled by soft regret at leaving her 

 home, she asked leave of her lover to return, for the purpose of 

 bearing away some memento of it. So, retracing her footsteps, 

 she broke a sprig of the white T^se which was climbing up the 

 poles of her father's tent, and, preserving it during her flight 

 through the wilderness, planted it by the door of her new home 

 among the Seminoles. And from that day this beautiful flower 

 has always bsen known, between the capes of Florida and 

 throughout the Southern States, by the name of the Cherokee 

 Rose. 



It is of rapid growth, and soon forms a hedge as dense as it 

 is beautiful. It runs along the roadsides likewise, converting 

 roads and fences into thick banks of leaves and flowers. It 

 climbs to the tops of high trees, hanging its festoons among the 

 branches, or letting them droop gracefully to the ground. In 

 fact, this showy wild flower, with its five white petals and centre 

 of gold, imbedded as it is in so many brightly- shining leaves of 

 green, gives almost a bridal aspect to the spring landscape, and 

 well-nigh makes all the citizens' cottages look like homes o£ tbe 

 poets. — {American Horticulturist.) 



PORTRAITS OF PLANTS, FLOWERS, AND 

 FRUITS. 



Drosophtllum LnsiTANiccM (Portuguese Y«IIow Sundew). 

 Nat. ord., Droa«rac«ai. Linn., OotandriaPentagynia.— A native 

 of Portugal, Spain, and Manrikania. Flowera yellow.— (Bo«. 

 Maq., t. 5796.) 



Mackata bulla (Natal Maokaya). Nat. ord., Aoanthaceae. 

 Linn., Diandria Monogynia.— Native of the bed of the Tongat 

 River, Natal. A beautiful shrub with delicate, pendant, white 

 flowers veined with crim»»n. — (Ibid., t. 5797.) 



Aeridbs japonicdm (Japanese AeriJes). Nat. ord., Orchid- 

 acea. Linn., Gynandria Monandria. — Native of Japan. 

 Flowers white, blotched with purple. — (Ibid., t. 5798.) 



Neeteea deieessa (Depressed Nertera). Nat. ord., Babl- 

 ace.-B. Linn., Tetrandvia Monogynia. — Dr. Hooker says— 

 " Thongh when in flower one of the most insignificant of 

 flowering plants, when covered with its translucent orange 

 fruit, which it keeps for a long period, this is one of the most 

 charming of roekwork plants. It is a native of the bleak cold 

 Antarctic mountains throughout the southern hemisphere, 

 where I have gathered it in Lord Auckland and Campbell 

 Islands, the Falkland Islands, and Cape Horn ; it also inhabits 



