September 10, 187i. ] 



JOUBNAL OF H0BTICDLX0R3 AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



220 



distinct in appearance from the epaciea usually cultivated. 

 C. DaviJiana, a new species allied to the above, is also in flower. 



Gauuera scabra is in line condition. It has attained a 

 diameter of Hi feet, with a height of feet. The leaves in 

 some oases are 4 ftet in breadth, and have petioles of the same 

 length. It has, perhaps, not been tried in this country as an 

 esculent. " It is, however, said to be valuable to the inha- 

 bitants of Conception, where it grows luxuriantly. They not 

 only prepare from it a cooling drink, which they consider 

 beneficial in fevers, but the fruit has a certain repute for tan- 

 ning leather, and the stems are used for tarts, for which pur- 

 pose they are said to be little inferior to Rhubarb, and, above 

 all, they are eaten raw after dinner with cheese and wine." — 

 {Gardeners' Chronicle.) A patch of Silene Sohaftais extremely 

 pretty. It has a neat but loose habit, grows about iachea 

 high, and is covered with rose-coloured flowers. It is a native 

 of the Caucasus, and quite hardy. 



Cotyledon spinosa is flowering on the rockwork. It is, 

 perhaps, better known as Umbilicus spiuosus, and has also 

 been called Sempervivum cuspidatum, under which name it is 

 sometimes cultivated. The flowers are pale yellow, produced 

 in a dense erect raceme. Offsets are formed freely, and when 

 very small may be pricked-out in pots or pans. It is very 

 nearly if not quite hardy. Native of Siberia, China, and Japan. 



there, but with about twenty trasses of blosfom to each plant. 

 I intend to leave some on to see thereeuU. I wonder whethci', 

 if one were to denude a couple of lines of thtir blossoms in 

 spring, one would have a chance of a crop from them in Sep- 

 tember.— D. F. J. K. 



STRAWBERRIES EARLY AND LATE, AND FOR 

 PRESERVING. 



Very many thanks to Messrs. Gloede and Radclyffe, and 

 also to "H.," for so kindly responding to my Strawberry 

 appeal. Cartainly I must have a wrong Oscar, as mine is a 

 very late variety. I really wish that one could impose a very 

 heavy fine on nurserymen for sending varieties untrue to name. 

 It is no reparation for the injury done to replace the plants by 

 true ones when told of the mistake, for a year is lost, and 

 often great inconvenience caused. I obtained, two years ago, 

 plants of Elton from an eminent London firm, and it turned 

 out to be another kind — more like Kitley's Goliath, and quite 

 a midseaiou variety. I hope I shall be more fortunate with 

 Bifleman, recommended by Mr. Gloede, which I have ordered. 

 Would he add to his kindness by informing me what London 

 firm has his Unser Fritz, as I do not see it in any of the 

 lists ? I doubt the wisdom of his advice tons to discard Black 

 Prince. I know of no Strawberry which developes so fine a 

 flavour when preserved, though it is quite possible that Roden's 

 Early Prolific, which I have just procured, may beat it as a 

 dessert fruit. I think I have Cockscomb true to name. It is 

 all he describes it to be, except that it does not with me reach 

 an enormous size. It is about tha same size as Frogmore 

 Pine ; as I said before, not nearly so large as Admiral Dundas, 

 but this only proves that the same Strawberry will alter ac- 

 cording to locality. For example. Brown's Wonder, so praised 

 by " H ," is here below contempt. With the highest culture 

 it produced only a few miserable, stunted, wizened, pale, tough 

 berries, and after three seasons' trial was thrown away. Vi- 

 comtesse Hcricart de Thury planted next to it was superb. 

 Though I did not count them, I am sure there were more than 

 a hundred berries on many of the plants. I know no Straw- 

 berry which gives so long-lasting a crop as the Vicomtesse. 

 My plantation of this, facing west, did not come in till I had 

 entirely gathered those in the south border. 



Will Mr. Radclyffe kindly tell me what his largest Cockscomb 

 ever weighed ? Must not " H." have, like me, a wrongly 

 named Strawberry y He speaks, or rather writes, of gathering 

 his last dish from Prince of Wales, but in Messrs. Carter's list 

 that variety is put down as an early one. 



I take this opportunity of asking some light about the most 

 prolific-bearing Strawberry I have. I received it from a neigh- 

 bour, who has had it these seven or eight years under the 

 name of Lady Carriugton. I have looked, last year and this, 

 through many lists, and have never seen that kind men- 

 tioned ; and what I have is so good that it seems impossible 

 that it should have passed out of the market. I feel inclined 

 to think it is Wond-r.'u', from what Mr. Radclyffe says of that 

 variety. It is a prodigious bearer, has rather a pine smack, is 

 more acid than British Queen, has an uncoloured tip, is gene- 

 rally wedge-shaped but sometimes conical, and its leaf-stems 

 are hirsute. I should be very glad to know whether it is 

 rightly named Lady Carrington or not. 



A great many of my Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury are 

 coming into blossom a second lime, not with a bloom here and 



I WAS rather taken aback on reading the Rev. W. F. Rid- 

 clyffo's advice to grow Wonderful for culinary purposes ; and 

 as I believe the only way in which Strawberries are so used is 

 by preserving, am I to conclude he means this ? If so, I de- 

 cidedly differ from him. Indeed, I do not know a variety I 

 would not recommend before it. I think it totally unfit for pre- 

 serving, aye, or to be grown in a garden at all, when wo have 

 so many kinds infinitely better in all respects, except, perhaps, 

 as a large cropper; in this quality, too, it is equalled by many 

 varieties which have valuable properties to recommend them. 

 What single point has it to quaUfy it for a culinary Straw- 

 berry ? It in any way Mr. Ridclyfle's Wonderful has turned 

 out so wonderfully good, I am disposed to think he is the only 

 one who has found it so. I have never met with it good, nor 

 can I grow it to be bo. I had it at Maesgwynne in a heavy 

 soil, I have it here in a light sandy one, yet in both situations 

 it has been alike worthless. It is the worst to carry, to stand 

 sun or rain, or to handle. Gather a dish and leave it an hour 

 or two, and see the results. It decays in damp weather more 

 than any other sort I know ; it is spoiled in sunny weather 

 sooner than any variety. 



Mr. Radcl.vffe says in conclusion it is of fine pine flavour. 

 Here I ask. What is pine flavour? Am I to take Elton to be 

 the standard of what should be called pine flavour, or British 

 Queen? Not that Wonderful is anything like either; to me 

 it has a flat insipid flavour that is particularly disagreeable. 

 Let me be understood only to give my own experience, as I 

 doubt not Mr. Radclyffe has his ? 



Mr. F. Gloede's experiences with Nimrod are precisely mine. 

 I Well remember my father having it, as he did most other 

 kinds. He proved it to bo Myatt's Eleanor. A year or two 

 afterwards I was working in the nursery from which it was 

 sent out. The old man who took charge of the Strawberries 

 assured me the two were not the same, and if his description of 

 Nimrod was as true as that he gave of Eleanor they certainly 

 must be distinct. I have myself met with it of a very different 

 character. We obtained our plants from a London firm. 

 Much talk there has been of what is the latest Strawberry we 

 have. Though it is the earliest, for the last twenty years Black 

 Prince has been also the latest, for I have gathered the fruit 

 under hand-glasses when the glass has been frozen over. I 

 despair of ever finding any later. With a north aspect I think 

 we have Strawberries of good flavour a^ late as our weather 

 will permit. — John Taylob, Hardioicke Gramje. 



POTATOES AT SOUTH KENSINGTON, AND 



MISTAKES IN JUDGING. 

 Those interested in vegetable culture (and who is not ? for 

 even in gardens where flowers and plants are little attended 

 to it is usually necessary to maintain a tolerably good succes- 

 sion of vegetables). Potatoes at least are universally grown, 

 and acknowledged to be the most useful vegetable in existence. 

 There is also an increasing number of amateur cultivators of 

 the Potato who grow from twenty to a hundred and fifty dis- 

 tinct varieties, and they are quite as familiar with the distinc- 

 tive features of each as the Dahlia or Gladiolus growers are with 

 the foliage and flowers of the objects of their adoration. To 

 the ordinary visitor one yellow Dahlia is exactly like another 

 of the same colour, one red sort is the same as another, but 

 the ardent cultivator who can name the different varieties from 

 the leaves and habit of the plant, without looking at the labels 

 or flowers, is not to be " taken-in and done for." To the 

 amateur cultivator of the Potato the very large collections of 

 handsome tubers exhibited on the 2ndinst. were a treat of no 

 ordinary kind. Even the usual visitors to flower shows showed 

 by the attention which they gave to the different collections 

 that a " Potato tournament " is appreciated by the general 

 public. 



There were, as your readers who read last week's report are 



aware, two series of prizes offered for collections of " twenty 



dishes, ten round and ten kidney varieties." In the next 



class the reading of the schedule was, "ten dishes Potatoes 



I five round varieties, five kidney varieties." It was uuivers- 



