248 



JOUBNAL OF hobtiouiiTube: and coxiage gaboeneb. 



[ September 17, 1874. 



Dark salmon Pelargonium Lucius, Perilla nankinensis, and 

 Dactylia glomerata variegata. 



Light yellow Rosua mixed with scarlet Pelargoniums, yellow 

 and blue Viola cornuta, edged with Viola tricolor Goliath. 



Brazilian Beet and Alyssum saxatile variegatum. 



Silver-edged Pelargonium Bijou, Amaranthus melanoholieus 

 ruber, Golden Tricolor Pelargonium Sophia Bumaresque, Ire- 

 eine Lindeni, and light bronzed-leaved Pelargonium Criterion. 



Dark salmon Pelargonium Hector, Amaranthus melancho- 



Woodstock, but to notice one who has made it famous in a 

 horticultural point of view by his connection with it, and 

 into whose company accidental circumstances brought me at a 

 time when other horticultural friends had specially met for an 

 important purpose. I must say that a more hospitable greet- 

 ing and a mutual interchange of ideas could not possibly have 

 been accorded to anyone, and some three hours or more of a 

 warm summer day could not have been more agreeably and 

 profitably spent than was done by the gentlemen there aa- 



1, Iresine Lindeni 



2, Pyrethrnm pai-thenifolinm Golden Feather 



3, Lobelia pumila grandillora 



Kg. 75. 



4, Ecbeveria secunda glauea 



5, Sempervivum californicum 



6, Mesembryantliemani cordllolinm 



variegatum 



7, Alteiuanthera magniiica 



licus ruber. Pelargonium Bijou, Lresine Lindeni, Pelargonium 

 Bobert Fish, and Viola Cornuta Perfection. — N. Cole, Ken- 

 sington Gardens. 



MR. FENN AND HIS POTATOES. 



There are few who have not heard of the interesting old 

 town of Woodstock, the abode of the fair but unfortunate 

 Eosamond, while Sir Walter Scott has thrown an interesting 

 halo over it as being the scene of one of his inimitable novels. 

 The town, a Royal borough, had evidently been a place of 

 importance long before the present busy hives of industry had 

 an existence ; it occupies a favourable site, and its neigh- 

 bonrhood must at all times have been noted for its fertility, 

 which still continues. In its present aspect Woodstock pre- 

 Bents a strong contrast to the old towns of the east of 

 England, being mostly if not entirely built of stone, which here 

 occurs in great abundance. I am not sure that the present 

 mode of colouring the walls of such buildings a pale yellow is a 

 recent or ancient practice, nor am I certain that it in all cases 

 improves their appearance, but it tends to give that uni- 

 formity which is by many thought desirable. Woodstock con- 

 trasts well with many other old towns in the width of its 

 streets ; not that they compare with Oxford Street or Pic- 

 cadUly, but they are wider and less crooked than those of 

 towns that have not undergone the changes which Town 

 Councils now and then enforce when opportunity offers. It 

 has also the merit of being a clean town, if cleanliness in the 

 sense here spoken of be a merit, which, by-the-by, a particular 

 friend of mine disputes very much, alleging that dirt aud 

 money always go together, and that a town recommended for 

 its cleanliness exhibits less of prosperity and progress than a 

 bustling dirty one. Of cour.ae some exception must be made 

 to this rule, and I believe Woodstock to be one of those re- 

 spectable towns in which business is carried on with steadi- 

 ness, the manufacture of gloves being one of its most important 

 branches. 



My purpose, however, is not to descant on the trade of 



sembled, and as far as I was concerned I must regard it as 

 one of my red-letter days. Bat before we go further I mnst 

 inform your readers that the subject on which the meeting was 

 convened was Potatoes ; not to settle any angry dispute about 

 extraordinarily heavy Grapes, or the merits of a newly-intro- 

 duced plant, or the dehtit of some variety of Golden Geranium 

 with astounding qualifications, but simply to devote a specified 

 time to the examination of a great number of varieties of 

 Potatoes, and in some degree to test their merits. The latter 

 part of the programme was, I believe, further gone into after 

 I was obliged to leave, which I did with great reluctance ; but 

 as the reader has not yet been informed who was the host, I 

 must state it was our very worthy contributor Mr. Robert Fenn, 

 whose labours in the cause of the Potato are so widely known, 

 and their results so disinterestedly made public. The reader 

 has only to turn back to the earlier numbers of this Journal 

 to become aecjuainted with the pains he has taken to propa- 

 gate new aud distinct varieties, and the long years of patient 

 industry which elapsed before he was rewarded with the im- 

 proved varieties which he has obtained, and these I hope will 

 be followed by others of equal or perhaps greater merit. 



To the ordinary cultivator who has his score of acres it may 

 appear a somewhat frivolous occupation for a steady observ- 

 ing person to be looking over rows of Potatoes when in bloom, 

 and selecting a few flowers from which he will remove the 

 anthers and introduce the pollen from another variety to effect 

 fertilisation, marking the flower in some way known only to 

 himself. Occasional visits are afterwards made to these 

 flowers, and especial care is taken, when a fruit is formed and 

 I it approaches maturity, that the same mystical notes shall 

 I accompany the seed to its resting place, and which, like the 

 ] G. G. of fine-bred cattle pedigree, denote something to which 

 the progeny of that seed may be traced. This Mr. Fenn did 

 years and years ago, with a large amount of disappointment in 

 I some cases where much good was expected, and a proportionate 

 i amount of success mingled with it. It is not merely by fer- 

 I tilising the flowers that a good useful variety is insured, and 

 even what is good is not fairly proved to be so for some years 



