206 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTDEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



[ March IG, 1876. 



by the edge of the waste. Very soon after it was found to have 

 been wilfally stamped upon by some miechievoas trespassers. 

 The split branches were collected and stuck into the perpendi- 

 calar wall of peat that bounded the garden on the north side. 

 Some of them rooted, and three more plants was the result. 

 As years passed on seedlings were found springing up in great 

 numbers ; and on a visit from the late Mr. James I3*ckhouse of 

 York, who was much interested in the district, we offered to 

 give him a lot of seedlings, and in return he sent us half a 

 score new plants with splendid foliage, and which grew vigor- 

 ously, but never flowered, as every severe winter they were cut 

 down to the ground. However, after having them ten or 

 fifteen years they did produce some imperfect scarlet flowers. 

 In the meantime we had purchased some of the best sorts we 

 could procure, and we have raised thousands from seed. We 

 have a trench cut in the solid peat 40 yards long, with three 

 shelves on each side, and on these shelves the seed was sown, 

 and when the whole was covered by a double herring net sup- 

 ported on spars sufficient protection was afforded to produce 

 plants in any quantity, stout, vigorous, and healthy, with no 

 trouble except the labour of transplanting. 



Oar nursery being low we suffer at times from frost, especi- 

 ally midsummer frosts, when the young shoots are pushing, 

 and also at times injury is done in the autumn from the 

 wood not being fully ripened , otherwise our plants are splendid, 

 the foliage being unusually bold and vigorous. We find 

 seedlings come in very tardily until they are well rooted, then 

 they grow quite fast enough. About four years ajo all our 

 plants were kept on ground from which the peat had been 

 mostly cleaied off for fuel, the soil of which in some places is 

 hungry white clay, in other parts sand, but all of a very poor 

 quality, and as we use very little tillage of any kind the plants 

 are not forced. Before we had learned by experience, we 

 bought .thousands of small seedlings at a low price ; these 

 being plucked-up like Cabbage plants had all the fine fibrous 

 roots torn off, and therefore a large per-centage failed or made 

 very slow progress for some years. We have sold plants with 

 a good ball of root in May which have been replanted and 

 flowered well in June. 



As to the soil, where grassy sods and open porous soil, not 

 too dry, can be had without chalk or lime the plants will do 

 very well. We have seen good beds on a high chalk cliff where 

 plenty of peat, leaf mould, and sand has been usod, and the 

 plants are very flourishing. In clay, sods, leaf mould, sand, 

 or washed gravel should be used, or the plants will not grow 

 bushy, but lose their leaves and show bare stems. 



As to the time of flowering it is rare when we cannot find 

 some in flower, seedlings or others. R. dauricum was in 

 flower in January, and some branches sent in a box to Soot- 

 land opened-out and looked beautiful there for three weeks. 

 This species is now in full flower and unprotected, February 

 25th. R. varium will flower next month ; K. Cunninghami 

 and others will follow unless the weather — say with frost and 

 afterwards bright sunshine, which has much more effect than 

 dry cold weather— should spoil them. 



As Rhododendrons are so hardy, so effective, and cheap, it 

 is surprising that they are not more generally planted, as 

 they will succeed where the common Laurel fails. They are 

 capital for game covers, very few of them being eaten by 

 rabbits, and when in flower they are a great ornament to 

 the woods.— W. & J. C. C. 



ROSES FKOM CUTTINGS. 



Mk. Camm is an enthusiastic Roee-grower and exhibitor ; his 

 effusions on the subject are always pleasant and generally 

 practical, and probably many an ardent young amateur learns 

 by heart all he has to say. If it were an unknown man who 

 had penned the lines at page 131 I should not have troubled 

 you with these remarks ; but when Mr. Camm says " it takes 

 years to form a good Rose tree from a cutting," and thereby 

 leaves the reader to think that it takes many years, I must 

 beg leave to say that it depends on the way in which the work 

 is accomplished. In your number for April 22nd of last year 

 I described my mode of growing Roses from cuttings, or rather 

 not mine, for the hint, as well as many other valuable hints on 

 which my practice is based, was taken from this Journal some 

 eighteen or twenty years ago. 



I cannot pretend to lay claim to such a knowledge of the art 

 of exhibiting as Mr. Camm possesses, and I admire his manly 

 way of teaching all he does know instead of keeping it to 

 himself ; but Roses are grown for other purposes besides ex- 



hibiting, and for all such other purposes I have no hesitation 

 in saying that where there is a good natural Rose soil — i e. , a 

 clayey loam, such as the hedgerow Briar delights in, that Rosea 

 on their own roots are decidedly the best. They do not pro- 

 duce a large flower or two and then bid us goodbye, but go on 

 increasing in size and beauty year after year, and produce 

 blooms by the hundred, filling the air with their fragrance. 



Last November I planted 250 plants which had been put in 

 as cuttings exactly two years before. They are planted 3 feet 

 apart every way on a border of very stiff soil, and I expect 

 them to nearly cover the ground this coming summer, and 

 that without any tying or pegging. These were selected from 

 some four hundred or more struck at the same time. I have 

 older plants in great numbers which made growths last sum- 

 mer from C to 8 feet in length, and although th» season was a 

 cold one the wood is tolerably ripe; and what is a special ad- 

 vantage this year, there are dormant buds to prune to, which 

 on standards are rather too scarce. 



My pot Roses for forcing are mostly on their own roots, and 

 those which are not so are decidedly inferior to the others. I 

 cannot have the newer kinds this way, but for my purpose old 

 varieties, if they are good, will do just as well. 



During the London season I have to supply abundance of 

 flowers for the dinner-table. A table for twenty or more people 

 twice a- week has to be covered, excepting a few inches at the 

 edge, with flowers of one, or at most of two colours, and Roses, 

 of course, are preferable to anything else. On one occasion 

 last year I sent nine hundred blooms of Gloire de Dijon ; on 

 another as much Stephanotis as would fill two bushel baskets, 

 and sufficient pink Roses to make an outside line ; at another 

 time it would be crimson Roses, and so on. I say nothing 

 about the taste of such arrangements, I have simply to obey 

 orders. 



Now it is plain that such a demand could not be met with a 

 few hundred standards. No ; the point to aim at is to have 

 Rose bushes as big as our Rhododendrons, which, I am happy 

 to say, I am in a fair way of doing. The flowers may not be 

 up to Mr. Camm's idea of exhibition Roses — we have no time 

 to attend to them sufficiently for that — but still they are very 

 beautiful, and you can cut and come again. 



Why not use more Roses in shrubberies and by woodland 

 walks ? Have them on their own roots, and do not prune too 

 much. Nearly all the Perpetuals are as hardy as the common 

 Briar if they are not ooddled-up. They would not, perhaps, 

 be prettier than the single Briar in like positions, but their 

 flowering season is longer, and they are mostly sweeter. 



Rose cuttings of the Perpetual class should not be put in 

 under glass, but more in the way of Gooseberry and Currant 

 cuttings in November, and the wood must be rips. Teas strike 

 best from half-ripe wood in July and August under hand-lights 

 against a north wall. — Wm. Taylor. 



CULTURE OF HIPPEASTRUM PARDINUM. 



This fine Amaryllid is now (middle of February) in our 

 stove very beautiful. It is one of the finest introductions 

 made by the Messrs. Veitch from foreign countries, this one 

 being from Peru. The flowers are very large, opening out fiat 

 without any, or scarcely any, tube, the whole of the interior 

 being exposed to view, displaying a creamy ground dotted or 

 spotted as finely as the best herbaceous Calceolaria. Too 

 much cannot be said in praise of this Hippeastrum, and no 

 stove should be without it. 



Its easy culture also is a great recommendation, and still 

 further commendatory is its ready propagation by offsets which 

 rise freely from the base of the bulbs ; plants in 5-inch pots 

 having four offsets now of a size large enough for potting, 

 which in two years will make flowering bulbs. The plant is 

 strictly evergreen, retaining the old leaves and putting forth 

 new with the rising of the Ecape, in pleasing contrast to some 

 other Hippeastrums which flower on the top of a footstalk with 

 a few leaves rising from the centre, and destitute of that full 

 garniture of foliage which contributes so much to the beauty of 

 the flowers. Small bulbs of 2 inches in diameter flower freely. 



I grow the plants in a stove and keep them always moist at 

 the roots, and pot when the maximum of young growth is 

 attained, using a compost of turfy loam with a fourth of old 

 cow dung, and drain efficiently. During growth the watering 

 is of course much more free thau when the plants are at rest, 

 but they are never kept dry. A light position is afforded 

 them, and as to air it is regulated by the other occupants of 

 the stove. The flowers are produced in pairs on a rather tall 



