292 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ April 13, 1876. 



Vandyke, a very fine free-flowering crimson kind; Barclay- 

 anum, a splendid variety with deep rich crimson flowers; 

 Hogarth, scarlet; John Waterer, deep crimson, very distinct 

 and excellent ; Hireutum, a dwarf late kind with pretty crimson 

 flowers ; Eoseam grandiflorum, deep rose ; Bifida, rose flowers, 

 spotted ; John Spencer, rose, with a deep pink margin ; Stella, 

 rose, spotted ; Concessum, pink. 



Those kinds which flower very early should have sheltered 

 positions. They are admirably adapted for an occasional niche 

 formed with other evergreens along the front of shrubbery 

 borders, imparting a brightness, life, and beauty that is most 

 desirable among hardy shrabs so early in the year.— Edwabd 



LUCKHUKST.] 



THE BLANKNEY MARROW PEA. 

 _ A GENTLEMAN having three estates and nearly twenty acres of 

 kitchen gardens in the charge of able gardeners considers the 

 Blankney Marrow the most delicious Pea in cultivation. The 

 gentleman is a great patron of gardening, and especially of 

 vegetable-growing, and takes careful note of the qualities of all 

 vegetables that are provided for his table. In his gardens all 

 the new Peas have been cultivated, and his testimony is there- 

 fore worth recording. It is to be remembered that other judges 

 have not considered this Pea superior, if equal, to some others ; 

 but that it is steadily rising in popularity is pretty clear by 

 the demands for seed that cannot be easily supplied. 



This is known as the Grotto, Mossy-podded, and AustraUan 

 Pea. It IS a green Marrow growing 6 to 7 feet high, the pods 

 being covered with a rough excrescence ; the peas are medium- 

 sized, and the pods are well filled. It is a late and mildew- 

 resisting Pea, and sown at the present time will yield useful 

 produce in the autumn. 



This is a distinct Pea of disputed merit, and any other testi- 

 mony regarding it would be instructive.— Clebicus. 



KILN DUST AS A MANURE. 



My experience in Potato-growing with many different kinds 

 of manure is singularly like that detailed by " J. M." on 

 page 273. My conclusions are also similar to those of "J.M.," 

 that kiln dust is one of the most valuable of manures for 

 Potatoes that can be applied. I have made numerous and 

 careful experiments in Potato culture, and have tested various 

 manures. These experiments have extended over a series of 

 years, and consequently in seasons widely differing from each 

 other; yet, except perhaps in the very driest of seasons, no 

 manures have given such satisfactory results as farmyard 

 manure dug into the ground in the autumn, and kiln dust 

 applied in the spring at the time of planting the Potatoes. 



My attention was first directed to the value of kiln dust by 

 the luxuriance of the crops of vegetables in the garden of a 

 brewer. The soil naturally was poor, and in it the Potatoes 

 were always cankered and unsightly, and the Onions were 

 generally devoured by the grub. Kiln dust was then applied 

 freely, and in a few years no garden could produce better and 

 cleaner crops. I obtained some of the dust, and tried it with 

 various other manures in the kitchen garden, then under my 

 charge. Its effects were so satisfactory that my employer at 

 once adopted its use on a largo scale in the field culture of 

 Potatoes. 



The first application was made on about an acre of York 

 Regents, and the produce from this acre was more than one- 

 third greater in value than the acres on both sides of it. The 

 Potatoes were larger, better, and more free from disease than 

 were the crops that had no dressing of kiln dust. 



Its extensive use on the same farm with Potatoes and other 

 crops has proved its undoubted value, for it has now been 

 freely used for several years. It has been applied to graas 

 land and cereals with uniform good results, so good that the 

 quality of Barley from the farm has been pronounced by the 

 agent of Mr. Bass to be the best that has come under his 

 notice, and for which a considerably higher prioe has been 

 given than for any other samples in the neighbourhood. It is 

 the same with Potatoes. Their quality commands tho appro- 

 bation of all who use them, and the reputation of the grower 

 has spread far beyond a merely local character. 



When I state that this farm is situated in one of the best 

 agricultural districts in Lincolnshire, and is owned and 

 managed by the Hon. A. Leslie Melville, sufficient will be said 

 both as to its sound management and of the proved value of 

 kiln dust as a manure for Potatoes and other crops. I state 

 this in order to submit that the experiments with kiln dust 



have not been on a limited scale. Its good effects on the farm 

 have corresponded with its good effects in the garden. In the 

 garden it has been applied to all sorts of crops, not excepting 

 the flower beds and Vine border ; and I can say now what for 

 obvious reasons I could not say before, that not many gardens 

 produce more satisfactory crops of Grapes, flowers, and vege- 

 tables than the garden at Branston. 



But the most conclusive results in favour of kiln dust have 

 been afforded by Potatoes. For these crops it has been spread 

 in the rows at the rata of about a ton per acre when the Pota- 

 toes have been planted, and I have never known it fail to 

 increase the value of the crop in a substantial manner. It 

 failed, as everything else failed, in averting disease in the 

 unpropitious seaso'n of 1872, but even in that year incompar- 

 ably the most valuable crop of Potatoes in a parish of 

 four thousand acres was a piece of Paterson's Victoria grown 

 by the aid of kiln dust. — J. Wright, Late Gardener to 

 the Hon, A, L. Melville. 



VIOLETS. 



Never before this year have I seen Violets so fine as they 

 have been with me in frames and promise to be outdoors, for 

 as yet we have had no blooms in the beds outdoors other than 

 of Czar and Victoria Regina, both of which we had during the 

 last week in March, the weather being most unfavourable for 

 them up to the close of that mouth. So uncertain is the pos- 

 sibility of having Violets in winter, on account of the weather, 

 and the greater uncertainty of their doing well in pots, that 

 the advantages offered by planting them out in frames are 

 found in both quantity and quality of the blooms. The plants 

 should be planted in rich soil at convenient distances apart, 

 and about a foot from the glass. 



I have grown most it not all kinds of Violets, and am now 

 reduced to three kinds for certainty of gathering from day to 

 day for a lengthened period. A frame, or rather pit, 30 feet 

 long and 4 feet wide — a lean-to against a greenhouse — is filled 

 in September with Victoria Regina, and from thence up to 

 March inclusive we have an abundance of deep blue, large, 

 very fragrant Violets, and with capital stalks. At the same 

 time we fill apit with Neapolitans, double, sky-blue, which bloom 

 at the same time, we having had since September and now 

 have abundance of this sweetest of all Violets. The variety 

 Davoniensis is certainly very sweet, but what is it but the 

 single Neapolitan ? Or what is Blandyana than a double 

 Neapolitan? I have fished for and hooked at last the true 

 Neapolitan from Florencs. It is very superior to the old kind. 

 This kind from Florence is freer ia growth, is not prone to 

 throw out numerous wiry runners, is twice as strong, has 

 blooms twice the sizs of the old kind and deeper in colour, 

 has stalks of such a length as to allow of the blooms being 

 bunched, and it blooms from September (I had blooms last 

 year in August) up to May. 



Then we have another pit like the other two filled with 

 Qaeen of Violets, double white, which blooms in February 

 and continues to the close of April. On account of colour 

 King of Violets and Double Russian have a place. They have 

 short stalks, and flower in February and March. 



If there are any Violets exoelliog these three — Victoria 

 Regina, Neapolitan, and Qaeen of Violets, I should like to 

 know what they are. I have several other kinds — amongst 

 them, through the courtesy of its raiser. Prince Consort, 

 which has a round leaf more like Czar than Victoria Regina, 

 is not so disposed to produce suckers as Czar, both Prince 

 Consort and Victoria being more given to runners than 

 suckers. Hence the plants are not weakened by growth from 

 the stems. The blooms, being very much stouter in stalk, have 

 greater substance of petal, being rounded like a Pansy and far 

 advanced in size towards one. Victoria Regina is of the 

 deepest blue or purple, but Prince Consort is paler in colour — 

 a shaded blue-purple. I have had plants of it in a pit with 

 Victoria Regina, and it grows' equally well, commencing bloom- 

 ing in late summer and continuing through the winter, longer 

 by a fortnight than Victoria Regina, upon which it is a decided 

 advance — lessened foliage turned into redundancy of bloom. 

 Its fragrance is of the finest kind — not so powerful as in some, 

 but a come-again sweetness that knows no cloy. It is of the 

 first to bloom outdoors, and is the finest of all single-flowered 

 Violets. I do not wonder at its raiser setting so high a value 

 upon its merits and not letting it out until he feels himself 

 satisfied as to remuneration. 

 I have before stated how we grow Violets, but I may briefly 



