July 15, 1875. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



47 



princepB, Gymnogramma peruviana argyrophylla. Mr. House 

 and Mr. Dixon had also fine collections. 



I see many flower shows and know a good deal of their man- 

 agement, but I know no place where a more perfect method of 

 management is adopted. Gentlemen are told off for the various 

 duties, even to the minutest details. " What's everybody's 

 business is nobody's business" fjuds no place here, and the 

 result is all goes without a hitch. No one who knows Spalding 

 will need to be told that a kind and genial hospitality is one of 

 their characteristics. To this I at least can bear witness. 



TnNDKiDQE Wells. — Unlike the two preceding Shows, The 

 Wells (as it is locally called) was favoured with a lovely day. 

 The Show ground is close to the station ; and on such a day 

 as this the tents pitched in the rising ground, and the crowds 

 which throng this fashionable watering place, made a gay and 

 brilliant scene. There were many plants of rare excellence. I 

 do not think, for example, I ever saw so fine a collection of 

 Crotons as those exhibited here. They were old kinds, but 

 grandly grown. The Achimenes, Gloxinias, and Lycopods were 

 exceedingly well done, but in my opinion the chief features of 

 the Exhibition were the cottagers' productions and the table 

 decorations. Of the former it is impossible to speak too highly. 

 The very best stand of twelve Roses in the whole Exhibition 

 was to be found here, while the Strawberries were marvellously 

 fine. In the table decorations Mrs. Seale of Sevenoaks displayed 

 great taste in her arrangement, the white Water Lilies, Forget- 

 me-nots, and Anthurium forming a beautiful combination, al- 

 though perhaps there was a little too much of the latter. Many 

 very beautiful vases of wild flowers were shown, and the large 

 room in which they were shown was the centre of attraction, to 

 ladies especially, throughout the day. The arrangements here, 

 onder the able direction of Mr. Sorby, seemed admirable. And 

 so ends my week of flower shows. — D., Deal, 



"A SCARBOROUGH WARNING." 

 Very few of your Bouth-connty readers will know what mean- 

 ing is in that Yorkshire proverb, nor did I until a slap on the 

 Bhonlder, accompanied by " There's a Scarborough warning 

 for you," made me seek for its explanation. During Wyatt's 

 insurrection in 155.3 some of his partisans disguised as country- 

 men were admitted into the castle, and its garrison was over- 

 powered first, and then told who were their captors. So " A 

 Scarborough warning " is synonymoas to the more widely- 

 known proverb expressive of a surprise — " A word and a blow, 

 but the blow came first." 



Now, the first " Scarborough warning " I had was at York, 

 where I was conveyed to the most comfortable hostel — com- 

 fortable from the first greeting until at the end of three days 

 I bade farewell to my host. That hostel and host were the 

 Black Swan and John Penrose. The first of that name of 

 whom I have met a record was Simon de Penrhos — that is, 

 Simon living on the hill meadow, and like my host delighting 

 in country occupations. Penrose de C.ygno Nigro, or of the 

 Black Swan, is a lover of gardening, and he evinces that love 

 worthily. I marvelled to see all passers-by stop and look in 

 at one of the windows, but I ceased marvelling when I passed 

 that window and saw its tasteful decoration with flowers. 

 They were arranged in a row of small bouquets, surmounted by 

 a larger and high central group, arched over by a wreath, and 

 the whole was as demonstrative of good taste in which the 

 colours of the flowers and the foliage were harmonised as that 

 good taste was shown in the form of the arrangement. 



Then Mr. Penrose has a large garden, and is one of the 

 Directors of the Garden and Museum of the Philosophical 

 Society. The floral planting of that garden savour of the 

 same guiding, and aided by the very striking variations of the 

 surface, and its intermixing with the ruins of St. Mary's 

 Abbey, a beauty has been attained scarcely attainable elsewhere. 

 Those monks well understood how to combine the beautiful 

 with the useful. The site of the Abbot's garden, like that of 

 the Abbey, is near the river, and thus were fish and some 

 vegetable food provided. I say " some," because every mo- 

 nastic establishment had farms paying their rents, in part or 

 entire, in provisions. Thus, the Cistercian Monastery at 

 Scarborough from its farm in the manor of Peaseholm received 

 poultry, butter, milk, and other provisions, among which 

 would be ducks that monks occasionally are said to have 

 eaten on days when meat was forbidden, assigning as their 

 justification that ducks live partly in the water, and therefore 

 partake of the nature of fish. Let monks be condemned and 

 ridiculed as they are, yet were they the greatest benefactors of 

 their age ; they read and wrote in the times when no noble- 

 man could sign his name, and they were the only school- 

 masters of those days ; and one of the, to me, most interest- 



ing reliques in the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical 

 Society are two glazed tiles found in the quadrangle where 

 the monks of St. Mary held their school, on which tiles are 

 painted the alphabet in capital letters of the fifteenth century. 

 Those Cistercians had eighty-five religious establishments in 

 England, the Dominicans had forty-three, and the Carmelites 

 forty ; the Franciscans had probably as many, so that there 

 were about two hundred of these institutions imparting and 

 encouraging learning and the culture of the soil throughout 

 our country. This is no mere surmise, for Dr. Walker 

 describes the remains of an orchard in one of the Hebrides 

 that belonged to the monastery of St. Colomb as early as the 

 sixth century. 



One note more about this neighbourhood, and then I will 

 away to another " warning." Who that ever read in childhood 

 that best of childhood's books " Evenings at Home " forgets 

 the tale of " Eyes and No Eyes ?" On the sands before me is 

 an illustration of that tale. Down to 1620 Scarborough was 

 noted for nothing but being a nest of fishermen ; but in that 

 year a Mrs. Fowler, to whom the Scarburghians ought to erect 

 a memorial, observed when walking along the shore a streamlet 

 which imparted a reddish tinge to the pebbles over which it 

 trickled. She tasted the water ; it was slightly acid ; she 

 dropped it into tincture of galls, which it purpled; she drank 

 of it ; found it was medicinal ; and in a few years it became a 

 fashionable resort. Mrs. Fowler was one of that section of 

 the community who have "eyes" and use them thoughtfully. 



Beneath a cloudless sky, and with a fresh breeze keeping me 

 cool, I passed by Carnelian Bay and Gristhorp without staying 

 to search for the pebbles of the first, or to examine the tumuli 

 of the other. In the latter were found the remains of a 

 warrior, adding strength to the evidence that Filey, whither I 

 was journeying, was the Roman station and " well-havened 

 bay " noted by Ptolemy. 



' ■ A Scarborough warning " at length brought me to a stand- 

 still, for beside a gateway was raised a board inscribed " Bell- 

 wood's Fruit Gardens." Their proprietor and cultivator was 

 in view, so I hailed him with, " Have you any British Queens ?" 

 " No, but I have a better kind." " Then I will buy your 

 whole stock of plants." This led to the explanation that the 

 variety he lauded was President, and what Mr. Bellwood 

 meant was that they are "better" on his ground, for on it 

 neither British Queen nor Dr. Hogg, nor some others, are good 

 croppers. The berries of President were certainly fine both 

 in size and flavour, and the bushes of Gooseberries and the 

 canes of Raspberries were loaded with fruit. The Potatoes of 

 all kinds were perfectly healthy, and above all in vigour was 

 the Lapstone, which Mr. Bellwood briefly and justly charac- 

 terised as " the best of all the Potatoes." He has two gar- 

 dens, each of about two acres, and I recommend every so- 

 journdr in this neighbourhood to visit them if they covet a 

 quart of first-rate Strawberries for a shilling, and a large 

 bouquet of Roses for sixpence. — G. 



BUTTON-HOLE ROSES. 



I AM surprised that no mention has been made of Safrano 

 and Madame Melanie Willermoz ; the latter is most perfect. 

 In the article on Tea Roses (page 2), the latter is surely not 

 correctly described. With me it is of an extremely beautiful 

 shade of pale lemon, darker in the centre. It is most beau- 

 tiful when in bud, and still beautiful when open from its 

 exquisite shading. 



How anyone can recommend Gloire de Dijon and Mar^ehal 

 Niel for button-holes I cannot understand, for, as your corre- 

 spondent " P." says of some other Roses, you might as well 

 wear a full-expanded Paul Neron. 



Might I suggest to your numerous correspondents that in 

 giving their experience on different plants they should at least 

 give the county from which they write ? otherwise their expe- 

 rience is apt to mislead many others who live in a completely 

 different climate. — H., Ayrshire. 



A WILD GARDEN. 

 In one of my rambles in an upland district some 700 feet 

 above the sea, turning aside into what had been at some time 

 a quarry, and passing by it, I came to a bank on the hillside, 

 and to my surprise I found one of the most beautiful native 

 gardens that I ever looked on, and what interested me was, it 

 was purely natural, no art had laid a tool upon it. I noted 

 down what plants were in bloom in this charming spot. The 



