68 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



freight per bushel case will be 6d. instead of 3s. 

 gd. ; but as the packing material will displace 

 a quantity of the fruits in each package, it may 

 be well for the present purposes to describe the 

 future freight of the fruit as is. per bushel. It 

 must be remembered also that the asbestos is a 

 valuable material in England, and it will be 

 sold here to as much advantage as will the ap- 

 ples. The result will be that the asbestos and 

 fruit would be brought to England for less 



money than is now paid for the fruits alone. 

 The apples will travel as well or better, and it 

 is thought they may be preserved after arrival 

 here for weeks if necessary, providing that the 

 cases be not opened in the meantime. And 

 beyond the other considerations, it is hoped 

 also that Victorian pears, by this system, may 

 be placed on the English market without much 

 risk of loss by decay. 



FLOWERS OF THE TRANSVAAL. 



j^OW that the eyes of the world are turned 

 towards the Transvaal, the following par- 

 agraph may not be uninteresting to our 

 readers regarding its flora : 



It is an old disproved libel on South Africa 

 to say that her birds are without song and her 

 fiowers without smell. Neither statement is 

 true. The flora and fauna of the Cape Colony, 

 Natal, and the Transvaal are various and fas- 

 cinating. Many of the birds sing, and many of 

 the flowers have perfumes peculiarly their own. 



The gigantic Cape disa and the glorious 

 Table Mountain heaths, of hundreds of varie- 

 ties, have certainly no heavy perfume, but, on 

 the other hand, the thousands of quaint little 

 peeping veldt flowers, from pimpernel to orchid, 

 have subtle suggestive odours which are exquis- 

 ite and refreshing. 



In the Cape Colony for many miles between 

 the Paarl and Cape Town the line is bordered 

 with so-called " pig-lilies." These are none 

 other than our carefully-tended and garden-pro- 

 duced arums. But in South Africa they grow 

 wild and in luxurious profusion. Near Ceras 

 there are great fields full of these snowy-white 

 blooms with their orange-yellow pistils ; and to 

 see a couple of little nigger children playing 

 about in this amplitude of whiteness is a de- 

 lightful study in black and white. 



Up in the Transvaal, if a farmer cultivates 



flowers at all — and all Boers are not as unap- 



atve of beauty as their detractors suggest 



— he almost always has on his stoop, or ver 

 andah, a couple of tubs containing plants of 

 keitje perring. This is the gardenia of the com- 

 mercial London buttonhole. It is smaller, 

 certainly, but equally exquisite in scent, and 

 with a little care it flowers in great profusion. 

 The tuberose also flourishes amazingly in the 

 open air with but the smallest attention and 

 cultivation. At Johannesburg grows the 

 easily-trained and useful grenadilla. This is a 

 species of passion flower, with a pretty little 

 feathery-starred flower and a very delicious egg- 

 shaped, crinkled-up brownish green fruit, con- 

 taining a yellow pulp with many flat black seeds. 

 It has a cooling, slightly acid flavour, which 

 must be tried to be appreciated. The grena- 

 dilla grows easily and quickly, and in flower, in 

 fruit, and in foliage it is very beautiful. 



The Kieffer as a dwarf is reported a failure 

 by M. J. Graham in American Gardening. In 

 1895 he planted fifty first-class two year old 

 dwarf Kieffers. Ninety per cent, were dead the 

 end of the second season, and those which sur- 

 vived were found to have thrown out roots from 

 Kieffer stock above the Quince. Other dwarf 

 pear trees made good healthy growth. Certain- 

 ly there is no use in planting Kieffer as a dwarf 

 when it grows so rapidly as a standard and bears 

 so early. At Maplehurst our Kieffer two 

 years planted bore abundantly, one tree yielding 

 two hundred pears ! 



