24 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



exhibitions, as well as to the great show at the Temple 

 Gardens in May, free, before the public is admitted. He 

 has the run of the society's library in Victoria Street; 

 he receives free the yearly publications, which are a series 

 of most interesting lectures (I will give some account of 

 them at the end of the year) ; and he is annually presented 

 with a certain number of plants. These fortnightly 

 meetings at the Drill Hall are instructive and varied, 

 though they might be much more so. Nevertheless, I 

 think an amateur cannot go to them without learning 

 something, and I am surprised to find how few people take 

 advantage of them. The entrance fee is only a shilling. 

 I went to one of these exhibitions the other day. The 

 great mass of blooms shown consisted of beautifully grown 

 potfuls of Cyclamens in great variety of colour, and of 

 Chinese Primulas ; these last, to my mind, are rather 

 uninteresting plants, but they show great improvement 

 in colour as now cultivated. What pleased me most 

 were miniature Irises, grown in flat pans, and some 

 charming spring Snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) grown in 

 pots. These are far more satisfactory grown in this way 

 than are the finest Snowdrops in pots, their foliage being 

 so much prettier. The little blue Scillas are extremely 

 effective grown in pans through a carpet of the ordinary 

 mossy Saxifrage. 



February llth. Salads are rather a difficulty during 

 the early spring in English gardens. In seasonless 

 London everything is always to be bought. I wonder 

 why Mdche (Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce), so much 

 grown in France, is so little cultivated here? People 

 fairly well up in gardening come back from France in the 

 winter, thinking they have discovered something new. 

 Mdche is a little difficult to grow in very light soils, and 

 the safest plan is to make several sowings in July and 

 August. We find it most useful, but, without constant 



