December 12, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
449 
Alfred Salter, Empress of India, and Golden Beverley by a 
whorl of small petals formed around the middle of the blooms. 
Such a stand not in the hunt.” I put my pencil in one of the 
blooms for an examination, when I was politely told by a 
looker-on if I interfered with them blooms I should have my 
head punched. I need hardly say that I did not fear the 
threat, but only waited another opportunity. I expressed my 
opinion to many respecting the blooms that they were not 
genuine, but no one seemed to care to go into the matter until 
about six o'clock, when I examined three blooms, and strange 
to say I was again told by an on-looker that he had a good 
mind to punch my head ! 
Having satisfied myself as to the fraud that had been 
practised I at once took proper proceedings, wrote out the 
protest, and had an investigation in the Committee-room. It 
is only proper to say that I do not believe there were half a 
dozen present who were satisfied that the blooms were made 
up until after the investigation was commenced. Mr. Elliott, 
the third-prize holder, said in the Committee-room he did not 
think any of the blooms were made up; at the same moment, 
correcting himself, he said, “Yes, Iam only suspicious of one 
bloom, and I don’t know if this is made up.’ This shows how 
very little the thing had been looked into, as almost everyone 
present expressed a doubt. Even the Secretary when he took 
out the first bloom, shook it and said, “That’s allright.” “Oh! 
uncup it.” Still it isall right. “Now remove that wool and 
wire.” Still allright. ‘‘ Now get hold of the top and bottom 
and draw gently ;” but he took hold of the bottom and pushed 
up the stem, when to the astonishment of all present the top 
bloom went up like a parasol, leaving the second bloom in his 
hand, which caused great excitement, and a general cry of 
““Who would have believed it?” A hole was made in the 
centre of the bottom bloom and the stem of the top one drawn 
through it to appear as one. After several of the blooms had 
thus been dealt with I took out my pocket book and read my 
notes in the presence of everyone, and before the examination 
was over the remark was that my words had come true. 
I was truly sorry for the officials of the Society. ‘The Secre- 
tary said he would not on any account such a thing had taken 
place, as people would think that all Liverpool had taken part 
in it to get up the blooms to defeat those from a distance ; but 
XT hope and trust the supporters of the Society will take a 
better view of it, and display their determination to support 
the Society by contributing more largely to the funds, and 
enable them to offer better prizes, and to enforce justice by 
making a practice of uncupping a number of the blooms, so 
that merit may be given to whom merit is due. I most cer- 
tainly blame the Judges very much for not having been more 
careful in making the awards and satisfying themselves that 
they were genuine blooms, and it is much to be hoped that 
such unprincipled practices will never again be adopted. 
On referring to the rules it was found that Mr. Roberts had 
forfeited all claim to his prize money, and also could never 
again be allowed to compete in Liverpool. This is a truthful 
report of the whole affair, by one who was styled in the Liver- 
pool Daily Mercury “a boasting man from the south.” I 
suppose it was because he detected the fraud.—J. OLLERHEAD, 
The Gardens, Wimbledon House, S.W. 
NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 
In a recent importation of Orchids Mr. Bull has had the 
good fortune to receive several plants of a PURE WHITE 
VARIETY of LA&LIA ANCEPS. One plant is now flowering, the 
flower being singularly chaste and beautiful. It has the same 
jong bracts and broad petals of L. anceps, and every part of 
the flower, except a yellow blotch in the throat, is pure spot- 
Jess white. The plant is dissimilar also in character from the 
species, having shorter pseudo-bulbs and leaves, the former 
being very pale in colour and not tinged as in L. anceps. The 
new acquisition will probably be named Lelia anceps alba—a 
simple expressive name appropriate to a flower so simply and 
charmingly attractive. This new Lelia, as Mr. Bull suggests, 
holds the same relative position to the species as does Lapa- 
geria alba to L. rosea, or Cattleya Skinneri alba to its. species. 
The white Lelia is certainly equally distinct, and cannot fail 
to become highly popular. 
—— THE fixture of the first Committee Meeting of the ROYAL 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY was stated on page 408 as January 
4th; it should have been January 14th. It is the more 
necessary to make this correction, as we perceive the error has 
been also circulated by some of our contemporaries, 
WE are informed that tlie fifth annual Exhibition of 
the RICHMOND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY has been fixed for 
Thursday, June 26th, 1879, and a Chrysanthemum show is 
contemplated to be held in the autumn of next year. 
Av the next meeting of the Fruit and Floral Com- 
mittees, South Kensington, Messrs. Charles Lee & Son will 
exhibit a very interesting collection of HARDY HYERGREEN 
AND VARIEGATED-LEAVED PLANTS. Mr. Gilbert, Burghley, 
will again exhibit his new double Primulas, and Mr. Gardiner 
will send a large collection of Apples from Hatington Park. 
Mr. GEORGE HUMPHRIES, Kingston Langley, Chip- 
penham, gives his experience in reply to “ W. H.J.” on STRIK- 
ING BRIAR CUTTINGS. In November he selects well-ripened 
shoots of Briars from the hedges, and makes them in the same 
way that Manetti cuttings are made, and plants them 9 inches 
apart in rows 2 feet asunder. In the following August he has 
good stocks for budding, and then inserts the buds on the main 
stem as near the base as possible. 
WE have received the schedules of the spring Shows of 
the RoyaL Boranic Society. In the first Show, March 26th, 
1879, we observe that the class for six stove or greenhouse 
forced herbaceous is withdrawn, the exhibits in the class not 
having been satisfactory, anda class is added for Amaryllises. 
The only alteration in the second show, April 23rd, is the 
withdrawal of the amateurs’ Auricula class of six plants, a 
slight addition being made to the prizes in the open class of 
twelve plants. With the exceptions named the arrangements 
of the schedules and the prizes offered are practically the 
same as last year. 
WE record with extreme regret the DEATH OF MRs 
Bass, wife of Mr. Abram Bass, which occurred at Moat Bank, 
Burton-on-Trent, on the 26th ult. in her sixty-third year. The 
gardens at Moat Bank, and the fine orchard house there, were 
described on page 116, vol. xxx. of this Journal, and from that 
description we extract the following pertaining to Mrs. Bass : 
—*“ All the trees in this house are in the first condition of 
health and fruitfulness, and they are in the sole charge of Mr. 
and Mrs. Bass, who train, prune, pinch, and water them. The 
orchard house is their recreation ground—their ‘hobby ;’ their 
pleasure is to grow and give—a delightful, wholesome, healthy 
life. Mrs. Bass isa pomologist who can hold refreshing con- 
verse on the subject which she practises so successfully. The 
modes of pruning and pinching of the fruit of Hnglish and 
continental growers are familiar to her ‘as a tale of love.’ 
Her work is indeed a work of love—love guided by skill and 
crowned with success.” We never met a lady possessing a 
greater technical and practical knowlege of fruits, nor one who 
more completely adorned a home and garden than her whose 
death is fittingly recorded in these pages, which in life afforded 
her so much delight, 
THE annual rainfall of Cyprus according to the Scottish 
Meteorological Society is about 14 inches, nearly the whole of 
which falls from November to April, notably in November and 
December; no rain falls in June, July, and August, and but in 
trifling amounts occurring rarely in May and September. There 
are thus practically five rainless months in the yearin Cyprus. 
Comparing it with the coast of Syria opposite its winters are 
milder and its summers cooler. The coldest month is February, 
with a mean temperature of 52° 8’, being about equal to that 
of London in the middle of May, and that the mean tempera- 
ture of August is nearly as high as that of July, both being 
about 81°, which is approximately the summer temperature of 
Algiers, Alexandria, Athens, and Constantinople. During 
these four years the highest recorded temperature of any of 
the months was 96°, except June, 1869, when from the 21st 
to the 24th the mean temperature at Alethriko, three miles 
and a half inland from Larnaka, reached 95° 5’, being about 
the average summer temperature of the Punjab, rising on one 
of these days to a maximum of 105°. On the same day the 
temperature rose to 100° at Larnaka, and to 103° 5’ at Jeru- 
salem, 2500 feet above the sea, the period being characterised 
as one of unprecedented heat and drought oyer the whole of 
the regions bordering on the Leyant.—(Vatwre.) 
RECOGNISING the importance of VEGETABLE AND 
FRUIT CULTURE the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society 
have announced their intention of awarding prizes in con- 
nection with their great Exhibition, to be held in London 
next year, for market gardens. Prizes of £50, £25, and £10 
are provided for market gardens not exceeding fifty acres in 
extent within a radius of twenty miles from Charing Cross, 
