December 14, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



509 



light and air, for the more light and air the plants have, the 

 shorter will be the leaves and spikes and brighter the colour 

 of the flowers. 



Hyacinths planted in beds will require no more attention 

 than protecting the beds during very severe weather. When 

 in bloom care should be taken to have the spikes supported 

 with stakes, or in rough weather the stems will be broken or 

 the flowers disfigured. It is a beautiful sight in spring to look 

 npon a group of beds well filled with Hyacinths of various 

 colours. Their beauty may be prolonged by placing an awning 

 over them to protect them from the sun and rain. After flower- 

 ing and the leaves have decayed the bulbs may be lifted and 

 dried, and they will come in useful again for the borders 

 another season by affording small spikes of flowers to cut from. 

 — Alfred Aldeehian. 



THE ROSE CONFERENCE. 



A miserably dull winter's day, the rain pouring down; a 

 long, low, dark room, through which the feeble light only 

 penetrated a few feet ; along table all down the room, at which 

 are seated rosarians from every part of England. Such was 

 the scene of last Thursday at the Horticultural Club. 



What means it? What has brought Hercules from Exeter, 

 Reynolds Hole from Newark, Cant from Colchester, Paul from 

 Cheshunt, and Cranston and Bulmer from Hereford — at this 

 time of the year too? Not the cattle show! No, don't say 

 that. Fond as we may be of beef in the shape of a well-cooked 

 sirloin, we don't come up two hundred miles more or less to 

 look at fat stock. Not a dinner, dear as it is to Englishmen — 

 and though I believe a dinner was the appropriate end of the 

 meeting — but simply love for the Rose, and an eager desire 

 that her claims as the queen of flowers should still be recog- 

 nised by, if not the public, at least by all true rosarians, at an 

 exhibition in London during the coming year. 



But someone will ask, Are there not already good Rose shows 

 in London ? Are not the classic Bhades of Brompton Boilers 

 consecrated once a-year by the presence of the Rose ? Is not 

 the huge glass house at Westminster, called an Aquarium, 

 where there were no .fish, and a Winter Garden now because 

 there are no flowers — is not this building devoted once a-year 

 at least to the worship of Rosa? Is not, too, a small edifice 

 in the north of London, called after the fair daughter of the 

 northern sea, beautified for one day at least in the twelvemonth 

 by the choicest gifts of Nature ? All these are delights of the 

 past, not to be enjoyed again. They may live, perhaps in the 

 memory, but that is all. Alexandra Palace, Aquarium, and 

 Horticultural Gardens are extinct so far as Rose shows are 

 concerned ; and if we want to show our queen of flowers to 

 our town relatives, and to give to the general public their 

 acoustomed treat of a feast of sweet things, we must take time 

 by the forelock, conceive, and carry out some good scheme. 



This was felt by all rosarians, and no doubt equally so ; but 

 it chanced that at the hospitable board of Mr. Cranston of 

 Hereford, on the evening of the West of England Rose Show, a 

 few of the more illustrious members of Rosa's court were 

 gathered together, and they hit upon the scheme of reviving 

 the old National Rose Society. A certain man who is not un- 

 known to your readers, seeing that nearly every number of 

 "our Journal" has a letter signed " D., Deal," determined to 

 press the matter, though, judging by his name, he was but a 

 poor wooden support, yet in deed a man of iron nerve and 

 action, and he sent round circulars to all the leading rosarians, 

 nurserymen, and amateurs, calling a meeting for the 7th of 

 December, and asking them to attend for the purpose of form- 

 ing a National Rose Society. 



And well the rosarians responded — from north and south, 

 east and west we came. The wise men from the east came, as 

 is fitting at this Eeason, in great force, and, strange to Bay, 

 their number was three ! — Messrs. Cant of Colchester, George 

 Paul of Cheshunt, and W. Paul of Walthatn. From Devon 

 there came Hercules, and from Oxford we had the Seedling 

 Briar ; from Surrey, Captain Christy and Mr. Noble ; from 

 Hereford Messrs. Bulmer and Cranston ; from Nottingham the 

 Chairman (Rev. Reynolds Hole) ; and from Kent Mdlle. Mar- 

 guerite Dombrain — I beg pardon, I mean her brother, Hony wood 

 Dombrain ; but I am so accustomed to writing the former 

 name on labels that I keep thinking there is only one Dombrain 

 who has anything to do with Roses. Most of the editors of 

 the horticultural journals were also present. Never at any 

 great London exhibition have I seen such a gathering ; and a 

 glorious thing it was to se9 how men from all parts of England 



put themselves to inconvenience rather than refuse to rally at 

 the call of the Rose, our queen. 



The meeting was, in the opinion of old rosarians, the most 

 successful ever held. A National Rose Society was formed, 

 £80 was subscribed in the room, the day and place for the 

 first show was fixed, secretaries and committee were chosen, 

 and all went merry as a marriage bell. If the National Rose 

 Society does not prove successful it will not be because the 

 preliminary meeting was not well supported, for everything 

 that is required to make a meeting a success was present on 

 Thursday — unanimity of feeling, great enthusiasm, and what 

 is more (and this is a crucial point) a general liberal un- 

 buttoning of the pockets.' — Wyld Savage. 



NEW BOOK. 



The Effects of Cross and Self-fertilisation in the Vegetable 



Kingdom,. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. London: 



J. Murray. 



This volume is well deserving perusal by all gardeners who 

 desire to understand thoroughly the scientific foundations of 

 their art. We can only make one extract, but it epitomises 

 the fuller details of the work. 



"The first and most important of the conclusions which may 

 be drawn from the observations given in this volume is that 

 cross-fertilisation is generally beneficial, and self-fertilisation 

 injurious. This is shown by the difference in height, weight, 

 constitutional vigour, and fertility of the offspring from crossed 

 and self-fertilised flowers, and in the number of seeds produced 

 by the parent plants. With respect to the second of these two 

 propositions — namely, that self-fertilisation is generally inju- 

 rious, we have abundant evidence. The structure of the flowers 

 in such plants as Lobelia ramosa, Digitalis purpurea, &c, renders 

 the aid of insects almost indispensable for their fertilisation; 

 and bearing in mind the prepotency of pollen from a distinct 

 individual over that from the same individual, such plants will 

 almost certainly have been crossed during many or all previous 

 generations. So it must be, owing merely to the prepotency of 

 foreign pollen, with Cabbages and various other plants, the 

 varieties of which almost invariably intercross when grown 

 together. The same inference may be drawn still more Burely 

 with respect to those plants, such as Reseda and Eschscboltzia, 

 which are sterile with their own pollen, but fertile with that 

 from any other individual. These Beveral plants must therefore 

 have been crossed during a long series of previous generations, 

 and the artificial crosses in my experiments cannot have increased 

 the vigour of the offspring beyond that of their progenitors. 

 Therefore the difference between the self-fertilised and crossed 

 plants raised by me cannot bo attributed to the superiority of 

 the crossed, but to the inferiority of the self-fertilised seedlings, 

 due to the injurious effects of self-fertilisation. 



" With respect to the firBt proposition — namely, that cross- 

 fertilisation is generally beneficial, we likewise have excellent 

 evidence. Plants of Ipomcai were intercrossed for nine succes- 

 sive generations ; they were then again intercrossed, and at the 

 same time crossed with a plant of a freBh stock — that is, one 

 brought from another garden ; and the offspring of this latter 

 cross were to the intercrossed plants in height as 100 to 78, and 

 in fertility as 100 to 51. An analogous experiment with Esch- 

 Bcholtzias gave a Bimilar result as far as fertility was concerned. 

 In neither of these cases were any of the plants the product of 

 self-fertilisation. Plants of Dianthus were self-fertilised for 

 three generations, and this no doubt was injurious ; but when 

 these plants ware fertilised by a fresh stock and by intercrossed 

 plants of the same stock, there was a great difference in fertility 

 between the two sets of seedlings, and some difference in their 

 height. Petunias offer a nearly parallel case. With various 

 other plants, the wonderful effects of a cross with a fresh stock 

 may be seen in Table C. Several accounts have also been pub- 

 lished of the extraordinary growth of seedlings from a cross 

 between two varieties of the same species, some of which are 

 known never to fertilise themselves ; so that here neither Belf- 

 fertilisation nor relationship even in a remote degree can have 

 come into play. We may therefore conclude that the above two 

 propositions are true — that cross-fertilisation is generally bene- 

 ficial, and self-fertilisation injurious to the offspring." 



THE NATIONAL AURICULA SHOW. 

 I exceedingly regret to find that an observation I made with 

 regard to this Show has given cause for observation. The 

 fact is that I misunderstood Mr. Horner's letter to the Secret- 

 ary, and thought that the National was to beheld in the north, 

 and a national one in the south. I am very glad indeed to 

 find that I was mistaken. When the last National Show was 

 held at the Regent's Park I had a good deal to say to it, and 

 no one can more thoroughly rejoice in the thought that the 



