22 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ January 13, 1863. 



Reigate sand should be sown ; and the tubers then planted about 

 5 inches apart, and not more or less than 1J inch below the 

 surface. The drills should then be covered-in and the bed raked 

 smooth. If the Beason should be a dry one they will require 

 watering ; but it is always best to do this between the rows, and 

 not all oyer the bed. When the flower-buds begin to Bhow 

 colour it is time to hare an awning of some sort ready to 

 stretch over them, in order to prevent the effects of the scorching 

 sun and heavy rains. Although the plant is so dwarf in habit 

 it is not well to have the cover too low down, as this is apt to 

 draw the plants ; 2£ feet at the sides, and about 4 feet in the 

 centre is the correct height. After the bloom is over the cover- 

 ing should be taken off on all fine days, as it is very important 

 to get the tubers up in a good state of preservation. If taken 

 up too soon their vigour is spoilt ; if left too long they are apt 

 to sprout again, which is more injurious still. If the weather 

 be very moist it is better to loosen the tubers by putting the 

 trowel into the soil near them ; but if dry this will not be 

 necessary. When dried, put them into paper bags and keep 

 them in a dry place. 



CHOICE OF SOETS. 



OLD DUTCH VARIETIES. 



Angouleme 



Feu Eclatante 



CEillet Parfait 



Apollo 



Grande Monarque 



Pa.-se Niobe 



Beam6 Behemoth 



Hercules 



Reine de Portugal 



Bishop van Limit 



Jaune en Pompadore 



Roi des Renoncules 



Bouquet Sdnsoareil 



Manteau Noir 



TiSmeraire 



Cat-! us 



Ulelange des Eeautcs 



Tippoo Saib 



dmdorcet 



N axara 



Voetonnox 



Cossack 



CEil Noir 



Vol: aire 



ESte Nocturne 









ughtbody's seedlings. 



Admiral Home 



Earl of Errol 



Miriam 



Brilliant 



Erskine 



Niobe 



Chatterton 



Goethe 



Sir J. de Gra?me 



Commodore NamVr 



Grace Darling- 



Sir J. Dombrain 



Countess of Eglinton 



John Joyce 



Sir H. Pottinger 



Bean Swift 



John "Waterston 



Splendour 



Don Roderick 



Lady Sale 



Talisman 



Dr. Channing 



Lame 



Ten Pounder 



Ilr. Niel 



Magellan 

 TTSO'S SEEDLINGS. 



"William Penn 



Aurelia 



Exhibitor 



Premier 



Auriga 



Felix 



Reformation 



Cathcart 



Hamlet 



Saladin 



Claimant 



Jubal 



Tubal 



Creon 



Meluncthon 



Virtuosa 



Delectus 



Miriam 



Waldsnsia 



Dr. Homer 



Orsipjms 



Xerxes 



Edgar 



Fiixos 



Zwingle 



I have only given the naires of a few. Those in list No. 1 

 are mainly selfs ; those in 2 and 3 spotted and edged. In all 

 three classes there are a great many more equally as good, I 

 dare say ; but I have named those I know best. — D., Deal. 



THE FRENCH FOUNTAINS— LIBRARY AT 

 THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



NEW AND OLD CROCUSES. 

 In the monthly summary which closed the last year and in the 

 last volume of the "Proceedings" of the Eoyal Horticultural 

 Society, it is stated that the French Fountains (the worse luck) 

 are now definitively abandoned, the amount subscribed having 

 proved insufficient for the purpose, and the instructions of the 

 subscribers with regard to the disposal of their subscriptions 

 are now being taken. So far as is yet known, it would appear 

 that the subscribers will unanimously direct them to be applied 

 in the purchase of works of art for the decoration of the garden. 

 Notwithstanding that the fountains are now out of question, 

 " the subscription list will still be kept open,, as it is understood 

 that a number of the Eellows who would have subscribed for 

 bronzes or general decorations have refrained from subscribing 

 so long as the purchase of the fountains was in doubt." 



There is much more than at first appears in that paragraph. 

 The subscribers will most certainly not direct their money to be 

 laid out in bronzes unanimously, andlfor one do hereby protest 

 against any more bronzes or brass, except the brass bands, for 

 the new garden, until we have as good a library as the want of 

 brass deprived us of on the fall and folly in Eegent Street. But 

 let bygones be bygones, and let us all join in the one pursuit 

 which of all others is the most likely to contribute to the progress 

 of the cultivators of the science and practice of gardening— the 

 endeavour to place a3 good a skeleton of a garden and scientific 



library at South Kensington as there is there now of what a 

 town garden should be, and which embraces the period when the 

 sister arts went hand in hand together with the science and art 

 of gardening. I can very well understand the feeling in the 

 Council of the Society on the subject of a library — they all feel 

 our want of it as much as any of us ; and they must also know 

 the force of the feeling which the selling of the old library raised 

 against the body. But let us all agree to forget what is not 

 agreeable, and let us set on foot the really agreeable idea that 

 ours will be the best library of the kind in tbe kingdom at Borne 

 future time, if we set about it now with the French fountains' 

 subscription sure in hand. 



The best book I had for the last three months was the book 

 on Crocuses ; but the Crocuses themselves were still better. 

 From the last day of September to the first day of January I 

 have not been without a bloom of Crocus, or a pot of Crocuses 

 in bloom, outside of the window-sill facing the south, and all 

 with four kinds of wild Crocuses ; and the last of them promises 

 to run on to near the end of January. Well, then, what could 

 be nicer than that for four of the dullest months? for, if 

 October should be fine and fresh, still it is possible to keep back 

 the October-flowering Crocuses to the beginning of November 

 by keeping the pots dry a month longer, or by not potting the 

 bulbs so soon by a month. Speciosus was the first to bloom 

 with me, and it was noticed at the time as so much like Leuco- 

 coryne ixioides in the light blue streaky colour. A botanical 

 clergyman from the country wrote to me to say his speciosus 

 was very different from the one I mentioned ; and so it was, for 

 his sort is Parkinson's pyrenseus, which is the same as Sir E. 

 Smith's nudiflorus, and is first called speciosus in the Supple- 

 ment to "English Botany," vol. ii., fig. 2752. 



This pyrenseus of Parkinson and nudiflorus and speciosus of 

 Smith is the Bame as the Crocus which is so abundant in the 

 meadows at Nottingham. My speciosus is tbe true one, and was 

 so named in the " Botanical Magazine," 3861, by Bieberstein, 

 after whom the new Cerastium Biebersteini is called. He was a 

 Eussian botanist. 



My present new-year bloomer looked so much like the true ver- 

 sicolor as to put me in the dumps about it, when the flower-bud3 

 made their first appearance about the middle of December. It is 

 the Crocus Imperatonius of Herbert in the " Botanical Magazine," 

 3871, and the C. Imperati of Tenore, " Botanical Begister," 

 1993. It is a native of Monte Pollino in Calabria, and farther 

 south to the very spot where Garibaldi received the ball into 

 his ankle. There are six blooms of it now open before me as I 

 write this, and I see nine more coming in different stages, so 

 that I shall be sure to have one bloom of it at least to the very 

 last day of January, if not well on in February, as some more 

 flower- buds may yet appear from among the foliage, which in 

 this kind becomes 2 or 3 inches long before the flower-buds come 

 up. In the bud this beautiful Crocus is a light yellow, or straw 

 colour, streaked with purple-feathered stripes on the sepals. The 

 inside of the sepals and both sides of the petals are of a rich 

 violet colour (saturate violaceo) ; the bottom of the flower is 

 smooth, and of an orange colour, like the eye in the breed of 

 versicolor, and the size as large as that of Prince Albert. 

 Altogether it is a very desirable Crocus coming naturally in the 

 dead of winter, besides reminding one of a host of similar kinds, 

 which might be within our reach if we once adopted the notion 

 of cultivating a selection of them. 



I am indebted to the kindness of the king of cross-breeders 

 for them all, and his kinds came quite true to name. One of 

 them, for which he had no name, and which he received from 

 Dr. Herbert's brother, is the next on my list, and the third 

 which bloomed with me. It is odorus, a lovely light blue 

 flower all over, with a yellow bottom, and it bloomed for six 

 weeks from the end of October, and is a very sweet-scented flower. 

 It is the Crocus longiflorus of Rafinesque, an Italian botanist ; 

 but the name odorus was previously applied to it by another 

 Italian, Bivona Bernardi, and there is a figure of it in the 

 "Botanical Register" for 1841 (3, fig. 4), under the name 

 longiflorus, together with that of another variety of it (fig. 5), 

 which is a native of Malta. 



The fourth kind of my stock is byzantinus, the oldest of them 

 all, and one of Parkinson's Crocuses ; it is also the most curious 

 of all the Crocuses, and had several names — as banaticus, by 

 M. Gay, of Paris ; speciosus, of Reichenbach ; and iridiflorus, 

 of Dr. Heuffel ; but Parkinson's name, byzantinus, having had 

 the priority, is the right one. Before the flower opens one might 

 I be excused for taking it to be speciosus, the colours being much 



