March 17, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



203. 



return of post, saying they quite believed the men's statement, 

 for no man could bear smoke of sufficient density to kill this 

 troublesome enemy. They also kindly gave a list of instructions 

 for fumigating houses. 



First, never smoke if the sun shines ; next, choose a still day. 

 Never open or shut a door whilst fumigating ; never use coals, 

 but light a handful of brown paper torn into shreds, put it into 

 a pot, and the tobacco-paper also torn into small pieces over it, 

 and blow at once. Let the house and the' foliage of the plants 

 be as dry as convenient. Smoke two nights in succession. 



In accordance with these instructions I procured a gutta 

 percha tube, had a small brass pipe attached to one end of it to 

 insert into the pot side containing the tobacco, passed the other 

 end through a small hole in the door, and there connected it 

 with a bellows. By this means the house was filled with a dense 

 smoke two nights in succession, and I believe every insect killed. 

 The plants were quite uninjured, and are fast recovering their 

 health, — J. R. Peabson, Chilwell, near Nottingham. 



THE EOTAL HOETICTJLTTJEAL SOCIETY'S 

 SCHEDULES EOE 1863. 



{Concluded from page 183.) 



I now pass on to the second great Show; and here one is 

 again struck with the immense amount of prizes given to stove 

 and orchidaceous plants, for which, in a great many instances, 

 the plants that have doue duty at the previous exhibitions will 

 again make their appearance, these, with foliaged plants, ab- 

 sorbing £262 out of the £146 10s. offered for this portion of the 

 Show. I have no doubt plantsman will hold up their hands in 

 horror at the notion of there being any doubt expressed as to 

 the wisdom of the expenditure, and will tell me this Yanda cost 

 £30, and that Cattleya £25, and this exhibitor would not sell 

 his plant of that Phalsenopsis for £100. Very likely; but this 

 is no test of the amount of encouragement flowers ought to 

 receive. Tulips are sold at equally extravagant prices, or at any 

 rate quoted; but the Society does not think of offering any- 

 thing for them, and, mad as Tulip-growers are, they would not 

 be so insane as to ask that their prizes should be measured by 

 the quoted value of their bulbs ; and on what principle is £S8 

 allotted to amateurs in Orchids and £25 to nurserymen ? 



As to the expense of growing, I think that to be a question 

 which, with all due deference to other authorities, I cannot but 

 think has been over-estimated in the comparison. On what 

 grounds have the Exhibition Committee required new green- 

 house Azaleas to be shown in June ? They will recollect that 

 they begin to require Azaleas on March 18th, and to have them 

 three months after. That is requiring a great deal, and can only 

 be done by a constant system of retarding ; but Azaleas are in 

 their glory in May, and then is surely the time for new sorts to 

 be shown ; for, from their being new, there is every anxiety on 

 the part of the exhibitor to get his plants into bloom and forward 

 for growth as soon as possible ; and by endeavouring to keep 

 them back until the third week in June a full month's growth, 

 and that the best in the year, is lost, and with valuable plants 

 that is of some considerable importance. There i9 not the 

 slightest _ reason why they should not be shown in May, and 

 perhaps it only requires pointing out to have the evil remedied ; 

 for I know that exhibitors of new AzaleaB feel the regulation to 

 be injurious to them, and they are naturally anxious to make as 

 good a display of the new sorts as can be done. 



Surely the Drachmas and Cordylines might very well have 

 been left to take their place amongst the foliaged plants, for if 

 they be as ornamental as the Council seem to think — a point on 

 which I, for one, beg to differ— an exhibitor would take very 

 good care to put them amongst them ; but if they be, as I think 

 with few exceptions they are, stiff and unmeaning, it would be 

 surely better to put them out altogether. 



The arrangement with regard to Pelargoniums seems peculiar, 

 nor do I quite see on what principle the prizes have been 

 arranged. If May be the month for Azaleas, June is un- 

 questionably the month for this very familiar and effective 

 flower ; and yet no difference is made in the number of classes 

 between this and the May Show. In May, Fancies are divided 

 into two classes — for nurserymen and amateurs. Why that 

 arrangement should be altered in June I cannot quite see, unless 

 it be to allow spotted kinds to be brought in ; hut then would 

 it not have been better to cut off some of the prizes for those 



classes where money seems to be so lavishly given, and to apply 

 it here and elsewhere ? 



Tropreolums are to be shown in June ! Now I have grown 

 some of these for years, and have generally some good and large 

 plants, and they are always in flower in March, and their beauty 

 quite over early in May. Why, then, the Council should persist 

 in placing them in the June Show I cannot conceive, especially 

 as they found that last year there were no exhibitors in the class, 

 and never will be in June. Just as they have done wrong in 

 requiring Amaryllids in February, so here is an error in the 

 opposite direction — but worse, inasmuch as I think that it is a 

 good object to get plants early in the year, and every inducement 

 may well be given to that end ; but to require Tropa:olums in 

 June when there is an abundance of other more showy and 

 attractive flowers is surely a blunder of greater intensity, and 

 one would think, with past experience before them, it ought to 

 have been avoided. 



Calceolarias have been omitted altogether from the schedule 

 this year ; and this, again, seems to me a great blunder. We 

 have latterly seen brought forward a claBs of flowers in which 

 the colours of the herbaceous kinds have been united to plants 

 of a shrubby character, and for the decoration of conservatories 

 in the later summer and early autumn months have been 

 much appreciated. It seems a strange proceeding, then, after 

 having set people on to grow these plants, to suddenly put the 

 ban on them altogether. I happened to be standing by one of 

 the exhibitors of them last season — a nurseryman — and having 

 noticed that in the brief space of time that I was there he 

 received several orders, I ventured to express my surprise ; and 

 he then informed me that he had received on that day alone 

 more orders than he should be able to execute for months, and 

 I believe more orders than any other plant received at the same 

 Show, and yet it is now to be excluded altogether! This does 

 not seem to be a wise way of commending the Society to the 

 goodwill of all classes. 



May I not put in a plea here for some flowers wholly omitted 

 as well as the Calceolaria ? Some weeks ago Mr. Carey Tyso, of 

 Wallingford, took no little trouble in endeavouring to procure 

 the names of the best show Ranunculuses, as so considered by 

 different growers, and these lists were published in a weekly 

 contemporary, and from thence copied into other gardening 

 periodicals ; but this flower is not one that the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society chooses to honour : it is excluded from their 

 scbedules altogether. The same may be said of Pinks, which 

 are generally in their prime about this time, and around the 

 boxes of which, when they are sent in for the Miscellaneous 

 class, there is always sure to be a crowd of eager visitors and 

 admirers. To have done these things after the strong represen- 

 tations of the Floral Committee, and after the opinions so freely 

 expressed, of which some of its officers cannot be ignorant, 

 augurs Burely an amount of perversity one would hardly expect 

 to find in a public body. 



In making these strictures on the Society, I am in no way 

 influenced by a desire to find fault. I wish it were everything 

 it ought to be ; but while so many blunders are perpetrated, 

 it can never thoroughly enjoy the confidence of the exhibitors. 

 Nurserymen especially are ill treated, " We get," writes one of 

 the most successful of the exhibitors, " at the shows but scant 

 justice. After subscribing our money and making their shows, 

 they now ask us to help them by advertisements, and yet come 

 into competition with us as distributors of seeds." This i3, 

 I believe, pretty well the feeling of the trade in general, and 

 will ultimately lead, if not altered, to the end which the same 

 writer points out when he says the " Society should not 

 be supported by the trade." It may come to this ; and, not- 

 withstanding a long list of aristocratic subscribers, the real 

 bone and muscle of the exhibitions are atnoDgst the nurserymen. 

 — An Exhibitob. 



THE HYDEOPULT. 



We strongly recommend this to the attention of our readers, 

 for, which is not always in our power to say, it fully comes up 

 to this statement of its proprietors : — " It is a fire-annihilator 

 and garden engine, simple, effective, and convenient. It weighs 

 but 8 lbs., and will throw 7 or 8 gallons of water per minute to 

 a distance of 50 feet, when worked by the power of one man." 

 It throws the water either in one stream, or dispersed in the 

 form of the finest shower of rain, by means of a sprinkler which 



