Angnst 18, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE! AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



131 



to the sun. Some of the larger leaves of Mrs. Pollock are also 

 similarly affected, but otherwise this oldest and best of bedding 

 Tricolors is at present wearing her brightest colours. That 

 pr9tty, variegated, Ivy-leaved Geranium L'Elegante seems to 

 find its way but slowly over the country, yet it is really one of 

 the most delicate and quietly artistic plants I know either for 

 edgings or for carpeting under tall-growing plants, and it is 

 never more beautiful than during weather such as this. 



Calceolarias are giving much trouble in watering and stuffing 

 short grass among them, but in return they are blooming most 

 profusely, and promising well for the rest of the season, except 

 Aurea floribunda, whose beauty threatens soon to be a thing of 

 the past. This fine Calceolaria will not succeed in dry light 

 soils without more work being expended upon it than even it is 

 worth. In the beginning of May, while they were growing in 

 Celery trenches, the Calceolarias suffered rather severely from 

 what was to me a rather novel cause, the tops of many of them 

 being destroyed by a curious shield-shaped insect called Penta- 

 toma baccarum, which lives on the sap of plants, piercing the 

 soft tissues for the purpose of extracting it, and literally suck- 

 ing them to death. I have long known them as preying upon 

 the tops of Potatoes, Beans, &c, though not previously upon 

 Calceolarias, but they have never appeared in such numbers 

 here as they did last Bpring. 



Many of our new, and, in point of flower, best Verbenas 

 seem utterly incapable of enduring any great hardship. It 

 would appear that the improving process has well-nigh ruined 

 their constitutions ; but this is, all the world over, one of the 

 ills incidental to a highly artificial state. Even we, in ceasing 

 to be savages, have had to make considerable sacrifices. Many 

 of them, while refusing point-blank to grow upon a dry-dust 

 regimen, likewise take offence at the daily waterings necessary 

 to keep them moist, let the water be never so scientifically 

 applied, and make little more progress than if it were one of 

 the coldest of seasons. Fortunately they are not all alike, and 

 there are plenty to choose from, and for decorative purposes 

 very few gardeners really require more than four or five sorts, 

 including Verbena venosa, which ought to be everywhere. 



Viola cornnta that was planted in April i3 still passable, but 

 old edgings of last year's planting are done. V. lutea does not 

 succeed here. The yellow and blue bedding Pansies have also 

 begun to look seedy. 



The much-vaunted Golden Feather Pyrethrum is most un- 

 sightly wherever I have seen it during the last three weeks. 

 There can be no doubt as to its proper place being the spring 

 garden, where there are no Calceolarias to outshine it, but long 

 before the dog-days it ought to be on the rubbish heap. The 

 variegated Polemonium is doing well, with liberal waterings, 

 and is, as everybody knows, a most beautiful edging plant, but 

 how does it happen that though it is universally known as 

 P. cseruleum variegatum, yet the flowers are invariably white, 

 at least all those that I have seen ? 



Petunias, Gazanias, and Gaillardias are doing well. Gail- 

 lardia coccinea is quite an effective bedding plant when grown 

 from cuttings, from seed it is rather late in beginning to bloom. 

 — Ayrshire Gardener. 



generation has known, and yet withal, from the entries already 

 received, I feel convinced we shall have a good exhibition. The 

 time has now come when the florists can testify whether they 

 are able to hold their own, and I sincerely trust they will give 

 one and all a hearty pull in this matter. I can promise them, 

 as far as I am concerned, there shall be nothing but fair and 

 open dealing, and that we know no party. We bury the hatchet 

 of all past differences, and welcome all who desire to encourage 

 floristB' flowers. — D., Deal. 



METROPOLITAN SOCIETY'S EXHIBITION AT 

 THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 



May I use this channel of communication to answer a good 

 many letters that I have received on the subject of the exhi- 

 bition to be held on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of September ? And 

 first of all to thank the very many kind friends (for friends 

 they are, although many of them unknown to me), whose 

 letters strew my table, for the kind and cheery words of encou- 

 ragement that they give me, and for the offers of assistance 

 ungrudgingly made. It is, I can safely say, a matter to me of 

 deep gratitude that not only these have been given, but that I 

 have been so implicitly trusted in all the arrangements for the 

 show. To be told by one that " the Society is the very thing 

 that is wanted, and that it is sure to be popular;" by another, 

 one of our most distinguished florists, "I have been asked to 

 go to Ireland, but have declined, as I want to stay and help 

 you;" by another, one of our most ardent amateurs, that "I 

 am quite willing to give you any assistance in my power," is 

 indeed cheering, and these are but samples of many that I have 

 received. 



" What are our prospects of a good show?" Well, far better 

 than I could have anticipated. We commence operations in 

 vrobably the most trying season for florists' flowers the present 



" REDCARRE, A POOR FYSHER TOWNE."— No. 3. 



Sauntering southward along the unexcellable sands for a 

 short three miles, the four bathing machines of the village of 

 Marske are reached, and on a lofty cliff-point above stands 

 forth the goodly mansion of Joseph Pease, Esq. It seems 

 bare, and needing plantations of sea-defying trees to nestle 

 among ; and high and exposed though it is to all the gales from 

 every point of the east, I think some of the trees enumerated 

 not long since in your columns as successful settlers on our 

 sea-shores would maintain their good character here, and they 

 deserve the trial, and the mansion deserves their success. 

 When the cliff is climbed, and a peep obtained over the garden 

 wall, there is evidence — special evidence — of provision made 

 for shelter against the rough cold winds which sweep over the 

 cliff. A deep sheltering valley is cut, with turfed sloping banks 

 on either side, and at the bottom of the valley are flower borders 

 with a broad gravelled walk between. 



I am a wanderer just now, and my thoughts, like my steps, 

 are vagrant, and you will so think when you read my next 

 jotting — the name of Pease led to the query, Is that the correct 

 plural of Pea ? I think it is not. A correspondent in Notes 

 and Queries recently remonstrated against such a plural form, 

 and truly observed that if admitted, then the plural of sea 

 might be " sease." I think that " Pease " was formerly the 

 singular. At all events, Phillips in his " World of Words," 

 published in 1678, so used it. He says, "Pease (Pisum), a 

 sort of pulse of a most pleasing savor, and at the first coming 

 accounted a great rarity. That sort called Pease Everlasting 

 hath a very fine flower or blossom, and is called in Latin 

 Lathyrus ; the Wood or Heath Pease, Astragalus." " Pease " 

 might have been used both as a singular and plural noun, just 

 as we use fish and sheep; but I remember that "Peason" 

 was one plural form, but being away from my books I cannot 

 detaii the when and where it was so. 



" Here is the smugglers' grave," said an old man in the grave- 

 yard which crowns the cliff opposite to Mr. Pease's house. 

 " They was drown'd by their boat's upsetting, but the scription's 

 clean gone." " Not quite," I observed, " here are the com- 

 mencements of five lines — H , Franci , Ka , W , 



K . Then the sculptured figures on this headstone are of 



a man carrying a woman on bis back, and a girl by another 

 man's side. The boat upset is plain enough, but I interpret 

 that the four drowned were Francis some one and Katherine 

 his wife, and William some one and Katherine his daughter." 

 My old guide " never knew the like," and so we parted ; but as 

 I made a circuit, facing me was a monument to the memory of 

 the Earl of Zetland's gardener, Henry Yarker, and Hester his 

 wife. Strange is it that, go where I will, something about horti- 

 culture is sure to confront me. My next move was on to Salt- 

 burn, and the first book handed to me by a bookseller in answer 

 to my inquiry for a book on plants, was the seventeenth volume 

 of The Journal of Horticulture ! 



Well, without any prelude I have passed on to Saltburn, 

 and turning to notes previously taken at the British Museum, 

 I find this extract from the Cotton MS. quoted in my previous 

 communication : — 



" At Saltburne Mouth a smale brooke dischargeth ytself into 

 the sea, which lyinge lowe under the banks, serveth as a 

 trunke or conduite to convey the rumor of the sea into the 

 neighbour fieldes ; for when all wyndes are whiste, and the sea 

 reBtes unmoved as a standing poole, sometymes there is such a 

 horrible groninge heard from that creake at the least six myles 

 in the mayne lande, that the fishermen dare not put forth, 

 though thyrste of gaine drive them on, houlding an opinion 

 that the sea, as a greedy beaste raginge for hunger, desyers to 

 be satisfied with men's carcases." 



The sea must have changed its diet since that was written, 

 for I could not meet with any one that had heard its carcase- 

 coveting " groninge." The " smale brooke," now travels 

 quietly and deviously to the sea, between precipitous and 



