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JOUENAL OP HOETICULTTJBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



[ August 1, 1872. 



to the spikes will sometimes fall over and snap-off close to the 

 surface. Exhibitors tie their spikes to neat -wire supports 

 made in this way : — A straight piece of wire is .bent at 3 or 

 4 inches from the end ; 2 inches further up it is again bent, so 

 that the wire support can be brought close to the stalk without 

 injuring the bulb. Trained in this way, and fastened with 

 neat ties, the supports are scarcely visible. Exhibitors should 

 also note that no dressing is allowed — at least, such as is 

 visible to the practised eyes of the judges. The bells require 

 to>be arranged with a pointed piece of wood not so thick as an 

 ordinary cedar pencil, and brought up so that they may stand 

 boldly out from the spike, but no artificial tying-up of the bells 

 is permitted. When flowers are grown for exhibition exhibitors 

 will do their best to bring them up to the required standard of 

 perfection, but everything artificial should be discouraged as 

 much as possible, and flagrant instances of deception should 

 be fully exposed. 



I have carefully noted the varieties exhibited at the London 

 shows during the last two or three years, and consider the 

 following to be the best : — Single Bed. — Cavaignac, Eabiola, 

 Gigantea, Macaulay, Mrs. Beeeher Stowe, Solf ate-rre, Von Schil- 

 ler, and Vuurbaak. Single White. — Alba Maxima, Baroness 

 Von Tuyll, Grandeur a, Merveille, La Grandesse, L'Innocenee, 

 Mont Blanc, and Queen of the Netherlands. Single Blue. — 

 Baron Von Tuyll, Charles Dickens, General Havelock, Grand 

 Lilas, King of the Blues, Leonidas, Marie, and Mimosa. 

 Single Yellow. — Anna Carolina, and Ida. Single Lilac and 

 Mauve. — Czar Peter, De Candolle, Haydn, and Sir Henry 

 Havelock. Double Bed. — Koh-i-Noor, Lord Wellington, Noble 

 par Merite, and Prince of Orange. Double White. — La Tour 

 d'Auvergne, and Prince of Waterloo. Double Blue. — Garrick, 

 Laurens Koster, Louis Philippe, and Van Speyk. 



Some of the above are new sorts and necessarily expensive, 

 and purchasers must make out their order according to the 

 sum at their disposal. I order a large proportion of such as 

 Charles Dickens, Grandeur a. Merveille, and Baron Von Tuyll. 

 — J. Douglas. 



NOTES OF A WANDEBER,— No. 1. 



FROM EIE3IINGHAM TO EASLE. 



When I plunged through the slush and mud of the Lower 

 Grounds at Aston, and with umbrella in hand essayed to gather 

 together my notes and tried to be jolly, like Mark Tapley, 

 under difficult circumstances,! could not help saying to myself, 

 " Cheer up, in a very few hours you will be in, quite a different 

 location :" and so in truth I was. On Tuesday night (June 

 25th), I left Birmingham, and on Thursday night was at Hei- 

 delberg. The fact was, a near relative, overborne by the work 

 of a large parish, had become thoroughly prostrated physically 

 and mentally, and had been ordered abroad, and I was to 

 accompany him and see him settled in Switzerland ; so it fell 

 out that about the very last thing that I should have thought 

 of as likely to happen this year came to pass, and I have found 

 myself amongst the smiling valleys, on the passes and glaciers 

 of the Alps of Switzerland and Savoy. Before leaving home 

 I went to my desk and took out my horticultural spectacles 

 (not rose-coloured, but a sort of neutral tint) , and determined 

 to see what I could in that time. Some people never wear 

 spectacles, and therefore never see anything. I generally con- 

 trive to carry a few pairs ; sometimes they are ecclesiastical, 

 at other times they are art ones, and very frequently horti- 

 cultural. The advantage of this is, that wherever you are 

 there is always something to be seen and something to be 

 noted ; and although what I have seen in this tour is not very 

 noteworthy in a horticultural light, yet such as it is it may be 

 worth telling, if only to save others from much disappointment. 

 At Coblentz, where I remained for a few hours to see a 

 young friend, I walked, as in duty bound, round the town and 

 along the beautiful promenade made by the Empress Augusta, 

 whose favourite residence Coblentz is. It extends along the 

 banks of the Ehine, and commands a good view of Ehren- 

 breitstein. I did not notice anything remarkable in the laying- 

 out of the ground; in fact shade seemed the great thing around 

 it. One arrangement struck me as pretty. There was' a long 

 border of the common Periwinkle about 3 feet wide; this was 

 very neatly trimmed, and panels were cut out of it at 

 short distances, which were filled with Alternanthera, Golden 

 ;er kept low, and other plants of a similar character. 

 . as elsewhere, one is struck with the utter absence of 

 ling like our English lawns ; but after all, can it be othcr- 

 ? We have had experience in 1SG8 and 1870 of the kind 



of summers that are pretty general on the Continent — weeks 

 of dry burning sun without any rain, and we know in what a 

 state our lawns were in those seasons — hardly distinguishable 

 from the paths that surrounded them ; and when the Paris 

 Exhibition was open, the grass in the Jardin Anglais was only 

 kept in its green state by constant waterings. In fact, the 

 great difficulty of summer gardening on the Continent is this. 

 We deplore our changeable climate, mourn over the dark and 

 sombre days we sometimes have, regret how our picnics are 

 spoiled by heavy showers ; but after all, there is no climate 

 equal to it for gardening, and I believe for real enjoyment. 



At Heidelberg, my next stopping place — for I was glad 

 enough to get out of dirty wobegone Mayence — the one place 

 is, of course, the castle, without doubt the most interesting 

 ruin of its kind in Germany ; and the walks and shrubberies 

 around form an agreeable promenade and place of resort 

 for the citizens and students, the latter of whom, in all 

 sorts of fantastic caps, which would very much astonish our 

 University dons, are to be met with on every side. Here there 

 was positively nothing to remark. Boses were to be seen as 

 standards, but, like all the Boses on the Continent, far inferior 

 to our own. There was some little attempt at a pinetum, but 

 it was a very mild affair. The markets here seemed to be very 

 well supplied with both fruit and vegetables, as might be sup- 

 posed from its nearness to the rich valleys of the Neckar and 

 the fertile plains of the Ehine. Strawberries were abundant 

 but deal', at least the larger kinds, which are generally called 

 abroad English Strawberries. The Fraise de quatre Saisons 

 was of course, as everywhere abroad, the special fruit. Cherries 

 were abundant, both Black Hearts and Bigarreaus ; the latter, 

 however, not so fine as we found them at Lausanne, where 

 they were as fine as ever I have seen in this, par excellence, the 

 county of Cherries, Kent. 



There was but one thing I regretted in my onward journey 

 — that I had no time to stop at Carlsruhe, that I might have 

 had an opportunity of paying a visit to Mr. Max-Leichtlin and 

 of renewing the acquaintance I made with him at South Ken- 

 sington ; but the circumstances under which I was travelling 

 prevented my doing so, although I had to remain at the station 

 for twenty minutes. Nothing can exceed the richness and 

 beauty of these Baden plains. The hay harvest was being got 

 in, and a scene of brightness it was. The patient oxen draw- 

 ing the waggons, the well-to-do appearance of the peasantry, 

 and the well-ordered character of everything, betokened a pro- 

 sperous land. " Small blame to them " that they should have 

 fought so earnestly for it, or thrown in their lot with that 

 powerful empire which has arisen in central Europe; I was, 

 however, struck with the fact that the cottagers' gardens were 

 not like those of our own good land, glowing with flowers, and 

 that at the railway stations no flowers were offered for sale ; 

 in fact, there was little evidence that the Germans are a flower- 

 loving people, and I do not think they are. Possibly to love 

 flowers requires a certain amount of sentiment and imagina- 

 tion, and however estimable may be the German character, no 

 one can accuse them of a large share of either of these qualities. 

 Nothing could possibly be worse, too, than the table decora- 

 tions at the table d'hote both here and in Switzerland. Com- 

 mon flowers, clumsily arranged and jammed into ugly vases, 

 were made to pass for table decorations ; and this is the 

 more remarkable, as in other respects the appointments of the 

 table were in excellent taste. It was late when we arrived at 

 Basle, and the old familiar " Trois Bois " received me once 

 more. And how pleasant to look out from one's windows on 

 the rushing Ehine ! and how completely one can understand 

 the one sentiment Germans own to — their love for this glorious 

 river ! I must reserve my notes of the place for next week. 

 — D., Deal. ' 



ONCIDIUM MACBANTHUM. 

 Some of your readers may well know the freedom with which 

 this lovely Oneid flowers at Perniehurst ; still, it may he grati- 

 fying to those interested in Orchid culture to hear that this 

 season is not an exception, but rather in advance of any pre- 

 vious one. In the spring of 1871 a spike bore forty-four of 

 its noble blooms ; one plant, however, has now far exceeded 

 that number, having produced a branched spike bearing sc^ enty- 

 seven blooms, which, had it not been that the first or main 

 branch was damaged hi the early part of its growth, would 

 probably have borne ninet.y, there being thirteen flowers on 

 each of the two next branches. This, with two more spikes on 

 other plants, gives a total of 115 flowers open at one time, 



