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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ December 6, ISM. 



Jf-ifle. The situation should be open yet sheltered, and the 

 plants grown in pots when not in the beds, though that is 

 not imperatively necessary. If in pots they should only 

 be plunged in the beds during then- period of bloom, and 

 when done blooming be removed to an east or other border 

 where they'will not receive much sun from 10 A.m. to 4 p.m. 

 Grow them in such a border — namely, a cool border, where 

 they may receive the morning sun before it becomes too 

 powerful, but to be protected from it during the hotter 

 part of the day, let the subsoil be well drained, and use a 

 compost of sandy turfy loam and well-decayed leaf mould or 

 pieat in equal parts. Water should be given copiously until 

 the growth is perfected, when half an inch of river sand or 

 silver sand may be placed around the neck of the plants, but 

 it is a good practice to do so before the dog days begin. 

 With this sand around the necks of the plants copious 

 waterings are not necessary, but a slight sprinkling should 

 be given on the evenings of hot days. The plants are best 

 in rows from 6 to 9 inches asunder, sufficient room being 

 allowed in the row to prevent their actually touching. In 

 this position they may remain until they shew signs of 

 growth, when they may be taken up with balls and planted 

 in sunny but sheltered situations in the flower garden in 

 soil prepared for them. When done blooming they may be 

 returned to their old quarters, divided if it can be done, and 

 there they may remain until removed to their blooming 

 quarters again ; or if the soil is very wet, they may be potted 

 in September in wide shallow pots, using the compost named, 

 with perfect drainage, and taking them up carefully. After 

 potting place in a cold frame slightly protected from frost, 

 keep comparatively dry, and guard against snails and slugs, 

 which are very fond of the flower-buds. It is hardly neces- 

 sary to say they should have all the light possible, and on 

 all favourable occasions be thoroughly exposed to the air. 



I have seen most of the above grown in this manner 

 by the square foot, and Soldanella alpina by the square 

 yard, by an old gardener when I could not even pronounce 

 such names ; and if they could be grown successfully by a 

 man that could hardly write his name, yet who never saw 

 failure in a little difficulty, what is to hinder our doing so 

 now ? So little were the Soldanellas thought of but a few 

 years ago, that they were sold at 2d. each by the gardener 

 in question, now deceased. I may also state that I have 

 had fine beds of Soldanella alpina. 



As for Silene acaulis, plant it either in a border in sandy 

 peat and loam, or in a pot well drained, and afford the treat- 

 ment commonly given to alpines, and it will be ready to do 

 its work when called upon — that is, when in bloom the pots 

 to be plunged in the places desired. Any one can have a 

 plant of this from any nurserymen for 9d., and have a stock 

 in a short time by dividing the roots either in autumn or 

 spring, potting, or planting in a sunny border, and on rock- 

 work or stones covered with a few inches of soil it grows 

 well. I had fine masses of it. 



Beds of double red Primroses any old woman can have, 

 and I leave " A. R. " to find out some neat cottage garden 

 where the flowers are mostly known as Gillivers (Wall- 

 flowers), Stepmother (Pansies), and Polly Aunts (Poly- 

 anthus), and he may possibly be told that double red Prim- 

 roses will grow anywhere, and yet he will find them in a 

 corner receiving the morning sun and but little during the 

 hotter parts of the day, and that they are divided at all 

 periods of the year just when the fit comes on her to trim 

 up the garden, or give a slip to a friend, which is sure to be 

 when the plants are in flower. Double red Primroses are 

 in cottage gardens in patches large enough to fill the half 

 of a modern flower-bed. 



As an example of the care necessary to grow double red 

 Primroses, before I was in my teens I planted a root in a 

 corner of my father's garden close by a well, and this has 

 continued to grow in the same place, so that my son has 

 dug round it like me in his youthful days, and I have no 

 doubt that another generation may do the same. It is now 

 one immense patch, and beside it are many of the different 

 Primroses, both single and double, that were put there by 

 myself, and now remain, people yet stopping to look at the 

 little garden corner over the Quick hedge by the well, and 

 admire the beauties there exposed to view during the days 

 of spring. In that little corner I planted numbers of com- 

 mon Primroses under the supposition that they would 



change their colour, as I was told they would with the bees 

 inoculating them. 



Now, will "A. R. " explain why when the soil of a long 

 plantation of trees was planted with common Primroses out 

 of the fields, a number of them on the brow of a dry hill 

 became of a rosy purple colour in a few years, and this 

 almost without exception, whilst those in the hollows or 

 moister parts are every one of the usual Primrose colour ? 

 Also, how does it happen that the common sweet Violets 

 when planted there are scentless in the following year? 

 The soil is hazely loam on gravel. 



At Wentworth House, tie seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, some 

 of the plants referred to might have been seentin sufficient 

 quantity to form beds, being as they were plants to 

 which Mr. Henderson, the late gardener, was very partial ; 

 and not only these, but many others both Alpines and 

 Filices, I have noted in the counties of York, Cheshire, Lan- 

 cashire, Somersetshire, Middlesex, Kent, and Surrey, in all 

 cases cultivated in duplicate ; and when they can be grown 

 successfully as single specimens, what is to hinder their 

 being grown in sufficient quantities to form masses ? 



The reason they are not now grown in quantity is, 

 the fashion has lately been for a class of gaudy trumpery, 

 and such plants have absorbed all the care and attention 

 that was formerly paid to alpine and herbaceous plants, 

 resulting in the latter being left to dwindle away, and now 

 that there is a reaction about to commence, and a return to 

 favour of our good old favourites, people start up and say 

 they cannot be successfully cultivated in England. Surely 

 we are not less intelligent, nor less clever than gardeners 

 were thirty years back, and who had many plants that no 

 one now a-days knows anything about. I say, if the present 

 rage for tender summer bedding plants continues to drive 

 out of cultivation all plants that are in the least difficult to 

 cultivate, as they have done very many of the old ones, then 

 the time has arrived for those who write for the public to 

 set their faces against the monotonous features which our 

 gardens exhibit at the present time. In doing so it is not 

 unlikely that mistakes may be committed in noting plants 

 not generally in cultivation as suitable for massing, which 

 through our comparative ignorance of them may not be 

 suitable for such a purpose. But what if we do name any 

 that are not suitable, if only attention be directed to some 

 such plants a liking will spring up for them, and mistakes 

 will soon be rectified. Many of the plants named by me 

 are suitable for forming masses in the flower garden, and 

 none are unsuitable that I have said to form fine beds or 

 masses, and I do not fear the issue of their trial, convinced 

 as I am that what could be grown successfully in former 

 times in herbaceous borders, can now be grown with the 

 same care, and the same amount of success. Of that 

 number will be found Soldanella alpina, Silene acaulis 

 (though S. Schaffti, a near ally, may be thought more of), 

 and double red Primroses. I am delighted to find that 

 attention is being directed to these exquisite alpine and 

 herbaceous plants, which have been too long neglected by 

 nurserymen. — G. Abbey.] 



MISMANAGEMENT OF THE EOYAL 

 HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



As a very old Fellow of the Horticultural Society I fully 

 agree with your remarks upon its present mismanagement. 



I would beg leave to notice the gross inattention to the 

 state of the plants distributed by the Society. A short time 

 ago I received some which were awarded to me by ballot, and 

 my gardener told me they were so infested with mealy bug 

 and scale that he would not upon any account have ventured 

 to place them near other plants. 



I would also remark, that if there are any plants of any 

 rarity to be distributed, they are so few that it is a hundred 

 to one that one gets any of them ; indeed, generally they 

 consist of plants of the commonest and most useless sorts. — 

 A Fellow op the R.H.S. fob mobe than Thirtt Yeabs, 

 Brighton. 



The Illustrated Bohqttet.— The eighteenth part of this 

 beautiful serial, published by Messrs. E. G. Henderson & Son, 

 at their Nursery in the Wellington Road, contains excellent 



