December 27, 1861. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



507 



plants, and, moreover, amongst his lot were decidedly the 

 best flowers of last season. 



Artist. — A very fine large flower. Upper petals very dark ; 

 lower, a clear bright rose; white centre. A bold-looking 

 flower, and the habit of the plant good. 



Achilles. — A flower of the most brilliant colouring, orange 

 ground, strongly marked ; upper petals dark beautiful ma- 

 roon with fiery crimson edge. Habit of plant very weak, 

 difficult to grow. 



Diadem. — A rosy purple flower, and with a deeper shade 

 of colour in it, with a bright white centre. Quite a novelty 

 in this shade of flower. Top petals very dark, narrow border 

 of bright carmine. Habit of plant good. A first-rate flower. 



Smmeline. — Orange rose lower petals ; very dark maroon 

 top, margin of bright carmine. 



The Prince. — Clear rich orange flower, white centre ; top 

 petals maroon, broad border of carmine. Very free-flower- 

 ing, and of good habit. 



Uoyal Bride. — A white flower ; top petals, large deep 

 blotch, narrow bright border. No improvement on other 

 similar flowers as far as my judgment went, and in that of 

 a friend and neighbour whose opinion on these points is 

 worth having. 



Amy. — Peculiar shade of purple, with very large trusses, 

 but a gross habit of foliage, which detracts from its value. 



Alexandra. — A shaded lilac rose flower ; top petals bright 

 scarlet rose, with small blotch. A novel-looking fiower of 

 good habit. 



Lord Eversley. — Very free flowering ; of excellent quality 

 and rich colours. Light centre ; top petals bright maroon, 

 with narrow shaded margin. 



Cherry Hive. — Eright rosy orange ; centre white. Very 

 fine. Blotch not very dense. Good habit. 



Phantom. — Lower petals rather long, white throat ; flowers 

 somewhat loose, but striking in colour. 



A few of Mr. Hoyle's flowers I had not the opportunity of 

 seeing, so cannot say how they have turned out — such as 

 Aristides, Peerless, Penelope, and Philo. Of those enume- 

 rated above the best are unquestionably Artist, Achilles, 

 Diadem, and Alexandra. The Prince and Lord Eversley are 

 well worth growing. 



he. fosteb's. 



Belle of the Ball. — A strongly-coloured painted flower ; 

 somewhat long lower petals ; top petals quite black, margin 

 rose ; eye white and clear. 



Rienzi. — Painted carmine lower petals, black maroon top 

 petals ; narrow crimson edge. 



Princess Selena. — A little rough. Very dark, in the style 

 of Topsy. .Lower petals painted. 



Miss Burdett Coutts. — Rose-coloured flower, not of first-rate 

 quality. 



These flowers have all, more or less, the fault which I have 

 always found in Mr. Poster's flowers— that they are not 

 suificiently broad in proportion to their length, and which I 

 have no doubt excludes so many of them from the exhibition 

 stage; still they are improving, and with a little foreign 

 blood infused into them would be much better. They are 

 very rich in colour, and their habit is generally fair, so that 

 there is only this change needed. Belle of the Ball and 

 Rienri are the best of those named. 



me. beck's. 



Display. — Very dark heavy spot; nice dwarf habit, but 

 somewhat too long in the petals. 



Maggie. — Pretty light spot; very free flowering; shape 

 good, and habit very dwarf. An excellent variety. 



Princess of Wales. — Bright rose colour ; very bright, but 

 not constant. 



Spotted Nonpareil. — Excellent dwarf habit ; free bloomer ; 

 the colour bright and rich. An excellent variety. 



Hector. — Good smooth fiower; colour bright rose, white 

 throat, dark shaded spot; habit good. A very pleasing 

 flower. 



Diana. — Habit of the plant dwarf; lower petals painted ; 

 top petals very dark, with margin of scarlet rose. An excel- 

 lent variety. 



Paris. — Smooth flower, but common in colour, and in no 

 respect remarkable. 



The Charmer. — A nice, smooth, rose-colcored fiower of fair 

 average properties. 



"We have already had some very excellent flowers from Mr. 

 Beck, and some of the above are in habit all that we want, 

 the growth short-jointed, plants " stocky," as the phrase is, 

 and the bloom freely produced. The flowers may not have, 

 perhaps, quite that refinement (I know of no better term to 

 use), that Mr. Hoyle's have, but they are some of them 

 such as an amateur will delight in for their style of growth. 

 As far as I could see Maggie, Spotted Nonpareil, Hector, 

 and Diana are varieties that will be found well worth grow- 

 ing, and will keep up the credit of Mr. Wiggins, who has 

 given us many very beautiful varieties. 



It is impossible not to see that the Pelargonium is still 

 amongst our most favourite flowers, although, from the pre- 

 sent style of exhibition, the same plants are too often, from 

 year to year and from show to show, placed before our eyes. 

 If more encouragement were given to smaller plants, I am 

 persuaded it would be more popular than ever ; it possesses 

 so many advantages, is so easily grown, is so free-flowering, 

 and continues for so long a period in bloom, that from cot- 

 tage to palace it finds a home ; and it is quite a pleasure, 

 in our neighbourhood at least, to see how the old worthless 

 kinds in cottage windows are being displaced by better and 

 newer varieties. Again are there new candidates for public 

 favour, and amongst them probably the very finest Pelar- 

 gonium ever raised, John Hoyle. On these I hope to report 

 in due season. — D., Deal. 



HOUSE SEWAGE. 



Removed as i am from the great centre of practical thought 

 and speech, I appear to myself as a humble worker upon the 

 outskirts of the earth, creating in my little sphere motives 

 for my own forces to exert themselves on, and occasion- 

 ally using the press as my safety-valve. I find it a great 

 blessing thus to be able to occupy my mind independently in 

 a little exclusive borough, where scarcely a neighbour feels 

 sufficient interest in one's proceeding to wish one good speed, 

 nor inclined to take any advantage from my undertakings 

 for their personal interests. Mr. Fish in his " Doings," ex- 

 pressed a wish that I would further enlarge upon the subject 

 of sewage soon after I wrote about it in May last (Vol. VI., 

 page 365). I will not repeat what I then said, but as the 

 question is very important to the country, and is becoming 

 very popular, as well as out of regard for the request of Mr. 

 Fish, I willingly take it up. A few words as to the past. It 

 is thirty years since (I was then a boy), the great utility of 

 sewage and liquid manure became impressed upon my mind 

 by accident. I have, with but a few years' intermission, used 

 it ever since, and fifteen years ago, in my first article in this 

 Journal, I touched upon the utility of sewage, and I have 

 every year since adverted to the subject, both in these 

 columns and in those of four other periodicals. 



To help to reconcile opinions, I think it well to send some 

 specimens of our fruit for you to pronounce on, and if you 

 find that it possesses any quality worthy of mention, you may 

 chiefly attribute it to the supplies of sewage which the trees 

 have been aocustomed to receive. I could not arrive at 

 flavour in this soil, even when I had twice taken up the trees 

 experimentally and changed its texture. Till the happy 

 idea of sewage came to aid me Pears were scarcely equal to 

 Turnips, and the Apples were on a par. It is seven years, I 

 think, since I first sent you some of the same sorts from the 

 same trees to taste, in consequence of the improvement in 

 flavour after the first summer's supply of sewage, and the 

 trees have never since had any other manure, for we keep 

 neither horses nor pigs, and dung is very expensive. 



I feel that I cannot take so firm a grasp of my subject as 

 1 could wish, unless I revert somewhat to the state of this 

 garden on my introduction to it. From inquiry I found out 

 that it had long been considered a piece of ground quite 

 worn out, and occasioning more expense to cultivate than it 

 was worth. It had been upwards of two hundred years 

 under fruit and vegetables, and the miserable specimens 

 which I saw and the appearance of the whole were so dif- 

 ferent from what I had been led to expect, that any person 

 not accustomed to look beyond the surface would certainly 

 have been disheartened. To examine the subsoil was my 

 first proceeding. I found that it had never been disturbed 

 since the garden was made, and, consequently, that the soil 



