ArRiL 16, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



189 



through house after house filled with Araucaria excelsa (here 

 first propagated with success by the late Mr. Court, one of the 

 cleverest propagators we have ever had), Ferns of every sort, 

 large Todeas and other filmy fronded kinds; big and little 

 Adeantums, Davallias, Aspleniums, and in smaller houses all 

 sorts of secrets in the shape of new kinds, which one may 

 look at but not write about. Then we pass into a house or 

 rather a pretty rockery covered with Ferns and protected by a 

 glass roof. This house, delightful as a grotto in summer, is a 

 kind of anteroom to the Orchid-houses. There are twenty- 

 live of these, every one crammed full of plants, big speci- 

 mens, pigmies, rare hybrids, new introductions, popular 

 favorites, all elbowing each other and fat with health and hap- 

 piness. Two houses filled with specimen Cypripediums, an- 

 other with Vandas and Aerides, another with Phakenopses and 

 so on. The Odontoglossums make a brave show just now 

 and amongst them are many gems of the cool house; 

 Sophronitesforming brilliant patches of scarlet; Odontoglossum 

 Humeanum, 0. Edwardii, 0. nebulosum and Oncidium Phala- 

 nopsis being conspicuous among the rest. The Cattleya-house, 

 132 feet long, twenty-two feet wide andfourteen feet high, con- 

 tains thousands upon thousands of plants, some large speci- 

 mens a yard across, others quite small, but all full of plump 

 flower-sheaths of great promise for the blaze they always 

 make in May and June. There are sixteen rows of four- 

 inch pipes in this house, which is heated by an eight-foot 

 Trentham boiler. Two broad lean-to houses have their roofs 

 swarming with all sorts of Dendrobiums in baskets; and now 

 we are in the show house for Orchids. It is about thirty feet 

 square and twelve feet high, without any staging, the sides 

 being built up of cork and stone and the middle occupied by 

 a large irregular mass of the same material surrounding a cas- 

 cade and tank. Pockets are cunningly made for the reception 

 of the pots containing the plants, the cork and stone is more 

 or less clothed with creeping Ficus, Selaginella and similar 

 plants. The effect is particularly natural in appearance and 

 pleasing. At the time of my visit the plants in flower in this 

 house were Epidendrums of various kinds: Ccelogyne Mas- 

 sangeana, Cymbidium Lowianum and C. Devonianum, a white 

 Lycaste with gigantic flowers seven inches across; L. fulves- 

 cens, with forty of its large, tawny, yellow flowers; Phajus 

 tuberculosus, Dendrobium Cambridgeanum, D. Wardianum, D. 

 Farmeri, the white Ccelogyne cristata and many others. The 

 Nepenthes-house is fifty feet long and contains a magnificent 

 display of pitchers, Messrs. Veitch having been exceptionally 

 successful in the cultivation of these plants from the first. 

 A". Rajah, N. Dicksoniana, N. Mastersii, N. Morganice were in 

 glorious form. Then we enter a house filled with Anthurium 

 Scherzerianum, grand examples of goodcultivation. A similar 

 house is filled with Clivias in flower. The specimen green- 

 house Rhododendrons fill three houses, whilst in smaller and 

 propagating houses there are hundreds of thousands of these 

 plants, from the tiny seedlings just hatched to the latest flow- 

 ered of the new hybrids. Thefirst hybrids were raised atExeter 

 some thirty-five years ago, but the best of those now known 

 have been obtained since 1877. 



In the houses devoted to new plants there are numerous 

 new introductions from all parts of the world undergoing op- 

 erations by Mr. Heale, the clever propagator and hybridizer, 

 but of these I must not now write. Lapageria alba has a 

 house to itself. Numerous specimens are planted in a peat 

 bed twenty-five by ten feet. The shoots of this are led by 

 strings up to the roof. These when ripe will be laid flat on 

 the soil and covered with an inch or so of sandy peat. The result 

 will be that hundreds of shoots will be pushed up, and these 

 when rooted will be lifted and potted separately. By this in- 

 genious method of layering an abundant stock of this popular 

 greenhouse climber is obtained. 



Another propagating house is filled with seedlings of all 

 kinds : Clivias, Streptocarpus, Begonias, Cacti, Rhododen- 

 drons, including those wonderful Yunnan species, the intro- 

 duction of which, unless report and dried specimens speak 

 falsely, is an event of more than ordinary importance. 



Hippeastrums fill a house sixty-five by eighteen feet, and 

 the two thousand spikes they now bear present a wondrous 

 array of brilliant colors and huge flowers. The popularity of 

 these plants is shown by the enormous number sold from 

 this nursery alone, which is something like two thousand 

 every year. A hundred of Messrs. Veitch's seedling Hippeas- 

 trums have been certificated. Seedlings flower at the age of 

 three years, and probably remain healthy till they are ten 

 years old. 



A pretty conservatory always filled with the flowers of the 

 season is useful as a kind of sample-room. Parallel with it is 

 a group of ten houses placed side by side; opposite to them, 



on the other side of the central path, being a similar group. 

 Ten of these long, low houses are tilled with healthy young 

 stock of hard wooded plants, such as Boronias, Aphelexis, 

 Eriostemons, Ericas, Correas, Pimelias, Epacris; Climbers of 

 all kinds; young Azaleas, and so on. It is a long business to 

 "do" the whole of these houses, interesting though the contents 

 of every one undoubtedly are. The other ten of these useful 

 structures contain stove plants of all kinds. A Palm-house 

 crammed with large specimen Kentias, Cocoses and other 

 decorative kinds; then follow three large houses of Camellias; 

 another is filled with specimen Aralias; five others are devoted 

 to the growing of pot-vines, of which Messrs. Veitch grow 

 4,500 every year, and even these do not supply the demand. 

 A corridor leading to the high road contains magnificent 

 specimens of Camellia, all in flower. The propagating houses 

 teem with myriads of baby plants of every kind. New Nepen- 

 thes are here cared for and multiplied. Here, too, are young 

 plants of the interesting Heliamphora nutans, cousin to the 

 Sarracenias, and till lately shut up on the top of the Roraima 

 Mountain. 



About a dozen long houses contain soft-wooded plants, such 

 as Bouvardias, Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, Cyclamens, Carna- 

 tions, etc. Then there are frames innumerable, beds filled 

 with Carnations, which grow well at Chelsea in spite of the 

 poison of its fogs and smoke. The keep of this nursery is 

 most admirable. "A place for everything and everything in its 

 place " is the motto here. 



I have omitted to mention the breeding houses for Orchids 

 so ably presided over by Mr. Seden, because they, or rather 

 their contents, have been taken to a branch nursery at Slough, 

 near Windsor. Messrs. Veitch have also branch nurseries at 

 Fulham, at Chiswick and at Coombe. These, however, can be 

 dealt with in another letter. It is needless to say that Ameri- 

 cans interested in horticulture are always welcomed at the 

 Veitchian nurseries, where they can see as much perhaps in a 

 short time of exotic garden-plants as anywhere in the world. 

 London. Visitor. 



Cultural Department 



Some Adaptations in the Strawberry. 



'THE Rose family has shown remarkable power to keep pace 

 -*- with the human family, and its adaptability to our needs 

 and moods is one of its peculiarities, especially in the case 

 of the small-fruits. The Strawberry has of late done a good 

 deal in the way of adjusting itself to cultivation. Two years 

 ago I received some plants of the Haverlands, and was as- 

 tounded to find the roots a foot long in some cases. One 

 trouble with our Strawberry-beds has always been a tendency 

 to heave out with frost. But it seems now very probable that 

 we shall develop plants with such a strong hold on the soil 

 that heaving will be rare. It occurred to me that these 

 Haverlands had put all their energy to roots and would show 

 poor fruiting power ; but experiment proved that the contrarv 

 was true : the plants were very prolific bearers of very large 

 berries of excellent quality. Since receiving the Haverland I 

 have found that several more of the newer sorts are develop- 

 ing the same tendency to extraordinarily long roots'. Viola 

 and Crawford are two fair samples of root evolution. Tippe- 

 canoe is said to have extremely long and massy roots, but I 

 have not yet tried it. Clearly, it is along the line of root im- 

 provement that selection should take place as well as along the 

 line of fruit enlargement. But the development of large fruit 

 is, of course, what catches the popular eye and meets the con- 

 sumer's desire. Those of us who remember the introduc- 

 tion of the Wilson and Hovey have in mind a remarkable his- 

 tory. We have gone on from the field berry until now a well 

 cultivated bed of Sharpless, Bubach, Summit, Ontario, Haver- 

 land or Crawfords will give us thirty to a quart. So far as size 

 of fruit is concerned we have gone quite far enough. The 

 point now is to eliminate the inferior sorts. New applicants 

 for favor need not recommend themselves on the score of 

 being larger than a half dozen of the leading sorts already 

 disseminated. 



The three points to consider hereafter are quality and form 

 and color. Crescent is, perhaps, the ideal in color, but apart 

 from its ability to produce bushels of sour berries, averaging 

 small, it has no claim on us. The Wilson has slowly been 

 discarded, as we discarded the old Bonchretien Pear. No sour 

 berry or one of inferior flavor will hold its place with con- 

 sumers. The public taste has been educated to the standard 

 of the Seckel Pear. Form, also, must be considered, until we 

 can dispense with Sharpless and other irregular and coxcomb 

 sorts. Cumberland is an ideal in form, but lacks somewhat 



