498 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 191. 



wheat-ear. Then the white flowers burst through the brown 

 scales altogether, making the most delightful of white 

 flower- wands. This is a new introduction from Natal and 

 is now flowering for the first time in a bulb-border at Kew. 

 Tritonia rosea and T. crocaia are still in bloom, as also are 

 the bright orange and crimson-flowered hybrid Tritonias 

 raised by M. Lemoine. At Kew these plants are grown in 

 very large round beds in conspicuous places on the lawns. 

 Each bed is filled with one variety, and when the thou- 

 sands of spikes are all in flower the effect is of the richest. 



Lilies have not finished yet. Two very large beds of L. 

 lancifoliiwi {speciosutn) are now at their best, better even 

 than pot-grown specimens. A few years ago no one would 

 have ventured to grow this species for open-air effect and 

 left the bulbs to take care of themselves after they were 

 planted. L. auratum is as grand as ever. The new L. 

 Henry i is not yet over, but keeps step with its near affinity, 

 L. lancifolium. The rich crimson spikes of the Schizostylis 

 have begun to unfold and will continue until severe frost 

 cuts them down. In the greenhouses the huge trumpets 

 of I.. Wallichianum, L. Neilgherrense and the richly colored 

 L. Nepalense are now at their best. The two last-named 

 are not very easy to manage in England, but L. Wallichi- 

 anum is apparently as good-natured under artificial treat- 

 ment as L. Harrisii. A new addition to Himalayan Lili- 

 ums has been discovered by Mr. Boxall, Messrs. Low & 

 Co.'s collector, and has been named in compliment to him 

 by Mr. Baker. It is like L. Nepalense in habit and appear- 

 ance and may be called a pale, uniform, yellow-flowered 

 form of that species. Bulbous plants are the worst of all 

 when they do not get what they want, but no plants are 

 more interesting or more delightful to look at than they 

 are when at their best. 



Dahlias. — These are general favorites in England now, 

 and at all the exhibitions in autumn they form a very con- 

 spicuous feature. The Cactus section is, perhaps, the most 

 popular, although the single flowered kinds are thought 

 by many to be the prettiest and most useful. Messrs. Can- 

 nell, Phippen, Paul, Ware, Turner, in fact, all the nursery- 

 men who grow herbaceous plants for sale, have contributed 

 many new kinds within the last year or two. In form there 

 is nothing different from the Show, Pompons, Cactus and 

 single flowered kinds, but in shades of color great progress 

 has been made. Brown and black are scarcely flower-col- 

 ors, but in Mr. Cannell's new varieties of the single flow- 

 ered these colors are represented in various shades. Single 

 Dahlias are easily raised from seeds, so easily, indeed, 

 tha't in countries where they are not destroyed by frost 

 they have run wild. I am told by Dr. King, of Calcutta, 

 that in the Himalayas the river-banks are in many places 

 clothed with Single Dahlias which have escaped from cul- 

 tivation and established themselves over miles of country 

 by means of seeds. At this rate it is possible that the 

 Dahlia may become a scourge in the subtropical regions 

 of the east. At a meeting of the National Chrysanthemum 

 Society at the Royal Aquarium there were no less than one 

 hundred new kinds of Dahlia submitted to the committee 

 for certificates. Of these the following obtained awards : 

 Show — George Gordon, John Rawlings, Indian Chief, 

 Arthur Rawlings, Scarlet Queen. Cactus — St. Catherine, 

 Beauty of Arundel, Baron Schrceder, Duke of Clarence, 

 Rayon d'Or, Mrs. Keith. Fancy and Pompon — Touch- 

 stone, Lilian. Single — Miss Glasscock, Evelyn, Little 

 Snow White. The Royal Horticultural Society certificated 

 the following : Cactus — Sir Roger, E. Cannell, Mrs. Thorn- 

 ton. Pompon — Mars, Lorna Doone, Little Sarah, Mrs. 

 Besant, Nellie Nachray. Show — Ada Rehan, Mrs. Ocock, 

 Mrs. Humphries. 



Begonias. — The tuberous-rooted kinds, now properly 

 known as bedding Begonias, have reached as high a place in 

 horticulture as the scarlet Pelargoniums. Every garden here 

 of any pretensions employs these Begonias extensively in 

 summer-bedding. In the conservatory the most select of 

 named sorts are a conspicuous feature. Some are remark- 

 able for size of bloom, flowers almost large enough to over- 



lap a man's hand being among them ; others are as large 

 and double as Hollyhocks ; others, again, are of some 

 special shade of color. As pot-plants we have nothing 

 better, because nothing is more easily cultivated or pro- 

 duces a better effect when in flower. And this is quite 

 true of the tuberous Begonias as bedding plants. The ex- 

 cessive wet of the summer, now almost ended here, has 

 not disagreed with these Begonias. In the parks, at Kew, 

 in large private gardens near London, they have been and 

 are. still a chief attraction. The great demand for them 

 is indicated by the acres of them grown by those nursery- 

 men who make Begonias a specialty. Messrs. J. Laing & 

 Sons appear to have millions of them in their large Be- 

 gonia-fields. Mr. T. Ware has almost as many. So, too, 

 has Mr. Cannell. In the fields the plants are as large and 

 healthy and the flowers as perfect as in the carefully cul- 

 tivated flower-bed. Ask these nurserymen if they can find 

 a market for so many plants, and the answer is to the effect 

 that they haven't half enough. In England the taste for 

 summer-bedding is in the direction of simple masses of 

 one color, and the many-hued beds, like Joseph's coat, will 

 soon be things of the past. Of course, the king of summer- 

 bedders, the Scarlet Geranium, will always be of first-rate 

 value where color is wanted. These tuberous Begonias 

 will also be exceptionally useful for the same purpose. 

 They require a little management at the beginning, but 

 their wants are simple and soon mastered. 



Gathering Storing Fruit. — Mr. Joseph Cheal, an emi- 

 nent fruit nurseryman in Sussex, and one of the organizers 

 of the British Fruit-growers Association, read a paper upon 

 this subject at a conference of fruit-growers held in Edin- 

 burgh a few days ago. Mr. Cheal's knowledge and expe- 

 rience are such as enable him to speak with authority upon 

 such important matters as the care of fruit after it is ready 

 for gathering. He recommends the use of ladders that will 

 stand alone, hand-picking, and baskets instead of sacks. 

 Many apples, he says, should be gathered a few days be- 

 fore they are ripe, and at once placed in boxes or sieves to 

 travel. For the bulk of fruit it is best to allow them to re- 

 main on the trees until they are ripe, as when gathered too 

 early they shrink, the rind shrivels and the fruit looks 

 leathery. All fruit should be sorted and graded if intended 

 for market. No two kinds should ever be placed in the 

 same basket. Small baskets of neatly packed fruits of high 

 quality will fetch a much higher price than if placed 

 roughly in the ordinary basket. A novel fruit-store recom- 

 mended by Mr. Cheal is " a cave in a chalk-bank or sand- 

 hill, which makes a capital apple-store when fitted with 

 wooden shelves." Ventilation, an equable temperature, and 

 the exclusion of frost, are essentials in a good store-room 

 for fruit. A simple store, which answers well, according 

 to Mr. Cheal, is made by throwing up two banks of soil 

 and placing a thickly thatched roof across them. Pears 

 require a warm dry store-room, differing from apples in this 

 respect. The cool and somewhat moist atmosphere re- 

 quired by apples takes all the flavor out of pears. For 

 pears hot-water pipes may be used with advantage, but not 

 for apples. 



Kew. 



W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 



Copper Salts and Vegetation. 



'T'HE solutions of copper are efficient fungicides. The va- 

 *■ rious micro-organisms — mildews, blights and rots — in- 

 festing plants of a higher order are killed by contact of these 

 solutions, and germination of their spores is prevented. It is 

 believed that these uses of copper will be of untold value to 

 agriculture. No doubt of this, provided the copper is destruc- 

 tive only to these lower plants, the fungi, and that it is not 

 harmful to the vitality of our cultivated plants. 



But these copper salts, sprayed on vegetation, are finally 

 deposited on and in the soil beneath, and they may there be 

 inimical to the germination of our planted seeds and to the 

 prosperity of plants which spring from them. These are grave 

 possibilities, made seriously plausible by experiences had in 

 my recent practice. When under the direction of the United 



