135 Gladiolus Culture. 



as this; and M. Souchet is the best grower of it in the world, 

 and has the largest collection. He grows it in gardens, or rather 

 fields, surrounded by white stone walls. In fact, his ground was 

 for the most part formerly occupied by market garden cultivators, 

 &c., and these usually surround their gardens by such walls. He 

 altogether occupies from eight to nine. hectares of land with the 

 culture of his favourite, or say about twenty acres English. 



The first thing noticeable in this ground is that about half of the 

 land is unoccupied for the current year. That bare portion is 

 ploughed, and manured, and cultivated throughout the summer as 

 well as in winter, and thus he has fresh land in beautiful condition 

 for his bulbs every year. Besides, the fact that the ground is bare 

 for a year helps to counteract to some extent the particularly vicious 

 enemies with which he has to contend, as, having no food on the 

 ground for the summer, they are not attracted; and when the 

 ground is rolled between the ploughing and manuring the tracks of 

 the mole cricket are easily seen, and it may be readily destroyed. 

 This idle ground is thoroughly tilled, ploughed, or in some way 

 disturbed six or seven times during the season, and they would like 

 to do it a dozen times if time or labour would permit. The ground 

 planted this year will of course be empty next, and so on. Now, 

 over the whole of the extensive piece of ground planted with 

 Gladioli you could not notice a decayed leaf, and all the plants were 

 in the rudest health, some of the varieties growing as much as six 

 feet high. It was a fine sight at any time of the year to see the 

 magnificent stretch of varied bloom ; but the days about the time 

 of my last visit were very hot, and we were obliged to get up 

 very early in the morning to see it at its best. Although very 

 showy at noon, yet the hot sun had caused the most open flowers 

 to flag a little. But in the early morning, when the dew hung 

 upon the bloom, and every petal was braced with its freshness, they 

 were fine indeed. But if fine here, when seen in great quantity 

 unrelieved by a particle of verdure except that of their own pointed 

 leaves, how much better would plants of the same quality be, 

 judiciously associated with other things of beauty, in a graceful 



