Gladiolus Culture. 1^9 



bloom, another great point in favour of this fine ornament of our 

 gardens. The seedlings flower in their third year. The time of 

 taking up is October, and from the great quantity to be stored this 

 process sometimes goes on to the beginning of November. The 

 plants are mostly in beds, about four feet wide, placed in rows 

 across the bed, from fifteen to eighteen inches apart. The beds are 

 all mulched, and a little alley runs between every two. In very 

 hot weather they are well watered. Each kind is numbered, the 

 scraps of lead on which the numbers are stamped being wrapped 

 round bits of Vine prunings, stuck in the earth. The beds are also 

 carefully examined during the blooming season, so as to destroy all 

 "rogues." Such are the chief points upon which information is 

 wanted — next for a selection of the varieties. 



There are altogether between ajo and 300 varieties in cultiva- 

 tion here. The best of the new varieties of the past year, or rather 

 the new varieties ready to send out this year — for one which only 

 flowered for the first time last year will not be ready to sell for years — 

 are Princess Alice, with very large, fully opened flowers, good shape, 

 and charming lilac colour, faintly striped with rose and white^ 

 this is of the finest quality; Semiramis, another very large flower, 

 of fine form, rosy carmine in colour, with carmine stripes and 

 a fine white throat ; Uranie, a large flower, with a pure white 

 ground, and decidedly striped with bright rose — a distinct and 

 brilliant variety ; Bernard de Jussieu, a dark purplish-toned variety, 

 quite new in colour; Stella, a flower with white base and rosy red 

 margins ; and E. Scribe, a large flower, of a delicate rose, flamed 

 with carmine red. But a selection of all the other kinds he culti- 

 vates is of greater importance, and I give the following, selected by 

 M. Souchet and myself from the several hundred varieties grown 

 by him. We in the first case selected the undermentioned 

 varieties, and then went over them again, marking the very best of 

 all. This second or choicest selection is indicated by an asterisk to 

 all those so chosen : — 



