358 On the Cultivation of Rare Plants. 



great account for the master, as any crop they could em- 

 ploy their ground in, till within these seven or eight years ; 

 since which time most of their roots have turned carroty, 

 and so proved barren, or produced only single flowers. 

 To cure this disease, the method I used was to lay some 

 tiles just under the roots, to prevent their running down- 

 wards; but this has not answered, nor do I think it pos- 

 sible wholly to recover them ; for after this alteration in 

 the root, the leaf which was fistulous becomes a plain 

 sulcated leaf, and if the root ever blossoms after, the flow- 

 ers are large and single, which were before small and 

 double/' This disease, I am sorry to add, is not confined 

 either to the double or single Jonquil ; and it may perhaps 

 be occasioned by too little nutriment at one period, and too 

 much at another ; for I always observed more or less of it 

 at Chapel Allerton in roots which remained accidentally in 

 the green-house after being forced, and were watered, like 

 the rest of that collection, more and more abundantly, as the 

 days lengthened ; the leaves of such forced roots often con- 

 tinuing green till August or September. I wish this hint 

 may stimulate some active young gardener, to make the ex- 

 periment of planting these diseased carroty roots in pure 

 loam, and checking any growth in their leaves after the 

 month of May, by covering the border when showers fall, so 

 that it may be kept quite dry till the autumnal equinox. 



Hermione Similis. MSS. Narcissus juncifolius luteus 

 minor. Park. Par. p. 94. Narcissus juncifolius minor. Pass. 

 Hort. Vern. p. 41. cum Ic. 



I found this species very plentiful in the garden at Chapel 

 Allerton, but when transplanted to Mill Hill, the roots 



