By the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert 155 



cultivated many Cape bulbs, and even the fibrous rooted 

 Aristeas, with great success, in borders formed of the same 

 compost, which I used for Hyacinths. The borders were 

 covered at night, and in frosty weather, with double mats 

 upon hooped sticks, which were entirely removed in April. 

 The compost was made of rotten cow-dung, decayed leaves, 

 and fine sand. In this Gladiolus cardinalis and Watsonia 

 rosea produced tall branching stems, bearing from seventy 

 to eighty flowers, and Aristea spiralis as well as Aristea 

 melaleuca (which I believe has not flowered at all elsewhere 

 in England) produced nine or ten strong flower stems from the 

 same root. Babiana rubro-cyanea bore nineteen or twenty 

 stems in one small store pot of offsets, planted in the same 

 compost. But the bulbs, especially the more delicate sorts, 

 were, as well as the Hyacinths, liable to suffer from the canker, 

 to which the quantity of rotten wood in the peat I am forced 

 to use at Spofforth, also gives rise. Where this disease is 

 found troublesome, the best mode of guarding against it 

 is to set the bulbs in a layer of pure sand, which will prevent 

 their coming into contact with the compost, which never 

 injures the fibres, but often attacks the bulb, especially in 

 wet weather. 



Yours very truly, 



William Herbert, 



Spoforth, 

 March 27, 1820. 



