PRIMULA CONFERENCE. 



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time, which they had never done before, and Primula purpurea had 

 two grand heads of flowers, fifty upon each. I think if we can 

 successfully deal with it, it will be a very desirable Primrose for 

 cultivation. At the same time, I am sorry to say, lam afraid we 

 must only deal with a great many of these Primroses as biennials. 

 We have a great many in hand now. I think ten or twelve 

 species have been sent to us by Dr. King and Dr. Duthie, and an 

 abundant supply of seed, and all seem to have germinated well, 

 with one exception, Primula Elwesiana. Then we have to proceed 

 tentatively with these. My advice is to everyone — sow your 

 seed as soon as you get it ; rear as many seedlings as you can. 

 When they are fit to deal with, plant them in as many kinds of 

 soil and in as many positions as possible — facing north, facing 

 south — try both rocky soil and boggy soil, and let us know 

 where they do best. Gardening is a very practical pursuit, 

 and I confess for my own part, I have a great deal more 

 faith in practice than in theory in gardening. We may try to 

 imitate natural conditions as much as we please, but there is 

 always some one condition that we cannot imitate, and that is 

 the atmospheric ; and even as regards soils I cannot help suspect- 

 ing that there may be some chemical qualities that cannot be 

 shown by analysis. I find that attempts to imitate natural 

 conditions generally fail if we grow them in that way, and that 

 experience is by far a better rule. A person sees a plant doing 

 remarkably well in my garden, and he says to me, " Dear me, 

 you have that plant growing under altogether different conditions 

 from what I have seen it growing naturally ; I have seen it in the 

 Alps in sheltered places and you have it in the full sun," We 

 must remember that the fullest amount of light we can give them 

 in the West of England is nothing as compared with what they 

 get in a sheltered or half- shady position in their own country. 

 Only think of the tremendous flare of light which the Himalayan 

 plants get in spring, which none of us can imitate. 



Taking all this into consideration, I think these Conferences 

 of great use for the purpose of enabling us to compare notes as 

 to the way in which these flowers are to be grown, because T 

 am quite sure by so doing we shall attain results which no 

 attempt to imitate natural conditions and no theory (unsupported 

 by actual experiment) could enable us to do. 



Mr. Fraser : My experience is that various species of 



