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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



them should bear this consideration in mind. Our discovery came about 

 in this wise :— My friend here, Mr. Blair Cochrane, of Oakleigh, St. John's 

 Park, is fond of his garden, and he took it into his head that he would 

 grow Oncocyclus Irises ; he accordingly bought a good lot of them, and he 

 proceeded to plant them forthwith. It so happened that an addition was 

 being made to his house, and without more ado he used a great deal of 

 the rubble or old mortar which was lying about the place and he put his 

 Irises in it ; he also used the other measures which seemed to be necessary 

 to success. The winter before last was not an especially easy one, 

 but the plants, so to say, sailed through it, and he had a great deal 

 of blossom the next spring with very little trouble about it. This was 

 his first attempt, and he was led to suppose that the difficulty of growing 

 Oncocyclus Irises had been very much exaggerated. Also I was told a 

 short time ago, and it was a very curious circumstance which I believe to 

 be quite correct, that Mr. Potter, .the foreman of Messrs. Backhouse, at 

 York, has to do with two gardens — one in Oxfordshire and the other in 

 York. In the former of these two gardens (at Witney, I think) Iris 

 iherica grows like a weed, in the other it will not grow at all ; and he can 

 only account for it by saying that in the one place it meets with plenty of 

 lime, in the other it has none at all. And when my suspicions had been 

 awakened by one thing and another, and I was musing over the matter, 

 I received a letter from abroad in w^hich the following words occur : — 

 " From what I can see of my Oncocyclus Irises this year and the past 

 season, I get more and more convinced that the want of lime in our soils 

 is one of the chief sources of failure," kc. It all seemed to be tending 

 the same way, and taUied exactly with the ideas that were then in my 

 mind. I do not know that the story about Mr. Potter would have been 

 sufficient to move me alone : there might be some explanation which 

 would deprive it of all value at once ; and Mr. Blair Cochrane 's experience 

 might only be accidental after all ; but it was impossible to miss the con- 

 clusion that several things which were converging to the same point 

 could only be explained in the same w^ay, and it was likely that there was 

 something here which ought to be followed up. At any rate I could not 

 get it out of my mind that it was not well to take too much for granted, 

 and it seemed as though the question of soil had a great deal more to do 

 with the cultivation of Oncocyclus Irises than anyone had been willing to 

 suppose, and of course when this stage had been reached all the rest 

 followed upon it. I determined to put it all to the test and to be guided for 

 the future entirely by the results which might be arrived at ; and just 

 then M. Van Tubergen, junior, through his representative, M. Hoog, 

 proposed to me that we should make a series of experiments, of which the 

 real purport was no more and no less than that of finding out if these 

 particular plants are influenced or not by the soil in which they are 

 planted. It was precisely the very thing which I desired to know myself, 

 and I agreed with him at once that I would act by them in tw^o or three 

 dift'erent ways and would note the results that might be forthcoming. I 

 leave M. Hoog to tell his own story to you here, which is of the greatest 

 possible value. He has, on behalf of M. Van Tubergen, sjDared no trouble 

 and no expense, in the w^ork, and it is very satisfactory to feel that he is 

 well pleased wdth the conclusion to which he has come, and we both think 



