ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONCOCYCLUS IRISES. 319 



very much alike about it. Indeed, there is no gainsaying the fact that 

 analysis with him has shown that there is a large percentage of lime in 

 the soil where these plants grow naturally, and very little indeed in 

 Holland and other places where so many failures occur. M. Van Tuber- 

 gen's way of treating the Irises to lime has been very difi'erent from mine, 

 but that is of inferior import ; he joins hands with me altogether in 

 the idea that lime must in some way be administered to them if they are 

 to do well, and it may take a little time, perhaps, before it is absolutely 

 discovered which method is the best. As I understood M. Hoog to say 

 when he paid a visit to me in the spring, he was not quite sure if 

 magnesia should also be employed or not. He had used it, as it was 

 disclosed by the analysis he had made ; but, turning to my Irises, he 

 said, " If I were in your place I should leave it alone, as they seem to 

 do so well without it." I, therefore, have not troubled myself about 

 magnesia or anything else, except that I have treated these Irises as lirne- 

 loving plants, and I believe that this one consideration will cover every- 

 thing else so far as the mgredients of soil are concerned. I mean that 

 good ordinary loam will do for them with a little sand if it be thoroughly 

 impregnated with lime. My practice was as follows : — It seemed to me 

 that bone-meal would be as good a food as any which I could get for my 

 plants, and if they like lime at all they would respond to its use. I ac- 

 cordingly sent for a large sackful of it to Messrs. Clay of Stratford, near 

 London, and I distributed 112 lbs. of bone-meal between . four large 

 frames, giving to each one 28 lbs. or thereabouts. These frames, I should 

 say, are 12 feet long, 3 or feet wide, and have a depth of 1 foot and a 

 half or 2 feet above a foot or more of drainage, over which inverted sods 

 hiixe been put. The bone-meal was thoroughly mixed and incorporated 

 with the loam which was put into the frames, and the Irises \vere planted 

 in September last towards the end of the month, and now what is the 

 condition of some three or four hundred Irises in the middle of March ? 

 So far as I know, they have got through the winter with the loss of only 

 one or at most two plants. It is quite true to say that I have not noticed 

 more than two " mifly " plants, and instead of first one and then another 

 " going home," according to gardeners' slang, in very mysterious 

 ways, I have had no losses worth speaking of at all. This is an 

 immense alteration, and an alteration for the better, from anything 

 I ha^e ever known before, and this is not the whole of the case. 

 The plants look now, in the middle of March, in the rudest health, 

 and are doing exceptionally well ; the colour of the foliage is very 

 good, and the outlook is as favourable as it could possibly be at this 

 season of the year. Ii^is sitsicuia is quite tall already, and, unless appear- 

 ances are wrong, it will soon be in blossom. It is quite true that I have 

 only made this experiment once ; there may be drawbacks and disadvan- 

 tages lurking in the whole thing which will be found to declare themselves, 

 but I cannot see why it should be so. A lime-hating plant would 

 never begin its course by simulating the greatest prosperity. And it does 

 not look now as if these Oncocyclus Irises had the smallest objection to 

 the treatment they have received. On the contrary, they seem to be 

 greatly benefited by it. The following, among others, are in my 

 frames : — Iris Gatcsii, 1. Lorteti, I. susicoia, I. Bismarckiana, I. lupina^ 



