570 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ing through agricultural districts the yellow sickly appearance of 

 our fields of wheat in the months of March and April ; but no 

 one would think of banishing the cultivation of wheat from this 

 country through an occasional failure. 



I do not believe that any disease or degeneration exists in the 

 Gladiolus, but that the spots found upon the corms are simply 

 the result of the cold and wet destroying the fibrous roots, which 

 naturally deprives the plant of nourishment and impairs its 

 vitality, so that it commences to decay. 



Following upon this weakness and decay comes the fungus, 

 which preys upon the corm, and which has been quoted by so 

 many as the primary cause of the languor instead of the result 

 of impaired vitality. 



If the plant be taken up as soon as this languor is visible, 

 upon examining the fibrous roots the first signs of decay will be 

 found in them, which proves that the decay does not originate, 

 as many suppose, in the foliage (as in the hollyhock) or in the 

 corm (as in the potato tuber), there being no sign of it in either. 

 But if these corms be not instantly removed from the soil and 

 gradually dried off, they too will become affected and gradually 

 perish. It is often found that those lifted late one year will, 

 during the next, be affected by decay, which, no doubt, was 

 generated the year before whilst in the ground. 



The parents of these hybrids, as is well known, were natives 

 of a much hotter climate — that of South Africa — and we must 

 therefore expect that our climate will, especially in some seasons 

 more than in others, be prejudicial to many of the most delicate 

 kinds. 



Therefore, when this sickness is visible, I strongly recommend 

 early lifting as a preventative of actual loss — as life will thus 

 be secured to the bulbs — but, when taken up, they must be 

 immediately spread in the shade and gradually dried off. 



But I do not recommend this course being adopted except in 

 these cases of premature decay. Practical knowledge must be 

 used in carrying out every detail, as in the cultivation of all 

 plants. No man can be a successful cultivator from books alone 

 for there are peculiarities of which the grower alone knows, and 

 which he can know only by experience. There is always a 

 stumbling-block in the way of the unsuccessful : the soil is too 

 heavy or too light, the water is too hard, we are on the clay or 



