264 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



manured with ordinary stable dung ; we have at times applied 

 moderate dressings of bone meal, fish manure, muriate of potash, 

 and other artificial manures, but all with doubtful results. 

 We have sometimes given part of our stock a slight mulching 

 with fresh straw litter, but have generally found those grown 

 without any mulching to do equally well. We carefully avoid 

 mulchings of close rank manures, and never apply liquid manure 

 in any form whatever. Clean cultivation is the best. 



Although our average rainfall is so light (not exceeding 

 18 inches) we rarely ever water the growing plants ; in fact, 

 they seem to prefer a dry spring and a somewhat dry, warm 

 summer. The hot, dry summer of 1893, for instance, seemed to 

 suit them to perfection, as the finest growth and flowers we ever 

 had were produced in the early part of August of that year, 

 when the plants had very little rainfall and great heat and no 

 artificial watering. The extreme drought and dryness of the 

 air during the present summer (1896) has been too great an 

 extreme on the side of dryness, and the plants suffered during 

 August for lack of rain and moisture in the atmosphere. Up to 

 the end of July they never looked better, and were of wonderful 

 health and vigour, but they appear to require a fair amount of 

 moisture near the blooming period. That they prefer dry and 

 warm conditions, rather than those of an opposite nature, seems 

 to have been noticed by Dean Herbert in the earliest period of 

 hybrid gladioli. So far back as the year 1847, when writing of 

 the greater hardiness of psittacinus, one of the parents of the 

 present race of gandavcnsis hybrids, he goes on to state that it 

 suffers much from July rains in many positions. 



With reference to the fungus disease which attacks the 

 corms of these plants, and with which the whole genus appears 

 to be more or less affected, no remedy for its complete eradica- 

 tion has yet been found. Various suggestions have been thrown 

 out, among others that of breeding new races direct from the 

 species, and some importance is attached to the reintroduction of 

 ojjpositiflorus, a plant of considerable vigour. But I am strongly 

 of opinion that the late Monsieur Souchet, the originator of the 

 fine gandavcnsis hybrids, himself used oppositijlorus, or hybrids 

 from it, in producing his earliest light-coloured varieties, and 

 any one continuing the work of raising seedlings from them, will 

 now and again have tall light-coloured varieties springing up, 



