December 17, 1898. 



SUPPLEMENT TO 



THE GARDENERS MAGAZINE. 



*39 



THE DETECTIVE PLANT. 



Sugarafsa Plumosa {Bunkles). 



M 



him, 

 intimate 



name " Sugarapsa plumosa." John admired the plant extremely, its fine 

 delicate hair-like foliage being altogether new to him, and Bunk'es' esti- 

 mate of its value obviously just A few weeks elapsed and Bunkles went 

 for a fishing excursion in the north, returning a fortnight after. His 

 first care on his return was to inspect Sugarapsa, respecting which John 

 had a doleful tale to tell of an intrusive cat, a terrible smash, and con- 

 sequent repotting as best he could, the result being, as Bunkles men- 

 tally noted, "another dwindle and a rhyme to it." Now comes the 

 curious part of the story. Bunkles on visiting his friend, which he was 

 not long in doing, found by an extraordinary coincidence that he too had 

 a plant of the wonderful Sugarapsa plumosa, which his gardener William 

 had recently acquired from a well known nursery firm as a great bargain 

 at two guineas, there being only, as he was told, three plants of it in 

 existence. Now Bunkles and his friend were old chums, and he knew 

 perfectly well that so far as the master was concerned all was fair, square, 

 and above board, so, having heard the history of the acquisition, he 

 whispered a word or two in his ear, and asked him to send William for 

 his man John on some simple pretext, which was done. 



" Now, William," said Bunkles, u you say you bought that plant at the 

 nursery. Did you buy it under that name?" "Why, certainly, sir, a 

 course I did ; that's the proper name on it." 11 Well, John," said 

 Bunkles, turning to his own man, u you stole that plant from me and 

 sold it to William, for that name is my own invention. Read it back- 

 wards, and out loud, and you will stand self-convicted." John had no 

 alternative, and read it out "Asparagus," and lor his pains got the 

 "sack," in conjunction with William, who were lucky to get off so easy. 

 "A beautiful plant, isn't it?" said Bunkles, and a beautiful "plant" I 



thought it was. Jack Bowser. 



Y old friend Bunkles is a many- 

 sided man, and hence his intimate 

 iriends and his outside acquaintances 

 form very different estimates of him, 

 ranging from a jolly good fellow down 

 to a cantankerous cuss, both of which 

 extremes, I may remark, are fully justi- 

 fied from time to time, just as circum- 

 stances may shape his temper. This sort 

 of variegation is, of course, not peculiar 

 to Bunkles, but it must be admitted that 

 he was a strongly marked specimen of 

 the cantankerous type when he chose, 

 and thought he had good reason for so 

 doing, to adopt that particular phase of 

 character. Another peculiarity of his also 

 led to divergences of opinion about 

 and that was a talent for sly, practical jokes, which his 

 friends laughed at, and sometimes repaid in kind, but 

 which occasionally upset the equanimity of outsiders, who took 

 matters seriously, and were consequently "sold.'' I recollect Bunkles 

 getting into terribly hot water on one occasion when some brilliant 

 scientific lights had honoured the local flower show with their corusca- 

 tions, and were afterwards entertained at a little dinner. After the dinner 

 Bunkles produced a most remarkable hybrid plant, displaying the 

 characters of half-a-dozen species, which, he said, had originated 

 in his greenhouse. Professor Solemun, O.P.Q. L.M.N , and several of 

 his colleagues examined the specimen, and promulgated a number 

 of vastly abstruse theories, justifying the peculiar phenomena of 

 pangenetical hybridity thus exemplified. Dr. Goggles, B.C.D.E.F.G., 

 and Professor Dummkopf, two others of the honoured guests, followed 

 suit, and when they were all done Bunkles pulls the thing out of the 

 pot and displays an elaborate svstem of wiring up as a probable 

 explanation. Ructions followed, of course, for the thing had gone too 

 far, but I will do Bunkles the justice of saying that he thought the 



(as 



he irreverently termed them) as it did. 



Now, Bunkles had a garden, a large garden, far too large for 

 him to keep in order by himself, and Bunkles consequently had also a 

 gardener, or, rather, a succession of gardeners, for I don't suppose I 

 shall create an immense amount of surprise when I state that in this 

 connection the cantankerous feature was not infrequent in the relations 

 between master and man. In these cases it was frequently difficult to 

 know who was the more to blame, for from the gardener's point of view it 

 must be extremely provoking to find all sorts of little traps set to prove 

 dereliction of duty or breach of instructions. Bunkles would give strict 

 injunctions that certain presumably precious things were to be severely 

 let alone, and, of course, John the gardener would want to see the reason 

 why, with the result that half-a-dozen pots and pans would turn out to be 



set as it were on a hair trigger, and an irreparable smash resulted from his ^ ttU uuu<**** 



meddling, the whole affair, I need hardly say being merely a "trap," ™oon^^ 

 totally unconnected with anything precious, as John presumed. Bunkles, 



fraud would have been too obvious to deceive the " wise-acres" 



CHRISTMAS WEATHER LORE. 



As might only be expected of a month which embraces within its orbit 

 the greatest festival of the Christian Church, and coming, as it does, 

 within the more superstitious half of the year, December has more than 

 its full share of weather lore, which, like all other rustic and country-side 

 folk-lore, is sometimes true, but very often false. As, however, all these 

 fantastic^legends are worth preserving, I give in the following lines some 

 few c{ the proverbs of the weather-wise which have come down to our 

 own times, and which have been culled from a variety of sources. Thus 

 we know that a cold and snowy December is good for rye, a matter of 

 far greater moment in Russia than in England ; while again thunder in 

 December is held to presage fine weather. In Scotland there is a jingle 

 referring to November 11 and December 25, running thus : — 



ft 'Twcen Martinmas and Yule 

 Water's wine in every pool." 



We are told that a "Green Christmas makes a fat churchyard," while a 

 variation in Rutland has it that "A green Christmas brings a heavy 

 harvest," and again, "At Christmas meadows green, at Easter covered 

 with frost." In Germany a saying runs that "The shepherd would 

 rather see his wife enter the stable on Christmas Day than the sun." 

 Again, "A clear and bright sun on Christmas Day foretelleth a peaceable 

 year and plenty ; but if the wind grow stormy before sunset it betokeneth 

 richness in the spring and autumn quarters." Another superstition runs 

 that if the sun shines through the apple tree on 'Christmas Day there 

 will be an abundant crop in the following year. Then, if there is a full 



however, was not altogether malicious in these matters, for the fact was 

 that he had a perfect genius for the raising of plants from hopeless 

 looking bits and moribund remainders by little coddling dodges of his 

 own, and from his point of view it was desperately provoking to find 

 these delicate little sparks of vitality snuffed out by John's curiosity to 

 see either " what they wos " or " whether they wos growinV' I have 

 even seen Bunkles stretch a few spider's threads across a particularly 

 precious pot as a trap of this sort, the broken web revealing the delin- 

 quency of John, to his immense mystification. Minor sins of this sort, 

 however, Bunkles' "good fellow "side led him speedily to forgive, and 

 every now and again he would be able to keep a man John in his employ 

 for several months together. One indeed was with him a full year, but 

 " Sugarapsa " turned up, and his occupation was, like Othello's, gone. 



Bunkles, like every amateur horticulturist worth his salt, kept a con- 

 stant eye open for the newest and best of his particular fancy plants, and 

 one of his greatest enjoy ments when a congenial spirit turned up was to 

 display his latest acquisitions and to dilate upon their beauty and rarity. 

 One such spirit dwelt about a mile away from Bunkles' little Paradise, 

 and in time a sort of friendly rivalry set in. About this time Bunkles 

 began to have suspicions that some of his less recent novelties had a 

 knack of disappearing, either in toto or partially, the plants shrinking 

 in size very mysteriously. These shrinkages or disappearances happened 

 invariably during his occasional absence from home, and John's explana- 

 tions were of the vaguest the total disappearances being imputed to raids 

 by unknown depredators " over the garden wall." Curiously enough, 

 however, Bunkles found his friend's collection richer on several occasions 

 by precisely similar plants to those, he missed, and one evening while out 

 for a stroll he found John and William— that is his friend's gardener— 

 in close confab, which they broke off with suspicious abruptness at his 

 approach. [An incapacity for putting two and two together was cer- 

 tainly not a weakness of Bunkles ; he made the addition and concocted 

 a plan. 



The following week Bunkles arrived home with a very beautiful 

 specimen of vegetation in a pot, which he carefully installed in a place 

 of honour in his greenhouse, and instructed John to take very particular 

 care of it, as there were only two or three such in the country, and its 

 value consequently was very great. Bunkles at the same time made John 

 bring him a label, and with his own hands, in clear print, he wrote the 



14 Light Christmas, light wheatsheaf ; 

 Dark Christmas, heavy wheatsheaf;" 



while if it is windy on Christmas Day the trees will bring much f uit. In 

 Germany the following rhymes are current :— 



11 So far as the sun shines on Christmas Day, 

 So far will the snow blow in May." 



" A warm Christmas, a cold Easter ; 

 A green Christmas, a white Easter." 



" Christmas in snow, Easter in wind ; 

 Easter in snow, Christmas in wind." 



Then again, if it snows during Christmas night the oops will <*o well, 

 and, joyful news to Kent, if it s^nows on Christmas night good hep cr< p 

 next year ; while another says if Christmas be wet there will be an empty 

 granary and barrel— which would be bad indeed, neither bread nor beer. 

 Then we are also told in some parts that if at Christmas ice hangs on the 

 willow, clover maybe cut at Easter. A pleasing jingle relating to the 



weather runs : 



If Christmas finds a bridge, hell break 

 If he finds none, he'll make it ; " 



while in some places it is said that if the ice will bear a man before 

 Christmas it will not bear a mouse afterwards, which in other parts again 

 is remarked of a goose and duck. In Meath it is said that when the 

 blackbird sings before Christmas it will cry before Candlemas. A windy 

 Christmas and a calm Candlemas are signs of a ^ood year, while in the 

 vineyards of France they tell us that if on Christmas night the wine 

 ferments heavily in the barrels a good wine year will follow. Much 

 thunder during Christmas week denotes that there will be much snow 

 during the winter, while the twelve days from Christmas to January 5 are 

 said to be the keys of the whole year's weather, while if it rains during 

 the twelve days after Christmas a wet year will follow. A method of 

 superstitious divination formerly practised in France was the placing on 

 Christmas Day of twelve onions, which represented the twelve months of 

 the year. Each onion had a pinch of salt placed on the top, and if the 

 salt had melted by Epiphany the month corresponding was put down as 

 sure to be wet, while if the salt remained the month was sure to be dry. 

 If Boxing Day is windy it is held to be bad for next year'* grapes, and 

 with this my selections must close. W. N. B. 



