30 



THE FliOEISX AND POMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON NURSERIES. 



Mr. W. Paul, Waltham Cross.— Our readers are doubtless aware that the old firm 

 of Paul & Son is broken up, and that one of the late partners, Mr. W. Paul, so well and 

 so favourably known as a writer on the Kose no less than as a cultivator of the queen of 

 flowers, has formed a new establishment at Waitham Cross, his brother retaining the home- 

 stead. This new nursery is in close contiguity with the Waitham Station, on the Cambridge 

 branch of the Eastern Counties Eailway, from which there is an entrance for the use of 

 visitors. Although but a short time has elapsed since operations were commenced, nearly 

 the whole of a very extensive area is filled with thriving nursery stock, amongst which 

 Poses and fruit trees, which succeed admirably, seem to be regarded as specialities. The 

 nursery extends from the railway to the Waitham turnpike-road, where the main entrance 

 to the nursery, together with a commodious seed-shop and warehouses, are situated. From 

 this entrance, extending across the nursery in a straight line to the railway, a distance of 

 about one-third of a mile, extends a broad turf glade, flanked on either side by evergreens, 

 exterior to which are two gravel paths for use in damp weather. Another glade skirts the 

 railway at the extreme end of this glade, and at a right angle with it; and traversing the 

 ground in the same direction as the latter, but some distance from it, is a broad gravel road 

 passing between an avenue planted with specimen fruit trees trained to the pyramidal form. 

 The soil and situation appear to be admirably fitted for nursery purposes, as the well-stocked 

 quarters bear ample testimony. At this season of the year the more interesting objects 

 are, of course, to be found in the houses ; and here we were particularly struck with the 

 preparations made for two subjects — the Eose and the Hyacinth, with both of which Mr. 

 Paul appears to be bent on achieving some victories during the forthcoming struggles. 

 The Hyacinths at the time of our visit, early in January, were all potted in 6-inch pots, 

 according to the recommendations in Mr. Paul's bulb catalogue, and were pushing up with 

 extraordinary vigour, the pots being plunged in coal ashes in the open air, under shelter of 

 one of the houses. Of pot Poses, which were in-doors, and just undergoing their winter 

 pruning, there was a formidable array of remarkably well-furnished and well-ripened 

 plants, which can hardly fail to produce good blossoms in the course of the spring, and to 

 take a prominent position at the exhibitions. Mr. Paul is a strong advocate for summer 

 pruning in the case of these specimen Eoses, which have, of course, to be nourished upon 

 a limited supply of material; his object being thereby to husband the vigour which the 

 amount of available food is capable of producing, and to direct it towards the strengthening 

 of useful shoots, instead of allowing it to waste itself in forming such as are useless. This is, 

 no doubt, sound practice so long as a plentiful amount of healthy foliage is retained. In 

 one house, quite cold, designed for Tea Eoses, in which the plants were put out last July, 

 in prepared raised beds, the plants were doing admirably, some having made shoots 5 feet 

 long in the course of last season. They were now at reat, and nearly dry. 2STo doubt this 

 house will furnish a sight worth seeing about next May or June. Eoses were being 

 grafted in very large quantities in the propagating-houses ; the stocks were planted in 

 large 60-pots. Mr: Paul is providing for this purpose seedling Dog Eoses, to be used in 

 preference to the stocks in common use. Of the young Eoses thus in process of formation, 

 there was a large supply of Mr. Paul's fine new H.P. Eose, Eeauty of Waitham, which is 

 figured in the "Eose Annual," and gained a first-class certificate last summer. We observed 

 a fine batch in pots, under shelter, of the better kinds of Eoses, provided for the spring 

 demand. Of the new Eoses raised on the continent, and as yet unknown, or but little 

 known here, there was a fine collection ; the better sorts, those, at least, which in Mr. Paul's 

 judgment were likely to prove such, being grown, not singly or in pairs, but by half-dozens ; 

 so that we may look forward to see them favourably submitted to public notice at the 

 exhibitions and meetings to be held in the course of the ensuing spring and summer. 



Messes. Low & Co., Claptox. — We were particularly gratified, on calling a week or 

 two since at this well-known nursery, to find that a beautiful Indian Orchid, Limatodes rosea, 

 which it has been the fashion to condemn as unmanageable, is really a lovely winter-blooming 

 species, and one of the most useful plants of its class for decorative uses. We also 

 found considerable variety amongst the imported plants which were then blooming, some 

 being paler and others deeper coloured ; some dense and some loose-spiked ; some taller 

 and some comparatively dwarf; the plants also presenting considerable variation in the 

 shape of the lip. The most usual form had the flower-scape (which grows from the base of 

 the pseudo-bulbs after the leaves have ripened off) about a foot high, terminating in a close 

 spike of flowers, of a delicate pink, deepening into a ring of deep red at the mouth of the 

 tubulose portion of the lip, which is pure white within. The lip is of a singular squarish- 

 oblong form. A variety, called stiperba, was much deeper and richer in colour, a bright deep 

 pink ; but the spike was looser, and the flowers smaller, with a narrower Hp. These flowers 



