92 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SOMETHING MORE OR LESS ABOUT DAFFODILS. 



By the Rev. G. P. Haydon, F.R.H.S. 



[Read April 12, 1892.] 



Most English people, of whatever rank of life they may be, who 

 have a few inches of idle space at their disposal, love to cultivate 

 some kind of plant or flower. The cottage window, the town 

 leads, the grave in the old churchyard, as well as the garden, all 

 are made to contribute to the production of some kind of beauty. 

 I well remember one hot May day, after a tramp along the hard 

 high road, coming on a little bit of garden in the shade with a 

 bunch of very fine Narcissus poeticus recurvus, looking as fresh 

 as paint. I stopped and had a chat with the old one-legged 

 cobbler who was the proprietor of the garden, and bought the 

 flowers at Id. each. I never had seen better — I don't think now I 

 ever see any as good — but wish, as I grow them by the thousand,, 

 that others valued them at the same rate. 



I have been persuaded to read a paper about the genus, and r 

 as I am not a botanist, and do not know the meaning of half the 

 technical w 7 ords those gentlemen employ, I hope the learned part 

 of my audience will treat my paper as a Lenten penance, and 

 will not be severe upon my ignorance. 



First, then, I would speak of the cultivation of Narcissi* 

 People who see them in perfection in florists' windows, and in a 

 somewhat less excellent state in the streets, do not always think 

 w T here they come from, or whether it pays to grow them. They 

 buy them at all prices from 2d. to 2s. a dozen, and then are 

 astonished when they grow them at home to find that their 

 price is increased tenfold. Now, I cannot make my paper suit 

 all parties, as I must hurt the feelings of the bulb- sellers by some 

 of my advice, and the feelings of the buyers by another part. I 

 w 7 ould begin by saying to those with small gardens, Don't plant, 

 any Narcissi unless you can leave them alone for three years ; 

 don't mix herbaceous with bedding-out plants ; don't put spring- 

 flowering bulbs amongst autumn-flowering herbaceous ; plant 

 your Daffodils as a rule among your spring-flowering shrubs, and 

 the late-flow T ering varieties in any place where there are no 



