l6 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
VIOLETS AND THEIR CULTIVATION. 
By J. C. House, F.R.H.S 
[Read March 27, 1917 ; Mr. E. H. Jenkins in the Chair.] 
The Sweet Violet, Viola odorata, is found all over Europe and in many 
parts of Asia, and also in North Africa. It was noticed by travellers 
a hundred years ago, in Palestine, China, Japan, and Barbary. 
The first notice of the cultivation of Violets, as far as I am able to 
discover, is a statement by Theophrastus, that they were grown 
and sold in Athens about the time of the destruction of Herculaneum 
and Pompeii. Hasselquist says that the Sorbet of the Turks is 
prepared from Violets and sugar. Hooker had heard that Highland 
ladies prepared a cosmetic from Violets, and he wonders how they 
obtained the blossoms, as the Violet is rarely found in the Highlands 
of Scotland. " Yet," he says, " the plant was known to them, if the 
following lines given by Lightfoot are correctly translated from the 
Gaelic : ' Anoint thy face with goat's milk in which Violets have been 
infused, and there is not a young prince upon earth who will not be 
charmed with thy beauty.' " 
Viola odorata in colour is white, deep purple, and occasionally 
lilac or reddish purple. It is the parent of the Sweet Violets in culti- 
vation to-day. Loudon says that the Neapolitan Violet is a variety 
of V. odorata. 
In John Miller's catalogue, published in Bristol in 1826, I find 
four double Violets offered — white, blue, mauve, and purple. In 
Wm. Rollisson's catalogue, 1875, I find seven Violets offered, six of 
which are doubles. 
In the early Victorian period, Violets were cultivated more largely 
in Italy and France than in this country. In the neighbourhood of 
Bath, in the 'forties and 'fifties, there were a few rather extensive and 
successful cultivators. They sold their produce in the Bath and 
Bristol markets. Their varieties were the single Russian, the double 
Neapolitan, and a variety which they called arborea. They cultivated 
this in pots. It was a fine dark double purple, and very fragrant. 
It has appeared under several names, but I think there was no justi- 
fication for calling it arborea. They had a knack of growing a crown 
on the end of a runner, and training it in the shape of a little umbrella. 
I think it is still offered by Millet under the name of arborea. It 
is very much like ' King of Violets ' or ' Bertha Barron,' and I think 
both of these varieties could be grown in this fashion without much 
trouble. 
For many years the only single Violet in commerce in this country 
