91 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 29 1885. 
Jndge who could be regarded as really efficient is an exhibitor, and they 
are faute de mievx compelled to adopt this. If it is asked why there 
should be any objection, the reply is simply that the Judges, occupied 
with their own exhibit^, are difficult to get together at the proper time, 
and do not come as fresh to their work as is desirable ; but it has worked 
fairly well. It is, however, to my mind quite inapplicable to small shows, 
where the exhibits are confined to few classes and are all comprised in one 
room or tent, where, if the Judges were selected from the exhibitors, they 
would previously have had the opportunity of seeing all the Roses in the 
room, and who the exhibitors were. It is impossible, knowing what 
human nature i j , but that in some instances opinions had been already 
formed before they commenced judging, which might influence their 
decision ; but even supposing this not to be the case, wo have to consider 
the exhibitors themselves, who would, when defeated, in many instances 
attribute it to the Judges knowing the flowers and to whom they 
belonged. 
I do not speak upon mere surmise, but on what I know in many 
instances to have been the case, and therefore it is a wholesome rule in 
many Societies that the Judges shall not enter the place of exhibition 
until the tent is cleared of exhibitors ; indeed I have known where in 
one instance it was objected to a Judge that he had stayed the night 
before the show with one of the exhibitors. Judges, like Cresar’s wife, 
ought to be above suspicion, nor should any loophole be left to justify any 
complaint of partiality. Nothing, I am quite sure, gives more confidence 
to exhibitors than the selection of Judges who are utter strangers to the 
place, and who have never seen or know anything of the exhibits before 
they enter the place where their duties are to be carried out ; he may be 
thought to have made mistakes, but no shadow of a doubt is there on his 
impartiality. For these reasons I think that while the National Rose 
Society’s system may be fairly adopted at such large shows as Bath or 
Darlington, it is quite inapplicable to the many smaller shows which are 
now held in all parts of the country.—D. 
PREPARING COMPOSTS. 
OfteX it is very difficult to obtain fresh turf or soil for garden purposes, 
especially for potting and growing the best crops or plants in hotbeds, ic. 
The possessors of gardens and parks often look upon surface turf as if it 
were the finest gold. I can well enter into their feelings in this respect. 
Getting the top spit of a rich old pasture, so much alluded to for borders 
and other purposes by old gardening authors, is all very well, and the 
gardener who is allowed to dip at pleasure into such a rich store may con¬ 
sider himself very fortunate. In some extensive parks a sort of custom has 
been established that the gardener may clear a portion of some not-much- 
seen part of the park every year, leaving the surface rough and open, and 
sowing afresh with Grass seeds. Wherever he can do this, he ought to feel 
grateful. I have never had the pleasure of thus resortingto park or common, 
where the most valuable close fibrous material could easily be obtained, but 
when planting a fresh piece of cover, or making alterations, I have always 
been on the outlook for good loamy fibrous turf, and when all else failed I 
went to the lanes, highways, and hedgerows for fresh material. 
In these frosty days I have collected a quantity from the grassy material 
by the sides of some old hedgerows that had been grubbed-up, and the turfy 
grassy matter that was removed before ploughing. This material was none 
the worse of having bramble and other roots, and small shrubs along with 
it. Such clearings would be valuable if merely thrown together in a large 
heap, but their value is greatly increased if neatly built in long oblong 
stacks—say 4, 5, or more feet wide, the grass side mostly downwards. Such 
a stack, say 80 feet in length (or as short as you choose to make it), 4 feet 
wide, 5 feet high at the sides, and then rising with a hipped roof to a ridge 
some 2) to 3 feet more, will afford a large amount of valuable soil for 
potting, &c., and will be very sweet, mellow, and full of fibre a twelvemonth 
or less afterwards. I should have liked this rough turf to be a little drier, 
but its wetness after the rain would be considerably neutralised by the 
length of the withered grass, &c., which would tend to keep the whole open, 
and thus partially admit a circulation of air. In this respect I prefer that 
the width of the regular-formed heap should not be more than 4 feet, as the 
object is to have the heap of soil thoroughly sweet and mellow without 
much loss or decomposition of the fibre. To secure this object when the 
heaps were wider, I have run drain tiles or small faggots through them in 
different places, so that the dry, warm, sweet air should pass through with¬ 
out wasting the fibre of the soil. The hipped roof, firmly beaten, will keep 
tie heap dry, as the outside will soon become green, but when I wish to be 
particular I have each side of the span-roofed heap thatched with turf, 
grass side outwards, fastening the turf with pegs. 
I make no apology for entering into these details, as the texture and the 
condition of the soil we use, especially for potting plants, have a very great 
effect on future success, and every reader, who for such purposes may use 
only a few barrowloads of soil, may as well have it in the best possible con¬ 
dition as not. Such a heap will always enable one to have soil suitable as 
to dryness at any time. It is always easy to damp soil where water is to be 
had. Such soil is also more easily warmed than if wet, close, and decom¬ 
posed. The heaps just formed are not so good in material and full of fibre 
as I could have wished, but they will be tolerably good from six to twelve 
months hence. I have a quantity in a heap made a twelvemonth ago, placed 
in stokeholes and under benohes, ready for potting, and it is a treat to smell 
and handle it. Much of it will have to be torn to pieces by the hand, it is 
so full of fibre. With a little sand and sweet rotten dung anything may be 
done with such soil for general purposes. Heath peat soil will be required 
for fine hair-rooted plants, and even for them many pieces of this sweet 
fibrous turfy loam would be useful—a matter of importance In many parts 
where heath soil is scarce and expensive. It is difficult to be procured in 
this quarter, even at the price of £2 for a vqry small one-horse load, and 
often a great part of that is rough fibre fit only for drainage. 
I have often advised those who want soil for their window plants and 
little pet greenhouses to obtain rather sandy fresh loam from the sides of 
roads, and I see no reason to retract the advice. If they can procure as 
much beforehand from thence or elsewhere as will amount to a load or two, 
or some barrowloads of turf, pile it up as stated above, and let it stand for 
a season, they would have a very superior compost. Any sort of loamy 
turf is better than none, but if I could go where I liked I would pass by all 
the turf that produced fine, soft, broad-leaved grass, and cut into that where 
the herbage was individually small and wiry, more resembling needles, or 
the foliage of a Pine tree, than blades of grass. I can see any day two 
hundred acres of such turf over the finest loam, and if you take that up 
from 2 insh s thick it is such a mass of fibres that it is next to impossible 
to tear it to pieces. Material of this kind, carefully stacked for a twelve- 
month, becomes one of the securities for fine growth in the case of plants 
in pots. 
With such a heap to fall back upon as the main part of all his composts, 
the amateur and the regular professional alike may make themselves per¬ 
fectly easy as to the complex composts that formed so prominent a part in 
old gardening literature, this plant requiring ten and the other plant some 
twenty ingredients, and all to be mixed and turned, and turned ever so 
often before use, until what was really good had nearly been dissipated into 
the general atmosphere, and what was left was a close unctuous mass that 
required much more care in watering, &c. With such a heap, sweet and 
mellow, but with the fibre unexhausted, I want to make no composts until 
I want to pot, and then I am satisfied with a very simple compost indeed, 
instead of one that would require a note-book to refer to, lest the best 
memory should forget a number of the constituent parts. The simpler 
and the sweeter the compost the better will the plants thrive. When the 
pots will admit of it, if the compost is moderately rough all the better. 
For instance, for a 5-inch pot I wou'd not object to many pieces of this 
sweet turf as large as beans. For a 10-inch-pot I would not object to pieces 
as large as walnuts or chestnuts. For all particular purposes I would tear 
the material with the hand, and not break it up with the spade. A rough 
open sieve is only used in the case of small plants; When the soil is fine 
from want of fibre, in addition to the other materials of the compost, as 
sand and sweet leaf mould, broken charcoal in bits, but from which the dust 
is excluded, will also be useful for keeping the soil open and regulating 
drainage. 
Where neither the sides of a road, nor the turf there, can be obtained, a 
very good compost for the general run of pot plants may easily be collected 
from a ridged-up garden or a ploughed field by taking the flaky soil on the 
surface during a dry day in March or April, and keeping it for use. I 
have scraped up this sweet thin layer with my hands, or with a trowel, into 
a basket or a barrow, and by keeping’ it in an open, dry, exposed place it 
answered admirably for the generality of pot plants, such as are grown in 
windows and small greenhouses. Hardly anything would answer better, 
even for a Cucumber or a Melon bed. The little additional care bestowed 
in procuring material will be anything but labour lost. Attention to such 
details is the first essential to success. For instance, in summer, soil of 
the description referred to may be used at once with no previous preparation. 
Now, and for months to come, it should be exposed to the air, and slightly 
■war ned before being used for growing plants. Not long ago I saw stubby 
Zonal Pelargoniums, with balls full of roots, in 5-inch pots transferred to 
G-inch pots, but the plants had been standing in a temperature averaging 
50°, and the soil would scarcely have averaged 35°. What a check this 
-would give at once, and still more if cold water was used for watering! 
How much more would the roots have relished soil at from 50° to 60°, and 
water at from (10° to 70°, and thev would then have been able without check 
to have pushed into the fresh soil.—F. R. 
EPIPHYLLUMS. 
There are few decorative plants at the present dull season 
that can rival the Epiphyllums for the profusion and brilliancy 
of their flowers. They are of a graceful drooping habit, and 
either on their own roots or grafted as standards on the Pereskia, 
or pyramids on Cereus speciosissimus, they are very useful for a 
variety of purposes. Standards with stems 18 inches or 2 feet 
high are useful for arranging amongst dwarf plants such as 
Cyclamens, Primulas, Ac., as they stand above them and break 
the formality of the arrangement. They are also useful as 
table plants, or for vases, surrounded by Ferns or other foliage 
plants. 
My experience has been chiefly with those on their own roots, 
and to this mode of cultivation I would direct attention on the 
present occasion. Nothing can be simpler than their require¬ 
ments. During March or April is the best time to strike cut¬ 
tings. Large pieces are put into 60-size pots and tied to a stake, 
using a compost of turfy loam, peat, a little leaf mould, and a 
good dash of silver sand, They are watered through a rose, 
plunged to the rim in a box, using leaf mou'd, cocoa-nut fibre or 
moss, and placed on the pipes in a vinery, where they will soon 
root. Keep the plunging material moist, and the cuttings wi 1 
require very little water till they are rooted. Care should also 
be taken that they do not have too much moisture while syringing 
When they are rooted they may be taken out of the plunging 
material, and each pot placed inside one a size larger, and stood 
on a shelf in the same house., where they will be shaded from 
bright sun. There they mayremain till they have finished growing, 
which will be about the middle of August, when they should be 
gradually exposed to more light and a cooler atmosphere, such 
as an early vinery or Peach house from which the fruit has been 
cleared. During the autumn months a late vinery is a very good 
place for them, the temperature suits them, and the little water 
they require does no harm. These small plants are very handy 
