440 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 28, 1885. 
at first, bleaching to white, and several others have been similarly 
effective. Many Cactuses were also producing their gorgeous flowers, 
including some seedlings of the Phyllocactus section extremely rich in 
colour, crimson suffused with purple, and there are more to expand. In 
a pan elevated over a water tank in the greenhouse an unusually fine 
mass of the lovely miniature Sibthorpia europaea variegata arrests 
attention. It is covered with a multitude of flowers. Tbe : r beauty, 
however, cannot be seen without the aid of a magnifying glass. The 
whole of Mr. Major’s plants are now in excellent condition. 
- As may be seen in our advertising columns, the Hon. and Rev. 
J. T. Boscawen has been enabled to considerably enhance the prizes for 
Orchids and fruit at the Bath and West of England Show, which opens 
at Brighton on June 8th. A cup or money, value £15, will be given for the 
best group of Orchids, and a second prize of £5. A cup or money, value 
£5, will also be given for the best collection of fruit, and prizes of £3, £2> 
and £1 for baskets of thirty-six Strawberries in two varieties. 
j -Holiday Visitors. —It is estimated that close on 50,000 persons 
visited Kew Gardens on Whit-Monday. Hampton Court was visited by 
about 30,000 people. The Chestnut avenue in Bushy Park, which always 
attracts so many visitors at this season of the year, is now in its full 
beauty. Some of the trees are backward, the result of the unfavourable 
weather of the past few weeks, but on the whole the show of blooms is a 
grand one. The Hawthorns also are bursting into blossom, and adding to 
the floral display of the Park. The visitors to the Inventions Exhibition 
on the same day numbered 73,684, and upwards of 53,000 persons at¬ 
tended the Crystal Palace. 
- In reference to the use of Bone Meal a correspondent writes:— 
“ When bone meal is added to soil the potash present in the soil commences 
to act upon it, and slowly to replace the lime in the bone, thus liberating 
phosphoric acid, which is a valuable manure. This takes two or three 
years to accomplish. In order to accelerate the process, fill a tub nearly 
full of bones, say the ordinary bones from the family. Place a layer of 
wood ashes 3 inches deep on the top of the bones, allow the tub to stand 
out in the weather for a year, or until the bones are soft, then mash them 
up and use them dry for potting plants or dressing lawns, &c.” 
- Mr. Richard Morse, Cotham House Gardens, Bristol, sends us 
a Mushroom of an abnormal but not particularly unusual character, as we 
have often seen one inversed and growing in that way on the top of 
another. The union is the result of a detachment of a small example in 
an overcrowded mass, which receives nourishment through the one on 
which it rests and adheres. Our correspondent goes on to say that “In 
October last he made up a bed in the middle of the kitchen garden on the 
‘Mushrooms for the Million ’ system. During the winter he gathered 
several dishes from it. A fortnight ago, wanting the piece of ground that 
it stood upon, he wa3 about to destroy it, but upon uncovering it found it 
one mass of spawn and small Mushrooms. It was carefully removed and 
placed at the foot of a high wall with a north-west aspect, beaten firm, 
and covered with straw, and Mushrooms are now coming pretty freely. 
- The death is announced of Mr. William James Epps of 
Somerley View, Ringwood, which happened on the 18th inst., in the sixty- 
eighth year of his age. Mr. Epps was formerly a nurseryman at Maid¬ 
stone, where he had a considerable reputation as a cultivator of plants. 
He was originally a traveller and clerk in the Maidstone Brewery, but 
having a strong passion for plants he devoted all his spare time to their 
cultivation. He was one of the earliest raisers of Fuchsias, and shortly 
after Mr. Standish raised his seedling Standishi, Mr. Epps was successful 
in raising Fuchsia Eppsi, both of which enjoyed a wide reputation. Mr. 
Epps’ success in raising this plant encouraged him in floriculture, and he 
eventually relinquished his engagement in the brewery, and devoted him¬ 
self exclusively to the cultivation of plants. In this occupation he was 
for a considerable time eminently successful, and especially in the growth 
of Cape Heaths, which he did so well that for some years he was a suc¬ 
cessful exhibitor at the shows at Chiswick Gardens and other metropolitan 
exhibitions. Mr. Epps was successful for some years, but from a combi¬ 
nation of circumstances he was forced to abandon his business at Maid¬ 
stone, and for several years past he has been engaged in supplying soils, 
peat, and sand to plant-growers. So recently as the late Orchid Confer¬ 
ence he was at the conservatory, South Kensington, with a collection of 
various soils which he had on exhibition, and he was also present at the 
dinner which was subsequently held at the Albion Tavern. 
—— Royal Meteorological Society. —The u ual monthly meeting 
of this Society was held on Wednesday evening, the 20th inst., Mr. 
R. H. Scott, F.R.S., President, in the chair. Dr. H. Dobell and Mr. 
J. N. Longden were elected Fellows of the Society. The following 
papers were read :—1, “ The Temperature Zones of the Earth Considered 
in Relation to the Duration of the Hot, Temperate, and Cold Period, and 
to the effect of Temperature upon the Organic World,’’ by Dr. W. 
Koppen, Hon.Mem.R.Met.Soc. 2, “ Velocities of Winds and their 
Measurement,” by Lieut.-Col. H. S. Knight, F.R.Met.Soc. The author, 
after describing the various ways of ascertaining the direction and 
velocity of the wind, makes several suggestions for the improvement of 
Robinson’s anemometer. 3, “On the Equivalent of Beaufort’s Scale in 
Absolute Velocity of Wind,” by Dr. W. Koppen, Hon.Mem.R.Met.Soc. 
The author refers to Mr. C. Harding’s paper read before the Society in 
December last on the anomalies in the various wind velocities given by 
different authors as equivalents for the numbers in Beaufort’s Scale ; and, 
as illustrating the point, calls special attention to the want of agreement 
between the velocities obtained by Mr. Scott and those subsequently 
obtained by Dr. Sprung, and confirmed by himself. 4, “ Note on a 
Peculiar Form of Auroral Cloud Seen in Northamptonshire, March 1st, 
1885,” by the Rev. James Davis. 
PRUNING DENDROBIUM NOBILE. 
The exhibition of the two magnificent plants of Dendrobium nobile— 
one at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on April 21st, and 
the other at the late Orchid Conference by Mr. H. C. Prinsep, gardener 
to the Hon. Mrs. Portman, BuxtedPark, Uckfield—to illustrate the effects 
of what has been termed the “ pruning ” system on this species, will be a 
sufficient apology for again referring to a subject which caused so much 
controversy in these columns last year. The accompanying engraving 
is a faithful representation of the specimen exhibited at the Society’s 
meeting on the 21st ult,, and which was carrying four dozen growths from 
2 to 3 feet long, with 630 expanded flowers thereon. Not one of the 
pseudo-bulbs had entirely lost its leaves, the greater portion of them 
being furnished from base to apex with large healthy deep green foliage. 
In addition to the four dozen growths just mentioned there were about 
seven unripened pseudo-bulbs, which, owing to making their growth late, 
had not ripened sufficiently to flower this year. Here, then, we have with, 
fifty-five pseudo bulbs, which Mr. Prinsep testifies to be the growth of last 
year, the four dozen being those of early, and the seven those of late, 
summer growth, grown without the assistance of the two-year-old pseudo¬ 
bulbs, or, to be more precise, without the aid of such of the pseudo-bulbs 
as have flowered, the latter being cut entirely away at the time of flower¬ 
ing, thus both making and flowering its pseudo-bulbs within a year— 
truly a great stride in advance of the orthodox plan. 
Mr. Prinsep tell us (and we have reasons for believing his statements 
to be perfectly accurate) that having to supply his employers with abund¬ 
ance of cut flowers at and about Easter time, among which the flowers of 
Dendrobium nobile are in special request, he cuts away the pseudo-bulbs 
carrying blooms, often clearing off at one time the flowering bulbs of two 
or three plants, and thus leaves the latter without any pseudo-bulbs save 
such as were of late summer growth and had failed to flower, to render 
the support to the young growths the non-pruning advocates claim as 
essential. 
The same course is pursued if the flowers are not wanted for cutting, 
the bulbs being removed immediately the flowers fade. Briefly Mr. 
Prinsep’s method of culture is this : As soon as flowering is past all 
pseudo-bulbs that have flowered are removed, leaving only those of late 
growth, which in some cases do not number more than one or two, and 
in others none. The plants are placed in a high and moist temperature, 
ranging from not lower than 70° to upwards of 100° Fahrenheit. In 
this high temperature the plants revel, and by the end of August have 
growths from 2 to 3 feet long. From this time a course of hardening off 
commences, and finally the plants are placed in a cool vinery where no 
fire heat is applied except in severe weather. There they remain until the 
nodes begin to manifest signs of being fully developed, when they are 
introduced into heat to enable them to flower. 
Nothing can demonstrate more tiuthfully the soundness of Mr. 
Prinsep’s practice and evince greater evidence of his success than a glance 
at the engraving, which has been prepared from a photograph of one of 
these remarkable plants, and these who had the opportunity of seeing the 
plants exhibited at South Kensington must have felt convinced that it is 
quite possible to prune Dendrobium nobile with success. Orchidists of 
great experience like Mr. James O’Brien and many others who saw the 
plants at South Kensington all agreed that the pruning of this species had 
been attended with beneficial rather than injurious results. 
Unquestionably there is a limit to which the system of pruning must 
be confined, but carried out under proper conditions it can be successfully 
accomplished. In the first place it would be extremely hazardous to cut 
away the old pseudo-bulbs on weakly-grown plants, but given thoroughly 
healthy and vigorous plants then the old growths maybe safely and bene¬ 
ficially removed. Neither would it be safe to remove old bulbs of 
other species of Dendrobium, although, as in tbe case of Dendrobium 
Wardianum at Wortley, there are those who claim that pruning is bene¬ 
ficial. We hope another year that Mr. Simpson of Wortley may be 
induced to settle this vexed question by exhibiting his pruned specimen 
