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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Mi .7 22,1'31. 
for sale. Now, tliis will allow gentlemen who employ half a dozen or 
more professional gardeners to enter the lists as “ amateurs ” against 
the bond fide amateur who either employs no skilled labour at all, or at 
the most a gardener two or three days a week. What chance would the 
latter have in any competition open de jure to amateurs, but de facto to 
everyone in the floricultural world except nurserymen ? At the Crystal 
Palace Shows, the Exhibitions of the Auricula, Carnation and Picotee 
Societies, and others who might be instanced, but which are equally well 
known to your readers, we find exhibitors showing as amateurs who are 
professional gardeners, and even quasi nurserymen. Of course the rules 
of the particular societies permit this, and therefore the exhibitors are 
hardly to blame, except, perhaps, on the score of want of due appreciation 
of what is fair and equitable towards the rapidly growing class of amateurs. 
To my mind the only true and proper definition of an amateur is a 
person who not only does not grow plants for sale but does not employ a 
gardener at all. Still, to meet the case half way, I should have no objec¬ 
tions to seeing an amateur designated (and this is the rule in many minor 
societies) as a person who does not employ a gardener regularly. This 
latter proposition should satisfy every reasonable man, and if adopted 
generally would do much to allay the spirit of discontent and dissatisfac¬ 
tion which exists, and in no small degree amongst those who consider, 
and in my opinion rightly so, that under the existing definition of an 
amateur they are not receiving the fair and just treatment they are 
entitled to expect.— North London. 
THE COMPLAINT OF THE ROSE. 
Is there no more poetry in my sisterhood ? Has it passed like a warm 
summer ? Are we utterly degraded from our high and refined position ? 
I cannot help asking, when I see such remarks about us in your last 
number, if Burns were with us now, instead of his sweet lyric his verses 
would be— 
Oh I my love is like a front-rank Kose 
Of a vulgar show in June. 
And Hafiz—no one can write about us without bringing him in—what 
melancholy lines would he write !— 
Oh! my love, my soul is bedewed with tears 1 
Von are too majestic, your petals are coarse ; 
Your sweet scent has vanished ! 
You must go to the hack row. 
A new name is also invented for us—“ pedigree Roses.” Horrible title ! 
I am fearful we are vulgarised, and must no longer be coldly civil to our 
lowlier sisters—Carnations, Auriculas, Pansies—who delight those who 
cannot, unfortunately for themselves, enjoy the sweet air and freshness of 
a large country garden. It is too bad ! We who have listened in the calm 
midsummer evenings to the sweet gossip of the young and tender as well 
as to the bald gossip of the old and tough—we who have been chosen as 
the emblem of the largest empire in the world—are now degraded to 
being huddled up in boxes by jealous exhibitors and stared at by per¬ 
spiring and crowded sightseers ! Take us back to our noble gardens where 
we are lovingly tended; to our rustic parsonages where we are cherished 
as members of the family. 
Even our lovers desert us. One of our largest admirers, a very big 
gun indeed, no longer condescends to praise us with his facile pen and 
witty jocosity ; he no longer thinks us worthy his eloquence. Why are we 
thus treated p We were years and years ago as beautiful as now. This 
desertion is pitiful. 
If we are no longer worthy the notice of the poetical minds of the day 
let us go back to our country homes, but do not let us become front and 
back ranks in a show.— Vieille Rose Indignee. 
ORCHID NOTES. 
Odontoglossum vexillarium in German Peat Moss.— 
In the Orchid houses at Broomhall Field, Sheffield, the residence 
of B. P. Brooinhead, Esq., is now to be seen a remarkable ex¬ 
ample of successful treatment of this fine Odontoglot. A year 
ago the plant under notice had matured one strong growth, 
liaving been purchased the previous season as a small imported 
piece with one break. This growth carried three flower spikes, 
two of which produced eight flowers each, the third carrying 
seven flowers. After flowering, Mr. Walker, the gardener, re¬ 
potted it in peat moss without any other compost, except a few 
small scraps of fibrous peat round the collar of the plant as a 
surfacing, and a thin dressing of sphagnum over all. Shortly 
afterwards the plant commenced growing and produced the re¬ 
markable number of eight strong breaks from the one growth. 
One of these breaks Mr. Walker took off when sufficiently ad¬ 
vanced and potted separately. This has made a sturdy plant, 
which has now two flower spikes. The remaining seven growths 
all did well, and are now flowering with a total of fifteen spikes 
and eighty-four flowers. The blooms are very fine, one I 
measured being 3 inches in breadth by 4 inches in depth. It is 
not a high-coloured variety, but is very chaste and delicate, and 
would, 1 think, be preferred by many to some high-coloured 
forms now flowering in the same house. I examined the peat 
moss in which the plant is potted, and found it full of strong 
healthy roots.—W. K. W. 
Orchids at Regent’s Pare:. —Mr. B. S. Williams, Upper 
Holloway, had an exceedingly beautiful display of Orchids at 
the Regent’s Park Show yesterday, including representatives of 
the following species and varieties, duplicates of several being 
also- shown:—Aerifies rubrum, Anguloa Clowesii, Calanthes 
Dominiana, masuca, and veratrifolia; Cattleyas Mendelii, Mossiae, 
Skinnerii, Walkeriana, and Warnerii; Cadogynes Massangeana 
and ocellata; Oymbidium eburneum; Cypripediums barbatum, 
barbatum Crossii, caudatum, ciliolare, Druryi, Laurencianum, 
Lowii, niveum, selligerum, and Swanianum; Dendrobiums cal- 
ceolus and Pierardii; Dendrocliilum latifolium ; Ladia purpu- 
rata; Masdevallias Chelsoni, Harry ana, Harryana lilacina, ignea, 
Yeitchii, and Veitchii grandiflora; Mesospinidium sangumeum ; 
Odontoglossums Alexandra, cirrhosum, citrosmum, and cor- 
datum; Oncidiums aureum, concolor, cucullatum, flexucsum, 
Marshallianum, nigratum, scrratum, and Suttonii; Sobralia ma- 
crantha; Soplironitis grandiflora; Trichopilia crispa; Yandas 
Dalkeith var., superba, and tricolor insignis. The majority of 
these were blooming most freely, the Cattleyas and Cypripe¬ 
diums being especially handsome. 
Phajtts grandifolius.— It would be difficult to name any Orchid 
easier of culture cr more beautiful when in flower than this 
Phajus with its giant spikes of bloom fully 4 or 5 feet high when 
well grown. It should be largely grown even where Orchids are not 
considered a feature in the garden, for we have no stove-flowering 
plant more attractive or useful for decoration. It is not only suitable 
for gi'owing into iar’ge specimens for the exhibition hall or tent, but is 
equally suitable in smaller pots for home decoration, and it would be 
impossible to name any plant more effective in the conservatory when 
arranged amongst dwarter flowering plants. Our plants are used for 
this, and no plants that we grow repay us better for the trouble and 
care devoted to them, for they are certain to bloom. 
When grown for this purpose, and stood while in flower in the 
lower temperature of the conservatory, they receive a good rest and 
grow stronger and with greater freedom the following season ; in 
fact, a good season of rest is as- important with this Orchid as any 
other. Without rest it will soon cease growing strongly and do well, 
but with a season of rest it will never fail to grow with vigour, and 
in return produce flower spikes of great size. Plants that have 
occupied such positions should be turned out of their pots, and have 
the whole of the old soil carefully removed from amongst their roots, 
and new supplied. They dislike sour soil, and it is much better to 
repot them annually. The soil should not be elevated above the 
rim of their pots, but plenty of room must be left for water. 
After potting they should be stood in a close moist atmosphere 
where the night temperature ranees about 65°, and must be shaded 
from strong sun. These plants should not be syringed overhead until 
their roots are growing freely, and until they reach this stage very 
little water will be needed. The material upon which they stand 
and their pots may be frequently syringed, but the plants must not be 
overwatered or their foliage is sure to be spotted, and the plants will be 
disfigured the whole season afterwards. Growing Phajus will depend 
very much upon the way they are watered until their pots are filling 
rapidly with active roots, for if supplied carelessly or too liberally 
before they reach this stage they seldom grow after with the same 
strength or vigour. When they are rooting freely and growing rapidly 
they require water frequently, and weak stimulants may be given 
every alternate time they require water 
The soil that suits these plants is good fibry peat and loam in equal 
portions, a seventh of cow manure (prepared by fin ing) passed through 
a fine sieve; to this may be added charcoal broken fine, meal and 
quarter-inch bones, and coarse sand. The pots in which they are 
placed should be well drained. Brown scale is their worst enemy, 
and should be removed by sponging.—W. B. L. 
DISEASE OF VINES. 
THE VINE MITE (PHYTOPTUS VITIS). 
Last autumn several correspondents of the Journal of Horticulture 
forwarded examples of Vine leaves badly diseased. In some instances 
the correspondents took the disease to represent a bad attack from the 
Phylloxera, and to all the writers the disease was new. As there is no 
mention of this particular disease in the chapter on “ Diseases of Vines ” 
in Mr. Barron’s excellent book on “Vines and Vine Culture,” we 
propose first to give our correspondents’ experiences, and then a brief 
description and illustration of the ailment which in tome instances has 
proved most injurious and destructive. 
One of the first letters described the Vines as all crippled, and the 
gardener was puzzled by the novelty of the disease. Another said his 
Vines grew well for a time, some of them most healthily; then all at once 
they stopped, the stems appeared to harden, the leaves also hardened, 
curled, became malformed, shrivelled, and died. When the lower parts 
of young Vines were fresh and healthy the top and upper laterals were 
said to become like wire. A third account described the disease as 
