438 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 5, 1884. 
“ Fruit Manual: ”—Flesh yellowish-white, very tender and 
crisp, juicy, sweet, and vinous, with a delicate and agreeable 
perfume. The tree is somewhat peculiar from the compara¬ 
tively weakly growth of its eastern half, which is also much 
cankered and deficient in blossom. The western half, on the 
contrary, is remarkably vigorous, has plenty of blossom, and 
only a trace of canker upon two or three spurs. I have 
noticed this peculiarity in some other trees, and may mention 
a pyramidal Forelle Pear as an example of it. 
Cornish Gilliflower is in perfect health, without a trace 
of canker, and is remarkable for its clean dark bark. It has 
had enough but not a profusion of blossom, and will probably 
set a fair crop of fruit. It is an excellent dessert Apple, 
coming somewhat late into bearing, for which reason there 
should be several trees of it. Scarlet Nonpareil has many 
spurs a foot in length, all well furnished with buds. I 
counted a dozen clusters of blossom on several of them. It 
has slight traces of canker, but is on the whole a thriving 
valuable tree. Golden Pippin is a compact little espalier, 
almost perfect. It has had canker on the spur tips, and 
there are slight traces of it upon the branches. The blossom 
has been crowded, and it is setting plenty of fruit. 
Pine Apple Russet is a fine vigorous specimen with free 
Fig. 100.—Converting espalier into palmette verrier. (See page 487.) 
robust growth in branch and spur. It, too, has lost the tips 
of the spurs from canker, but there is ample promise of an 
abundant crop of its somewhat unsightly but excellent fruit. 
Golden Russet may be termed a nice tree, with spurs some¬ 
what thinly disposed but with plenty of blossom. Although 
a large tree the growth is only of medium vigour, and it has 
canker blotches. Cockle’s Pippin has much canker in the 
spurs, the tips of which have also suffered ; but the stem and 
branches are healthy. Adams’ Pearmain has much spur 
canker, but it has plenty of blossom. This tree came into 
full bearing before any of the others, and it has continued to 
yield full crops of fruit in every favourable season. I do not 
regard it as a first-class dessert Apple, but it is undoubtedly 
a most useful one.— Edward Luckhurst. 
INDOOR ROSES. 
Amongst these Cheshunt Hybrid is in my opinion nearly equal 
to Marechal Niel and Gloire de Dijon for clothing pillars, roofs, or 
walls in cool houses. A plant budded as a standard in 1881 and 
planted during the following winter outside a small octagonal con¬ 
servatory, with the buds just inside, has already covered a large space, 
and this spring has given us over three hundred of its lovely blooms. 
This Rose is liked here nearly as much for its scent as for its beauty. 
Last year, having some good pot plants of Marechal Niel in flower just 
when Cheshunt Hybrid was at its best, we trained the shoots of the two 
together in such a way as to have nearly equal quantities of blooms 
of each hanging together. Neither of the two lost anything by the 
arrangement, but each seemed to enhance the beauty of the other. 
This year there is no room to admit the Marechal into the space, or 
the arrangement would have been made again. As much as I like 
owd root ” Roses I cannot advise that system of growing this 
variety. With us it grows much faster on either Manetti or Briar 
than on its own roots. 
I have been much interested by the two notes recently on Reine 
Marie Henriette. I have had a plant of it for two or three years 
growing outside trained to a wall, and I have not had a single bloom 
yet, and a neighbour who has grown it much longer than I have has 
the same experience to record. Only two or three days ago I was 
conversing with the foreman of a large Rose nursery, and his opinion 
is that this Rose is both a poor grower and bloomer. I had deter¬ 
mined to discard it, but shall now insert a few buds in the old Gloire, 
of which I have a vigorous young plant on its own roots in a cool 
greenhouse. 
I saw a plant of Gloire de Dijon a few weeks ago which I should 
think has few equals. Seven years ago it was purchased as an 
ordinary nursery standard and planted inside a greenhouse 20 feet 
long, with rafters fully that length. The gardener in charge said he 
thought the rafters were 25 feet in length, and now the entire roof 
is a perfect thicket of wood ; in fact it is too much crowded, and the 
plant shows no sign of having reached its limit yet if it had more 
room. As our indoor climbing Roses go out of flower they are 
pruned and the soil removed as far down as possible without injuring 
the roots, and a mixture of loam, manure, and crushed bones applied 
in place of the soil taken away. By this means the roots are kept 
from striking downwards, and thus are in a posiiion to make the 
most of liquid or other manures, which may be given as they require 
them.—T. A. B. 
GERMAN IRISES. 
Tiie broad-leaved Irises (I. germanica) form an interesting, beau¬ 
tiful, and useful class of plants for early summer flowering, and for 
variety and quaint form with exquisite markings are unsurpassed by 
any other flower of their season—May and early June ; and though 
the flowers are not very persistent they are nevertheless suitable for 
cutting, for which purpose they vie with Orchids, and are far more 
valuable from being within the reach of everyone having a few yards 
of garden ground devoted to flowers. The plants are evergreen, and 
on that account cheerful at all seasons, their ample broad-flag foliage 
rendering them conspicuous objects in the borders, and not the least 
of their merits is that of their succeeding in smoky localities. 
The German Iris will grow almost anywhere ; but in the shrubbery 
border it makes slow progress, on account of such positions being too 
dry and the soil poor from its exhaustion by the roots of trees and 
shrubs. In the wilderness it grows well if the soil is surface-dressed ■with 
manure and kept clear of weeds ; whilst on the margin of water it is 
effective. But to grow the plants well they require a good rich 
porous soil, without water lodging about the roots, for they are any 
thing but aquatic, and any idea of their being rock plants must be 
discarded. I mention this because I have seen German Irises perched 
on rockwork, sunk in a bog, and trying to make a living as best they 
could in the poor soil and gloom of shrubberies. Such positions can¬ 
not show or grow these plants to anything like perfection. They like 
sun or an open situation, soil loamy, well manured, deeply stirred, and 
efficiently drained, and then we stand a chance of seeing them in the 
richness of their foliage and the unsurpassed loveliness of their 
standards and falls, rich in colour, or distinguished by exquisite 
markings. 
Their place in the herbaceous border, masses a yard across, stand 
out in May or June as grand ornaments of this now popular depart¬ 
ment of floral gardening. They grow freely, are very hardy, and 
increase rapidly, propagation being effected by division in early 
autumn or early spring. Each crown taken off with a portion of the 
creeping root-stem will make a plant, planting no deeper than to 
cover with soil to the base of the leaves or just over the roots. A 
top-dressing around the clumps of short manure or leaf soil in early 
winter, pointed in early in spring, and the plants supplied with liquid 
manure in dry weather, wiih a mulching of short manure to prevent 
evaporation, will grow famously through the summer, and form some 
crowns that in due course afford a harvest of blooms large in size and 
full in substance. An indifferent bloom is a result of poverty, and 
may arise from the clumps becoming too crowded with “ grass ” or 
the creeping stolons, in which case they should be thinned and a good 
dressing of rich compost applied over the root-stems between the 
growths ; or if the clumps are too large lift them, divide, and replant 
in early autumn or spring in well-prepared ground. 
The varieties are legion, and as they have been considerably added 
to of late a selection is appended of those that can hardly fail to 
please those that have not given this class place in their gardens. 
Florentine !.—White both in standards and falls, being very free- 
flowering and scented. 
Fenelope .—Standards and falls white veined reddish-violet. 
Albicans .—Standards and falls white, very fine ; the best white. 
Donna Maria .—Standard and falls white, tinged lavender, yellow 
beard. 
