466 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 12, 1884. 
some tree are noticeable in the Southport Gardens, and their condition is 
most satisfactory. 
- The Weston-super-Mare and East Somerset Horti¬ 
cultural Society will hold their annual Exhibition on August 19th. 
- Tee “ Country Gentleman’s Reference Catalogue” 
(Barnicott & Son, 44, Fore Street, Taunton) is a useful list of works upon 
gardening, agriculture, and various branches of natural history, with 
brief descriptions and prices. A copy just to hand contains 126 pages, 
with a full index. 
■ - “ R. P. B.” sends us a box of SPRING flowers, fresh and 
beautiful, comprising the following :—Clematis montana, a perfect wreath 
of beautiful white flowers ; Anthericum liliastrum, with grass-like foliage 
and white flowers ; Spiraea Yan Houttei, bearing abundant small trusses of 
neat round white flowers on red peduncles ; Ourisia coccinea, very 
bright, the flowers rich scarlet tubes on long stems, and with heart-shaped 
leaves ; Iris graminea, a charming plant, with long grass-like leaves and 
purple-blue flowers, prettily veined ; Meconopsis cambrica, a striking 
plant, with bright yellow Poppy-like flowers and divided leaves ; and the 
rich blue-purple Myosotis Imperatrice Elizabeth. 
■ - The Royal Botanic Society’s Evening Fete is announced 
to be held in the Gardens of the Regent’s Park on Wednesday, July 2nd, 
when the usual exhibition of floral decorations will be provided. The 
schedule enumerates fourteen classes open to all exhibitors, three prizes 
being offered in each, value from £10 to 10s. The principal class 
is that for floral decorations for a room, the prizes being £10, £7, and £3. 
Classes are also devoted to dinner-table decorations, one for hardy 
flowers only, and a third for three groups of hardy flowers for the table, 
one kind of flower only in each. Others are provided for baskets, 
bouquets, &c., and one for flowers which only expand at night. 
- A Pleasant Garden Party. — A correspondent, “ H.,” 
writes :—“ Miss Jekyll of Munstead near Godaiming, Surrey, kindly 
invited upwards of fifty gardeners from the principal gentlemen’s seats 
in the surrounding neighbourhood of Godaiming and Guildford on 
Saturday afternoon last, June ?tb, to see her choice and very extensive 
collection of hardy flowers. Previous to being shown round the gardens 
they all sat down to tea, so liberally provided by this kind patroness of 
the craft. The gardens were in most excellent order, and were very 
much admired. Great cultural skill and artistic taste in arrangement are 
manifest throughout the whole place, which does great credit to Miss 
Jekyll and all concerned. All the visitors expressed themselves highly 
delighted with the entertainment, which seems to be a step in the right 
direction.” 
- We have received the schedule of the Leeds Floral and 
Horticultural Exhibition, which opens on the 25th inst., prizes 
which ought to be sufficient to secure a fine display being provided 
throughout the seventy-five classes. In the chief classes—namely, for 
twelve stove and greenhouse plants, and for a group of plants for effect, 
the amounts are in the former case £12, £8, and £4 ; and in the latter 
£10 (given hy the Mayor of Leeds), £6, and £3. The schedule states 
that “ The prize list has been augmented by £50, which is considerably 
more than the profit upon the Show last year, and if the public support 
the Company in the undertaking, they will be enabled to extend the 
prize money still further, and thus make the Leeds Show what it ought 
to be, second to none in the kingdom.” The railway companies convey 
plants free from the Show when they remain the property of the 
exhibitor, and the prize money is to be paid on July 3rd. Mr. G. 
Bush is the Secretary. 
-A “ Report of Observations of Injurious Insects and 
Common Crop Pests in 1883,” by Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, has recently 
been issued (London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co.), and, like preceding 
issues of the same work, it contains a considerable amount of interesting 
and useful matter. Chapters are devoted to the insects infesting the 
Apple, Bean, Cabbage, Turnip, Carrot, Celery, Cherry, Corn and grass, 
Gooseberry, Hop, Mangold, Onion, Parsnip, Pear, Peas, Pine, Poplar, 
Raspberry, and Strawberry. These are illustrated by figures of the 
principal enemies in various stages of growth, and a long appendix is 
devoted to a consideration of the Hop aphis. 
- Huddersfield Chrysanthemum Society. —We are informed 
that a Committee of forty members has been formed for promoting a 
Chrysanthemum Show at Huddersfield, and in consequence of the 
financial support accorded it has been resolved to hold the first Show of 
the Society on November 14th and 15th. A schedule is in preparation and 
will be shortly issued. Mr. John Bell, Royal Hotel, Huddersfield, is the 
Honorary Secretary. 
- “ M. S.” writes that “ one of the prettiest of dwarf plants now 
in flower on the Kew rockery is the handsome HeuCHERA micrantha, 
which has been freely distributed lately under the title of H. erubescens, 
probably a misrendering of H. rubescens, but which is a totally different 
but allied plant. H. micrantha grows from 1 to 2 feet in height, and 
the leaves are few, round-cordate or oval-cordate, and about 3 inches in 
diameter, the lobes blunt and deeply toothed, and having hairs on their 
veins or ribs. The flowers are produced in loose panicles and are very 
graceful, with quite a unique appearance. It is found in woods on the 
coast ranges of Sierra Nevada, and may he cultivated easily in a shady 
nook in the rockery, using a good admixture of peat and leaf soil with 
the loam.” 
- The fortieth Exhibition of the Hiss Horticultural Society 
will he held at The Lawn, Diss, on Tuesday, July 8th. Ten classes are 
devoted to Roses, and in addition a challenge cup value £10 is offered hy 
Francis Taylor, Esq., for the exhibitor who gains the first prize for 
thirty-six blooms twice. This prize was first competed for in 1883, and 
won hy the Rev. H. E. Berners, Harkstead Rectory, Ipswich. Classes- 
are provided for decorations, plants, vegetables, and fruit, and twenty- 
two classes are reserved for cottagers. 
- Messrs. T. Christy & Co., 155, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C. f 
write as follows respecting peppermint oil “ We wish to direct 
your attention to the profit attached to the growing of Japan Mint, 
owing to the largely increased demand for menthol, or the crystals 
extracted from the oil expressed from the Japan variety of Peppermint 
(Mentha arveDsis piperascens). The subjoined extract from the Public- 
Ledger of June 3rd is very important:—‘ An American correspondent 
informs us that the constantly and rapidly increasing demand for 
menthol, of which the supply is so greatly diminishing at a most 
inopportune moment, is having a strengthening effect on the market for 
peppermint oil of all descriptions ; as in the manufacture about 60 per 
cent, of this oil is consumed ; the demand at present existing for this 
particular use is quite expected to consume about 70 per cent, of the 
present stocks, and as it is now ascertained that the planting of the herb 
is small, it is not at all likely that the entire new crop will be sufficient 
to supply the requirements of this demand alone. The production of the 
last three or four years has been nothing like equal to the consumption* 
and the present world’s stock of peppermint oil is, without question, not 
one-twentieth of what it was a few years ago, when prices were only 
some 10 to 15 per cent, below what they are now : the last time when 
the position of the article was as it is at present, values were nearly 
double what they are now quoted. The demand here is strong at three 
dollars nett per lb. for oil in bulk.’ This plant is perfectly hardy, and of 
as easy growth as our own Mint. Menthol crystals, that two and three 
years back we bought at 6s. and 8s. per lb., are now 40s. and 45s. per lb.” 
_ The Rev. D. Landsborough has recently paid a visit to a coal 
mine near Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, and thus describes the Fossil Fern 
BED g ; —“ The fossils are here in considerable abundance and variety, 
but those who imagine they are to be had without labour are much 
mistaken, as they are embedded in the solid rock, from which they are 
with difficulty extracted, and are very frequently broken or otherwise 
injured in the process. We saw no specimens of Stiginarhe, Sigillariae, 
or Lepidodendra. The fossils consisted almost entirely of Fern stems 
and fronds. The most common was Sphenopteris latifolia, beering a 
general resemblance to a Lastrea. There were also specimens of Neu- 
ropteris gigantea, N. Joshii, Odontopteris (lingulata?), Pecopteris (muri- 
cata ?), &c. A large specimen of any of these Ferns is valuable, as more 
knowledge of the plant is obtained from the examination of one such 
specimen than from many broken pieces. This is owing to the different 
appearance frequently presented hy different parts of the same plant. 
Mr. Graham, the oversman, had by this time joined us. He has two 
specimens which quite puzzle me, and which I must refer to higher 
authorities. These Ferns, now lying under a weight of 700 feet of solid 
rock, before this rock was formed, grew on what was then the surface, 
enjoying the light of heaven. A pool of water was here connected with a 
stream. These Ferns were brought down by the stream, carried by an 
eddy into a quiet corner of the pool, where they were deposited, just as 
I have a hundred times seen Algse spread out, as these Ferns are, in all 
