166 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f March 3, 1881. 
Orchids. Cypripediums in quantity and of the best kinds, 
Masdevallias and Pleiones, all do remarkably in this house. 
A Vanda which has been undergoing cool treatment here for 
the last two years is as healthy as those in warmer quarters. 
Into this house Mr. Thomson told us air is admitted through 
4-inch pipes placed at intervals in the front wall, and the 
gravel on which the pots stand is placed in zinc trays, which 
are kept constantly filled with water in hot weather. In the 
warmer houses Vandas, Dendrobiums, Lselias, Phalaenopses, 
Aerides, Cattleyas, Coelogynes, and other Orchids that are 
worth growing are in a most luxuriant condition. The Vandas 
are growing in finely made oak crates about a yard square 
and as much in depth. These contain from three to six plants 
each ; many of them are 4 feet in height and well furnished 
with foliage. Plants of Phaleenopsis amabilis are in hanging 
baskets, and have long spikes of bloom and buds in profusion. 
In one of the Orchid houses there are a number of plants of 
Anthurium Scherzerianum, which for size and health are the 
finest specimens I have seen. The number of spathes these 
will produce will be enormous, and we may depend they are 
the best varieties, as no plant would ever be grown to a large 
size at Drumlanrig which was in the slightest way inferior in 
either form or colour. 
On the back wall of one of the lean-to Pine houses Bougain¬ 
villea spectabilis receives that attention which it seldom gets 
but highly merits. Four plants are planted out in a narrow 
bed, and they are trained fan-shaped, like Peach trees. The 
branches are very strong, and twice a year all the side shoots 
are cut off them, when they afterwards emit a profusion of 
young shoots, each of which produces long racemes of their 
beautiful pink bracts, which are much valued. The cool 
greenhouses contain large quantities of the hardier Palms, 
Heaths, and one of the most promising collections of young 
specimen Azaleas I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. 
Camellias, too, are in grand health, and bloom profusely from 
September onwards. By starting them into growth early and 
growing them on freely there is no difficulty in having them 
in bloom so early as September, and this is certainly worth 
knowing and practising by those who have many cut flowers 
to supply in the autumn months. 
About one mile from the kitchen garden and chief glass 
houses is the flower garden. Some hundreds of thousands of 
bedding plants are employed here in summer ; but of course 
in winter there is nothing to be seen in this way, only the 
extent of ground gives an idea of the wonderful display of 
exquisitely arranged colours that must be seen here at the 
height of the season. About 60 acres are devoted to flower 
garden and shrubbery. Terrace after terrace, with level 
spaces between, rise until the level of the Castle is reached, 
and in looking down from this elevation one of the finest 
views in the country is obtained. The flower garden lies 
below ; plateau after plateau, with dark Yews and other trees 
intervening, comes into sight in rapid succession, while on the 
other side of the river an elevated ridge of forest trees forms 
an effective background. Eastward from this a remarkable 
harmony of hill, dell, and stream is visible for a distance of 
sixteen miles or more. I have heard lords, ladies, squires, 
nurserymen, gardeners, and travellers of many nations say the 
like of Drumlanrig they never saw, and with all I thoroughly 
agree.— Paragon. 
NOTES FP.OM MY GARDEN IN 1880. 
GLADIOLI. 
There is one advantage in growing many plants—that if failure 
takes place in some there are others which compensate for it. All 
the eggs are not in one basket. Thus, although I had to complain 
of the orange fungus amongst my Roses and of the woolly aphis 
amongst my Auriculas, I had a very successful season with another 
favourite flower, the Gladiolus ; yet it, too, is one of those which 
in other seasons has caused me much trouble, and which still 
puzzles me exceedingly. 
My culture of the Gladiolus is very limited in extent, and I 
believe our great grower Mr. Kelway was considerably amused 
and not a little surprised when he saw how small it was. “ Well, 
1 have seen him show some fine spikes, and do you mean to say 
that he cut them from these beds ?” was his somewhat incredulous 
query ; and I can well understand how the man who grows his 
twenty acres must have regarded the two or three small beds that 
I manage to cultivate. I have now grown the Gladiolus for twenty 
years. Some seasons I have been in despair and ready to give 
them up altogether, at other times so captivated with them that 
I have determined to run all risks and go on with their culture ; 
and the strange thing is that I have never been able to give any 
reason why one season should be favourable and another unfavour¬ 
able. The mode of treatment varies but little, the character of 
the soil remains the same, and yet the difference is very great. 
In one season I see a vast number of the corms dying and the 
good trusses comparatively few ; in another the gaps limited in 
number and the blooms excellent. I do not see that the character 
of the season makes much difference. They like moisture, but 
1879 was too much for them ; but in a very dry season they do 
not flourish. Fine autumns which tend to ripen the corms are in 
their favour, but we did not certainly have a fine autumn in 1879, 
although it was, of course, the corms saved then that gave me the 
good bloom of 1880. My stock generally consists of corms of my 
own saving. A few I obtain from France and a few from Mr. 
Kelway. I do not see much difference as to the losses, which 
occur pretty impartially in all three, although I think on the 
whole I have better blooms from the corms raised in France than 
from those saved by myself ; I mean, of course, the same varieties. 
Last year I had two of my beds in a part of my garden where 
I never had them before, and these certainly were the best. 
Of course it will be said it was new ground and the soil was 
not sick with them ; but the year before, when I had so many 
failures, they were grown in beds where I had not had any 
for eleven years ; and as I have said, one of the most successful 
growers I ever knew grew his for seven years in the same soil, 
and I believe, had he lived, would still have grown them in it. 
The soil, too, was very much stiffer than I thought would have 
suited them. So here again I was puzzled, as I know most growers 
consider a friable soil best suited for them, and that at Fontaine¬ 
bleau is of this character. Then, again, some of the finest blooms 
that I had this season were from some scattered corms which 
must have been in the ground eight or nine years, as they came 
up amongst my Roses, and must have been the produce of spawn 
that had remained in the ground all that time. One thing has 
certainly been impressed on my mind more and more, and that is 
that deep planting is the best. I shall never plant at any shallower 
depth than 6 inches, and I am not sure that even more would 
not be desirable. I believe, too, that a good heavy mulching of 
manure is very essential to their well-doing, and that it ought to 
be applied somewhat early so as to throw vigour into the stems ; 
for although they do not like to have fresh manure in contact 
with them, they seem to delight in the moisture that reaches them 
from it. 
I cannot too strongly advise those who wish to cultivate this 
very beautiful flower to be very careful over the spawn (as the 
small corms are called), which in some varieties are found in 
large numbers clustering round, while in others they are compa¬ 
ratively scarce, and in some varieties, such as Adolphe Brongniart, 
are very rarely found. The plan I have of late years adopted is 
to take them off at the time of lifting the corms, store them away 
in paper bags, and then in the spring pot them, first of all taking 
off the outer hard skin. A number are placed in a pot, and 
put in a cold frame. When they have started and the pots are 
tolerably well filled with roots they are turned out into the 
open ground, and make by the end of the season very fairly 
sized corms. These in a year or two will give good spikes of 
bloom. It is all very well to talk about depending on seed¬ 
lings ; but as in all other flowers the really good ones obtained are 
few, and although there is much pleasure in raising new varieties, 
there is ever the danger of thinking too much of one’s own 
children. A grower like Mr. Kelway, who reckons his seedlings 
by hundreds of thousands, and whose long experience enables him 
to decide on the merits of a flower, is in a different position ; but 
for those who only grow a few, while seedling-raising may be a 
very interesting occupation, it is not well to place dependance on 
the seedling bed for exhibition purposes. 
With regard to new varieties, I think that some of the French 
sorts of last year are of a very high order of merit. Perhaps the 
two best were Baroness Burdett Coutts and Archduehesse Marie 
Christine. The former is a very large flower with a very long 
spike, rosy lilac in colour with carmine spot on the lower petals, 
and altogether a very remarkable flower. Archdiichesse Marie 
Christine is another very beautiful flower for which I obtained a 
first-class certificate ; white ground, flamed with rosy lilac ; large 
well-opened flowers, and a beautifully formed spike. Flamingo 
is a most brilliant scarlet flower with a purple shading in it, 
somewhat in the style of Pasquin : while Bay on d' Or is a good 
accession to our limited class of yellows. 
