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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. t March 2, im. 
ianum, and M. ensiferum, but no species is so dwarf, compact, and 
Auriferous as the one represented in the accompanying woodcut. 
KEEPING APPLES—NOUVEAU POITEAU PEAR. 
Keeping Apples. — I have only a warm cellar to store my 
fruit in, and like to attend to the matter myself, but the great 
gale caused me to hasten the picking, and I could not store away 
as I intended. A quantity of mixed fruit was sent in from the 
nursery in our exhibition Rose boxes, and finding it kept remark¬ 
ably well I have allowed it to remain there in preference to 
placing it on the shelves, and at this time I have Cox’s Orange 
Pippin, King of Pippins, Scarlet Nonpareil, Stirling Castle, Winter 
Peach, and other Apples as plump and fresh as when gathered 
from the tree. Pears did not keep, but went mealy and cracked in 
a short time, so that they are not improved by the close confine¬ 
ment. In flavour the Apples are brisk and rich, but if laid on 
straw they probably to some extent will taste of it. Next season I 
shall store more in boxes, and merely lay them on clean demy paper. 
Knowing that so many have but indifferent places to keep their 
Apples, my experience may bn of service to them, although possibly 
not a new idea. The Rose boxes have a little ventilation through 
perforated zinc, and a little tilt from time to time would be ad¬ 
visable. This plan is also effectual in keeping the mice from the 
fruit, and these boxes can be stored one on the other and labelled 
outside, so that any required kind can be found at once. 
Pear Nouveau Poiteau. —As you rightly remark in last 
week’s Journal, this is a very buttery Pear, and occasionally of fine 
flavour, but it is very apt to rot at the core, and is often ripe 
before it appears so, as it is always of a dull green colour, so 
much so as to mislead those who do not know its nature. In 
growth it is robust and upright, and bears profusely. I have had 
two bushels from a small standard tree, and these large, as the 
tree was well mulched early in the season. Its chief merit is 
that it often bears when Pears are a failure, and in some seasons 
has been almost our only good crop.— George Bunyard, 
Maidstone. 
NOTES FROM MY GARDEN IN 1881.—No. 2. 
Many questions and statements have been made in the Journal 
lately on the subject of the Gladiolus, and I have purposely ab¬ 
stained from replying to them in order that I might in this paper 
give the result of my own experience during the past year and 
enter somewhat fully into the subject. 
I have, as your correspondent “ W. J. M.” says, been a grower 
of this grand autumn-flowering bulb for a large number of years 
(twenty-five ?) ; in fact I believe that I may claim to be the 
“dozen” of amateur growers. I have had varied experience of 
it in different places, soils, and climates. I have tried its culture 
in accordance with the most varied advice ; and I have come to 
the conclusion that my friend Mr. Banks of Shobden has—if you 
want to know how to gain patience and bear disappointment, 
grow the Gladiolus. Your correspondent asks how, after seeing 
the Manchester Exhibition, I can say that it is in the background. 
My answer is, I do not want to travel beyond that Exhibition to 
prove my statement. Prizes of the most liberal character were 
offered, yet in the large class there were only two exhibitors and 
three in the smaller one, and of these three exhibitors two were 
nurserymen. Now does not that prove that, for some cause or 
other—what that cause is I shall hope to show presently—the 
Gladiolus is not grown as its character for beauty would seem to 
claim for it ? It is the same way in the south. Mr. Kelway and 
i were the only exhibitors in 1880, and he alone in 1881, for as 
they fixed their Show on a Monday I could not attend. 
My culture is very small— i.e., I do not, exclusive of seedlings, 
grow more than four hundred corms. Of those that I planted in 
the spring of 1881 about eighty were fresh corms imported from 
the continent, sixty were new corms of some of the very best of 
English-raised flowers, and the remainder were of my own grow¬ 
ing, some corms of large size, others which I had raised from 
spawn, and one small bed of seedlings which had been left in all 
the winter, so that I had a varied collection ; and as it included 
all the novelties of Mons. Souchet’s successors and some of the 
newest of Mr. Kelway’s I anticipated a great deal of interest and 
enjoyment on their blooming. Interest there was, but, alas ! I 
ought to have known better as to the enjoyment. There was a 
certain amount of this in witnessing the flowering of some of the 
newer varieties, but if I weighed against this the miserable disap¬ 
pointment of seeing some grand variety just beginning to develope 
its bloom and then miserably withering up I fear the balance was 
on the other side. This is what every Gladiolus grower has had 
to complain of ; and although I have frequently stated my own 
view of it, yet as some of your correspondents appear to wish for 
information I shall again give my ideas. I planted my corms in 
the usual manner. In each bed there were some French, some 
English, and some of my own saved corms of the French varieties, 
so that I could easily compare results. Of the sixty English corms 
twenty never even started, and when taken up the corms were 
apparently as they had been planted ; fourteen came up and then 
perished ; and of the remaining twenty-six some were very small 
when lifted. Of the eighty French corms four never came up ; I 
lost about eight others ; the remainder were sound and good. Of 
my own saved corms I lost about 10 per cent.; and of the seed¬ 
lings which were left in the ground more than one-third perished. 
I have often detailed my method of cultivation. I plant in a 
good alluvial soil from 4 to 6 inches deep, and top-dress with well- 
decayed manure when the plants are showing for bloom. That I 
can grow them I may, I think, appeal to my exhibits to prove ; 
and although sometimes failure is laid to the want of knowledge 
or carelessness, I may without much flattery say it is not the case 
with me, I believe. I may say that I carried out rather exten¬ 
sively the plan of cutting the larger corms in two (each with an 
eye), and that some of the finest blooms I had were from those 
cut corms, and that in none of these cases did the corms refuse 
to start. Those which perished were more or less spotted, some 
as if they had dry rot, but more frequently like the Potato when 
disease has attacked it. This is the fungus, which I believe to be 
in both cases the result, not the cause of decay. 
To what cause are we, then, to attribute this perishing of the 
bulbs ? I will examine the reasons put forward. 
1, Degeneracy. —Now we must define what this means before 
we discuss it. By degeneracy I understand the deterioration, not 
of an individual, but of the variety. When I say that the Lap- 
stone Potato, has degenerated I do not mean that those in my own 
garden have done so, but that wherever cultivated it is the case. 
When it is said that the Ribston Pippin has degenerated it means 
that wherever you may get grafts they have not the vigour that 
they used. I do not affirm that it is so, as I know it is a moot 
question. Now if I take this to be what is meant, then I say that 
the Gladiolus has not degenerated, that there is not a single 
variety of which we cannot obtain as good and sound corms as 
when it was first sent out; but if it is meant that the same corm 
will not year after year produce corms as strong as when it first 
flowered, I am prepared to say that this may be so. All growers 
know that a new corm is produced on and above the old one, 
and this may not after a year or two have the vigour of the 
old one. But then there is a remedy open to all. The Gladiolus 
produces a number of small corms or spawn varying in number 
according to the individual variety ; some producing them, as 
in Horace Yernet and Delicatissima, in hundreds, and others, as 
Adolphe Brongniart and Madame Desportes, only very sparingly. 
If these are taken off and potted they will in a couple of years 
produce flowers. 
2, Exhaustion is said to be the cause of the corms dying. It is 
said you allow them to flower and seed, and then expect that they 
are to be as vigorous as ever. But what if you do neither the one 
or other and yet they perish ? Where there are so few grown as 
in ray collection, and I have to cut for exhibition, there is not 
much chance of this exhaustion taking place. But after all what 
is exhaustion i It is the last loosening of expiring nature. A 
man may have fever, but it is none the less true that if he dies it 
is from exhaustion. But I suppose it will be conceded that the 
fever caused the exhaustion. I am probably only repeating 
myself in these statements, but as several have asked for infor¬ 
mation I must needs do so. 
3, Unnatural Treatment of the Corms. —This would appear to 
have been good old Donald Beaton’s view of the matter. Well, 
Donald was not infallible. His Spergula has never taken the 
place of grass for lawns as he prophesied it would do, and few, I 
think, would be willing now to agree with him as to the Potato 
disease, and I most certainly do not believe that the failure of the 
Gladiolus is due to their being lifted before they are ripe. Doubt¬ 
less it would be better to defer it if we could, but in our climate 
it is impossible, and even in France growers do not wait for that; 
and as to leaving them in the ground, it is quite a lottery. I have 
had remarkable instances of vigour in some that were so left, 
while very many also perished either by excessive wet, frost, or 
the action of worms. We must remember that the Gladiolus is a 
South African plant which has been highly improved by hybridi¬ 
sation, that in its native habitat it is not subject to frost, and that 
the rains come at stated seasons, while it enjoys after its flowering 
a long state of rest. Now this they cannot have with us. If a 
corm is examined after the stem has died down it will be found 
that already action has begun on the new corm—it is putting forth 
fresh roots ; while, as the new root is formed above the old one, 
