April 20, 1882. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
827 
or that the plants dwindle away. I have now some large clumps 
of it of many years’ standing, and they are especial favourites 
both in the garden and in the flower vase. 
I had a great disappointment in Anemone Pulsatilla, of which 
I had a fine clump. I disturbed it in order to give a piece to a 
friend, but it has resented the interference, and I have not had 
any bloom this spring from it. As it is a very hardy plant I do 
not quite understand it behaving in this manner. 
Cypripedium spectabile has done uncommonly well in a moist 
and boggy situation, several flowers being produced on the one 
stem, and its chaste beauty makes it a most desirable plant. Cy¬ 
pripedium Calceolus is also doing well, but I have failed in grow¬ 
ing C. macranthum. 
I have more than once advocated the claims of Gypsophila 
paniculata, so much used on the continent in the making-up of 
bouquets. My plant of it is now a large one, and gave me last 
season for many months an abundance of flowers which are much 
appreciated for cutting, while in the garden its height and almost 
cloudy character make it what aesthetic idiots call very precious. 
I would certainly advise all who desire to conciliate the powers 
that be to grow it for the purpose of adding to the bouquet which 
they are expected to finish for madame’s use in the arrangement 
of flowers for the house. 
Gentiana verna has again baffled me. The only way in which 
I have been enabled to enjoy it is by growing it in a pan in the 
greenhouse, where it has done well. I imagine it is one of those 
plants which dislike the changeable character of our winters. In 
its native habitat it is covered all the winter with a thick coating 
of snow, keeping it snug and warm ; and then when it melts it 
has not the variations of frost, wet, and sunshine which so charac¬ 
terise our winters. 
Dianthus neglectus was very beautiful here. Nothing can be 
more lovely than a good clump of this alpine plant—hardly a 
leaf to be seen, the whole covered with its large pink blossoms 
not rising more than 2 inches above the foliage. 
Amongst the Campanulas on the rockery none were more beau¬ 
tiful than the very dwarf C. Allioni with its large upright flowers 
of pale blue ; while the lovely little Campanula pulla, with its 
drooping flowers of deep purple, is almost the gem of the genus. 
The Epimedium which 1 received some years ago from Mr. Ingram 
has grown bravely, and its almost Orchid-like flowers are very 
useful for cutting. The Edelweiss (Gnaphalium Leontopodium) 
which I raised from seed has done well wherever it has been 
placed. It is pretty enough, but had it been a lowland plant and 
not associated with Swiss mountains I question very much whether 
it would ever have been thought so much of as it is. At any rate, 
persons going to Switzerland should be careful not to encourage 
the dangerous practice of getting it from some out-of-the-way 
ledge of rock when they can get it at home so easily. Of the 
Primulas I have admired most P. rosea with its bright rose- 
coloured blossoms, and Primula viscosa nivalis with its pure white 
blossoms. Omphalodes Lucilias has somewhat disappointed me. 
It was so wonderfully praised, and the difficulty of growing it 
was so dilated upon, that when one did grow it and found it to be 
very easy of culture 1 expected great things. The colour is very 
lovely, but, like its relative Omphalodes verna, it does not bear 
more than three or four pips in the truss. 
Ramonda pyrenaica, which my good friend Mr. Hammond of 
St. Albans gave me from his grand rock garden, has flourished 
wonderfully. It now forms quite a clump, and its large fleshy 
leaves cover the ground ; these same leaves, however, forming a 
fine hiding place for slugs and snails, those terrible pests of a 
rockery, nipping off as they do in a night the long-expected 
reward of weeks of care. I moved some of the stones at the back 
of mine, and was appalled at the immense number of large fat 
snails which had taken up their winter quarters : there were quite 
enough of them to have devoured every plant on the rockery. 
Evidently Ramonda does not like sunlight, and I endeavour to 
shade it as well as I can with large pieces of rock. 
I must, for the present at any rate, conclude with that much- 
talked-of and beautiful creeper, Tropseolum speciosum, which has 
so attracted tourists, whether gardeners or not, in Scotland, where 
it seems to thrive in every situation. I had tried it in various 
places, but without success ; but last spring I planted it at the 
back of my little greenhouse in a northern aspect. Here it grew 
vigorously; and although I was not told that it was useless to 
expect flowers fr.>m it the first year, yet I was delighted to find it 
covered with its brilliant scarlet flowers. Curiously enough, too, 
as noticed by the Rev. H. Harpur Crewe, it has not died down this 
mild winter, and is now shooting out all up the stems. I am 
anxious to see how this will influence its flowering this year. 
I have not indicated nearly all the beautiful flowers which my 
small rockery and borders have given me, but only those to which 
some exceptional interest may belong. I am sure there is more 
enjoyment to be had from this style of gardening than from all 
the bedding-out and carpeting ; and as I look on my borders now 
and see them more than half filled up with greenery, and mark 
the crowns of Lilies pushing up amongst them, and then recollect 
that if I adhered to the bedding-out style these same borders would 
have been as bare as a ploughed field, I wonder why people of 
small means with small gardens do not go more into a style which 
secures so much pleasure for so long a time.—D., Deal. 
WINTER-FLOWERING BEGONIAS. 
I was recently somewhat astonished to find several old plants 
of various winter-flowering Begonias, such as B. semperflorens, 
B. Ingrami, and others. They appeared to be several years of 
age, and displayed a few poor racemes of flowers amongst un¬ 
healthy foliage on bare stems 3 or 4 feet high. Fine plants are 
so easily produced from spring-struck cuttings to flower ths 
following winter, that all should be grown in this way. Insert 
cuttings at once, growing them on in a stove, and in June plant 
them out either in cold frames or out of doors. Lift them in 
autumn, and grow the plants in 6 or 7-inch pots throughout the 
winter months.—R. P. B. 
SILKWORMS AND SILKWORM REARING.—8. 
( Continued from page 158.) 
The subject of the diseases to which silkworms are liable, and 
by which they are affected in various degrees, might be deemed 
an unpleasant one in some aspects, yet it is of great importance 
to those who rear silkworms, and also of considerable interest to 
the naturalist; nor is it, indeed, without its practical bearing upon 
trade and commerce, for such diseases affect the supply of silk 
and change its money value. It might be said truly of the silk¬ 
worm, as of all other living creatures taken under man’s care, that 
although the species is thus guarded from some natural diseases 
and dangers, it is exposed inevitably to other perils arising from a 
mode of life that is more or less artificial. Those who study the 
history of our native caterpillars are well aware that when young 
multitudes die from inability to reach suitable food, from un¬ 
favourable weather, and from the attacks of birds or small para¬ 
sitic foes. In confinement silkworms escape these evils, but they 
encounter maladies of an epidemic kind ; they are also liable to 
suffer in various ways through the mismanagement of their 
guardians. Few of those who rear to maturity from the egg 
state some of our British butterflies and moths would think of 
attempting to keep on breeding a species “ in and in,” as the 
saying is ; and in the case of horticulture we are all aware of the 
advantages arising from judicious crossing. Much of the loss and 
trouble, therefore, that has arisen to the proprietors of silkworm 
establishments or “magnaneries ” during the last thirty or forty 
years is to be ascribed to home breeding through a long series of 
generations. 
Some out of every brood of silkworms are certain to die while 
quite small, and a few at each change of skin, probably owing 
to their having exhausted their strength in the operation. When 
nearly adult, again, some worms die off because they have fed up 
too slowly, and others through their being overfed, in consequence 
of which they are unable to form cocoons. These things, how¬ 
ever, are trifling compared with the maladies that assume an 
epidemic character. One of these that has been long recognised 
as a trouble to be expected almost yearly has been called the 
“ Muscardine.” It is not confined to the silkworm countries nor 
to that insect, but it proves also an annoyance to the ento¬ 
mologist who watches the changes of British caterpillars, possibly 
doing most harm to the autumn broods, at which period of the 
year many specimens of the common house fly may be noticed 
lying dead on windows and walls from the effects of one form of 
this malady. Caterpillars attacked by muscardine have generally 
almost reached the adult stage, when they suddenly become re¬ 
luctant to move or eat. In the case of the silkworm the colour 
changes to a dull white, and after death the body is stiff ; in a 
short time it gets darker, while a whitish efflorescence shows itself 
first on the rings, then spreads over the whole surface. This is, 
of course, a fungoid growth, the cause of the malady, not merely 
its final result, as used to be thought. It is not contagious, but 
is apt to be epidemic, and is probably encouraged by excess of 
moisture and deficient ventilation. 
“Flacherie” is a name given by silkworm breeders to another 
complaint, which seems to arise from a chemical decomposition 
taking place in the fluids of the worm, destroying occasionally 
a large number in the course of a few hours. Silkworms suffering 
from “ flacherie ” fix themselves in one position by their claspers 
