August 11, 1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 131 
Me. Wake's Nursery, Tottenham, very noticeable a few 
days ago were the two attractive Lilies, L. Leichtlinii and 
L. Batemannas. Flowers of these are now before us ; and though 
they are con sidered as closely allied botanically, their appearance 
to casual observers would not suggest a very close relationship. 
They are both included in the sub-genus Martagon, the first- 
named, L. Leichtlinii, having neat flowers of moderate size, the 
petals strongly recurved, narrow, pale yellow, and spotted with 
very dark purple. L. Batemannas, also a Japanese form, is of 
stronger taller growth than the preceding, with larger flowers of 
a reddish orange colour. It is very bright in colour and free in 
flowering. Another effective and useful plant is Asclepias tube- 
rosa, which at this period of the year is scarcely excelled amongst 
herbaceous plants in the brightness of its scarlet or coral-tinted 
flowers. These are borne in dense umbels in the axils of the 
leaves near the upper portion of the stems. Among many pretty 
single Dahlias a white variety with broad oval petals and bright 
yellow centre is deserving of notice, numerous other choice plants 
contributing to the attractions of the nursery. 
- Messrs. Cassell, Petter, &Galpin send us the current 
parts of the following periodical works now being issued by them, 
and to earlier numbers of which reference has been previously 
made. Part 12 of “ Paxton’s Flower Garden ” contains coloured 
plates of Jasminum gracillimum and Moutan officinalis (Paconia 
Moutan) var. Salmonea, the former (of which an excellent wood- 
cut was also published in this Journal, December 23rd, 1880), 
being admirably represented ; indeed it is unquestionably one of 
the best plates that has yet appeared in the work. They are 
accompanied by descriptions and cultural instructions with a con¬ 
tinuation of the “Gleanings.” Part 30 of “Familiar Garden 
Flowers ” gives coloured illustrations and full descriptions of Core¬ 
opsis lanceolata and Adonis autumnalis. Part 53 of “Familiar 
Wild Flowers” has coloured representations of Fritillaria meleagris 
and Sisymbrium officinale, which are also interestingly described. 
- The following paragraph appears in the Gardener relative 
to the Quality of Fruit :—“ It cannot but have struck the fre¬ 
quenters of our summer flower shows during the past two or three 
years, that there has been an appreciable falling-off in the quality 
cf the fruit exhibited—particularly Grapes. Pines, of course, have 
been few and poor, the supply of St. Michael’s Pines having 
greatly red uced the interest in Pine culture in our gardens. It 
is not so with Grapes, however; and unless we are to attribute the 
inferiority of the examples that have been shown to the recent bad 
and untoward seasons we have experienced, it is difficult to assign 
a cause. It is not at all improbable that the cold and dull seasons 
following one another in succession for a number of years, as has 
been the case, may have impaired the constitution of Vines under 
glass. The agricultural papers say that the effect of the continued 
cold and sunless seasons has been to deteriorate the quality of the 
hay crops, and almost to destroy much of the finer and better 
herbage, whose place has been usurped by the coarser grasses ; 
and it requires no stretch of the imagination to believe that per¬ 
manently planted indoor subjects may have suffered in some 
degree also. The complaint of the fruiterers this season is that 
Grapes are unusually ill-coloured.” 
- “ G. O. S.” asks if any of our readers can tell him how to 
make “ birdlime ” from the bark of Holly trees recently cut down. 
NOTES ON CIRCUIT. 
The summer assizes as far as concerns the Roses are over, and 
those who have been acquitted as well as those who have been 
condemned, the prizewinners and the defeated candidates, can 
now look back with doubtless very different feelings to the events 
of the past months. Some will recollect with what ease they won 
their position, others how close a matter it was, how very little 
between them and defeat; while many who think over their 
failures will see where their weakness was, and endeavour to 
secure in another season that which they have failed to accomplish 
in the present one. Amongst these various encounters I have 
been busily employed. It is my holiday time, and a very pleasant 
although often a very laborious one it is. I have been present at 
sixteen Rose shows ; at these, with the exception of those of the 
National Rose Society, where for obvious reasons I declined to 
act, I have officiated in the capacity of Judge ; and as I could not 
annihilate the conditions of time and space, had to refuse requests 
to act from six other places. I have sometimes had to act single- 
handed, but generally with others ; and having already given 
notices of some of the exhibitions that I have attended I shall in 
these notes refer to the remainder, noticing anything that has 
struck me as remarkable where a detailed account would be 
needless. My usual resume of the Rose season I shall reserve for 
a little later period, when we have seen the result of the Manchester 
Exhibition and how Roses come out in the latter part of August. 
On my way to Sheffield I was detained for a couple of hours at 
Nottingham, and on walking through the town I saw a placard 
up, “ To the Rose Show and on inquiring of a policeman found 
that it was open that day. So I jumped into a bus, which brought 
me to St. Ann’s; and here, then, was the famous show spoken of 
by Canon Hole in his “ Book about Roses.” On sending in my 
card I was courteously received by the Secretary, a major in a 
volunteer regiment, and consigned to the care of another gentle¬ 
man who had been formerly a President of the Society. I was 
ushered into a large tent some 200 feet long filled with Roses, 
vegetables, Fuchsias, and stove and greenhouse plants, and as I 
was told that it was entirely an artisan show managed by them¬ 
selves it certainly was at first sight very creditable. Nottingham 
is famous for its allotment gardens, there being literally miles of 
them, so that the artisan class have a good opportunity of employ¬ 
ing their leisure time. I was about to expatiate upon the admir¬ 
able result of this system, how it must tend to elevate them, See., 
when my companion said, “ I wish it were so. But I think this 
is such a Rose show as you have never seen before.” They were 
not shown, I should say, in large stands ; sixes, threes, twos, and 
single specimens being about the number ; and when I saw six¬ 
teenth prize in the class for six blooms I must say I did not envy 
either the Judges who had to award or the grower who had won 
the prize. “But,” said my companion, “look at this Rose,” 
pointing me to a fine specimen of Charles Lefebvre ; “ you will 
see on this leaf a letter marked in ink.” Sure enough there it was. 
I said, “What is the meaning of this?” “Well,” he said, “we 
found that exhibitors were not very particular as to how or where 
they got their Roses for exhibition ; and so, seeing that their ideas 
of the morale of exhibiting were rather hazy, the Committee depute 
some of their number to go round the night before the Show, ask 
each exhibitor what Roses he is going to exhibit, and then mark 
them with his initial. But,” he said, “ even this was not enough. 
We found in one or two instances that the ink had been cleverly 
damped and transferred to another Rose. So you will see that 
here the man’s name is put at full length. They arc very angry 
at being thus marked out, but what could we do ?” 
All this was disheartening ; but I must say examples of this 
kind are to be met with even amongst growers who cultivate a 
much larger number. I remember at a Crystal Palace show a 
grower (not an amateur) coming up with a Rose in his hand to 
one of our best exhibitors. “ Is this so-and-so ?” “ Doubtless.” 
“Then I have duplicates. Could you oblige me with one?” a 
request which was complied with thus—“ If you don’t be off I’ll 
kick you out of the Palace.” I have known an exhibitor in a 
collection of stove and greenhouse plants try to filch one from 
the next collection to make up his number. But these are 
exceptional cases, which are, I fear, to be met with in all exhi¬ 
bitions. In those for dogs, birds, poultry, horses, See., false 
statements as to age, and other tricks to make them appear 
different from what they really are, are not unfrequent, but 
I never met with it in such a wholesale manner as at Notting¬ 
ham. And then as to its elevating tendency. I grieve to say 
that my companion said some of the. roughest and most in¬ 
temperate of the artisans were amongst the successful exhibitors, 
and that one had to be turned out the night before for his foul 
and abusive language. “ The truth is,” he said, “ The Society is 
going to the dogs. Everything has been done to get it out of the 
pothouse element. That will be its destruction. The coffee palace 
was given to them to hold their meetings in, the clergyman offered 
to help them ; but no. Beer was their master, and hence everyone 
of respectability is withdrawing from it, and the whole thing 
must collapse.” Now here is a Society where no “ interfering 
parson ” or “ meddlesome squire ” has come in to put things (as 
they sometimes aver that they do) wrong. It is an artisans’ 
Society managed by artisans, and this is the result. It is a sad 
