December 21,1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 567 
usual straight sticks disposed around the stem, and these had 
become quite closed up. These bushes happened to be those 
from which dessert fruit was taken and none gathered for tarts. 
The weight of fruit opened the heads, there were no longer 
any fear of difficulty in gathering. Every bush had to be staked 
and tied with tar band. This has been repeated every year since, 
and the only use now found for the knife in that quarter is in 
thinning old growths and encouraging new.— G-. Abbey. 
CHRYSANTHEMUM KING OF THE CRIMSONS. 
Whether this variety of Chrysanthemum should be placed 
in the re flexed or Japanese section is one of those questions that 
is not likely to be settled to everyone’s satisfaction by simple 
argument. I have never attempted to force King of Crimsons into 
the Japanese section. In my catalogue I give what I consider a 
full description of the flower (in the body of my catalogue it will 
be found classed as a reflexed) ; and in remarking that it is as 
much a Japanese as Triomphe du Nord, &c., I think the six blooms 
shown by me at the Aquarium fully justify. They were very 
generally admitted to be superior to many of the so-called Ja¬ 
panese, and it seems strange that the Judges should give a cer¬ 
tificate for it as a Japanese, and the Royal Horticultural also, 
without it having some qualification to that distinction. It was 
very natural that “ D., Deal," in making notes on the Show should 
follow the Judges’ classification. I would rather have had it cer¬ 
tificated as a reflexed, for my opinion is not that we should add 
such varieties to the Japanese, but place them all in the reflexed 
class, and so keep the classes more distinct. Now that we are 
about to have an election of the incurved varieties perhaps it will 
be followed by the same with the Japanese, which would afford a 
good opportunity for making a division of the two types. New 
varieties would then follow more in their proper class, especially 
as reflexed flowers are coming to the fore. 
That King of the Crimsons is not new we all agree. I heard 
of it many years ago, though I never had stock of it till Mr. 
Molyneux, a famed Hampshire grower, brought it from Liver¬ 
pool some four years since, and kindly gave it me to send out, so 
that it is to Mr. Molyneux that thanks are due for King of the 
Crimsons bemg again placed in commerce. It is a magnificent 
flower, and ought to have been seen at our large public shows long 
ago.—N. Davis, Warner Road, Camberwell. 
King of the Crimsons was grown by the late Mr. J. B. Whiting 
at the Deepdene, Dorking, about the year 1850. It was grown there 
for several years, but discarded to give place for Julie Lagravere, 
which has a much better habit for specimens ; therefore, to my 
knowledge King of Crimsons has been in cultivation for over thirty 
years, and is certainly not a Japanese variety. Several varieties 
of recent date have crept into the Japanese section, such as 
Duchesse de Gerolstein, Illustration, &c., that are poor reflexed 
varieties, and in no way like the true Japanese type.—J. Brown, 
Great Doods, llelgate. 
THE CUCUMBER DISEASE. 
This curious disease appears to baffle cultivators in different 
parts of the country, and I felt much interested in both Mr. 
Taylor’s and Mr. Gadd’s remarks concerning it, as I, with many 
others in this part of the country (Hunts), have suffered by it. 
With me its appearance is similar to that described by Mr. Taylor, 
the fruit being inclined to curl and covered with numerous gummy 
exudations. I also notice in the young stems and leaves before 
the fruit are attacked small dark spots, as if it is some kind of 
fungus, as I have no doubt it is. 
My experience of it dates from May, 1881. In a span-roofed 
house about 30 feet long we had been having a good supply for 
the previous three months, when I noticed small black spots on 
the tips of the fruit, causing them to curl and not develope satis¬ 
factorily. I had heard of the disease being within a few miles 
from here the summer previous, though I had not seen it, and at 
once concluded it was the much-dreaded pest. The plant first 
infested was cut out and burnt, but in a few weeks all the plants 
were diseased. All the small fruits as soon as noticed were cut 
off, for, like Mr. Taylor, I could not well afford to remove them 
until I could raise a stock from a new source. This was done. 
Young plants were raised in a house where Cucumbers had not 
been grown for four or five years, and then planted out at the 
end of June in dung frames, two large new three-light frames 
being employed for the purpose, newly painted. But to my 
alarm, as soon as the fruit appeared the black spot and gummy 
exudations followed, and only about a dozen clean Cucumbers 
were cut from these two [frames. These were situated about 
30 yards from the Cucumber house. Again new seed was ob¬ 
tained from another source, and the plants placed out in a span- 
roofed pit that had generally been used for small miscellaneous 
greenhouse plants, but with the same result—no good Cucumbers 
again that year. 
Not only were Cucumbers so affected, but Vegetable Marrows 
also, one bed near the frames above alluded to being the first to 
show it; then another in the kitchen garden towards September, 
and 70 or 80 yards from it. Melons did not have a trace of it, 
although growing in the next house to the Cucumbers. Of course 
all the growth was cleared and burnt as soon as possible, and all 
the soil taken out of the house and frames was wheeled as far 
away as possible. Sulphur and tobacco powder were burnt, and 
paraffin used freely about the walls, glass, and woodwork, and 
not a Cucumber plant or any plant of the Cucurbitacese family 
was in the garden from the end of October till the following 
March. 
This year we have been a little more fortunate, having cut six 
times the quantity of fruit, but not so early in the year by two 
months. It, however, made its appearance in September both in 
Cucumbers and Vegetable Marrows, and a bed of about thirty 
plants of the Stockwood Ridge Cucumber in a favoured position 
as to soil and aspect in the kitchen garden, more than 100 yards 
away from the others, also had it badly, not a good fruit being 
obtainable from them. With these I did not notice it till after a 
week or two continuous rains we had about harvest time. I had 
also noticed that with plants in frames and houses dull wet weather 
favoured its spreading more rapidly. Raising the temperature of 
the house 10° by fire heat checked it considerably, but failed to 
stamp it out. 
Although in Mr. Gadd’s case soil is noted as the primary cause 
of the disease, one singular case came under my notice this season 
where a friend had been cutting good Cucumbers for two months 
up to May. They were then infested with this disease, and the 
plants were cut off level with the soil ; new plants obtained from a 
fresh source, and planted in the same material that the diseased 
plants had been growing in, were watered and top-dressed as 
required, and no disease appeared all the rest of the summer, 
although within 50 yards a bed of Vegetable Marrows were grow¬ 
ing attacked badly with it, the gardener going daily to it, and in 
and out of the Cucumber house several times during a day. 
Another man not far from here, who sends Cucumbers by the 
hundred to market, had a few plants affected by this disease last 
spring ; but he told me that raising the temperature considerably 
by fire heat checked the evil, although it did not cure it. The 
cost of extra fuel in weather when it is reasonable to suppose it 
could be dispensed with is a serious item for the market grower, 
increasing the cost, and thereby reducing the profits. 
This subject cannot well be too much discussed in the garden¬ 
ing press, as any cure for this most troublesome pest would be a 
boon to many gardeners, their employers, and the general public.— 
A. Harding. 
GARDENING PAST AND PRESENT. 
A retrospect is always pleasing when it traces a steady 
advancement, and nothing shows this in a higher degree than 
gardening. We do not need to go back to the gardens of antiquity 
to see this, for it has had full proof in our own day. Gardeners 
love their profession, and an old gardener is never better pleased 
than when relating to the juveniles of his craft the incidents of 
his bothy days, and how differently work was done then. Instead 
of rising at four o’clock on a dewy morning to mow the lawn with 
scythes, as our fathers did (aye, and some of the first of modern 
gardeners), we see the machine drawn by a pony in all the glory 
of leather boots, leaving a surface so smooth that it outrivals the 
best carpet. 
But herbaceous plants shone the brightest in the past. The 
taste for them is reviving, but it will be long ere we see them 
firmly reinstated in their rightful place. Modern taste allows 
them because they are fashionable, and so they are bought and 
planted. I do not write this unguardedly, for I have seen excel¬ 
lent collections proving little better than an eyesore. In old 
gardens the herbaceous border was a centre of interest, and there 
were few gardeners but what possessed an herbarium of their own 
collecting. The introduction of so many tropical plants has 
lessened the interest of the herbaceous border, and placed it in 
the houses, but even those who most love the old style will own 
this is a great step of advancement. Good though the pleasure 
grounds of the past were, how much better are those of the present, 
with the many ornamental trees and shrubs that collectors have 
sent us from all quarters of the globe ! 
