April 12,1883 ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 293 
ceous and lowly alpines are kept at a temperature much 
above that of the air by coverings of cocoa-nut fibre, 
leaf mould, or even ashes. These are all, more or less, 
good non-conductors, especially when kept dry; but it 
is here many protecting materials fail. Perhaps the 
best article ever heard of is the waste of flax—pob it is 
called. For mulching, covering frames, Potato pits, 
water pipes, few things equal it, for it is hardly possible 
to make it wet. Such acts by keeping the compara¬ 
tively warmer earth separated from the much colder air, 
just as the layer of litter in summer kept the different 
temperatures of the upper and under soil apart, and 
prevented the one neutralising the other. All act as 
protectives by conserving the earth heat.— Single- 
handed. 
(To be continued.) 
TEE GLADIOLUS. 
There would seem to exist some wish to enforce the Cloture 
in respect of difficulties and failure in the culture of Gladioli, 
and a desire to have expression given in your pages only to 
what can be said in their favour ; but that this is a case in 
which “speech is silvern, silence golden,” I utterly fail to see. 
Those who write of deterioration and loss are charged with 
discouraging the cultivation of the Gladiolus. I beg leave to 
view the honest opinions of those who have fairly tested this 
unrivalled flower in quite another light. To be forewarned is 
to be forearmed, and in any speculation where such warning 
is founded on incontrovertible facts it ought to be courted 
rather than suppressed. Then let such as wish to prosecute 
inquiry do so at their own hazard, and time will show whether 
they are of the category of the wise who profit by the ex¬ 
perience of others, or if they come to acknowledge themselves 
of another class who purchase wisdom, and that dearly, by 
their own. With no other object than to record the ex¬ 
perience gleaned during another year from my own efforts and 
from observation of those of several others, I ask space for 
these remarks. I shall nothing exaggerate, nothing conceal, 
and will advance no statement that I cannot substantiate. 
“ How well your Gladioli have done this year1” was more 
than once remarked to me last autumn. When I replied that 
in no respect had they done better, but in a very material one 
worse than for the last seven years, I stated bare truth. The 
small stands that were not a little admired at two of: our lead¬ 
ing exhibitions were shown without much room for selection, as 
my plants were just coming into flower. I had to destroy the 
balance of the former by introducing perforce a weak spike of 
La Perle, a variety at its best, as I have yet seen it, unworthy 
of being staged with those it accompanied. The second and 
larger lot could have been more weighty had I availed myself 
of the duplicates allowed by the schedule. About one-fourth 
of my limited stock never appeared above ground, and the 
blanky beds were an eyesore the whole season, receiving on 
that account less attention than I usually bestow on them. 
Then going off, as usual, at all stages, the roots of those I 
exhibited in not a few cases among the others, I was left with 
little over half the number I planted. So no inconsiderable 
outlay has been incurred to raise my total to something ap¬ 
proaching what I had twelve months ago. But this cannot be 
maintained. It may do for those who regularly allow a liberal 
sum annually for Gladioli, but it is impossible for those of 
limited means to face the inevitable drain if they would keep 
up a select stock of even a moderate size. While looking on 
at the sale of Dr. Paterson's Orchids in Edinburgh, a gentle¬ 
man unknown to me touched me on the shoulder, remarking, 
“ If you would go in for some of these, and grow them as well 
as you do your Gladioli, you would find them a much more 
profitable investment.” Once and again the Doctor himself 
has made the same observation to me. And it is true. What 
I have expended on Gladioli, which have completely disappeared, 
would have gone far towards erecting and sufficiently stocking 
a considerable Orchid house. A useful structure at least would 
have been to the fore where nothing remains. We have had 
irrefutable evidence on these lines from the southern part of 
the island. 1 think I can without undue assumption speak for 
the north. 
My neighbour, whom I have before credited with being 
second to no one I know as a cultivator of this flower, has 
again suffered less loss on the whole than I. But few, cer¬ 
tainly no one less ardently in lore with the Gladiolus, would 
in his circumstances expend over and over again upon it what 
he has done, this season being no exception. We had both 
resolved to practise restraint, and again have we succumbed to 
the syren’s wiles. He no less emphatically than myself de¬ 
nounces the folly of any friend entering upon a speculation 
where the ultimate result is certain loss. For, whatever may 
be the case in a more favoured part of these islands, I plainly 
assert such loss as certain in Scotland. How do facts bear me 
out ? I know of gardens where large collections have entirely 
disappeared, and not a few where they are rapidly doing so. 
But three weeks ago I saw the remains, grown small by 
degrees and beautifully less both in number and size, of an 
extensive lot, comprised in two small boxes, and this where 
cultural skill is not wanting in tke numerous departments of a 
large establishment. I can point to a case in another part of 
the country where the stock was relegated to the garden borders, 
and not many were to be seen there. In both these cases full 
facilities for ripening off the corms, as has been recommended 
in the Journal, are at command. I cannot say whether the 
recommendation was put into practice or not. In my short 
notice of a nursery lately the omission of a few words made 
my mention of the Gladioli misleading. I wrote : “ I was not 
at all surprised to find a collection of Gladioli telling their 
usual and unvarnished tale.” The remaining few were indeed 
on their last legs, and shrunk shanks these were, the one weak 
point in fact in an establishment strong everywhere else. The 
collection of a model cottage gardener near me, comprising 
among others of a better class such sorts as Isabella, La 
Fiancee, Madame Furtado, Queen Victoria, that will not now 
do for competing stands, has last season all but succumbed. A 
house in the trade to which we used to look for our best corms 
has struck them out altogether. I know personally no amateur 
in Scotland but my friend here, and I have heard of none who 
has persistently kept up the losing struggle for eleven years, 
and no one but myself for fully half that time, whose collec¬ 
tion embraces the very best of the old and a good many of the 
newer varieties. I do not think that I shall follow so long on 
the present terms. And when, in the face, of such facts, one is 
told, as one of your most esteemed correspondents and myself 
were last year, of a stock that by “perpetuation of the corms” 
had gone on increasing for years in succession—such in¬ 
crease, for reasons it matters not what, was not then there to 
be seen—I acknowledge that there is made a demand stronger 
than I can meet for the exercise of that virtue which believeth 
all things. 
Two extensive collections I am acquainted with—that of 
Mr. Campbell, nurseryman, Gourock, and that at Newfieid, 
Kilmarnock, the residence of Wm. Finnie, Esq. Mr. Campbell 
and Mr. Gray (gardener at Newfieid) were the successful com¬ 
petitors at our leading shows last season, as they have been for 
years. But neither of these will maintain the “ perpetuation ” 
doctrine. Mr. Campbell’s stock last year embraced fully two 
thousand flowering plants ; Mr. Gray’s somewhere about the 
same number Both are raisers of capital seedlings now in 
commerce. The Mrs. Finnie and the Sir Garnet Wolseley of the 
latter gentleman were prominent in his grand stands at Edin¬ 
burgh. Sir Garnet is one of the best flowers I know, splendid 
in shape, faultlessly smooth in the edge, and long in spike. 
Many other fine seedlings I saw in flower when I had the 
pleasure of visiting Newfieid last autumn, and seedlings and 
bulblets were growing everywhere, even on the benches in the 
houses where handfuls of soil had been left containing minute 
cormlets that had escaped the sieve, and, as I was told, in the 
adjoining woods where refuse soil had been cast. A passion 
for Gladioli exists at Newfieid ; as many as one hundred spikes 
had been cut just before my visit for the decoration of the 
mansion. I refrain from entering upon some interesting de¬ 
tails. Such an enthusiasm is well supported by Mr. Gray, 
