312 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ April 19, 18S3. 
hurriedly. I was once remarking liow bad some of the 
plants were looking through being put out too early, 
and was answered, “ Oh, we have not the time like 
you; we want to get ours done,” when they had not a 
twentieth part so much to do as we had. But those 
are the expressions we always hear when there are 
failures through carelessness. 
When planting a round, oval, or any other shape, mark 
out the distance from the side of the bed to where the 
edging plants are supposed to finish ; about 18 inches 
is a good distance, as that allows a double row of edging 
plants. Then draw a line round the bed, and in that 
line place the first row of plants. Plant the Pelargo¬ 
niums slantingly, as that causes them to grow more 
compactly. After the first row is planted work round 
with the next row, and so on until the centre of the 
bed is reached, finishing off so that the bed does not 
have a pointed appearance. All edging plants except 
Centaureas and those of a dwarf habit do best when 
they are laid sideways, as they are more easily pegged 
down. In carpet beds the design must be drawn first, 
then place in the plants as most convenient to the 
workman. — A. Young. 
DISBUDDING PEACHES. 
I do not know if Mr. Taylor has practised the system of 
disbudding Peaches or other trained trees as soon as the buds 
can be detected and picked out with the point of a knife or 
finger nail. I have adopted this method for many years past, 
often leaving only two shoots—one at the top to lead up the 
sap, and the other at the base, which is closely and evenly 
trained-in to supply fruit-bearing wood the following season. 
However, I never made it a rule to remove or retain any given 
number of shoots, but always have made it a point to have 
little denuding of wood or foliage during the swelling or 
maturation of the fruit. When the shoot to be left for next 
season has grown to the length required the top is nipped out, 
which aids in consolidating and maturing the growth. The 
fruit buds are also well thinned, leaving those best exposed to 
the light about an inch apart. By this practice I have reduced 
labour, always had trees in perfect health, and at no time from 
trees setting during January and February did I ever observe 
fruit dropping, or experienced any difficulty in having abun¬ 
dance to thin. But with late crops in unheated houses or where 
the structures have been crammed with the plants I have some¬ 
times noticed that all the fruits have not set freely. 
Having made the system so simple I have had no difficulty 
in teaching a youth in a few lessons to do the work expe¬ 
ditiously and admirably ; cordons, horizontal, fan, and other 
training all yielding to the system without difficulty. Plums 
trained on open walls I have had very satisfactory when 
treated as I have described for Peaches, but more wood was 
generally left on the trees to shelter the embryo fruit during 
inclement weather, then good crops were secured. I began 
this practice (by experiment) when an under gardener in 
Wiltshire, but have made the system pretty general since 
about 1864. I having undertaken the renovation of a very old 
garden last July, erecting new ranges of glass, and planting 
afresh the walls and borders with young trees, it is my inten¬ 
tion to adopt the system which has served me so well, econo¬ 
mised so much labour, and maintained a neat evenly balanced 
growth. With Vines on the close-spurred system I have picked 
out all the buds except what were really wanted, but never 
saw any advantage from the experiment.—M. Temple, Carron- 
house, Stirlingshire. 
THE GLADIOLUS. 
(Continued from page 293.) 
I would advise in the choice of varieties that such catalogues 
as that of Air. Campbell be consulted, in which he follows the 
example of the Messrs. Vilmorin in specifying the earlier and 
the later-flowering sorts, and that the latter be avoided. 
Further, it is my firm conviction that many corms are committed 
to the ground that have no chance of growing. It takes con¬ 
siderable experience to know readily really sound corms. If a 
flakiness or scaliness appear in the circle round which the roots 
emanate decay is there within. If pressed firmly this bottom 
will often yield more or less, and it may sometimes be pushed 
quite up into the decayed heart of the corm, while the skin 
retains its beautiful silvery appearance. The latter, which 
tyros rely upon, is no proof at all of soundness. I have 
returned this year to two quarters of imported corms of 1881 
varieties badly affected, but most deceitfully beautiful. The 
decay of the interior is sometimes to be learned from a livid 
colour round the eye, from -which the new shoot ought to 
spring, or round the base of the old stem. Sometimes a smaller 
or larger discoloured blotch on the side of the root tells the 
same tale. Completely, or at least sufficiently, baring the corm 
is necessary to arrive at the truth, and this I never hesitate to 
do. In all such cases as the above healthy growth is hopeless ; 
at best a feeble effort, but defers the evil day. 
To the bulblets then—certainly not to perpetuation of the 
corms—we, in Scotland at least, must look. Here occurs to me 
a fact worth mentioning. Everyone who has really practised 
the culture of the Gladiolus must have observed how of some 
variety now and then one plant, not necessarily the most likely, 
produces a spike that in colour and form surprises him. In 
giving me at the Edinburgh Show last year a warm nvitation 
to Newfield, Mr. Gray as one inducement promised to show me 
a spike of Lacepede, which, to quote his own forcible words, 
“ will make you jump.” It certainly surprised me, and re¬ 
minded me of one I had some years ago. No others have ever 
approached them that I have seen anywhere. Like instances 
crowd upon me. Judged by such standards I have never had in 
perfection but one Ambroise Verschaffelt, one A. Brongniart, one 
Horace Vernet, one Lacepede, one Legouve, one Mary Stuart, 
and not one Madame Desportes. I did not see a really good 
specimen of A. Brongniart last year. Madame Desportes I have 
given up as hopeless ; besides being one of the worst keepers 
I never had it good. Last autumn a spike of William 
Cunninghame astonished me. That root is gone, but I have a 
few bulblets from it. My neighbour has had that variety for 
a year or two, but has never had one sample to compare with 
mine in refinement of colour, size of bloom, or length of spike. 
He has vowed to discard Henry XIV. for the last two years. 
It has never been worth keeping with him. I had a Schiller 
last season superior to any -we have, ever seen. I have never 
had Le Vesuve worth looking at. My friend two years ago 
had one that haunts our memories. 
I could easily multiply such instances. I advance as a 
solution that there are in commerce what for want of a better 
term I shall call “ strains ” of the same variety of Gladiolus, 
and that a majority, by no means an inconsiderable one, of the 
roots we plant, where these have not retrograded in our own 
hands, are the developed bulblets of corms that have more or 
less advanced in deterioration. On what other supposition are 
these departures from the original excellence of a variety to 
be explained ? It cannot be merely from some fortuitous con¬ 
dition occurring in a strictly uniform treatment. I shall be 
glad were the subject deemed worthy of consideration in your 
columns. Meanwhile, on the supposition that I am correct, I 
would make the suggestion to my brother amateurs—others of 
professional experience may practise such caution already— 
that they carefully preserve the cormlets of such plants alone 
as produce perfect flowers if they are to be satisfied with the 
Gladiolus only in perfection. But I fancy that this is a much 
farther-reaching topic than we amateurs realise, and embraces 
the whole field of propagation. We know how advice is urged 
that we propagate several flowers by cuttings only from healthy 
plants producing properly formed and coloured blooms. If 
my memory serve me right this was not very long ago sug¬ 
gested in the Journal in taking buds of Roses only from a 
shoot that had produced a perfect flower. And I suspect we 
ought in every case to adhere rigidly to such counsel. How 
does this impinge upon such a question as “ strains ” of the 
Auricula ? Are not offsets of General Niel, Glory, Lovely 
Ann, White Rival likely—nay, may I not say certain—to 
