June 14,1883. JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
by lime water, is said also to destroy them utterly. The chemical 
rc ^ticm liberates the ammonia, which poisons the maggots. 
VENTILATION. 
This subject was broached very early in the present year, and 
my name has been prominently mentioned two or three times in 
the discussion which has followed. I hare purposely waited in 
the hope of seeing it thoroughly discussed by new pens, with the 
object of picking up some new ideas myself ; but the subject lags so 
considerably that my patience is exhausted, and although I have 
written on it so very frequently I must have a few more words now. 
Strangely enough this was the very subject on which I first 
ventured to send a note to a public paper. That note was sent 
from the same county in which “ J. J.” writes, and from within 
three miles of the famous Cucumber-growing establishment to 
which he refers, and appeared in the Journal of Horticulture 
about seventeen year^ ago. Tbis was before Prescot had taken 
specially to Cucumber-growing. 
I well remember the trouble I took over that letter, how many 
times it was re-written, and how puzzled I was to invent a suit¬ 
able title for it, and how, being in Liverpool on the day of its 
publication, I could not wait till I reached home to read my copy 
awaiting me there, but nearly missed my train in procuring one 
from the bookstall, which I anxiously scanned with an audibly 
beating heart as I passed through the crowd on the platform. 
In looking over the said article now I find that my ideas with 
respect to ventilation have not undergone any great change, and 
one passage appears to be singularly appropriate to quote at the 
present time. It is as follows :—“ For growing rapidly in spring 
many kinds of tender and half-hardy plants I believe that ventila¬ 
tion (till we find some better method) as well as shading may be 
advantageously dispensed with. If no more fire heat is employed 
during cold nights and dull days than is necessary merely to keep 
the plants in health, and due attention is paid to the hygro- 
metrical state of the atmosphere, the amount of natural heat and 
light the plants will bear profitably, and the rate and quality of 
their growth, will surprise those who have not experimented on 
the subject. - ’ 
I then mentioned that I had struck cuttings of Tropmolums, 
Verbenas, &c., on a dung bed as late as the end of April without 
shading and without a leaf drooping. I may now add that when 
experimenting in this direction I was obliged to fasten the lights 
with nails to prevent any person during the hottest part of the 
day shifting one of them for a moment, under which contingency 
the cuttings would almost instantly have become tender. The 
frame must be almost air-tight, and there must be some mild 
steam rising from the well-prepared dung, and then I do not 
know how high the temperature may safely rise, but probably 
130° in the shade would not hurt fast-growing plants. 
My experiments in this direction were first made at Shrubland 
Park, where at the age of seventeen I found myself responsible 
for the production of a hundred thousand bedding plants for that 
then famous flower garden. I practised something of a similar 
method at Chiswick for the production of the plants for furnish¬ 
ing the beds at Kensington prior to the opening of the new gar¬ 
dens to the public on June 10th, 1861, and the success of the plan 
caused that excellent cultivator whom I now have the privilege 
to call my old friend, Mr. Richard Gilbert of Burghley, to ex¬ 
claim to Mr. Barron, “ Taylor is the fellow, he makes plants out of 
nothing.” I have to apologise for saying so much about myself 
in this paper, but I do not know how else to make my views clear 
to your readers. 
There is one phase of the non-ventilating system practised by 
myself which I cannot understand, neither has any person I 
have hitherto asked been able to solve the problem satisfactorily 
for me. It will be remembered that a year or two ago I wrote 
on a system of air-tight propagation. Now, it is not easy to 
believe that a cutting or a plant can live for a month in a small 
space without a change of air, although it is well known the 
change may take place very slowly indeed, and that a very slow 
interchange is better for cuttings or newly rooted plants than 
is a rapid one; but the difficulty to me is to know where and 
how the cuttings can get any air from under the system which I 
practise for winter and spring propagation. 
In the dung-frame propagation I have spoken of there is no 
difficulty at all about that question, as the smallest apertures 
between the fittings of the woodwork and the glass will admit 
some air, and the higher the inside temperature becomes the 
more rapidly will the air pass through these apertures ; but under 
the system now alluded to every visible aperture is sealed up. 
Boxes are prepared by half filling them with soil suitable for 
cuttings, and this is made quite firm. The cuttings are inserted, 
watered, glass is laid over the top, strips of paper are pasted 
along the edges partly on the wood and partly on the glass, and 
other strips are sometimes pasted across the boxes where the 
panes of glass meet. Now, the only place I can imagine for 
the air to get in is through the bottom of the box, and then 
through the soil ; but, strangely enough, I have at times used 
closely made packing-boxep, and they appear to answer equally 
as well as the cutting-boxes proper. When the cuttings are 
rooted a little they soon suffer if the strips of paper are not cut 
through ; but that such as Roses or Carnations should live from 
three weeks to a month and retain large healthy foliage in a 
place which is almost as near being impervious to air as I know 
how to make it is to me a physiological mystery ; but it goes far 
to prove that plants do not require so great an interchange of air 
as is generally imagined. 
I find that I have much more to say, which must be left till 
another issue.—W m. Taylor. 
TULBAGIIIA VIOLACEA. 
A peetty little hardy bulbous plant that is far too seldom seen 
in gardens is that represented in the woodcut (fig. 107). The 
name may be said to be the least recommendation possessed by 
the plant, for that is by no means euphonious, though the plant 
itself is both graceful and attractive. The flowers are rich purple, 
and are home in large umbels, which have a pleasing effect when 
intermixed with other hardy flowers. The plant from which our 
engraving was prepared was growing in Mr. T. S. Ware’s Hale 
Farm Nursery, Tottenham, and was very bright and charming 
earlier in the season. It succeeds in any light moderately rich 
soil, and requires no special attention in its cultivation. 
Tiie Nightingale in Kent.— The nightingale has recently been 
written about in the Journal. I may say that in this district it 
