September 30, 18 Q 6 ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
308 
All the preceding are such practically important crops that they 
demand first notice, but the beauty of the Kinver farms is seen in the 
floral department during the summer months when the numerous annua’s 
are rendering the ground gay with brilliant and varied colours. Acres of 
Marigolds, Asters, Sweet Williams, Zinnias, Nemophilas, Stocks, Poppies, 
Tropseolnms, Larkspurs, Candytufts, Silenes, Clarkias, Saponarias, Esch- 
scholtzias, Godetias, and innumerable other plants, have a grand effect 
viewed generally, and when inspected more closely it is found that each 
variety or strain is as true and good as the most careful selection can make 
it. During recent years, in response to the increasing demand for such 
flowers, Messrs. Webb & Sons have greatly extended this department, and 
their untiring efforts to secure an adequate supply of good seed have been 
well rewarded. Enormous numbers of annuals are now grown in gardens' 
and with miscellaneous hardy plants they are diminishing the number 
of ordinary bedding plants employed for outdoor decoration. Their 
popularity can be readily nndei stood, for well grown plants of the improved 
strains now obtainable make most effective beds. Zinnias, for instance, 
are admirable for such purposes, and at Kinver the strain is distinguished 
by the large size of the flowers and their brilliant colours. Ten-week 
Stocks also have been very handsome, compact in habit, with large heads 
of flowers, a large proport'on being double, and the colours purple, crimson, 
and rose very rich, and the white pure. It is called the Imperial strain, 
and is certainly of praiseworthy quality. Asters are represented in all 
their different types by good selections, the Victoria, Quilled, Paeony, 
and Chrysanthemum-flowered being conspicuous, a [ remarkably dwarf 
variety named Webbs’ Miniature being also noteworthy, the plants 
averaging 6 inches in height, with rose, purple, crimson, and lilac flowers. 
They are well adapted for margins of beds or for culture in pots. These 
few are only named as examples, but all the most approved annuals are 
grown, and in the majority of cases there are special selections, the merits 
©f which justify the distinguishing names bestowed upon them. 
In other poitions of the farm are trial beds of lawn and pasture 
grasses, of considerable interest as showing the respective value of the 
different species and varieties both singly and associated with others. 
Upon some of the crops extensive trials have also been made with artificial 
manures, including those manufactured by the firm, and a method has 
been adopted by which the qualities of the various sorts are demonstrated 
most convincingly. In large beds of considerable length a number of 
varieties of one kind of vegetable are planted in transverse lines, one 
variety only in each line. Perhaps one half of this bed will be treated 
with a particular manure throughout its whole length, and the other half 
with another sort, the effects of which it is desired to bring into com¬ 
parison. The result is that the effects are seen upon a score or more of 
varieties at once, and in some cases the difference in the two sides and the 
uniformity of result in the numerous varieties is surprising. By such 
facts as these a visitor is impressed with the consideration exercised in 
every department of a great business, and it is only by Euch means that 
fame can be made or sustained.— Visitok. 
ROSE MADAME GABRIEL LUIZET. 
Referring to “ D., Deal's ,” note on the autumnal blooming of 
Midame Gabriel Luizet, it would be interesting to know on what shoots 
the flowers were produced. With us a great number of beautiful flowers 
have been produced during the autumn upon side growths from the shoots 
that ought to have borne flowers in June, but were nipped in the bud in 
May ; but the strong sucker-like shoots from the base of the plant are as 
flowerless as formerly. From this it occurred to me that possibly the 
freedom with which Madame Gabriel Luizet was flowering this autumn 
might be due to the fact that the growth of the plants was severely checked 
in the spring, whereby the shoots that were about to flower had their 
bloom destroyed, and so made a secondary growth, which carried bloom ; 
for this variety, being early, was terribly crippled by the spring frosts, 
hardly one bloom in fifty escaping, so that by midsummer or soon after 
there was an immense number of shoots ripe that had, so to speak, done 
no work ; and these began to grow again before the big growths started 
I om the base. 
Gloire Lyonnaise, with which fault has been found for not blooming a 
second time, has been very free this autumn in a similar manner, and it 
also was much injured in May. But in this case I have also found one or 
two blooms at the end of long sucker shoots, so that it may be that it 
takes new varieties a season or two to recover from over-propagation 
when they are distributed and show themselves in their true character, as 
Mrs. George Dickson has been flowering freely this autumD, and it 
certainly did not last year—T. W. G. 
PIT MOUND GARDENING IN THE BLACK COUNTRY. 
C Continued from page 276.) 
To those unaccustomed to the Black Country district, and especially 
those seeing it for the first time, and particularly in the autumn and 
winter months, successful gardening would be written down as an impos¬ 
sibility, excepting in isolated places. In the Journal of September 23rd 
you gave a very favourable opinitn on some flowers of an excellent strain 
of French Marigolds growing the heart of DarlastoD, Staffordshire, a 
township which has for a long time been suffering from the severe 
depression in the iron trade of the district. The atmosphere of the 
district is dull and v> ry smoky, and pit mounds abound, the whole of the 
earth for miles round being more or less honeycombed by the searchers 
after coal and iron stone. The garden in which the French Marigolds 
are growing is far from being a promising field for garden operations, 
being really a reclaimed pit mound garden in which shale is abundant, 
but Mr. G. A. Wilkes is an enthusiast and struggles on under difficul¬ 
ties, and this year bad excellent Stocks, Asters, Marigolds, and a few 
other kinds of flowers, for very few can be grown successfully. He 
originated the new Horticultural Society in this township, which held its 
first flower show in August, and it was a wonderful display of local pro¬ 
ductions for the district, vegetables being in great form. There are a 
large number of plots of ground in and about Darlaston, many of them 
reclaimed from the pit mound deposits, where gardening is attempted, and 
in many cases with considerable expense, and it looks as though a great 
many felt that the greater the difficulty in obtaining success in the garden 
the more determined they were to accomplish it. Then, again, the absence 
of green fields and pleasant hedgerows, and gardens full of flowers as met 
with everywhere outside the Black Country, stimulates those who are in 
less favoured localities to obtain the best results possible, and the thorough 
enjoyment of what they do produce. I visited amongst other gardens one 
in the possession of a Mr. William Underhill, who is employed about large 
colliery works in the neighbourhood, and is truly amongst the smoke. One 
garden is well fenced by a Privet hedge, and although small is exceedingly 
well cultivated, and includes a small greenhouse and two or three frames. 
Close by the colliery he has a bit of ground about 15 yards long and 3 to 
4 yards wide, recently dug up frcm the shale and small coal thrown out 
from the pits, adding, as he could lay his hands upon them, any street 
sweepings, garden soil (not at all easy to get good), manure of any kind, 
and, in fact, any fertilising matter available, but the soil of the garden is 
almost exclusively cultivated shale, and he has excellent clean Carrots and 
Parsnips, and very gocd Canadian Wonder French Beans. He is a deter¬ 
mined gardener and thinks, and with so much success that he won eighteen 
first prizes and eleven second and third prizes at the Darlaston August 
Exhibition in face of plucky competition. 
Willenhall is another township in the Black Country, adjoining Darlas¬ 
ton, and also has a flourishing horticultural show annually, the exhibits 
being so extensive that four judges working in pairs get a 6tiff three-hours 
work amongst the vegetables, flowers, plants, &c., and where gardening is 
again very difficult, but the desire to accomplish it and win prizes is very 
strong. Here, as at Darlaston and Bilston and other p'aces, the surround¬ 
ings are so discouraging, but the establishment of these flower shows has 
done wonders in stimulating garden work, and such is the interest in the 
work that our gardening publications are taken in, and seeds procured 
from distant sources wherever it is felt safest to get them from. One 
man, Mr. Titus Watkins, a lock manufacturer employed at Messrs. 
Lloyd’s lock manufactory, rents a strip of garden 50 yards in length 
and 6 to 7 yards in width, reclaimed from the side of a pit mound, 
and he also adds any soil, road sweepings, or manure he can get; but 
shale is the prevailing soil for his crops, and he pays 15s. a year rent for 
this strip of ground. He has the general crop of such a p ; eee cf ground, 
including excellent Leeks and Celery, Red Cabbage, Parsnips, first-rate 
Duke of Albany Peas, he took the first prize at the flower show with 
a fine dieh, and Pansies do well with him. One of the Secretaries of the 
Willenhall Horticultural Society is a fine example of an amateur gardener, 
as well as a thorough Englishman, and Mr. Joseph Lowe (or Joe Lowe, as 
he delights in being called) is an auctioneer, and holds some important 
parish appointments. His garden is about 20 roods in extent at a 
rental of 35s. a year, and has been reclaimed from a pit mound. Willen¬ 
hall possesses a dreary gardening aspect and suffers terribly from a smoky 
and deleterious impregnation of the atmosphere, so that Mr. Lowe has to 
surmount many difficulties ; still, he gets his reward cf perseverance in 
fair crops, some things bemg especially good. He also took a first prize 
in the open class for Duke of Albany Peas (a favourite this way), and has 
excellent Cabbage, Cauliflowers, Carrots, Ce'ery, a very fine batch of 
Curled Greens, excellent Brussels Sprouts, Scarlet Runners, and Jerualem 
Artichokes. But unfortunately all green crops are suffering from a 
terrible attack of a light purple-coloured aphis which the Black-Country 
people call “ smother fly,” and these and caterpillars are ruining all the 
green crops for miles around. 
Bilston is another township close by Darlatton and Wil'enhall, and 
owns the premier Black Country Horticultural Society, far eclipsing those 
of Wolverhampton and Walsall, two large corporate towns on the east 
and west of the townships named. Their sixth annual Exhibition took 
place in August last, when close upon £140 was awarded in prizes, and 
their expenses were quite £250, but they always command a large atten¬ 
dance. Mr. Frank Nokes, the postmaster of Bilston, was the first Secre¬ 
tary, and is now the Chairman of Committee, and he is a determined man 
—just the man for the woik, and has a very excellent working Com¬ 
mittee ; and they have made their annual Exhibition a big thing and the 
praise of the Black-Country folk, Garden plots or allotments abound in 
Bilston, which is also surrounded by pit mounds, iron works, japanning 
works, with chimneys and smoke in every direction. Mr. Nokes, amongst 
others, owns a garden in the Green Lanes at the back of the cemetery, and 
is another example of a reclaimed pit mound garden made by thougLtful 
work. In this garden are excellent Cabbages, Savoys, or, as they are 
generally called in this district of the midlands, Curly Dutch and Ruffled 
Dutch, and Curled Greens. Barring the aphis, first-rate Peas and French 
Beans, good Celery and Parsnips, and Strawberries, and Asters, &c., are 
seen here. Another garden close by in the occupation of Mr. Thi mas 
Southam is a notable example of what can be done by taking a piece of 
unprepossessing and appaieutly w- rth!e : s shale and convening it into a 
garden with good crops as can be seen just now. Here, as in other cases 
I have mentioned, any soil, manure, or refuse which can be worked into a 
garden is made available, but it is difficult to get good materials for this 
