428 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 11, 1886. 
race of plants, it has been necessary to increase the number of plants 
grown and the house accommodation for them when in flower. Con¬ 
sequently a display of considerable magnitude is now provided, not of 
trained specimens or exhibition blooms, but of freely grown plat)ts 
admirably adapted for grouping or affording a bountiful supply of flowers 
for cutting. Two large houses are mainly appropriated to the autumn 
show of Chrysanthemums, one the spacious structure near the main 
road, and the other a span-roof house over 100 feet long. In the latter 
Ihe plants, which are remarkably dwarf and in comparatively small pots, 
are arranged in two sloping banks, with the path down the centre, and 
there is such a good proportion of light, dark, and richly coloured blooms, 
the plants being furnished down to the pots with floe fresh green foliage, 
that the effect is most pleasing. In the show house first noted the plants 
form central groups, and are also arranged on the side stages, some 500 
or 600 plants being employed, rep'esenting a selection cf all the varieties 
worth growing. With those of which the merits have been proved in past 
years are associated for trial those received from the Continent and 
America this year, and a good proportion of these will have to be incor¬ 
porated with the general stock another season. 
To supply the very large demand for cut flowers considerable numbers 
of Chrysanthemums are grown specially for this purpose in addition to 
those already referred to. One long spin-roof house, which is devoted to 
the late variety Princess Teck, planted out in borders on each side of the 
path, and in the course of a week or two these plants will present a re¬ 
markable display. There are some thousands of stout healthy buds 
advancing very steadily and giving promise of some grand flowers. In 
height the plants are as level as if they had been mown over, and 
altogether this house will be worth a long journey to see when the blooms 
the at their best. Outside long beds of Mrs. G. Bundle and other 
favourite white-flowered varieties have been covered with lights on an 
improvised framework and matted round, thus bringing the blooms a 
little earlier, clean, and efficiently protecting them from possible rain or 
frost. 
In other departments of the nursery the Carnations are looking well, 
the tree varieties now flowering abundantly, an extensive batch of 
seedlings, including some richiy coloured varieties equal in many re¬ 
spects to the best named varieties and distinguished by their robust 
habit. Pelargoniums, Roses, Azaleas, and many other plants have houses 
devoted to them, while outside the Dahlias are scarcely over, and the 
large stock of herbaceous plants still comprises some in flower, Anemone 
japonica and alba having been exceedingly beautiful. 
THE MAIDENHEAD NURSERY. 
About twenty minutes’ walk from Maidenhead station on the Old Bath 
Road brings the visitor to Mr. Robert Owen’s nursery, whence during the 
past two years several meritorious novelties have been sent to exhibitions 
and honoured with certificates. After long experience as a practical 
gardener, Mr. Oweu acquired this land and commenced business as a 
florist and nurseryman with a specialty, Tuberous Begonias, to which he 
had previously given much attention, and which have served to render his 
name familiar to large numbers of horticulturists. Some six or seven 
substantial and commodious h >uses have been erected, and these are 
devoted to the Tuberous Begonias, Ivy-leaf, Zinal, and other Pelar¬ 
goniums, Ferns, miscellaneous flowering plants, and Chrysanthemums, 
the last-named forming the feature with which we are now chiefly 
concerned. 
The collection of varieties is a large one, several houses being appro¬ 
priated to the plants, which are freely grown witn the object of producing 
as many blooms as possible ; but probably another season Mr. Owen may 
take his place amongst exhibitors of Chrysanthemums, as it is intended 
to grow a portion of the stock for show purposes. One house is partly 
filled with the excellent late white variety Boule de Neige, for which Mr. 
Owen obtained a certificate at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural 
Society in January this year. It is a free-flowering variety, of dwarf 
habit, capitally suited for culture in pots, either as a conservatory plant 
or for cutting, and the period at which the flowers are produced renders 
it still more valuable. Quite distinct from the Chinese or Japanese 
Chrysanthemums are C. carinatum and C. frutescens, but they deserve 
mention here, since Mr. Owen has formed a group of varieties or hybrids, 
all very free and varied in colours. That figured in this Journal some 
time ago—namely, Cloth of Gold, is a very pretty type, but there are 
several others, such as Cloth of Silver, scarcely less attractive. 
Much of the ground has been devoted to Tuberous Begonias and early 
Chrysanthemums this season, but attention is also being directed to 
.herbaceous plants, of which a good collection is being formed. 
BEDDING VIOLAS. 
I HAVE read your correspondent Mr, Dean’s remarks with much 
interest in last issue of the Journal in respect to these flowers, and from 
them I gather that it is generally accepted that cow manure is the best, 
and I certainly consider it the best for my especial circumstances. In 
Mr. Dean’s quotation of Mr Baxter’s letter on the subject, the latter 
gentleman appears to give preference to dry cow manure collected from 
the meadows (rather a tedious operation where it is required in quantity, 
unless the cows are very plentiful). I am at a loss rather to know why 
Mr. Baxter prefers the dry manure to that which comes from the cow¬ 
shed, to which I give preference, and for reasons I have previously shown. 
Perhaps Mr. Baxter will enlighten me in this, and I am grateful to him 
for the hint of hot slacked lime, which is new to me. The sudden 
'•ollapse of some varieties has hitherto been unaccountable, for the plants, 
which were apparently in health to-day, are dried up and withered on 
the morrow, when it is certainly too late to apply anything, and there I 
take it to be advisable to adopt the old adage of “prevention is better 
than cure.” Mr. Baxter also imagines that I do not put “ half enough 
manure in the ground but I scarcely know if that gentleman is in 
earnest or whether he anticipated chasing the heads of my firm over a 
gigantic stack of manure and rushiDg them headlong into the bankruptcy 
court. I find, however, that I gave (which I did at the time of writing 
my notes on page 366 from memory) the wrong size of my Viola beds, 
and gave the size of the beds on the next quarter. The actual size of the 
beds are, which I have specially measured to-day, November 5th, 5 feet 
wide and 30 feet long, which makes a very considerable difference in the 
dressing given, and seeing that my barrows are those hideous box 
barrows which only know existence in the neighbourhood of London, 
some idea may be had of the amount given. At any rate I considered it 
a very liberal dressing, and not only have they done remarkably well 
under most adverse circumstances, but they appear to have made a life¬ 
long impression upon Mr. William Dean, who, to say the least, is one of 
the most competent authorities in such matters, and one who has made 
these plants and their allies the study of many years. My Ardwell Gem 
does not look to the ground, but shows an equally good front as the 
Queen of Spring type, but the latter cannot equal in any degree the 
former for constitution in our light gravel drained soil at Hampton.— 
E. Jenkins. 
GASCOIGNES SEEDLING APPLE. 
The fruit illustrated (fig represents a mediur sized and fair 
example of the variety in question. Prominence is give n to it because 
Fig. 61.—Gascoigne’s beed iug. 
it was quite one of most attractive varieties in the fruit-room at Chiswick 
this autumn, and Mr. Barron considered it well worthy of public atten¬ 
tion. There are three “ Gascoigne’s Seedling ” Apples described in 
“British Apples” as having been exhibited at (he Apple Congress in 
1883. The one under notice is the best of them, and is referred to on 
page 187 of the work in question as “ Dessert or culinary, medium, 
oblong, pale yellow, streaked, and flushed rosy pink, with a thick bloom, 
mid-season, very handsome.” Our description of the specimen figured 
is fruit roundish ovate, very prominently ribbed towards the eye. Skin 
lemon coloured when ripe, marked on the side next the sun with a 
crimson flush, and broken streaks of the same colour; the base has a 
greenish grey tinge and covered with a coat of thin russet. Eye closed, 
with incurved convergent segments set in a deep angular basin. Stamens 
basal; tube conical. Stalk upwards of an inch long, inserted in a 
deep funnel-shaped cavity. Fiesh white, crisp, juicy, and briskly flavoured 
with a pleasant aroma. Cells obovate, axile, or somewhat abaxile. 
This is a very handsome Apple iadeid, aaI apparently of the Dreheu 
of Oldenburg type, which is known as one of the best and most abundant 
bearers of autumn Apples. 
CHRYSANTHEMUM NOTES. 
Nomenclature— I deeply regret having hurt Mr. Davis’s feelings by 
my criticism of the N.O.S. catalogue ; but he and his colleagues were 
really too modes'-, as they have never before breathed a word about 
