890 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 26, 1892. 
fullest encouragement that can be extended by individual aid and 
grants from County Councils and other corporate bodies. It has 
been suggested that work of this nature should be placed under the 
control of some central body. No greater mistake could be made. 
It would deaden rivalry, which is the greatest of all stimulants to 
zealous endeavour, and the work which we desire to see make real 
progress would be held in the reins of red tape. But it will not 
come to pass, as the spirit of the times is in conflict with such ideas 
of centralisation. 
BEDDING OUT. 
By the time these lines are in print many gardeners who have 
empty beds to deal with will, perhaps, be pushing on with all 
possible speed the work of summer bedding. Those, however, who 
have both a spring and a summer display to provide will not, 
without sacrificing many of their plants when in full beauty, be 
able to get the whole of their beds replanted for some weeks to 
come. In order to derive the greatest amount of pleasure from 
this department of the garden it is necessary to do the work piece¬ 
meal, instead of making a clean sweep and then replanting. 
The manner in which the work is best set about depends 
largely upon the kind of plants used for the spring display. Where 
Wallflowers, Myosotis, and Silenes are freely used after they are 
past their best they must of course be completely uprooted, and in 
a season like the present one the plants for providing the summer 
display cannot be planted out till late. But if they are well 
attended to in the way of watering, and, when properly hardened 
off, are placed thinly in an open position, they will be in full beauty 
almost as soon as others planted out much earlier. It fortunately 
happens that some of the grandest plants for spring bedding are 
equally effective for providing a summer display. I allude to 
Pansies and Violas. Many beds which were filled with these in 
autumn and early spring will not require replanting now, but if 
dotted with other plants, in a way I will presently describe, will 
in many instances command more than a passing share of 
admiration. 
When spring and summer bedding are dovetailed into each 
other in this way the plans for both displays ought to be arranged 
at the same time, so that whenever any particular bed requires 
refilling the work can be done without any misgiving as to whether 
or not the right colour will be in the right place by the time the 
summer bedding is completed. To prepare Pansies to go through 
this long season of flowering the beds must be liberally treated in 
the autumn by giving them plenty of thoroughly decayed manure, 
a good sprinkling of soot, and by digging them deeply. With this 
sound preparation, and plenty of water at command during dry 
weather, these now popular flowers wi 1 go through this long 
campaign, and prove themselves to be both friends to gardeners 
and a source of great pleasure to their employers. Our beds were 
so arranged that those occupied by early spring flowering plants 
have already been planted with Calceolarias; others in which 
Silenes, Myosotis, and Wallflowers are now making a good show, 
will, as soon as possible, be filled with Zonal and Ivy-leaved 
Pelargoniums, Verbenas, Ageratums, Phlox Drummondi, and 
Begonias. Tliese plants are now in sheltered positions where they 
can be kept growing steadily till wanted, when they will be planted 
thickly to produce an early display. 
A few beds, in which Pansies are now making a fine show, will 
have a no more extensive alteration than is effected by planting 
around them a broad band of Golden Feather. This space was 
till recently occunied by yellow Crocuses. Other Pansy beds will 
be dotted with Fuchsias, Abutilons, Mrs. Perry and Mrs. Pollock 
Pelargoniums, Marguerites, and Acacia lophantha. Beds dotted 
in this way have a fine effect if they are surrounded by plenty of 
colour, but there are instances where flower beds have so many 
sombre hued trees and Yew hedges around them, or large expanses 
of green turf, that if bright masses of colour are not introduced 
rather freely the general effect, especially when viewed from a 
distance, lacks life and warmth. While, therefore, all should 
stiive to avoid mere commonplace arrangements worked out in 
bright colours year after year with but little change, care should be 
taken that the result is not dullness instead of beauty. This will 
never be the case if the surface of the beds is broken at intervals 
with dot plants, and bright or subdued colours allowed to pre¬ 
dominate in proportion to the presence or absence of them in the 
surroundings. 
Where there are several groups of beds distinct features and 
an excellent effect may be produced by way of change if the 
various shades of one colour, or colours which are similar, are 
blended in one group. For instance, one set of beds may be 
planted entirely with different shades of blue and purple, with 
edgings, bands, or masses of yellow and orange to divide them. 
Another set may be composed of scarlet and crimson relieved and 
separated with white, while in a third series of beds flowers 
bearing pink and rose shades with edgings of white and green, 
would produce a delightful effect. 
I do not pretend to maintain that this method of arrangement 
lends itself easily to every kind of flower garden, but there are 
instances in which a lasting impression would be created if the plan 
were put into practice in a bold manner ; and I hold the opinion 
that there is plenty of scope for producing original effects and 
achieving success by working on the lines indicated.—H. Dunkin. 
THE GENUS NARCISSUS NEAR BAYONNE. 
(^Continued from page 372.') 
Until Mr. Backhouse introduced Emperor and Empress about 
twenty years ago, perhaps the finest Trumpet Daffodil known to 
cultivators was the all-yellow maximus. I can find no mention of 
this by name earlier than Haworth’s “ Monograph of the Genus 
Narcissus,” published in 1831. He seems to have considered it a 
development of cultivation, and to have had it from Holland, for 
he adds to his very brief description of it “ hortorum Batavoium” 
—z.e., “of Dutch gardens.” There is a bad figure of it in Sweet’s 
“ British Flower Garden,'’ published in 1835, taken from a speci¬ 
men in Haworth’s garden, and Sweet had not seen it anywhere 
else ; so we may conclude that it was about that time that it became 
known to English gardeners. But Mr. Burbidge has more than 
once called attention to some of the early figures of the great 
yellow Spanish Daffodil, especially those in Clusius and the 
“ Theatrum Florae,” which represents a flower with the mouth of 
the trumpet much reflexed, as in the variety now called maximus, 
rather than in what we know as major—this last name amongst old 
writers perhaps including both forms. 
As Clusius and Parkinson referred these large yellow Daffodils 
to Spain, it has been thought that they might be re-discovered 
there as wild plants ; others believed that they were more likely to 
occur in Italy, where large wild Daffodils, some of them of the all- 
yellow class, have recently been found. About two years ago both 
maximus and major were sent from Bayonne, or rather from 
Biarritz, as “ collected ” bulbs. Improbable stories of their source 
were told, such as that they were brought across the frontier from 
Spain by smugglers, who used them to cover and conceal contraband 
goods in their panniers. Whilst I was at Biarritz I did all in my 
power to trace these bulbs ; but none of the nurserymen or keepers 
of flower shops or market stalls either at Biarritz or at Bajonne 
seemed to know anything about them ; and I doubt whether the 
sender of them, who had bought them from the collector, knew 
any more. In one garden only, about half way between Cambo 
and the Spanish frontier, I had seen a clump of them growing. 
On my return one evening, nearly at the end of March, from a 
flower-hunting expedition, I was told that a strange woman had 
been to the hotel with a pannier full of enormous yellow Daffodil 
flowers which she had sold to the English visitors and had gone 
away again. The Daffodils were very large flowers of maximus, 
and had been out some time, but no one could tell me who the 
woman was or where she came from. However, at last I found out 
that she belonged to a village several miles beyond Bayonne, that 
she was a herbalist and collector of leeches, and that she had come 
across these Daffodils in her wanderings, and brought them to the 
likeliest market with her other wares. The day I arranged to visit 
the spot was so hopelessly wet that the expedition was deferred and 
no other opportunity occurred ; but since my return home my 
cousin has visited the place, and a few bulbs with the leaves on have 
been sent to me. They are of enormous size and grow at a depth 
of about a foot in rather light boggy ground, in places presenting 
no appearance which would lead to the conclusion that they are of 
cultivated origin. I prefer not to indicate the precise spot, know¬ 
ing the fate which has befallen other rare bulbs in that district. If 
asked whether I believe them to be indigenous there I own I feel a 
little sceptical, because large self yellow Daffodils are not commonly 
found in any part of that district. Besides the chief town of the 
neighbourhood, Bayonne, which is very frequently memioned as a 
habitat for species of Narcissus, we find two other towns famous 
for the same flowers—namely, Peyrehorade, about twenty miles to 
the east, and Dax, about thirty miles to the north. Both these 
places are on the banks of the same river as Bayonne, the Adour, 
or its tributaries ; boih were important places in ancient limes, and 
contained religious houses, in the grounds of which medicinal 
plants, amongst which Daffodils were important, are likely to have 
been grown. Still, there the bulbs are, and we may form our own 
conclusions about them. 
The next species (N. incomparabilis) makes a conspicuous 
show in the flower markets both at Bayonne and at Biarritz in 
