408 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 3, 1893. 
FORWARDS. 
New Light on Vines and Potatoes by an Old Grower. 
When the minority of our present race of horticulturists were 
young two incognitos were wont to be written in these pages. He 
of the highest aspiration wrote you frequently at that period upon 
destroying mildew, and ever and anon about tackling the fungus of 
the Potato. He of the cognomen “ Forwards ” wrote you that he 
“ dared not employ a signature so high and significant as your 
correspondent.” Dear old friend, he has long passed away to the 
majority, and I have really lived so long to see times so altered as 
to make me feel diffident about reclaiming the soaring appellations 
of the then young Cootage Gardener. My late friend subscribed 
himself “ Forwards ” in your pages only when he wrote about 
Potatoes, but surely he could honestly have done so in connection 
with both flowers and fruit. At any rate I have now written 
“ Forwards ” for a text about what I am going to say. 
I was wont for some years before I left Woodstock to send a 
bundle of Esperione Vine cuttings to an old friend. Thanks, and 
an offer of whatever I might require in return, always came to me, 
though I never felt to require anything in return till I came here, 
when a large package, an omnium gatherum^ of Roses, fruit 
trees, &c., were freely sent to where they were badly wanted, and 
amongst them was a Frankenthal Grape Vine, which was highly 
recommended to me as being excellent for eating, and better for 
wine-making. It was, but bad for the oidium. It introduced the 
mildew to my Esperione, Royal Muscadine, and St. Laurent 
Vines, so that eventua ly I felt reluctantly compelled to expel the 
Frankenthal. Still the fungus remained, to become so troublesome 
that it caused me to plant a Fig for the purpose of occupying the 
house in lieu of the Vines. About this time last spring I was, 
knife in hand, about to fulfil my murderous purpose, when I 
happened to glance more intently at the Fig stems, and to find 
them infested with the scale. This led me to halt about the 
massacre of the Vines, as in avoiding the Scylla of mildew I might 
get drawn into the Charybdis of scale. Friends may say, “Why 
have allowed either?” Just so ; but then friends may not be 
acting overseer, highway surveyor, &c., for two parishes, and 
churchwarden thrown in. Well, if “ useful science,” or rather, I 
should say, my good friend Mr. Peter Barr, sends a body Anti-blight 
Powder, a “ thinking mind ” may be excused for applying it to 
other purposes than that for which it was actually intended. My 
Vines were becoming smothered with mildew, and the thought 
struck me, “ Be hanged if I don’t try what effect this anti-Potato 
blight powder will have upon them.” Smother was the word ; 
they soon got it, also the Fig and the Tomatoes, myself taking an 
appearance of the proverbial “ dusty miller.” The smarting of my 
•eyes led me to augur dispatch for the oidium, and so it proved ; 
and what was more, the scale disappeared from the stems of the 
Figs, and remained non est through the season, of which one of the 
Journal staff had ocular evidence. I have purposely neglected 
cleaning, or even pruning the Vines and Figs. The house remains 
also uncleansed, in order that the worst neglect that can be may 
present itself for a remnant of the powder, kept dry, by me, should 
the mildew or scale put in their unwelcome appearance. But the 
Vines and Figs, though for their looks confusion, are at my present 
writing free from their enemies, nevertheless I remain upon the 
qui vine —Malbec ready to hand. 
Naturally I have received a good sprinkling of “ wet blankets ” 
from the bouillonists and the incredulous ; but all through my 
practical life’s work I have never taken the wet blanketers much to 
heart, for if I had the present race of Potatoes (excluding a few 
old sorts, which may be almost counted upon one’s fingers’ ends) 
would not be in existence to operate upon, as directly or indirectly 
they have sprung from my first and later crosses, to be intercrossed 
and crossed again and again by others. Well, I have used what I 
may call my Potato instinct in regard to the applications of this 
powder — plus I have hauled yourself and other experienced 
horticulturists down to Sulhamstead to see for yourselves what 
were my results—are they not given on pages 193 and 341, 
Nos. 2240 and 2247 ? 
I have made myself reticent because “ one swallow does not 
make a summer,” and I well know that one season’s trial on my 
part would not clinch an important matter like this, perhaps it may 
take many seasons ; but we are launched on the way to some con¬ 
clusion, though whether the way to the expulsion of the Potato 
disease is to be the wet or the dry future experience will have to 
determine. I certainly should prefer a dry application to a sloppy 
one, and so I should surmise would the ladies and most amateur 
gardeners. I have received a great many letters upon this subject 
both from friends and strangers, and I will now beg you to allow 
me to ask forgiveness for not answering their letters. I could 
not satisfactorily, and without fear or favour, as may be gathered 
from what I have written above. But the season has now arrived 
for me to begin the bellowsing amongst the Potato haulms, and I 
hope I shall live to see my friends here again to witness equally 
good results to those that befel me last year, though not to the end 
of the chapter, which ended for me analogously to the play of 
Hamlet with the Prince left out. I received a letter from my 
ever-youthful friend, Mr. Peter Barr, to say that Mr. Tait had 
arrived in London from Portugal, and that I might expect to see 
them both at Cottage Farm. You know I have always a change 
for dinner, so that does not signify ; but I proudly left those crops 
of Potatoes all asprawl upon the ground where Tait and Buchan- 
nan’s powder had been employed for their inspection. Alas ! the 
gentlemen never came, but that early unexpected and disastrous 
frost did, and caught both me and my Potatoes napping. Finis .— 
Robt. Fenn. 
HARDY FLOWER NOTES. 
To the admirer of hardy flowers who seeks to include in his 
garden plants which will provide a constant succession of flowers, 
there is no month in all the year which can give so much delight 
as the month of May just gone; for, as Spenser says :— 
“ Then came fair May, the fairest maid on ground, 
Decked all with dainties of her season’s pride, 
And throwing flowers out of her lap around. ’ 
Thus with the beauty and wealth of her flowers around us, we 
look, not only with delight, but with reverent admiration upon 
her lavish bounty, and seek to select from its bewildering plenty a 
few flowers to speak of. Pity is it that so few of our modern 
flowers have as yet inspired the poet’s lyre. Had they been so 
long known as the Poet’s Daffodil, Narcissus poeticus, now in 
flower, they would not have remained unsung. Even Spenser, 
before quoted, has not forgotten this Daffodil, for he speaks of 
“ Pale Narcissus, that in a well 
Seeing his beauty, in love with it fell.’ 
and though we dwell in what we are pleased to call a “ matter of 
fact” age, there are some who, as they look on the broad pure 
white petals and crimson ringed crown of some of the best forms 
of N. poeticus, turn their thoughts upon the old legend, and with 
an inward smile at the fancy, think that, after all, the strange 
passion was an excusable one were the vision in the lake as beautiful 
as is the flower of foolish Narcissus. What, too, would our olden 
poets have said had they seen the magnificent flowers of such 
Tulips as T. Greigi ^stivans, which opens daily its brilliant 
blossoms to the sunshine of May ? The admirer of such orna¬ 
ments of the garden may well reject the sentiments of Gay when 
he describes 
“ The gaudy Tulip’s streaky red.” 
and feel more inclined to agree with the fancy of Carew, who, 
singing in praise of his mistress’s lips, likened them to 
“ Leaves of crimson Tulips met 
Guide the way, 
Where two pearly rows be set 
As white as day.” 
Yet even such expressive thoughts as these only show the utter 
impossibility of describing a flower like this. So brilliant and so 
sparkling is the colouring of this flower, which for so long has 
bloomed well n’gh unseen on the steppes of Turkestan, that its 
counterpart is only to be found in the brightest of sunsets with its 
flushes of yellow and crimson, and its indescribable blending of 
hues. This may seem to be exaggeration, but let anyone see this 
flower in the pure air of my garden with the sunshine gleaming 
upon it, then these words will be admitted to be no language of 
hyperbole but literal truth. Feeling thus, it seems like sacrilege to 
describe in simple words this fine Tulip. I have previously 
flowered the typical Greigi and the variety aurea, but neither of 
these will compare either in size or in beauty with asstivans, with 
its broad, slightly undulated, deep green leaves, marvellously 
marked with the deep brown spots so characteristic of the species. 
If the reader can imagine a vastly glorified crimson and yellow 
Due Van Thol, with sharper and more wavy petals about 4 inches 
long, opening in the sun, until the flower is nearly 7 inches across, 
and with a depth and glow of colour which I have seen in no 
Tulips save the varieties of T. Greigi, he will have an idea of its 
beauty. There can be no possible doubt as to the hardiness of this 
Tulip here. The one I have spoken of has been above ground all 
through the winter, and has not suffered in the slightest in what 
has been the most severe season here for many years. 
In sharp contrast to the Tulip, yet in its way equally delightful, 
is the little Balearic Sandwort (Arenaria balearica), now creeping 
