501 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 7, 1893. 
judges, while the pointing is the work of the revising “ expert! ” 
Was not he the final judge appointed by the Committee ? It 
would seem as if the proceedings had ended in an imbroglio as 
peculiar as it is rare. 
It is undoubtedly a matter of paramount importance that 
judges of proved competence should be secured, and so much are 
committees of societies whose shows have achieved almost world¬ 
wide fame alive to the fact that they choose and secure the judges 
nearly a year in advance, and already men are booked for several 
«how3 to be held next November. 
No experienced judges would have the least objection to 
handing to the secretary the number of points recorded. Why 
should they ? This is in fact often done, but a secretary would 
not be likely to disclose the points to exhibitors as soon as the 
work was completed—at least not more than once, as a dozen or 
score of persons, competent and otherwise, would soon be testing 
them and disputing over them in a manner that would not add 
to the comfort, or increase the freedom of movement of visitors 
to the exhibition. We suspect there are not many judges of 
repute who would hasten to accept invitations from committees 
who would repudiate their verdict on the authority of an “ expert.” 
Should not this supervisor be the sole judge next year ? The 
Committee referred to by our correspondent have only themselves 
to blame for the not very enviable position they are in through 
pronouncing their own appointed judges guilty of incompetence, 
yet feeling bound to accept their verdicts, though founded on 
acknowledged misjudgment.” The case should be historical. 
ST. BRIGID’S ANEMONES. 
(Anemone coronaria semi-plena.) 
I HAVE been frequently asked by many people as to the origin 
-and history of these now highly popular garden flowers, and so I 
'have briefly set down all I know about them for the information 
•<yf your readers, and all interested in Anemones and their culture. 
They came into notice about twenty years ago ; one of the first to 
appreciate and cultivate them outside the garden of the lady who 
founded the strain, and initiated the best system or method of 
culture, being the late Dr. David Moore of the Royal Botanical 
•Gardens at Glasnevin, near Dublin. It was at Glasnevin that I 
ifirst saw a bed of these splendid seedling flowers blooming pro¬ 
fusely in October or November some twelve or thirteen years ago. 
I had never seen such a sight in my life, and Mr. Thos. Smith of 
Newry, who is no novice in the world of flowers, who also saw 
them with me, said at once that the germ of a new idea lay in the 
fact that these splendid blossoms could be so easily and readily 
grown as annuals from carefully selected seeds sown every spring. 
On November the 4th, 1881, I think it was, I had the honour 
of a visit from the lady whose nom de plume of St. Brigid is now 
80 intimately associated with these flowers. It was a dull, foggy, 
November day, with roads aslush, and things generally seemed 
inimical to “ the flowers that bloom in the spring ; ” but on entering 
my room the owner unfolded from a parcel in her hand some of 
the brightest and most charming Anemone blooms I ever saw even 
in April or May. Chrysanthemum flowers looked absolutely pale 
and dull and lifeless beside them, and life seemed brighter and 
more enjoyable for their sunny presence in the smoky town. Of 
course I made all kinds of inquiries, and found out their history 
as far as it could be known ; but I subsequently discovered that 
the Editor of the Journal of Horticulture had been long before me 
in admiring these flowers, and in stamping them with his imp>ri- 
matur. On turning over a file of this paper I find a short article 
on “ Anemones and their Culture,” by “ L. L ,” in the number for 
April 15th, 1875, and as this is the very first published allusion to 
these flowers, and really contains the germ of all that has since 
been written or said of them, I may be excused for quoting 
lit here. ° 
“When I look at the lovely beds of semi-double Anemones now in 
blossom in my garden, the intensest brilliance side by side with the 
softest harmony of colour, I think how much those lovers of spring flowers 
miss who do not treat these beautiful blossoms with somewhat more care 
than is usual. Besides their beauty of form and exceeding richness and 
variety of tint, which I scarcely dare to dwell on lest it should seem 
exaggerated, the Anemones possess the great charm of producing blos¬ 
soms all through the dark days of winter, to which their brightness 
forms such a cheering contrast. The bed I now speak of has supplied 
me with continuous bouquets from last October up to the present day. 
the size of the flowers of course increasing with the advance of spring, 
which is the meridian season of their beauty ; but if there is a mid¬ 
winter open-air bouquet more charming than a flat vase filled with 
scarlet Anemones along with blossoms of the large Christmas Rose white 
as a snowdrift, I can only say I have never seen it. 
“ Observing so many spring flowers praised in your Journal I have often 
wished to say a word for the Anemones, but the old saying “ No Irish 
need apply,” has hitherto deterred me. However, last week having 
shown my flowers to several florists, their hearty exclamation that they 
had never before seen such beautiful Anemones, tempts me now to give 
my mode of treating them, in the hope that others may have equal 
enjoyment in their blossoming. 
“ Having saved the seed the preceding May, in March or in April I 
select a piece of good ground in a warm situation. I have it well dug 
and made fine, and then over the surface I have spread a layer of fresh 
cow droppings collected from the pasture ; this is dug in from 5 to 
6 inches deep, and then some well-decayed leaf mould is mixed with the 
upper 2 inches of the bed ; it is raked fine, and all is ready for sowing. 
I then take the seed and mix it with my fingers in some sand that has 
a little moisture—just enough to make it adhere to the seeds, and thus 
separate them. I next sprinkle the seed thus prepared over the bed, 
not too thickly ; and having ready some fine mould, I with the hand 
shake enough over the bed to cover the seeds, but not bury them. 
Whenever weeds appear they should be pulled up while they are yet 
so small that their removal will not disturb the Anemone seedlings, 
which are tardy in appearing and slow in their first growth; but by 
August they should be sending up flower-stems, a few only at first, but 
increasing every week, until by the end of October the bed is well filled 
with blossoms, to continue so all winter until spring adds fresh vigour 
to its splendour. I enclose some blossoms pulled to-day, so that they 
may speak for themselves.— L. L.” 
[We never saw more beautiful specimens of the semi-double 
Anemone.—E ds.] 
The paragraph on their culture from seed is especially valu¬ 
able and practical, and it but very rarely happens that so few 
words have ever proved so rich in beautiful results to all who have 
followed them out to the letter in their gardens. Of course I do 
not mean to imply that “St. Brigid” actually inaugurated or 
originated the rearing of Anemones from seed. That had been 
done by all the early English florists from the days of Gerard and 
Parkinson to the days of Hogg and Tyso, but what “ St. Brigid ” 
really did was to revive this good old practice, and to start a 
renaissance as it were in seedling Anemone culture, in place of 
planting the dried and comparatively worthless roots at too late 
a season in the year. 
Now, some people have asked what are “ St. Brigid’s Ane¬ 
mones ? ” Well, they are simply carefully selected seedlings from 
the common A. coronaria as so largely grown in Brittany and in 
Normandy, near Caen and elsewhere. But then the seed was care¬ 
fully selected for years from the finest and brightest blooms only, 
all weedy forms and bad colours being ruthlessly torn up and cast 
out on the first opening of their flowers, to prevent their pollen 
infecting the finer kinds. By a systematic course of culture from 
seed aided by selection of this kind “ St. Brigid ” actually developed 
from the so-called French or Crown Anemone a new and vigorous 
race, hence the name so appropriately bestowed upon them. 
But why does “L. L.” call herself “St. Brigid?” someone is 
sure to ask, indeed the question has been asked hundreds of times 
already. To make a long story a short one, I may say that the lady 
owns an estate in County Kildare (cill = church, da7’e == Oak 
tree), where in bygone days St. Brigid, the Patroness Saint of 
Ireland in the days of St. Patrick, founded a nunnery and oratory 
under a spreading Oak tree, just as the old monks at Fountain's 
Abbey sheltered under the spreading Yew trees there existing 
while they reared the first walls of their celebrated abbey. It was 
in a quaint old garden near the site of St. Brigid’s Church or 
Oratory that Mrs. L. Lawrenson first grew the Anemones in the 
way described, and from thence she sent the flowers which drew 
forth your editorial commendation at the end of her article, 
reprinted above. But something else had happened soon after 
sending you the letter and the flowers. Your comments had 
excited the interest of a wide circle of readers twenty years ago, 
just as they do to-day, and so letters by the dozen reached “ L. L.” 
through your office and in other ways, asking for roots or for seeds, 
or for advice of one sort or another as to the rearing and after 
management of these flowers. To avoid as far as possible any 
farther personal publicity, the pseudonym of “ St. Brigid ” was 
taken merely as an additional safeguard, and it has proved to be a 
tolerably efficient one, though no one can really “ hide a light 
under a bushel,” and so Mrs. Lawrenson has found that in spite 
of her desire for privacy her flowers have forced a sort of floral 
fame upon her whether she would or no. 
But it is not merely Anemones that have occupied all “ St. 
Brigid’s ” cultural care, for she has many very fine seedling Narcissi 
and a splendid new series of seedling varieties of Christmas Roses or 
Helleborus niger, mostly seedlings from the large pure white 
