December 38, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
679 
Comte F. Lurani. 
Apart from its value aa an exhibition variety in a cut state, thia ia 
one of the best for grouping purposes. Keally good blooms are produced 
upon plants under a yard high, which dispenses with the necessity of 
following the " cutting down ” system to obtain dwarf plants. As a 
decorative plant, the stems being thickly clothed with dark green leaves, 
coupled with the semi-drooping character of the florets, it is diSicult to 
surpass. The colour of the flower is a warm rose, frosted white, which 
gives it a novel yet pleasing appearance,—E. M. 
Elsie and Buttercup. 
Cultivated in buah form with a view to produce a large number of 
cut flowers either for use in a cut state or as plants for the conservatory 
these are two excellent varieties. The former belongs to the reflexed 
section. The blooms are not of extra size, but quite large enough ; the 
tips of the flat florets droop gracefully. In colour the blooms are 
pale yellow when opening, passing with age to a deep creamy white. 
This variety also makes a good trained specimen plant. 
Buttercup is a single-flowered variety, in colour rich yellow, as its 
name implies. The florets are nearly erect, forming a cup-like bloom. 
The growth ia vigorous, and wonderfully free in flowering. 
Chrysanthemum America. 
This is a single-flowered variety, possessing considerable merit from 
a decorative point of view. That such a beautiful sort should have 
escaped attention so long is a matter for surprise and regret, and this 
remark holds good in reference to single varieties generally. I cannot 
say whether it is usually so late in flowering as it ia with us this season ; 
if BO it would be a valuable addition to the Christmas display. It is 
now at its best, and arrests attention more quickly than any other 
in the house. The flowers are comparatively large, the florets wavy and 
narrow, and the colour a delicate shade of blush pink relieved by a 
yellow disc. For arranging in vases I know of few flowers so effective, 
and to see it at its best it ought not to have any other association, except 
perhaps some foliage of an approved kind. It does not appear to be so 
free as some varieties in supplying cuttings, nor is its constitution so 
vigorous, but its graceful blooms compensate any other failings.— 
W. S., Rood Ashton. 
ABOUT ONIONS. 
That pest, the Onion maggot, crops up in all directions. “ Nothing 
has given me so much trouble as the Onion maggot,” said a gardener to 
me the other day ; and he did but say just what is in the minds of 
thousands who have been troubled by this insect. “ Did I think that 
sowing seed on the same ground two years in succession was harmful ? ” 
I answered, “From a cultural point of view, noi so, if the needful Onion 
food was furnished ; but so far as the maggot was concerned it was 
rather trying to court harm than endeavouring to avoid it.” Still it is 
evident that dealing, not with a creeping insect but a winged insect, it 
would be very difficult to avoid it in the same garden, even when 
sowings took place as remote from each other yearly as is possible. 
I advise in preference to sowing in the open ground in the spring at 
all, growing the best of our Spanish and Globe type Onions from 
autumn sowings, and then sowing seeds under glass early in April, 
growing in frames till hardened and strong, and finally planting out 
into the open ground thinly at the end of May. Plants so raised would 
be at that time as strong as any raised from seed sown in the open early 
in March. It is rare that plants so treated are affected by the maggot. 
Of course, I discriminate between the practices advised and the now 
common one of sowing seeds in midsummer, to give eventually, when 
planted out into very rich soil, large exhibition bulbs ; that is another 
matter. 
For the production of an ordinary crop of hard, well matured bulbs 
a sowing in shallow pans or boxes, giving several hundreds, or 
if need be, thousands of plants for dibbling out thinly, made early in 
April is certainly soon enough. So far as I have seen the maggot is 
always the most troublesome on light soil. That being so, ground for 
the reception of Onion plants in May should, after being deeply worked 
and manured, be well trodden, then rolled, and in that condition if 
dibbling be difficult it would be, no doubt, all the better for the plants 
in the end.—A. D. 
NATURE’S HELPS TO GARDENERS. 
Ladybirds and Their Larvh3. 
As larvae and perfect insects the ladybirds deserve our care, for in 
both conditions they revel on a diet of aphides. Fortunately the beauty 
of the perfect insects generally induces children and others to treat 
them gently. But though the beetle is well known, I am not at all 
certain that the larva or grub is recognised, at any rate by the gardening 
world, as a valuable friend. I remember once at a dinner of scientific 
men, supposed to know something of animal life, that during toast time, 
out of some flowers near me, one of these larvae fell on the white table¬ 
cloth. I noticed our friend at once ; but several were ready to give the 
“ happy dispatch ” to him, had I not interposed and begged them to 
“ make a note ” of him as one of our most useful insects. All declared 
they had never seen a similar creeping'thing before, and yet though by 
no means so commonly seen as the ladybird itself, the larvae are common 
enough. 
Like the larva of the Lacewing fly, illustrated in the Journal of 
Horticulture December 7th (page 517) the larva of the ladybird runs 
no risk of being mistaken for a grub, caterpillar, or maggot, as it has six 
legs and is quick and lively in motion. Danger, however, hangs over it, 
because moat gardeners prefer to see their plants without any insect life 
upon them at all, and are apt to visit insect intrusion as a sufficient 
reason for death. There is, alas I in a jury of gardeners but slight 
prospect of “ a recommendation to mercy ” for any living creature when 
seen on a petted specimen plant ; yet that is just the very place where 
a gardener, with knowledge of its habits of life, would place one of these 
larvge if he found one wandering about. The larvm are chiefly seen 
near the ends of shoots, where they know their food is to be found; 
often a curled up leaf is their haunt. 
In colour these larvse are generally a blackish-grey, irregularly spotted. 
The head is comparatively very large, they have six legs, and the binder 
fig. 85.— LADYBIRDS AND THEIR LARViE. 
A, The larva or grub; n B, the pupa or chrysalis; C, the Seven-spot Lady-bird 
(natural size), and one of the smaller size, many-spotted. 
part of the body, the abdomen, projects considerably beyond these legs. 
They are very active, and quickly reconnoitre the country in search of 
their prey. It is but right to say that some naturalists assert that some 
varieties of these larvse feed on leaves of plants, but these are excep¬ 
tions, and the plants they feed on are the Briony and common Heath ; 
and, restricting themselves to this diet, they cannot be called enemies 
to the gardening class. The beetle commonly called ladybird or lady- 
cow is well known in the ordinary variety, the larger seven spots and 
smaller two spots of black on the red wing-cases, but the sorts I have 
found most frequently on the Chrysanthemum are nmall, black with 
many red spots, and dull yellow, also many spotted. 
The pupa or chrysalis might often be mistaken for a piece of earth 
or mud fastened to a leaf ; It is almost a flattened g’obe with one side of 
the circle thus formed cut off. Sometimes we find it hanging to a leaf. 
By many it would be considered far from ornamental, and in removing 
it it would probably give way, and not till then would they th’nk that it 
was some form of life. It is in this stage and that of the larva that 
the gardening world need to know and protect them. The larva, pupa, 
and developed insects are depicted in the illustration fig. 85. 
“ Knowledge is power.” This is a truth that touches us in every 
position in life. It may be a hackneyed phrase, but it is none the less 
true, and as far as the aphis pest is concerned, did we know how to 
increase these three friends of our gardens at will, we might defy the aphis 
hosts, rapid as is their development. As we cannot do this, let us at 
least learn to know these helpers when we see them, and not lessen 
their numbers in our ignorance.—Y. B. A, Z. 
