January 5, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
8 
guide his vessel over the shoals and rocks that beset the course even 
of the peaceful and peace-loving Journal. 
Such, then, is a brief sketch of the past season in its horticul¬ 
tural aspect as it has appeared to me, and now we look hopefully on. 
We cannot tell what the horticultural record of 1893 maybe, any 
more than any other record of the future ; but there is no 
diminution of the zeal with which the art is followed. Already we 
have the bugle call to make ready, and with the prospects held 
out to us in and about London it does not seem that there will be 
any falling off in interest. 
I feel that it is not likely to be for long that I shall be able 
to perform the pleasant duty I have now fulfilled, and, therefore, 
let me with all good feeling wish you, my brothers and sisters, an 
old man’s blessing in the opening year, and that amongst the 
many shifting scenes that lie before you, you may experience in 
your gardens as I have often done a happy enjoyment of God’s 
works, leading you on to the thoughts of a better garden, 
which He has used to symbolise the pure and eternal blessedness 
of His kingdom.—D., Deal. 
“I WISH YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!” 
A Potato-Kaising Experience. 
The words above quoted greeted me several times this morning 
on my circuit as road surveyor, and as I repeat them in 
writing I wish them from my heart to our Editors and their 
readers. I have done so for many years, and it is nothing new, 
though it has never been a rule with me to rush into your pages 
without I think I have something new to say. Well, on 
January 5th, 1876, the well-known botanist from “the other side,” 
Mr. C. G. Pringle, in a correspondence treating on hybridisation, 
wrote me from Charlotte, Vermont, U.S.A., “Besides the original 
species from the sides of the Andes, Solanum tuberosum, I culti¬ 
vate one very distinct from our western territory of New Mexico, 
S. Fendleri. All my pains taken to impregnate it with pollen of 
the cultivated species has proved unavailing, though partially 
developed fruits have followed my operations, only to fall away, 
however, before maturity.” On the following April Mr. Pringle 
sent me a tuber of his Snowflake, “ and in a small tin box to go 
by sample post with this I send you three little tubers of 
S. Fendleri, which, though very small, are nearly of average size.” 
Probably Mr. Pringle sent me the wild Mexican (named after 
Fendler, the great traveller I presumed) to try my mettle, and it 
did, for both at Woodstock, and since here at Sulhamsted, till 1888 
it defied all my pains to become impregnated with our cultivated 
sorts. In 1888 the pollen of my seedling Antagonist (now Sir 
Charles Douglas) came to the rescue. I had operated successfully 
with its pollen on some of Messrs. Suttons’ wild varieties at their 
trial grounds, and upon several shy setters of my own seedlings 
effectually ; then S. Fendleri became attacked as a forlorn hope— 
Antagonist’s potent pollen conquered. In a few days after its 
application, to my great satisfaction, two berries began to show 
signs of swelling, and so on till one fell off prematurely ; the other 
maintained itself till nearly ripe, and down it fell. 
This precious production I conveyed at once from the seedling 
Potato trough, in the vinery pro tern., to the missus’s best glass 
cupboard for security (?), carefully placing it in a tumbler ; and I 
must confess I forgot all about it, till soon after I found there had 
been a “cleaning up,” and the “helper” had been set to dust out 
the glass cupboard and replace the glasses. “ Dusting the glasses ! 
Where’s the Potato berry ? ” No one knew of it ; no one had seen 
it. Well, the glasses were peeped into, the carpet retaken up, and 
the room reswept—.no berry. Exit omnes. A very severe and 
early frost came, and turned all the tubers—of sorts precious that 
I had left undisturbed in the seedling trough—into pulp. Gone, 
Fendleri! 
Four more years are gone, and then another up-to-date 
“ cleaning ” was being transacted in the past spring-time, in the 
midst of which my wife came rushing into the garden in hilarious 
pantomime, dancing a glass tumbler about in her hand, exclaiming, 
“ Look here, father ! Here is the Potato berry that Mrs. Woof 
lost ! ” Yes ! Where did you find it ? ” “ At the back corner of 
the cupboard.” “Well, to be sure. Then we may say, ‘ all is not 
lost that is delayed.’ So as you have had plenty of experience in 
manipulating the seed from the pulp you had better now try and 
dissect this dried up mummy, to find out if there is any seed 
within it that is likely to germinate.” There were thirteen almost 
microscopic productions. Somebody’s soap-box became filled with 
drainage and fine soil ; the seeds sown, and pieces of Rye Grass 
stalks as tallies, placed by each seed. Alas ! in moving the box to 
a more convenient place, out went the bottom ; and the contents 
lain all a spraw on the vinery floor. I wish I could have had at 
command some wise proverb suitable for the occasion. 
Suffice it to say, I had a shallow parallelogram box, erst used for 
raising Celery placed on the floor at hand. This I had got ready 
for Alice to sow with some choice flower seeds, so on to it at 
once I distributed the soil containing the precious Potato seeds. 
You may fancy I know a Potato’s infantile appearance, and you 
can fancy how anxiously in this instance we watched for the 
appearance of these I am now writing about. 
In due time three emerged for the light of day, but mysteriously 
disappeared in the night, as did others of them consecutively. A 
lanthorn and candle then discovered woodlice to be the cause. 
They had formed a lodgment at the bottom of the wooden box, 
and could not now be dislodged on account of disturbing the few 
remaining seeds which might be germinating. “ The misfortunes 
of Nigel,” and “ The troubles of Werther,” were out of the 
running ; but I kept a strict watch now, and had the good fortune 
to secure two seedlings to become transplanted into small pots, 
as soon as I could perceive the cotyledons, and to be kept well out 
of the way of the depredators. 
Of course the infantiles did not relish their being so early 
transplanted ; in fact, one of them soon succumbed, and I believe 
so would the other had I not, as luck would have it, been 
showing to a friend the qualities pertaining to Tait & Buchanan’s 
anti-blight powder, and the action of the Malbec bellows for its 
application. My friend said, “ And what have you got here ? ” 
“ Oh, the only Potato plant of its kind in existence, and that 
won’t be for long by the look of it.” I contemptuously gave it 
a puff of powder from the bellows as I said so, and from that time 
the little invalid revived into greenness, and grew away as much 
as it could until it ripened itself off. I conclude from this that 
the powder would prove a good antidote for sickly plants, and 
I feel sure all young foliage would be nourished by it, and the 
older foliage maintained in greenery. Chrysanthemums, &c., 
which are apt to become “ leggy ” would hold their foliage to 
the last, to the verge of the pot. But this in a parenthesis. Of 
course I summoned my wife to the digging, or rather the reversioa 
of the pot, and behold the crop. The labour and the anxiety for 
which it has taken me, along with the above mishaps, seventeen 
years to accomplish—two ridiculously diminutive spherical white 
tubers about the size of small peas attached to the ends o€ 
abnormally long feelers, fine as the hair of one’s head. What do 
you think of this, you raisers of Elephants, Giants, and Colosseans ? 
Isn’t it a “ big thing ” for England to have beaten America ?— 
Robt. Fenn. 
[Yes, and is it not a good thing when “helpers” clean out cupboards 
to look well into the corners? and does anti-blight contribute to the 
perennial greenery of our respected old friend and enable him to 
bear his Potato troubles so lightly ? He is determined to be up to 
date, even in the missing word modernity. We have had a sight 
of the diminutive tubers, and we hope their triumphant raiser will 
in due time report progress with them—including accidents. This 
and the preceding article are written by our oldest correspondents 
—hale and active septuagenarians. A Happy New Year to them 1 
NEW RICHARDIAS. 
A GREAT deal of what is being said and written in regard to 
the yellow and other “ new ” Richardias (Callas) is mere guess¬ 
work, or something worse. In horticulture, as in everything else, 
it is risky to jump to hasty conclusions, or, as the Yankees say, 
“ to prophesy before you know.” I am afraid “Boscobel ” is one 
of the principal offenders in this respect. He began by stating 
that Elliottiana was a hybrid between Si. asthiopica and hastata, 
and when asked for his authority said he guessed it. Then he 
produced the “ unsolicited testimony of a careful and accurate 
observer and grower of a large collection (?) of these plants ” to 
prove that his guess was correct. In the same communication he 
covertly admitted that Elliottiana comes true from seed. Now 
all this I shall venture to call the merest twaddle. Mr. N. E. 
Brown of Ivew, who knows more about Aroideos than any living 
botanist, says of Elliottiana, after having seen it at one of the 
exhibitions, that it is no doubt a distinct species. The fact that it 
comes true from seeds bears out this view, as no true hybrid repro¬ 
duces itself from seeds. Had R. Elliottiana been a hybrid then 
“ Boscobel’s ” expectation that “ a large proportion of the seedlings 
may be expected to revert to one or other of the parents would 
have been reasonable. 
R. aurata is advertised with a great flourish of trumpets by a 
French nurseryman, M. Deleuil of Marseilles, who says he 
