412 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 26, 1S93. 
managed as any. It certainly is not a robust plant, and it requires 
protection during winter, but it will well repay a little extra care 
The flowers are large, and have the appearance of Lilies owing to 
the perianth segments being considerably recurved ; they are 
bright scarlet freely spotted with yellow, especially internally, and 
are borne two to eight in a terminal raceme. It is a Californian 
species, grows about 2 feet in height, and flowers in May. 
F. TULiPiFOLiA. —This is a dwarf Caucasian species, remarkable 
chiefly for the peculiar glaucous blue colour of its flowers exter¬ 
nally ; internally they are brownish red. It is a variable species 
as regards size. Introduced in 1872. The illustration (fig. 74) 
represents it. 
A new species from Smyrna has been named F. Whittali. In 
size and general appearance it resembles F. meleagris, except that 
the perianth segments are slightly recurved and not incurved as in 
the latter species. The flowers are of a greenish colour chequered 
with brown.—A. B. 
THE INFLUENCE OF A GARDEN. 
Much that is elevating might be written upon the soothing 
peacefulness of a garden, and the contrast its calming influence 
presents to the nervous strain and peace-shattering intensity of 
city life. It is difficult indeed for a jaded denizen of the modern 
Babylon, unless he is a happy inhabitant of its almost rural 
suburbs (which, however, are not London), to conceive of the calm 
joy which a fair garden, situated in some tranquil, sequestered 
region, can minister to the mind. Here (Wigtonshire) the only 
sounds which come to my consciousness of an evening in May are the 
distant, muffled roar of the immemorial ocean, and the harmonising 
strains of the woodland singers—of the thrush and the merle, 
mezzo-soprano and contralto ; the deep, intensely musical medita¬ 
tions of the ringdove, expressive of passion, strangely mingled with 
repose ; sometimes the skylark, a singer of exceptionally high 
register, with a suddenly asserted supremacy, such as that of lima 
de Murska or Adelina Patti, soars impetuously above his sylvan 
contemporaries, like a spirit from his nest among the dewy grass, 
floating on waves of music to the skies. Anon the annual Cuckoo, 
who is always impressive in virtue of his possession of a unique 
individuality, and what Wordsworth entitled “a wandering voice,” 
arrests our attention, even as his forefathers were wont to do in 
the sunny days of childhood, with a sovereign sound. 
It would be almost superfluous to quote from their writings the 
testimony of the greatest and most reverential thinkers to the 
tranquillising blessedness which a garden can afford ; the benignant 
rest it invariably brings to the sadly wearied hard-wrought brain 
The purest, sweetest hours of Cowper were spent in his 
garden, and imagination loves to picture him there. Though 
Burns was not a gardener he was pre-eminently a “ born ” poet, 
and therefore also (for the greater circle includes the lesser) a 
lover of flowers. He had that instinct for the exquisite and 
ennobling in Nature which invariably characterises much more 
than mere mechanical or practical capability. His “ Daisy,” as I 
can testify, grows almost as spontaneously in old-fashioned or even 
modernised gardens (where Nature has not been wholly excluded), 
as it does in the fields. He should have been a gardener rather 
than an agriculturist who wrote that sublimely pathetic picture of 
this glorified flower. 
“ Alas ! ’tis no’ thy neebor sweet. 
The bonnie Lark, companion meet, 
Bending thu ’mang the dewy weet 
Wi’ speckled breast. 
When upward springing, blythe to greet 
The purpling East. 
“ Cauld blew the bitter, biting North 
Upon thine early, humble birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
Amid the storm ; 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 
Thy tender form.” 
James Montgomery, too, had the horticultural instinct, deep 
reverence for Nature, and a constant consciousness of her divine 
significance ; and he also, like Burns, has crowned with that halo 
of deathless interest, which only a supremely gifted singer can 
confer, some of our lowliest and loveliest flowers. 
As much, and perhaps more, may expressively be said of Words¬ 
worth, the High Priest of Nature, who terminates (and sublimates) 
his loftiest inspiration—the great Ode to Immortality—with those 
memorable lines :— 
“ Thanks to that human heart by which wm live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” 
I am not quite certain that some of our modern gardens, with 
their geometrical lines of artificial beauty which would gratify 
Euclid much more than Linnaeus, their formal gorgeousness of 
colouring, their closely clipped deformed Yews, and their all- 
prevailing barrenness of whatever is umbrageous, sheltering, or 
tranquillising, would have been gratifying to such passionate lovers 
of Nature as Cowper and Wordsworth. It is not, indeed, advisable 
in the arrangement of a garden to be too conservative ; to have its 
borders so thickly crowded with overgrown bushes and dense 
flowering shrubs as to exclude from the noblest of modern Rose 
trees the pure light which they love, to render them the habitations 
and secure retreats of myriads of insects, which are a terror to 
every gardener who is working beneath their shade. But, on the 
other hand, let us not be too radical in our horticultural systems ; 
let us be reverential when dealing with venerable trees, planted by 
loving hands now mouldering in the grave, for perhaps after all 
the unexpected beauties of the gardens of our forefathers, which 
met us at every turn of their winding, shadowy ways were more 
productive of joy to the artistic nature than the meretricious 
splendours of modern Art.— David R. Williamson. 
HOEING AMONG VEGETABLE CROPS. 
However much we may be inclined to lament the long-con¬ 
tinued drought, which will probably for years to come he re¬ 
membered as a phenomenal occurrence, all must admit that it has 
been attended by advantages as well as drawbacks. Few will 
remember a springtime so favourable for preparing the ground, 
keeping young crops free from weeds, and getting the whole of the 
vegetable quarters into such a high state of culture as to render thi 
work of keeping down weeds during the summer months a much 
less troublesome affair than it has been during the last few seasons. 
This is an advantage not to be lightly esteemed, for when once 
weeds are allowed to get the upper hand a vast airmunt of extra 
labour is incurred in eradicating them and their progeny, to say 
nothing of the injury done to crops in the early stages of growth, 
and the wastefulness of impoverishing the land by useless robbers. 
When, however, the surface of the soil is constantly stirred with 
the hoe, and the weather is bright and hot, there is but little 
opportunity for these robbers to become very voracious. 
All successful cultivators, no matter whether they are gardeners 
or farmers, ove much of their success by first observing the great 
advantage to be obtained by constantly stirring the soil, and then 
turning that knowledge to practical account. Who has not noticed 
the rapid progress made by crops of all kinds when the hoe is kept 
constantly going among them, even when not a weed is to be seen ? 
Many believe this is entirely due to the fact that by so doing weeds 
have no chance of establishing themselves, and the whole fertility 
of the soil is thus left for the use of the crops. The satisfactory 
state of affairs above indicated must, however, be attributed in a 
great measure to other causes ; for although the prevention of the 
growth of weeds is one of the first principles upon which successful 
culture is founded, this practice does not in reality help the 
crops forward, but simply holds in check other vegetation 
which, if left, would impede the growth of them. Scientific 
research has proved that the very means we adopt to destroy these 
enemies of cultivated crops, at the same time places at the disposal 
of those crops a vast store of easily assimilated food. Although 
we necessarily place large quantities of manurial agents in the soil 
to replace the constituents drawn from it by our crops, yet it is 
nevertheless a fact that they derive the principal portions of their 
food from the air. It is thus clearly apparent that every time 
we stir the soil, air, and therefore food, is freely admitted ; 
when once this undoubtedly fact is fully recognised by every tiller 
of the soil this free but indispensable food will be taken advantage 
of more fully. 
Great as the above may seem, there are yet other benefits to be 
obtained by frequently stirring the soil. Spring crops are forwarded 
in a surprising way by the same practice, especially when the 
weather is bright, after a cold and protracted winter. The soil is 
then in a cold and wet condition, and takes much longer to be 
raised a few degrees in temperature than the atmosphere does. It 
is therefore easy to perceive that a few hours spent in hoeing among 
advancing crops lets in the air which has been heated by sunshine, 
causes the roots to be drawn to the surface to work freely among 
the warmer soil, and afterwards to penetrate deeper as the mass of 
soil becomes gradually heated. In hot dry periods such as we have 
lately experienced, a free use of the hoe is of immense benefit to 
crops generally, by checking evaporation in a way so well described 
by an “ Old Gardener ” in his interesting leader (page 329.) Of 
this I have had ample opportunities of judging recently, both in 
the flower and kitchen gardens, as it is only by persistently follow¬ 
ing that practice that many plants which could not be either 
