February 28, 1895. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
181 
Petunias, favourite flowers of many an old time gardener, are 
still exceedingly popular. The single varieties are particularly 
suitable for summer bedding, for they are as easy to grow as 
effective when grown. If sown in heat early in March, the plants 
being subsequently pricked out in a frame, or potted singly into 
3-inch pots, good plants are obtained by the middle of May. 
Abundance of good leaf soil should be mixed with the compost 
prepared for them in the early stages of growth. 
The older forms of Phlox Drummondi are well known to be good 
and showy bedding plants of extremely easy culture. The dwarf, 
compact kinds, which attain a height of only 6 inches, are not so 
well known, yet they are the most valuable class of annual Phloxes 
in commerce. The seeds ought to be sown in a frame early in April 
to ensure the production of good plants by bedding out time. Some 
I know advocate sowing much later, but when this is done the 
plants do not commence flowering till after the usual occupants of 
the flower garden are in full beauty, and let them be sown ever so 
early they invariably continue to flower till the frosts come. A 
sharp look out should be kept for slugs and other depredators when 
the seeds show signs of germination, as much damage is frequently 
done at this stage, which is not apparent unless close attention is 
given. The seeds are consequently set down as bad, when the real 
fault lies with the cultivator. 
Before concluding this somewhat lengthy list I must call 
especial attention to a capital substitute for yellow bedding Cal¬ 
ceolarias. I do not mean one that should replace Calceolarias 
where they succeed, but I know in some places, no matter what 
pains are taken in their culture, the mysterious practice of “going 
off ” plays sad havoc among the plants, and leaves the beds 
disfigured for the season. Where this is so I advise giving Zinnia 
Haageana fl.-pl. a trial. I was induced to do so last year, on 
account of having used up my stock of Calceolarias and still having 
one unolanted bed, which it was desirable to fill with some orange 
or yellow flowering plant. This was planted with the Zinnia 
indicated, which proved thoroughly satisfactory, commencing 
flowering as soon as anything in the flower garden, and continuing 
in beauty long after many plants had succumbed to frost. The 
seeds should be sown in a frame at the end of March, and in other 
respects treated as Zinnias of the ordinary type. 
No matter what the present outlook may be, all who can fortify 
themselves with a good supply of seeds of the sterling annuals I 
have enumerated, may look forward to the summer of 1895 with 
the assurance that their flower beds need not lack one jot of their 
usual brightness.—H. Dunkin, Castle Gardens, Warwich. 
EXHIBITION POTATOES. 
The old notion that certain otherwise useless varieties of 
Potatoes were specially grown for exhibition and for no other 
purpose is now happily pretty well exploded. It was very 
difficult to disabuse some persons’ minds of this absurdity, but they 
are doubtless wiser now. The fact is there never was at any time 
a specially distinctive exhibition section. I do not think I have 
ever met with a Potato, unless it was exceptionally ugly, that 
would not in some soils and under various forms of cultivation 
produce tubers that were fit for exhibition. 
The term “Exhibition Potatoes ” in no sense applies to sort. 
It is applied to specially handsome, clean, even samples of any 
variety. Persons, however, who failed to produce such handsome, 
clean, bright samples, met them with the contemptuous remark 
that they were only show varieties, whereas they were but beautiful 
samples of ordinary ones in cultivation. There is one direction, 
perhaps, in which the practice of showing tubers helps to keep 
certain varieties in commerce, and those are the coloured sorts, and 
in that respect good is done, because there can be no doubt but that 
we have in these coloured Potatoes some first-class eating varieties. 
Take a few coloured rounds, such as Reading Russet and King of 
the Russets, both red ; The Dean and Vicar of Laleham, purple ; 
and Conference and Lord Tennyson, flaked. These are all first- 
class cropping and cooking varieties, and most valuable to anyone to 
have in bulk in the winter for consumption, and yet I doubt 
whether there ever has been or can now be found any six varieties 
that would give more beautiful samples on the show table than do 
these coloured sorts I have named. Then take such coloured 
kidneys as Beauty of Hebron, Prizetaker, Reading Ruby, reds ; 
Blue Beard, Bedfont Purple, and Mottled Beauty. These, 
again, are all of the best quality, and are capital croppers. 
I do not know whether American Purple is now to be had, but I 
always found them to be the very best of all the American varieties. 
Both as a cropper and for cooking quality. Mottled Beauty has all 
the merit of the Lanstone. 
White skin varieties suitable for exhibition are legion. Taking 
rounds first, Early Regent, Snowball, Sutton’s A1 for earliest ; 
then London Hero, Satisfaction, Supreme, Schoolmaster, Reliance, 
Windsor Castle, Prime Minister, Snow Queen, Quantity and 
Quality, Monarch, and Webb’s Special ; here we have a capital lot 
from out of which, if all be well grown, it may be very easy to 
select some eight or nine particularly first-rate. 
In all collections, however, white Kidneys always largely pre¬ 
dominate, and of these there is a splendid selection of first-class 
cropping and cooking sorts. It is often found that such as 
Magnum Bonum, The Bruce, Stourbridge Glory, Chancellor, 
Reading Giant, Colossal, Maincrop, Future Fame, Remarkable, 
Wordsley Pride, and similar strong growers give very handsome 
samples. Then of earlier kinds there are Ringleader, King of the 
Earlies, Cosmopolitan, The Canon, Puritan, Duke of Albany, 
Snowdrop, Onward, Marvel, Governor, Congress, and Victory, 
showing a wide variety, and yet all of the very best table quality. 
A list such as this, including over fifty varieties, shows that there 
is no need to grow for exhibition inferior varieties, let them be 
ever so handsome, as their beauty is quite equalled by that of 
others far superior in other directions. Could the proposed 
National Potato Show but have come off, without doubt a material 
impetus would have been given to the culture of Potatoes in greater 
variety, and for the purpose of securing specially handsome tubers. 
It does not do to assume that what is termed ordinary culture 
suffices to produce these specially handsome samples. 
No one who grows for exhibition at good class shows is content 
with that form of culture. To have the best possible of samples 
soil and sorts will give, the grower should already be selecting 
from his seed stocks or getting in from his seedsmen tubers of 
from 3 to 4 ozs. each, clean and handsome, setting them up on end 
in shallow boxes and exposing them to the light in an airy place. 
Later, when the eyes have pushed growth, all but one or two at 
the most should be cut oat with the point of a small knife, and bo 
returned to the boxes. Then planting should be done later, say 
about the middle of April, or on to the end of the month, as the 
warmer the soil when planting takes place the quicker is the 
growth. The soil should be of a well-pulverised nature, and have 
been deeply trenched, a good dressing of half-decayed stable 
manure and leaf soil being well buried into it as trenching 
proceeds. 
The planting should be into furrows or trenches from 2^ to 
3 feet apart at the least, and even wider for strong growers. The 
sets in the rows should be from 15 to 18 inches apart. A light 
dressing of superphosphate, kainit, and nitrate of soda, at the rate of 
about 4 lbs. to the rod, may be either sown thinly into the furrows 
with the sets, or be strewed about the plants before the first flat 
hoeing takes place. Thus a splendid start is made, and if after 
cultivation be on the same liberal scale there is no reason why 
abundance of very fine show tubers should not result.—A. D. 
MORE ABOUT THE MULBERRY. 
Having studied the history of this tree, especially in and about 
London, I would like to supplement Mr. Abbey’s very admirable article 
(page 112, February 7th) by a few notes. First, concerning the antiquity 
of the Mulberry as a British tree. When we remember the great love 
that the Romans had for its fruit, it seems likely they planted it in the 
gardens of some of their English villas, though it may have disappeared 
from these during the troublous Saxon and Danish times. Some say the 
black Mulberry was reintroduced by Crusaders, and Forsyth, referring 
to the Syon House trees, states that he had reason for thinking they 
were, when he wrote, full 300 years old, which would carry the date to a 
century earlier than that suggested by Loudon. No doubt the Mulberry 
will live and thrive for 300 or even 400 years, but I question if there is 
one left about London that was planted in the Tudor period. 
What was reputed at one time the oldest Mulberry tree near the 
metropolis disappeared about forty years ago. It stood in a garden near 
Greenwich Park, a remarkable example certainly, for there were ten 
large branches bending towards the earth, so that it looked like ten trees 
in proximity, and covered a circumference of 150 feet, growing inter¬ 
mixed with some Elders, being also partly covered with Ivy. It bore 
fruit regularly, yielding some seasons about 80 quarts in a week. 
Mulberries flourished at one time in the heart of London, for Fairchild, 
in the “ City Gardener,” mentions two old trees he saw in 1722 that 
were growing behind Sam’s Coffeehouse on Ludgate Hill. Of all the 
suburbs of London, perhaps Chelsea has most memories of the Mulberry, 
many being planted by the noble residents in the “village of palaces.” 
Queen Elizabeth has been somehow associated with the tree, and there 
existed several under which she is supposed to have sat to feast upon the 
fruit. She may have sat under a Mulberry which once grew in the garden 
of the New Manor House, built by Henry VIIL, where she spent part of 
her girlhood. Though not perhaps of Tudor date, old trees yet survive in 
Chelsea, two which were formerly in the grounds of Feaufort House, 
built by Sir Thomas More. Another notable tree, admired by 
Thomas Carlyle, is in the Rectory garden, but probably the most 
interesting is one in the garden of Cheyne House, where Mr. Phene has 
accumulated numerous and curious relics of old Chelsea. Near this old 
