September J?, 1187. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
245 
suffering still from dryness at the bottom of the border? When 
once a Vine border becomes dust dry it takes a great quantity of 
water to moisten it thoroughly, and it may be partially watered 
time after time without being saturated It is a good plan to 
take an iron rod and make holes here and there all over the sur¬ 
face of the bed to a depth of 18 inches or 2 feet, and fill these with 
water two or three times daily, giving the border a good watering 
at the same time. As a rule the borders are made on a little incline, 
or trodden so much on the surface that the water is more apt to run 
off the surface than penetrate the soil, and the holes suggested 
assist to take the water down to where it is most wanted. I have a 
great fear of liaving borders dry underneath at this season, as if 
saturation is delayed until the days are much shorter it cannot be 
done without making the atmosphere of the vinery very humid, 
and then the fruit decays ; but when the border is thoroughly wet 
now it will do the whole autumn without any more water. The 
result of having a too dry border is soon shown in the fruit 
shrivelling prematurely. 
Where the wood on the Vines has become brown and matured 
and the fruit is well ripened do not give them any fire heat yet, as 
it is not wanted for anything except to expel the damp, and so long 
as this does not prove troublesome the fire heat need not be intro¬ 
duced, but where the Grapes are still comparatively green and late 
a little fire heat will benefit them very much, and may be applied 
nightly. Give plenty of air on fine days, but keep the ventilators 
•closed when it is damp and chilly. Where the bunches are already 
very close, and the berries so firm as to be a mass, many of them 
are sure to damp away when moisture settles on them, and the most 
economical way of treating them is to thin out a number of the 
berries and make the bunch so open that water will pass through, 
but not lodge amongst the berries.—A Kitchen Gardenek. 
VIOLAS. 
I READ with great interest Mr. Jenkins’s excellent practical paper 
on Violas, and can fully substantiate the correctness of his views as to 
their culture. Cow manure is a fine thing for them, and Mr. Jenkins 
first taught me its use at Hampton near London. One of my customers 
near Winchester obtained from me early in July plants of Ardwell Gem, 
.and in sending them I told him that I greatly feared they would not do 
any good in the hot weather, and recommended him to dig in cow 
manure, not too raw, and plant deep, firm, and keep them damp, and 
just shaded from the midday sun, and to my surprise he wrote me 
recently to say how well they had done. 
I induced a friend near Lichfield to grow a large bed of Violas 
planted out last autumn—the sorts, True Blue, Countess of Kintore, 
Unique, Duchess of Albany, Skylark, Countess of Hopetoun, and others, 
and they were in splendid bloom up to the middle of J uly, when I cut 
away all the old growth, and put in the cuttings out of doors in a shady 
border, and the old plants are now just a mass of splendid blooms from 
the second growth. It has taken some time to write the Viola into 
popularity, but the gardening public are now valuing this plant, and 
the demand for good varieties is increasing fast. I have grown this 
season several new varieties, and must speak in high terms of Mr. 
Baxter’s new ones, especially Ethel Baxter, Spotted Gem, and Mrs. 
Baxter, and more of his very fine new varieties will be sent out next 
•spring by Messrs. Dobbie & Co. Then Mr. Downie has some very fine 
new ones to send out, he having sent me blooms in the summer. 
Unfortunately for the Viola so many buy and plant at the wrong 
time, and planting should be done in October or November, or in March 
-or very early in April. Mr. Jenkins is quite right as to planting in 
drills or slightly sunken beds. I have grown all mine, some thousands, 
in drills from 2 to 3 inches deep, so that water supplied went direct to 
the roots, and with repeated rose-pot waterings in hot weather during 
the day. We kept down aphides, and the plants grew well, scarcely 
losing any. This treatment is a necessity in light porous soils, whilst on 
heavier soils and. in shady positions it is not so necessary. 
To Mr. Jenkins’s list of whites let me add Mrs. Smith, a fine white 
free from markings. To yellows, Golden Prince Improved, a capital 
grower and deep yellow. In “ Queen of Lilacs,” one of my seedlings, 
we have one of the very best bedders grown, deserving all Mr. Jenkins 
•says of it; but why is “ True Blue” left out of the list ? This is one of 
my seedlings, and far away the best blue in cultivation. Queen of 
Purples and Cliveden Purple compacta were raised by me, and are very 
fine indeed in habit, and one a light purple, the other dark. Mrs. 
Charles Turner is another of my seedlings, but I cannot gio v it, and 
have nearly lost it, yet Mr. Jenkins succeeds so well with it. It is 
.-a lovely variety, and I shall have to go to him for stock of it. Duchess 
of Albany is a very lovely bedder, soft shaded lilac, good habit, and very 
free, and so distinct. York and Lancaster does not with me come in 
true character, only early and late, then the marking is denser in colour 
and brighter than in a variety I have long had under the name of 
Columbine. The lovely sky blue edging of “Skylark” flushes out in hot 
weather, and in Mr. Baxter’s “ Blue Cloud,” to be sent out next spring, 
we have a broader margin of denser colour, but the same shade as in 
Skylark, and I hope this lovely colour will be retained in hot weather. 
Lord Darnley, one of my seedlings from Holyrood, which fails with 
ill’. Jenkins, does well with me, and the shade of colour is much richer 
than in any other blue Violet, bedding Pansy or Viola we have, a most 
lovely variety, but, judging from Mr. Jenkins’s experience in the south, 
is not to be relied upon as a bedding variety. The spring and summer of 
1837 have been most trying.— William Dean, Florist, Walsall. 
LAWNS IN AUTUMN. 
Lawns this autumn are somewhat different from what we have 
often seen them. The scorching weather disfigured them sadly, and they 
have not had a pleasing verdant appearance since May. The lawn 
mowers and scythes have had a long rest, as we cannot remember a 
season when they were less in demand. Where the soil is deep and the 
ground level the grass and roots have not suffered so much as on banks, 
terraces, and shallow places. On such positions the turf appeared a 
month ago as if it would never be green again. Newly laid turf and 
recently sown grass seed may fail altogether, and parts may have to be 
turfed during the winter or sown again next spring. Dressings of 
manure will not do much good when the roots are not there. A very 
patchy lawn can hardly ever be repaired to look well, but established 
lawns will recover in time. The grass may be growing very strongly on 
one place, while other parts may still be dead looking. This is the 
appearance of much of ours, and some might be inclined to leave cutting 
alone and allow all to grow, with the idea that this is the best way of 
improving the lawn ; but I have repeatedly proved that it is not, 
and a lawn will improve more quickly under constant cutting than if 
allowed to grow without this attention. The cutting-down causes the 
plants to grow outwards and very close, and it is this which constitutes 
a good lawn. We have our lawn mower going daily now, and will keep 
it on as long as the grass continues growing, and when it ceases in 
winter the result will be a close carpet-like lawn. I have a great dread 
of seeing any of our lawn grass become long, as I know when it is cut 
again the surface will present a very blanched appearance. Lawns 
when well trimmed at this time are much more beautiful than in the 
spring, as the white Daisies at that season always give it a rough untidy 
appearance, but now there none of them, and the grass presents a 
uniformly green aspect.—S. W. 
ROSES AT THE NATIONAL ROSE SOCIETY’S 
METROPOLITAN EXHIBITION IN 1887. 
The position taken by many of the Roses in the following lists 
will be found to differ considerably from those assigned to them 
in my analysis of 1884. This was noticed to be the case last year 
also. It should, however, be borne in mind that the analysis then 
given was based upon the results of eight previous years, and those 
mostly wet years ; whereas the last two summers have been ex¬ 
ceptionally dry, late seasons. Moreover, several new varieties 
which were at that time but little grown, have since gradually 
pushed themselves on into prominent places, and in this way the 
positions of some of our older favourites have been proportionately 
lowered. On the other hand, as might have been expected, the 
lists of this year and of last year agree fairly well together. 
The total number of Roses tabulated this year has been 1770, of 
which 820 were shown by amateurs and 950 by nurserymen. At 
no previous Exhibition of the National Rose Society have so many 
Tea Roses been staged, and on glancing down the list it will be 
noticed how very frequently the best staying flowers in this 
division found their way into the winning stands. Of course the 
forcing nature of the weather at the time when the South Ken¬ 
sington Show was held to some extent accounts for this, and also . 
for the comparatively low positions taken by many fine varieties, 
the petals of which are either not sufficiently numerous or else not 
so closely arranged as to be able to resist the great heat to which 
they were subjected. The late-flowering kinds, both among the 
H.P.’s and also among the Teas and Noisettes, were again placed 
at a further disadvantage, owing to the backwardness of the season 
in many localities. 
The past Rose season appears to have suited the following 
established H.P.'s remarkably well—viz., Marie Cointet, Duchessede 
Yallombrosa, Monsieur Noman, Comtesse de Serenye, Annie Lax- 
ton, Henri Ledechaux, Star of Waltham, Xavier Olibo, Abel 
Carriere, Prince Arthur, and Duke of Wellington ; also among the 
Teas—Comtesse de Nadaillac, Innocente Pirola, Caroline Kuster, 
La Boule d’Or, Madame H. Jamain, and Jules Finger. On the 
other hand, La France, Baroness Rothschild, Charles Lefebvre, 
Duke of Edinburgh, Dr. Andry, and Captain Christy were but in¬ 
differently represented in the classes open to Hybrid Perpetuals ; 
also in the Tea and Noisette section, Souvenir d’un Ami, Marie 
Van Houtte, Souvenir de P. Neyron, Devoniensis, Rubens, and 
notably Madame Lambaid, which was scarcely anywhere to be seen. 
We come now to what is the most interesting and valuable por¬ 
tion of our analysis owing to the light which it throws upon the 
relative values of the newer varieties. Taking first the H.P.’s, we 
find that Ulrich Brunner, which came out in 1881, now stands 
second only to the leading flower of the season, Madame G. Luizet; 
while Mei veille de Lyon, which was distributed in 1882, has already 
