September 22, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
251 
folium, rubrum, and roseum as pot plants, and cut flowers ; Mr. Tingle 
a fine collection o£ Pansies ; Mr. F. Barnes excellent specimen Ferns, 
Gloxinias, and a beautiful stand of stove and greeubouse cut flowers. 
Mr. Woodcock showed, not for competition, a fine collection of early 
flowering Chrysanthemums. The discussion following the judging upon 
the modes of culture practised by the successful exhibitors of the prin¬ 
cipal subjects shown was very instructive. 
- Zonal Pelargoniums at Bristol. —At Messrs. Garaway’s 
Durdham Down Nurseries, Clifton, there is generally an instructive 
display of popular plants, and recently a fine bank of Zonal Pelargo¬ 
niums has come in for a good share of attention. This fine group was 
margined by about 300 neat, beautifully flowered plants, of the double 
white Le Cygne, a variety excellent in nearly every respect, though 
scarcely so good for winter flowering as we expected. Other good 
doubles were Bac Ninh. deep scarlet, salmon centre, large truss ; Belle 
Nancienne, bright salmon, red centre, broad white margin, extra large 
pips and trusses ; and Le Bruant, a good deep crimson. Among the 
singles the most strikingly good were Bacchus, rosy purple, fine truss, 
well-shaped pips ; C. H. Swinstead, vermilion ; Eurydice, purple pinki 
white in upper petals, grand truss ; Ferdinand Kauffer, rich magenta, 
upper petals tinged with orange scarlet; Future Fame, scarlet, very 
good ; Kate Greenaway, bright pink, well formed flowers ; Lady Bailey, 
rose colour ; Lady Chesterfield, rich salmon, and good in every respect ; 
Lucy Mason, salmon, tinged with orange ; Mary Caswell, white, flushed 
pink ; Mr. H. T. Barker, dark rose ; Mercedes, salmon and orange ; 
M. Myriel, crimson scarlet, white eye, striking ; Norah, soft blush, large 
flowers ; Omphale, pale salmon, very fine ; Paul Neil Fraser, rich 
scarlet, white eye ; Plutarch, bright scarlet, small white eye, fine pips 
and truss ; Raphael, scarlet, shade rose and magenta ; Ruby, rosy 
scarlet, white eye ; and Zeno, scarlet, suffused magenta. Of Ivy-leaved 
sorts the best were Furstin J. Yon Hohenzollern, dark scarlet, fine pips 
and truss, double ; and Madame Thibaut, extra good double pink. 
- “Unusually heavy crops of Tomatoes,” a gardener says, 
“ are being obtained this year out of doors. By sowing seed of Sutton’s 
Earliest of All in a gentle heat about the middle of April, potting them 
into 5J-inch pots when required, thereby growing the plants without 
check, is much better than sowing very early and starving the plants 
while waiting to place them out. In our case sufficient time was allowed 
to have the plants strong and thoroughly hardened prior to planting out 
on a sunny south border the first week in June. The growths—three to 
each plant—were tied to cross rails erected, the topmost 4 feet high, all 
side growths were cut away as fast as they showed, the fruits set freely 
close to the ground and all the way up the stems, the points being taken 
out of each when the desired height was reached. Water was freely 
applied to the roots through a thick mulching of manure; the fruit now 
is swelling to a capital size and shape, and commencing to ripen 
thoroughly.” 
- Part 26 of Cassell’s “ Familiar Trees ” is devoted to the Cedar 
of Lebanon, of which a coloured plate is given with historical and 
other particulars, from which we extract the following :—“ The actual 
date of the first introduction of the Cedar into England is uncertain. A 
most improbable tradition assigns the planting of the celebrated trees at 
Enfield and Hendon to Queen Elizabeth, but Evelyn in his “ Sylva ” 
(1664) speaks of the tree as not grown in England, though he had re¬ 
ceived cones and seeds of it from Lebanon. Probably the oldest exist¬ 
ing Cedar in England is that at Bretby Park, Derbyshire, proved by the 
gardener’s accounts to have been planted in 1676. Its girth is now 
nearly 16 feet, and its branches, though many have been lost, still spread 
about 100 feet. The Enfield tree was planted by Dr. Uvedale, head 
master of the grammar school, apparently between 1666 and 1670, from 
seed said to have been brought him from Lebanon by a pupil, but pos¬ 
sibly given him by Evelyn. William Ashby, a Turkey merchant, is 
stated to have brought seed from the Levant between 1680 and 1690 5 
from which sprang the Cedar at Quenby Hall, Leicestershire ; but the 
trees standing till recently close to the river, in the garden of the Apothe. 
caries’ Company at Chelsea, were certainly planted before 1686, under 
the direction of Sir Hans Sloane.” 
JUDGING GRAPES AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE, 
SEPTEMBER 2nd, 1887. 
I AM pleased to see that Mr. Barron has thought it necessary in this case 
to take notice of my public criticism of hii awards in the Grape classes at 
the above Show, because it gives me an opportunity of upsetting some of 
his mis-statements. Mr. Barron would have us believe that the sin he has 
committed consists merely in not having estimated my collection of Grapes 
as I had done myself, and then goes on to say it was generally admitted 
that it was quite in order to withhold the first prize but wrong to do more. 
If I had been the only one who thought I had been badly treated I Bhould 
never have made my protest, but such was the opinion, not only of Grape 
growers jwith |whom I conversed, but also of (those (strangers to me) who 
freely expressed their opinions to that effect, all, without a single exception, 
declaring it to be a most unjust award, and only one considered that the 
twenty bunches in question should have anything less than a first prize. 
Then, as to Mr. Barron’s assertion that the Grapes were but second-rate, and 
if placed in competition in the three-bunch classes would not have secured 
a prize, I should like to ask him if it is usual to see Mrs. Pince in as good 
condition as to colour and size of bunch at the time I exhibited, and if he 
noticed any Lady Downe’s in the Show as well coloured as my own ? Gros 
Maroc, Foster’s Seedling, and Alnwick Seedling would also have given a 
good account of themselveB anywhere if staged against the same varieties. 
Has Mr. Barron ever awarced a fii st prize in a big collection of Grapes, 
when the quality was up to the standard of the smaller classes ? It is 
obvious to any practised Grape grower that it is nigh impossible to stage 
ten varieties of Grapss in as good condition as he could one. The difficulty 
is to catch them all in their best form at the same time. Take, for instance, 
the two collections of twenty bunches that have been awarded the first 
prize at the same Show the two previous years, would they have secured a 
very prominent position in the three-bunch classes ? Collections of Grapes, 
like collections of fruit, must be judged as collections. If there had been 
two other collec'ions less meritorious than mine shown in the twenty-bunch 
class, what would Mr. Barron have done then ? 
Mr. Barron has misrepresented the value and condition of my collection 
of twenty bunches when he says that many of them were not fresh. As a 
matter of fact only four bunches had been exhibited before—namely, the 
Madresfield and Muscat of Alexandria which were shown at Salisbury the 
previous week, and these, as anyone at the Palace could see, were not in 
anything like the condition Mr. Barron would lead the public to believe, as 
the bunches were compact and solid, the footstalks being scarcely visible, 
and were quite fit for the table, otherwise they would not have been showD. 
Mr. Barron must be aware that several stands of Grapes—including Mr. 
Taylor’s and Mr. Pratt’s grand examples—were shown at Bath on the Wed¬ 
nesday and Thursday last year, at the Crystal Palace on the Friday and 
Saturday, and again at South Kensington on the following Tuesday. As 
Mr. Barron has been indiscreet enough to mix my employer’s name with 
this subject, I may tell him that he saw the “ offending ” collection staged 
on the boards in the vineries here before and after it had been to the Palace. 
I also “ dared ” to send the very bunches to table. They were eaten and 
much appreciated. 
It is but natural that exhibitors should sympathise with each other and 
find fault with the Judges who annually make a large per-centage of wrong 
awards. Not because the “ prizes are slipping away from them,” but because 
tht-y have been unjustly treated. There is a wide difference between a 
“disappointed exhibitor” and a defrauded one. I can assure Mr. Barron 
that the word patronage, which has so incited him to eloquence, is applied 
in its proper place, and it has not been used in a bumptious way. Noblemen 
and gentlemen patronise the Crystal Palace and other companies by allow¬ 
ing their gardeners to compete at the shows which are held for the purpose 
of drawing the half-crowns and shillings of the public into their coffers.— 
H. W. Ward. 
CRAGSIDE. 
Comparatively seldom can we escape from what may he termed 
the conventionalities of landscape gardening, and it is only when a site 
possessing exceptional natural advantages has been treated with a taste 
and judgment equally rare that we obtain a well marked departure from 
the prevailing garden styles. Even when the situation and surround¬ 
ings are favourable it requires a certain boldness or independence of 
spirit, as it were, to take it in hand horticulturally and yet avoid fol¬ 
lowing the common modes of procedure in the production of walks, 
clumps, plantations, and flower beds. There is the danger on the one 
hand that insufficient will he done to fully develope the natural charac¬ 
ter of the place, and on the other that too much will he undertaken, the 
result being an irksome artificiality. It would be difficult to select a 
better example of “ the happy mean ” in this respect than is afforded by 
the remarkably beautiful garden at Cragside, and Lord Armstrong must 
have had constantly in view the oft quoted Shakesperian dictum, 
“ This is an art which does mend Nature : change it rather ; but the 
art itself is Nature,” when he designed and planted the rugged hill¬ 
side now so famed amongst northern gardens. 
Cragside is within a mile or so of Rothbury station, the terminus of 
a branch from the North-Eastern line at Morpeth, and is conveniently 
reached from the south via Newcastle-on-Tyne, or from the north by 
changing at Morpeth. Rothbury is an old Northumbrian village upon 
the river Coquet, famed for its trout, and a favourite resort for lovers of 
“ the gentle artbut during the summer time, upon the days when 
Cragside is generously thrown open to the public, the normally quiet 
streets are thronged with excursionists from Newcastle and other large 
towns. On the occasion of the annual flower show in particular numbers 
of special trains are run from Sunderland, South Shields, and New¬ 
castle, bringing thousands of visitors into the pure and invigorating 
atmosphere of the Coquetdale district. The journey by rail from any 
of the towns named offers little in the way of scenery except a passing 
glimpse of a few deep fertile glens, and the traveller comes quite 
suddenly in view of the huge, rocky, and precipitous hillside, the silvery 
Coquet, and its charming valley. En route some doubts might arise as 
to what could have induced a gentleman to select so wild a spot for a 
residence and garden ; but with the Cragside before us, the Heather-clad 
summit glowing under a brilliant August sun, all such doubts are 
dissipated. Where the visitor has the time and opportunity, Rothbury 
