December 10, 1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
495 
florets of any incurved variety we have, quite of the Queen type in habit 
of growth, probably a seedling from that family. The colour is carmine 
rose with a cerise shading. 
Brookfield Gem , a sport from Jeanne d’Arc, is most peculiar in its 
colouring, being a kind of slatey lilac, having the same properties 
in the build as its parent ; it is sure to be much sought after when more 
known. 
Madame Frederick Mistral is of French origin, light violet rose with 
salmon tips ; it incurves neatly, and as such will be valuable as a front 
row flower in large collections. 
Madame Pierre Louis Blancard is also of French origin, white with 
carmine shade; each petal is tipped with gold; is of the Princess of Wales 
type, though smaller ; as a front row flower it should prove useful. 
I have seen several more of promise, some seedlings from Princess of 
Wales, but as they are not to be sent out until 1893 I will refrain from 
describing them.— E. Molyneux. 
(To be continued.) 
Chrysanthemums for Cutting Down. 
“ North Cotswold ” makes inquiries at page 450 about the best 
twenty-four varieties of Japanese Chrysanthemums for the above 
purpose, and as I have had some experience I offer my assistance by 
naming the following, which will probably suit your correspondent:— 
White : Avalanche, C. Wagstaffe, Bouquet des Dames, and Stanstead 
White, while Mrs. Wright is very attractive. Blush or delicate pink : 
Etoile de Lyon, Madame Marie Hoste, Miss Anna Hartzhorn, Madame 
J. Laing, and Puritan. Pink and rose : Madame Baco, Viviand Morel. 
Crimson : W. W. Coles, Wm. Holmes, and Miss Esmeralda. Purple : 
Neptune, M. Bernard, and Alberic Lunden. Yellow : Sunflower, 
President Hyde, Mrs. Clinton, Martha Harding, W. H. Lincoln, and 
Sarah Owen. 
“ North Cotswold,” no doubt, is well acquainted with cutting down ; 
however, I will remind him that Stanstead White and W. W. Coles should 
be cut down early, while Puritan, Neptune, Mrs. Clinton, President Hyde 
and Sunflower should be cut down about the 1st of June, and those not 
mentioned ten days later.—J. Pithers. 
Beadiness at Exhibitions. 
I WAS an exhibitor in a small way at the Bristol Chrysanthemum Show, 
and can bear out “ Exhibitor’s ” remarks as to the backward character 
of the arrangements. Having exhibited at Bath, where, so far as I could 
see, every class was marked out and cards denoting the class fixed every¬ 
where, it was easy to place my stands in their classes and I might 
have gone off at once. Mark the difference at Bristol. Getting there 
about nine o’clock, I found one side of the room, for the larger classes of 
cut blooms, partially occupied and persons busily engaged in setting up. 
Beyond the one or two larger classes Chaos reigned supreme. At last I 
saw an official and asked where my class room was. Oh, he could not 
possibly tell. I moved my boxes into a corner and waited. Later on I 
appealed again, and then had a part of the staging marked out, where 1 
had better put them “for the present.” This I did, but had I not 
watched them with the feverish love of a juvenile at the game, the 
little beauty they possessed in other eye3 would have been ruined by 
the unceremonious shower of plant exhibitors on the more raised portion 
of the staging. Then I found these plant exhibitors of Poinsettias, 
Palms, &c., just as particular about every leaf on their plants as we 
Chrysanthemum bloom exhibitors on our petals. Jump up on the 
Btaging, and put this leaf above that one, down again and criticise. 
No; won’t do. Up again and shift this pot round, and put that leaf 
over this one. Down again ; and so the game went on. Mean¬ 
while, the staging never being very firmly foundationed, the box 
containing my blooms had sustained sundry shakings, not improving 
their general appearance. Then the said official—I do not know his name, 
but willingly testify to the hard work he performed on that memorable 
morning—told us that where I had put my boxes would surely be wanted 
for other classes and I had better get the other side of the room. So 
from pillar to post and post to pillar, the morning wore on, and about 
11.30 or 11.45, just an hour or so after the time that the Exhibition was 
ready, or should have been, for the Judges, we began to see a possible 
solution to our difficulties, and about twelve I was able to escape from 
the room. 
Now at a splendid exhibition like that of Bristol this is not quite the 
treatment that exhibitors expect to receive, and the only sort of excuse 
that can be made for it is that the exhibition seemed unfortunately to 
have been without a mainspring—without a secretary at the date—and 
therefore without the official on whose head all errors of omission and 
commission are sure to fall. 
The official in that portion of the Exhibition, I have already said, 
worked hard, very hard, in trying to bring the state of chaos into order ; 
but should he read these lines, I would say to him, his work would have 
been easily performed overnight—say Class 25, forty-eight blooms, 
suppose five entries, that will take so much space, and so on—the staging 
might have been all marked out the previous night, and this is what it 
should be. 
I do not wish to grumble, but having to stay three hours in a room 
when half an hour was sufficient is rather a trial, even to one who on 
that occasion was able to call himself a— Successful Exhibitor. 
Hairy Chrysanthemums. 
These appear to have been unusually prolific this year, judging 
from what I have seen and heard. It is nothing unusual to see blooms 
of the Teck family carrying a few hairs, and especially the variety 
Charles Gibson, as alluded to by “ Subscriber ” (page 473). Culling- 
fordi has in many places shown the same peculiarity in a few of its 
florets. Violet Rose is another variety exhibiting the same peculiarity ; but 
perhaps the most remarkable sort in this respect, apart from Mrs. A. 
Hardy and the newer Louis Boehmer, is Lalla Rookh, a carmine buff 
coloured Japanese, but unfortunately it has no other point to recommend 
it beyond the hair-like growths so freely covering its florets. By-and- 
by we shall expect to see a class formed for these varieties. 
Revision of Lists of Varieties. 
Cultivators of Chrysanthemums in any form, those who have been 
exhibitors in the past season, and those who purpose entering the lists, 
will now need their lists of varieties revising. Additions are so nume¬ 
rously made in some sections, Japanese especially, that a yearly revision 
is quite a necessity if cultivators wish to keep pace with the times, and 
if exhibition is a point of study the new varieties must be added and 
inferior ones dispensed with. My object in writing this note is to 
impress upon beginners the great mistake made in overcrowding 
limited space with varieties merely for the sake of numbers. Far better 
is it to cultivate an extra plant of a well-tried kind than to burden 
oneself with those which may turn out worthless for the purpose for 
which they are required. I am also aware that nowadays there is a 
great craving amongst Chrysanthemum cultivators for novelty, and 
although this may prove interesting it is not always remunerative. 
Many of those which were but a very few years since looked upon as 
ideal blooms appear worthless beside the newer varieties. I find that the 
list needs much annual revision. Except in the matter of personal 
taste, or a weakness for some particular variety for some private reason, 
such varieties as Baronne de Prailly, Meg Merrilies, and more of those 
which are notable for their width only should make room for such as 
A. H. Neve, W. W. Coles, Viviand Morel, and Sunflower. These are the 
types of flowers which cannot fail to please even those who sometimes 
object to large blooms. Varieties like those first named are but thin 
at their best as compared with the newer sorts last quoted. We do not 
require sorts through which the green boards can be seen when the 
blooms are staged. Such stretched-out examples do much towards 
making the cultivation of Chrysanthemums for cut blooms unpopular 
with those who profess to see no beauty in such huge flowers.—E. M. 
Chrysanthemum Florence Davis. 
In the note, page 473, on this variety, Mr. Parker says :—“ The 
flowers are very large (8 inches broad and 10 deep),” which is not, to say 
the least of it, something wonderful. It is not the breadth that I think 
so much about, but a Chrysanthemum bloom 10 inches deep sets one 
thinking that a slight error has crept in somewhere in the measurement. 
Previously I thought 6 inches deep was large for even a Japanese, but to 
add 4 inches to that makes one wonder how big the new varieties of the 
future will be. I saw blooms of Viviand Morel this season which 
measured 9 by 6 inches. I thought them extremely large and in grand 
proportion, but it appears these were a long way off the size attained 
by the variety which forms the subject of this note.—E. 
The few growers who have been fortunate enough to procure a stock 
of this grand new variety would not be much surprised to see the note 
by Mr. Richard Parker on page 473. I do not know that I can say 
much more in its favour than your correspondent; but growers may be 
a little mistaken in reading it, seeing that the buds are green, and may be 
led to think that it is another Mrs. Alpheus Hardy, but it is not so. The 
buds when opening are almost a sea green, but as they expand become 
the most lovely white. It is a seedling raised by Mr. Norman Davis of 
Camberwell. Your correspondent seems to be limited to a few plants ; 
but I have had the pleasure of not only growing it myself, but seeing 
a quantity of the same growing in pots, and in no case have I seen it 
refuse to open; and I shall be greatly mistaken if we do not see it as 
freely shown next year as Avalanche and Stanstead White. It will 
certainly rank as high as either. I should like to hear what other 
growers have to say upon this variety.—W. A. 
Chrysanthemum Charles Gibson. 
Having noticed “ Subscriber’s ” query respecting the disposition of 
this variety to produce hairy florets, I may say that one of my plants' 
last year had some of its blooms rather thickly covered with these 
appendages, and the cuttings taken from that plant have this year “ hirsute” 
qualities considerably in excess of that of their parent.— Welton Dale. 
Noticing “Subscriber’s” remarks, page 473 in last week’s Journal, 
of his Charles Gibson showing hairy florets, I may add that I have 
experienced the same with one of my plants. It had six fair-sized 
blooms on the plant, and all of them showed hairy florets, three in 
particular, quite as much as Mrs. Alpheus Hardy. The colour of all the 
blooms was of a much deeper bronze, and wider in the florets. I am 
sorry they are too old to enclose one for your inspection.—S. K. 
THE OLDFIELD NURSERIES. 
Travelling to Broadheath Station, L. and N.W.R., a walk of about 
ten minutes brought me to the above-mentioned nurseries. Unfortu¬ 
nately the day was of the most miserable description, but as I had 
journeyed with the intention of giving to the readers of the Journal some 
little information regarding this enterprising firm that I did not mind the 
