October 3, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
315 
it as a very fine variety, of close-growing robust habit but short stature 
with dense large spikes of flowers with brightly coloured stamens, an^ 
most fragrant. It is a great acquisition, and a thorough pot Mignonette. 
Out of doors the plants should be a few inches apart. This, Golden 
Queen, and Miles’ Spiral, are three first-class Mignonettes.” 
- A Fine AutUmm Flower Bed. —One of the most effective 
October flower beds that has perhaps ever been seen is in beauty now in 
the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. It consists simply of a mass of 
Madame Desgrange Chrysanthemum banded with Aster Araellus bessa- 
rabicus. The bed is 25 yards long and 5 yards wide, and except th e 
margin is a fleecy clou!, like a mass of creamy white flowers, so numerous 
as to appear as if piled in heaps. The plants are about 4 feet high, and 
the Aster edging about 18 inches high and broad. The thousands of 
deep lilac flowers of this, one of the most attractive of the Michaelmas 
Daisies, are displayed to the greatest advantage in contrast with the mass 
of white in the centre of the bed ; in fact, one plant enhances the beauty 
of the other. Both these are hardy autumn-flowering plants of the first 
merit, and should be grown in quantity wherever an effective mass is 
desired at this season, and where flowers for cutting are in great request 
during the shooting season, after Dahlias have been cut by frost, and 
before the late October and November Chrysanthemums are plentiful. 
The bed in question has been in beauty for about a fortnight, and will 
last far into the present month. It is well worthy of inspection, and 
moat persons who see it will determine to grow the two easily managed 
plants referred to, at least those will who have gardens and wish to have 
armfuls of flowers at this late period of the year. 
- Mr. A. Harding writes from Orton :—“ Two large Potatoes 
were shown me by a cottager last week of the variety White Elephant 
that he dug in his garden. I never saw any so large. The two I put in 
the scales were over 6 lbs., the largest 3 lbs. 5 ozs. They looked like 
ninepins. He states that he has had several which weighed 2£ lbs 1 
each.” 
- “ Solandm ’’ observes: “ In my notice of the Harefield 
Grove collection of Tomatoes last week, page 290, the Harefield 
Grove Red was described as highly corrugated. It should have bee 11 
slightly corrugated.” 
t 
- We find we were in error when we stated, on page 272, tha 
the young shoots of Grand Duke Plum are downy. We have received 
specimens from Mr. Rivers, and find that they are smooth. 
- In Cheshire the gathering of Blackberries for Liverpool and 
Manchester markets now provides profitable occupation for the country 
people. Enormous quantities are being sent away. A mother and three 
children will earn 10s. and 12s. weekly Blackberry picking. Dealers 
from Manchester attend and give Id. and l|d. per lb. 
- An association for the protection of wild plants has been 
started at Geneva. The object is to preserve alpine rarities from the ex¬ 
termination with which the annually increasing number of botanists, 
collectors, and mountaineering tourists generally is said to manace them 
The projectors of the association announce that they are going to culti 
vate the flowers of the Alps in nurseries, and sell them at such low 
rates that it will not be worth anyone’s while to dig up the wil^ 
plants. 
- At the recent meeting of the British Association in Aberdeen, 
Professor Gilbert, LL.D., F.R.S., contributed a Note on the Conditions 
of the Development and of the Activity of Chlorophyll. This 
gave an account of some experiments made in conjunction with Dr. W. J. 
Russell, which show a close connection to exist between the formation 
of chlorophyll and the amount of nitrogen assimilated by plants; the 
amount of carbon assimilated is not, however, in proportion to the 
chlorophyll formed, unless a sufficiency of mineral substances required 
by the plants is available. In cases where both nitrogenous and mineral 
manures were applied a lower proportion of nitrogen assimilated and 
chlorophyll formed over a given area was observed, which is no doubt due 
to the greater assimilation of carbon and consequent greater formation of 
non-nitrogenous substances, although the amounts of nitrogen assimilated 
and chlorophyll formed were as great, if not greater. 
- Mr. Jas. Carruthers, Gardener, Hill wood Gardens, Corstorphine 
senda us a few blooms of Early-flowering Chrysanthemums, and 
remarks ”that he disbudded a few plants of Madame Desgrange to 
twenty flowers, and they average about G inches across. The yellow 
sport is equally free. Mrs. Cullingford is, I think, one of the most useful 
Chrysanthemums grown.” The blooms of Madame Desgrange were as 
fine as good examples of Elaine. La Yierge was also compact and pure 
white, Mrs. Cullingford being rather smaller but very handsome. The 
Golden Madame Desgrange was of charming colour and good substance. 
The bright rosy purple-tinted variety, Aureole, was represented by two 
beautiful blooms. 
-- Mr John C. Montgomerie has recently been awarded a gold medal 
at the London International Exhibition for a collection of the excellent 
‘‘ Tam o’ Shanter ” Hones we have previously noted in these columns. 
-- It is said that a number of women and girls are now employed in 
France in grafting French Vines on American stocks, and that a 
woman can graft as many as 300 Vines a day in the spring months. Some 
men are also engaged in the work, and these graft 600 or more in a day. 
- The Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Works and Public Build¬ 
ings intend to distribute this autumn, as usual, among the working 
classes and the poor inhabitants of London the surplus bedding-out 
plants in Battersea, Hyde, the Regent’s and Victoria Parks, the Royal 
Gardens', Kew, and the pleasure gardens, Hampton Court. If the clergy, 
school committees, and others interested will make application to the 
superintendent of the park nearest to their respective parishes, or to the 
Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, or to the Superintendent of Hampton 
Court Gardens, in the cases of persons residing in those neighbourhoods, 
they will receive early intimation of the number of plants that can be 
a’lotted to each applicant, and of the time and manner of their 
distribution. 
- Mr. J. Mallender sends his monthly summary of mete¬ 
orological observations at Hodsock Priory, Worksop, Notts, for 
September, 1885 :—Mean temperature of the month, 53 - 5° ; maximum on 
the 15th, 73 , 0° ; minimum on the 26th, 28 - 7° ; maximum in the sun on the 
5th, 12i y ; minimum on the grass 26th, 22 9°. Warmest day the 15th, 
mean temperature 62.4° ; coldest day the 26th, mean temperature 40 8°. 
Mean temperature of the air at 9a.m,, 54-5°; mean temperature of the 
soil 1 foot deep, 54 9°. Nights below 32° in shade, one ; on grass, four. 
Total duration of sunshine 150 hours, or 40 per cent, of possible duration. 
We had two sunless days. Total rainfall D77 inch. Maximum fall in 
twenty-four hours 0 22 inch. Rain fell on nineteen days. Wind 
mostly from S.W. to N.W. points ; average velocity 10-2 miles per hour. 
Exceeded 400 miles on four days, fell short of 100 miles on three days. 
It has been a cold, bright, and showery month ; temperature lower than 
seven out of the last nine years, while the minimum on the 26th is the 
lowest yet recorded. Rainfall less than the average, but a good many 
showery days. 
- At the recent Antwerp Exhibition Messrs. Rawlings Bros. 
were awarded, by acclamation, the gold medal for fifty Dahlias, 
and the silver medal for twenty-five Dahlias. Mr. J. West, gardener to 
W. Keith, Esq., Brentwood, was also awarded the first prize for twenty- 
five Dahlias. 
- Mr. William Hughes, who is celebrated as a fruit 
painter, has gathered together a collection of his works in the Bur¬ 
lington Gallery, Old Bond Street, to show the public that he is quite as 
much at home in landscapes and other subjects as in the department of 
art with which his name is more familiarly associated. The fruit pieces 
will, of course, come in for first notice. First, then, the visitor to the 
Burlington will look at the extraordinary mountain of fruit that is in¬ 
tended to represent Pomona’s gifts to Italy. “ So skilfully is each fruit 
form painted that the Grapes seem bursting out of the canvas, and the 
moisture of the open Melon seems to glisten in each ruptured fibre.” 
Another large fiuit piece is a tempting show of ripe Peaches, Pears, and 
other fruit heaped up on a marvellously painted rug. But perhaps the 
most perfect work of all is to be seen in the smaller work called “Nature’s 
Jewels,” in which a huge bunch of White Currants is depicted with such 
glossy transparency that they look as if they could hardly stand touching 
without dropping off the branch. 
- The monthly packet of Messrs. Cassell’s periodical works 
just to hand contains the following Part 80 “ Familiar Garden 
Flowers,” with plate of Genista sagittalis, the Winged Broom, and 
Clarkia pulchella. This part also gives the title page and contents for 
vol. iv. and a synopsis of the genera noticed. Part 3 of “ Familiar 
Trees ” is devoted to the Plane, and has two coloured plates, one of a large 
tree and the other showing the catkins with foliage. Part 18 o 
