February 18, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
129 
stage ? The difference of ten or twelve days which “ G-. G.” found 
in regard to Bowood and Muscat of Alexandria may account for 
the good “ set ” of the Bowood and the failure of the Muscat of 
Alexandria.* 
The Bowood may have been fertilised before the boiler broke 
down, and the Muscat of Alexandria may just have been timed to 
be in flower during the twenty-five days without fire heat. Conse¬ 
quently failure in one case and success in the other. Fuller details 
regarding the matter will no doubt be welcome to more than— 
A Reader. 
CYPRIPEDIUM LEUCORRHODUM. 
This is one of the numerous hybrid Cypripediums raised in Messrs, 
eitch & Sons’ Chelsea nursery, and though it is about ten years since 
the cross was made, the plant did not flower until last year. It resulted 
from crossing C. Roezli and C. Schlimi album, and is curiously inter¬ 
mediate between the parents, the flowers being of a soft delicate rosy 
tint,nearly white in some parts, with a full rounded slipper-like lip. The 
plant is very strong in growth, producing leaves of considerable length, 
broad, and bright green. Now it has reached the flowering stage it will 
probably produce blooms every season, and it is somewhat strange that 
some exceedingly floriferous hybrids have required so long a time to 
reach that stage as seedlings. 
The two species named have been employed with others in the produc¬ 
tion of several beautiful hybrids, of which may be mentioned C. albo- 
purpureum, C. cardinale, C. porpyreum, C. Sedeni, and C. Sedeni candi- 
dibulum, all possessing a general resemblance to each other. C. Sedeni 
is one of the most useful hybrids hitherto obtained, and C. cardinale is 
very handsome. A charming group is being formed, which is often 
referred to as the “ Sedeni family ” with peculiar appropriateness. 
SMALL GARDENS. 
It is becoming generally recognised that we must not always expect 
to find the best gardening in the largest establishments, not because those 
in charge are deficient in ability, but because too often they have not the 
means requisite to keep an extensive garden with numerous glass houses 
for fruit and plants in the condition that they desire. When such a 
garden i adequately supported, as happily we can still see in many cases, 
we expect to find the art of the horticulturist in perfection, and we are 
seldom disappointed. When, however, a competent practitioner has 
charge of a comparatively small garden he often has greater facilities for 
insuring success than where his attention is spread over a wider area and 
he has to entrust the execution of important details to subordinates. In a 
small garden everything comes directly under the eye of the chief, and the 
results are materially influenced by his knowledge and experience. There 
are now innumerable gardens around the metropolis and large cities which 
well deserve the title “ model gardens ” for the admirable examples they 
present of good all-round practice, or in other instances they have a local 
fame for specialties. Many a useful lesson can," be learned in such places ; 
some first-rate gardeners have there gained the rudiments of an education 
that they have subsequently applied to excellent purpose. There is a strong 
inclination amongst young men to serve in large gardens, but they often 
learn less in two or three years’ service in such establishments than they 
can in twelve months under an able man in a smaller garden where they 
see the whole routine. It is also often more necessary to use a man’s 
wits in economising the means or material at command to produce the best 
results in a garden of moderate extent than in one where there is every 
convenience that wealth can procure. A greater interest must also be felt 
when the attention is more closely concentrated upon particular objects, 
and a much clearer knowledge of the peculiar requirements of either 
flowers, fruits, or vegetables is so obtained. I have visited gardens of all 
descriptions and sizes, and have generally felt a greater satisfaction with 
those of moderate extent. I have also worked in both large and small 
gardens, and with but one or two exceptions I gained far more useful 
knowledge from the latter than the former. 
These few lines have been prompted by a conversation I recently 
had with a young gardener whose great desire was to obtain admission 
into a nobleman’s garden, and he had refused several good offers of 
situations in less important establishments. He preferred waiting, and 
perhaps wasting some months in anticipation of gratifying his fancy to 
taking a place that would probably have proved far more beneficial to 
him. I know there are many more like the one mentioned, and who think 
that, without some recommendation from a nobleman’s gardener, there is 
not much chance of obtaining a good head place themselves. Some such 
feeling has prevailed, but it is being lessened, and employers seek for 
something more than this uncertain kind of testimonial. The fact is, the 
large gardens are decreasing in numbers and importance, while the smaller 
gardens attached to suburban villas and wealthy merchants’ residences are 
increasing, and there is in consequence much more room for employment 
in these than the others. All young men who are waiting in nurseries for 
places and regretting their ill fortune would do well to consider this matter 
carefully.—Ax Old Gardener. 
A COMPARISON OF MANURES FOR THE GARDEN AND 
ORCHARD. 
[A paper by Professor G. C. Caldwell, Ithaca, New York, read before the Massaohusett 
Horticultural Society.] 
(Continued from, page 94.) 
As already said, decaying vegetable or animal matter in the soil makes 
humus, or vegetable mould. This common ingredient of all arable soils 
is not necessary for plant growth ; for, on a small scale, in pot culture 
good crops have been obtained in a soil as white as snow, and therefore 
quite free from any humus, but containing all the real plant nutrients 
that have been mentioned. But that this humus isau important ingredient 
of a fertile soil no one can doubt. Given two soils equally rich in nitrogen, 
potash, phosphoric acid, lime, and all such matters, but of which one is 
poor in humus and the other rich in it, but yet not so excessively rich as a 
bog or a muck bed, there is not a farmer or gardener who knows soils 
who would not give more for the soil rich in humus than for the other. In 
the course of the decay of these vegetable matters several acid substances 
are formed, and chiefly carbonic acid. These acids act on the large 
quantity of difficultly soluble plant food in every arable soil of fair 
quality, and aid in bringing it into solution, and thus within easy reach 
of the plant. Few farmers realise what a large native stock of crop food 
they have in their soils. In the case of a fertile soil from a Western 
State, analysed some time ago in Germany, there would be, by calculation 
from the analysis, in one acre of it, and within a foot from the surface, 
2400 lbs. of phosphoric acid and 7000 lbs. of potash. But nobody in 
New England has a Western prairie soil on his farm ; nevertheless, 
judging from analyses of twenty-five different soils of average quality by 
the same chemist, we may say that an average good soil will contain, 
within 12 inches from the surface, and therefore accessible to the crops, 
and fit for plant food if any means can be provided for bringing it into 
solution, 1500 lbs. of phosphoric acid, 1500 lbs. of potash, and ovsr 1750 lbs. 
of lime. Compare these amounts with those that a cr ip takes up, and one 
can realise more fully the native value of a good soil. The quantities of 
phosphoric acid and potash in pounds, per acre, required by some of the 
more common crops are shown in the following table :— 
Phosphoric 
Acid. Potash. 
Corn, 50 bushels and its stover . 50 70 
Potatoes, 150 bushels . 15 50 
"Wheat, 25 bushels and straw . 18 25 
Apples .. .. •. .. . • • • .. • • 20 50 
The?e native supplies, then, so very much larger than the yearly 
demands of the crops, if we can bring them iuto use only a little every 
year, may go far towards producing these crops for the farmer or gardener. 
If humus by its decay helps to bring about the solution of these supplies 
