314 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ April 22, 1886. 
approved securities will be required in a penalty of £100 if over an acre 
of ground is cultivated, and £50 if under an acre, in order to secure 
that all Tobacco grown and gathered shall be removed to drying rooms 
and kept there until properly cured, when it shall be packed in bags, 
bales, or casks of an approved size, and must then be weighed by a 
revenue officer. After weighing the packages the duty must be paid, or 
the Tobacco be deposited in an approved Customs or Excise warehouse. 
An experiment both in the cultivation and preparation of Tobacco will be 
conducted in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Cardens at Chiswick this 
year under the superintendence of a gentleman who has had experience in 
the work. Messrs. James Carter & Co., 237, High Holborn, have pub¬ 
lished a pamphlet in which is embodied a considerable amount of infor¬ 
mation on the culture and preparation of Tobacco, including cost of 
production and value of the crop in Belgium. 
-We have received from Messrs. James Dickson & Sons, Newton 
Nurseries, Chester, blooms of the new Narcissus Sir Watkin. They 
are very large and handsome, and there is no doubt 'that this is one of 
the finest and most effective varieties in cultivation. 
-We are informed that the Council of the Royal Horticultural 
Society have kindly granted the services of their Chief Clerk, Mr. J. 
Douglas Dick, to the Royal Commission of the Colonial and Indian 
Exhibition to act as their Superintendent of Entrances during the Exhi¬ 
bition—a responsible position which Mr. Dick has filled satisfactorily at 
previous exhibitions at South Kensington. 
- The Two Finest Pot Narcissus.—O pinions will always 
differ as to colour. I prefer those with white perianth segments and 
trumpets some shade of yellow—that is, belonging to the bicolor section. 
Of these N. bicolor Horsefieldi comes first in point of time if not in size 
and beauty. It bloomed with me this year the 10.h March without 
forcing treatment, and lasted until succeeded by N. bicolor Empress. 
Those answer admirably for succession, and now, when the pot plants 
will have ceased blooming, they will be followed by those in the borders. 
If pure yellows are preferred, as seems to be now the fashion in London, 
Lorifolius Emperor comes first in tinting and brilliancy. It is now in 
bloom here.— W. J. Murphy, Clonmel. 
-Mr. W. Allman, Lymm, sends us blooms of Chrysanthemum 
Fair Maid of Guernsey to show what a good late variety it is. He 
has been gathering similar flowers every week during the winter from two 
plants, and there are several buds to open yet. The blooms received are 
very fresh and attractive. 
- Flowering of Peach Trees. —As no one has noticed 
“ T. F. R.’s ” complaint on April 8th, the failure does not seem to be 
general. My experience this season is quite the reverse of his. Our trees 
both in pots and planted out in late houses have just shed their flowers 
and have set remarkably well. My employers tell me they have never 
had such an abundant lot of flowers on them before. The early houses 
also have first-rate crops, and the first fruit of Early Beatrice is ripe 
to-day, April 17th. Some large trees of Alexander and Waterloo, &c., 
removed from the houses to a south-east wall last autumn, are also very 
full of flowers. As regards the frost causing the damage to “ T. F. R.’s” 
trees, the temperature of our houses when at rest never goes below 32° 
as a rule, but once this season we had 6° of frost in for two or three 
hours.—W. H. Divers, Ketton Hall. 
- A correspondent, “L. W.,” The Gardens, Cookridge Tower, 
Leeds, sends the following notes:—“ Saxifraga oppositifolia splen- 
DENS. —It is impossible to speak too highly of the beauty of this bright 
little Saxifraga, so distinct with its purple rose colour flowers, which it 
shows to the best advantage with us as it is growing in a rock bed on the 
lawn. The flowers are solitary, on short erect stems, and are so thickly 
produced as to quite hide the leaves, which are small, opposite, and 
densely crowded. We have several varieties of the Saxifraga oppositifolia 
in flower at present, but none so brilliant in colour as splendens. We 
have them planted by the side of a rock and fully exposed to the sun, 
where we find they grow well. They like a good open rich loam.” 
- “ A very rare and minute alpine plant, Soldanella minima 
alba, is flowering with us. It has minute round leaves and one flower 
on a stem, drooping and fringed a portion of its length. Being much 
smaller than the other Soldanellas it requires more care in planting, and 
should be planted with the most minute alpine plants in a mixture 
of peat, loam, and sharp sand, and where it will be moist in summer.” 
- Science in Horticulture. —Please allow me to say that the 
position I hold in relation to “A Lover of Fair Play,” page 290, does not 
admit of my discussing the subject further than to say that I did not 
intend to be “ incorrect or unjust ” in my criticism on foreigners, and as 
he evidently feels aggrieved at my remarks and applies them personally, 
I wish to express my regret, and assure him that they were not so intended. 
With regard to what I stated about a noted foreign gardener objecting 
to employ students from the School of Horticulture at Versailles, my 
information was from what I considered at the time I wrote an authentic 
source, but not being at liberty to name it, I must allow that “A Lover 
of Fair Play ” is right and I am wrong.— Young Practicalist. 
- The Wroxton or Howard’s Onion.— Mr. W. Iggulden 
writes :—“ Your esteemed correspondent Mr. Easty asks for the history of 
this novelty, and I fully expected someone would point out that Mr. Finlay 
is presumably the raiser, he having named the Onion after the place 
where he was at one time actiDg as gardener. To tell the truth, I have 
long been a little curious in the matter, but waited before seconding Mr. 
Easty in his request for full information to see if Mr. Finlay or one of 
bis friends would supply us with the facts of the case. Is Mr. Finlay 
prepared to assert that he actually raised the variety in question ? For 
my part I am strongly under the impression that it is an old friend of 
mine ; at aDy rate the two, as grown by me last season, could not well be 
separated, and, strange to say, both are of the same parentage. If I am 
right in my surmises, the name I have it under—viz., Howard’s Onion— 
is correct, and the Wroxton ought to he removed from our catalogues.” 
-Major Carey favours us with an interesting note on Chrysan¬ 
themums and FLOWERS in Guernsey. “On reading your number of 
April 8th, I notice among the list of Japanese Chrysanthemums the 
variety named ‘ Ethel,’ and that the name of the raiser is not mentioned. 
I beg to inform you that it was raised by me in the year 1876 and sent 
out by Mr. Dixon. I consider it one of the best varieties, as it never 
loses its pure whiteness, and the dark centre is almost unique. Another 
of my seedlings, Mrs. C. Carey (raised ia 1880 and sent out by Cannell), 
does not seem to meet in England with the attention it deserves. It is 
the best late variety, and most floriferous, and also has the advantage of 
retaining its whiteness until faded. In this island many gardeners grow from 
700 to 1000 plants for flowers for exportation, and the number of blooms 
obtained from each plant is most remarkable. By cutting down the 
plants of this variety and placing them in heat you can get a second 
blooming, and last week I wa3 shown six plants which had been thus 
treated covered with most perfect snowballs, and from which the gardener 
expected to cut fifteen dozen blooms for the London market. Horticulture 
is carried on in Guernsey on a very large scale, and the daily steamers 
carry away tons of flowers to be distributed all over the United Kingdom. 
Camellias grow out of doors in astonishing profusion, and the more you 
cut the enormous bushes the more they bloom. One man assured me 
that he can cut daily 1000 blooms without his trees appearing stripped, 
Mr. Smith of the Caledonian Nurseries, the raiser of many incurved 
Chrysanthemums, devotes himself now to other branches, and his houses 
filled with beds of the lovely pure white and highly perfumed Freesias, 
his out-of-door beds of Jonquils and Daffodils, varying from white down 
to the deepest orange, his many-hued Ixias, looking in the sun like 
myriads of gorgeous butterflies, and his show of Roses are things to be 
seen to be believed in.” 
SELECT AURICULAS. 
Our illustration represents a selection of the best Auriculas, good 
typical examples of the most recent novelties in each class, except in the 
green-edged varieties, of which the best in all points is still Trail’s Prince 
of Greens. They were sketched in Mr. F. Whitboum’s extensive and 
admirably grown collection at Great Gearies, Ilford, under the charge of 
Mr. J. Douglas, who has for so many years been a successful cultivator 
and exhibitor of Auriculas. A span-roof house 50 feet long is there 
devoted to these plants, and the varieties comprise the many fine seedlings 
raised by Mr. J. Douglas and the Rev. F. D. Horner, together with the 
older varieties, some of which have delighted florists for half a century or 
more. The season has not been a favourable one, and the artificial 
assistance needed to bring the flowers forward has caused in a few 
instances a slight roughness, but it is such as only the keenest critics 
would notice, and in general appearance the plants and blooms leave 
nothing to be desired. It would be a pleasure to refer at some length to 
the collection and the varieties, but our space is too limited this week to 
permit it, and further notes must be reserved till another issue. 
The varieties shown in the woodcut are as follows :—1, Green-edge, 
Trail’s Prince of Greens; 2, Grey-edge, Silvia ; 3, Grey-edge, General 
Grabam, remarkable for its large pip and truss and fine purple body 
