May IS, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
377 
compost. Place the pots where a night temperature of 60° can be main¬ 
tained, and where they can be kept gently moist and shaded from the sun 
until germination takes place. Those only haying cool structures should 
follow the details that will be given, for the only difference in the end 
will be that the seed is longer germinating, and the plants will be longer 
before they are ready for their largest pots. At one time we sowed the 
seed in thumb pots, but have discontinued doing so, because they were 
difficult to keep moist, and the plants require repotting before they 
attained much strength. We advise intending cultivators not to use 
smaller pots than those named. 
When the young plants are large enough to haadle, thin them to two 
or three, until it is certain they will not go off, when the most promising 
plant only should be left when intended to train them upon standard 
trellises. When good-sized pyramids, or even large bushes are required, 
three or four plants may be left in preference to one. For this purpose 
the seed may be sown evenly over the surface of the soil instead of the 
centre, so that the young plants left will not crowd one another. Those 
required for standards must have a small upright stake as soon as they 
are 2 inches high, by which time they will be ready for transferring into 
larger pots. This time 5 and 6-inch pots will be the most suitable. By 
the time they are about 1 foot high they will be ready for potting in their 
largest size. During the time they are growing upright remove all 
lateral growths as they appear in the axils of the leaves until sufficient 
length for the stem of the standard has been attained. By the time the 
plants are established in the 5 and 6-inch, they must be gradually 
hardened to cooler treatment until artificial heat can be dispensed with. 
Care must be taken in lowering the temperature that the plants are not 
checked, or they will become woody, and when this takes place they 
never make free growth and luxuriant specimens afterwards. Those 
required for pyramids should, until they are placed in their flower¬ 
ing pots, be trained upright to as many stakes as there are plants in 
the pot. The central one must have the lateral growths removed from the 
axils of the leaves until it is about 9 inches in length, when it may be 
stopped and allowed to branch. Three shoots for training towards the 
edge of the trellis will be ample, while a fourth should be trained upright. 
When bushes are required the plants may be stopped when they are about 
4 inches high, and this must be practised from time to time when the same 
amount of growth has been made until a sufficient number of shoots has 
been formed. The shoots as they are made must be supported with 
slender stakes ; if not, they are very liable to be broken. For the earliest- 
sown plants, whether standards, pyramids, or bushes, 10-inch pots should 
be employed. For later-sown plants 8 and 9-inch pots will do if the 
smallest trellises are selected. 
Great care must be taken when potting the plants that they are not 
checked in the operation. The roots are easily broken, therefore the pots 
used should be perfectly clean, and the crocks used for drainage should be 
moderately small, so that they can be easily removed from amongst the 
roots. From the time the seed is sown they must never suffer by in¬ 
sufficient root room until they are placed in their flowering pots, or they 
will be ruined. Directly plenty of active roots have reached the sides of 
the pot the plants must be shifted into larger. When given their last shift 
they certainly appear as if they were overpotted, for the pots are certainly 
large in proportion to the size of the plants, but this must be the case if 
success is to be attained. The flowering pots must be liberally drained, 
and the compost pressed moderately firm into them, not as hard as it is 
possible to ram it, for we have proved that this course is a mistake, and 
often proves detrimental to the plants. The compost should be the same 
as advised for the seed pots with the addition of one 5-inch potful of soot 
and the same quantity of bonemeal to each barrowful of soil. 
The pyramidal trellises may be home-made, and the plants trained to 
them as soon as they are established in their flowering pots. A round 
hoop should be made of moderately strong wire, 18 or 20 inches in 
diameter, which should be secured at the base by two flat stakes placed 
across each other. These should be held in position by a hoop of copper 
wire just beneath the rim of the pot. If the cross stakes are secured to 
this they will support the outer rim intended for the base of the trellis. 
A moderately strong central stake, 20 inches or 2 feet in length, should be 
placed in the centre of each pot to carry the six or eight strings, copper 
wire being the best and most durable, that will be stretched across it 
from the hoop. Small nicks may be cut into the top ot' the stake to 
carry them until they are secured on both sides to the hoop, when the 
whole may be bound firmly at the top to the stake with thin copper wire. 
Standards can be purchased ready made, or may be made to order. A 
very serviceable size is to have the legs above the soil 1 foot or 14 inches 
in length, with heads about 18 inches in diameter moderately well 
sounded. We have some with stems over 2 feet in length, but they are 
not so effective, and this year we are discarding the whole for shorter 
stems, which displays the head to greater advantage when the plants are 
tsed for room-decoration, and have to stand singly in a vase on a small 
table or other similar position ; in fact for all kinds of furnishing purposes 
those with the shorter stems are the most desirable. Those grown in 
8 and 9-inch pots have trellises with slightly smaller heads; in fact these 
do not exceed 15 inches, the legs being the same as the others. Most of 
the purchased standard trellises have a quantity of close wirework in the 
centre, unless otherwise ordered, which certainly makes the trellis much 
neater in appearance when passed from the wireworkers’ hands than the 
one I intend to recommend. This close wirework, although it looks 
well, proves a nuisance when the plants have first to be placed on 
them.—N. G. 
(To be cwt'nued.) 
At a general meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 
held last Tuesday, Major F. Mason in the chair, the following candidates 
were unanimously elected Fellows—viz,, Edward Crofton, Robert A. 
Dalyell, C.S.I., Charles Fielding, 0. T. Hodges, Henry Holmes, William 
Brittain Jones, Miss C. S. Morison, John C. Sanderson, John Scott, jun., 
S. J. Smith, Robert George Veasey, Mrs. William Wright. In addition 
to the above (69) corresponding members were elected. 
- Recent weather changes have been somewhat remarkable. 
Last Friday the thermometer registered 78° in the shade at Greenwich 
Observatory and 131° in the sun ; four days afterwards we read of snow 
in Cumberland. The mean temperature of the air last week at Greenwich 
was 55‘2°, or 5 - 5° above the average of the corresponding week of the 
twenty years ending 1868. The weather yesterday (Wednesday) was 
cold and showery in London. 
-Spring Strawberries.—M r. J. Muir writes “ Up to this time 
we have had three sorts in fruit. The first to ripen was Black Prince, the 
next Keens’ Seedling, and the third James Veitch. Of the three Black 
Prince is our favourite, as it fruits more freely than any of them, is of a 
good size, and peculiarly pleasing in flavour. Keens’ Seedling is also pro¬ 
lific and fine in flavour, but not so rich in colour. James Veitch is the 
most handsome, producing fruit of great size, but very few of them com¬ 
pared with the others, and it is not a sort I would grow for profit.” 
- An Essex correspondent sends us a stem of a Tulip bearing 
three flowers, which is evidently due to fasciation, the flower stalks 
being separate at the upper part and two of them furnished with leaves. 
At the lower portion the stems are consolidated into one. A combination 
of two flowers in this way is sometimes seen, but the fasciation of three is 
seldom seen. 
- The preliminary reports of the Horticultural^Congbess at 
Paris this year (May Ilth-16th) have just reached us. They comprise 
contributions by Mr. A. F. Barron, and M.M. Hediard, Godefroy-Lebeuf, 
Georges Bellair, Thierry, E. Roze, Van den Heede, A. Eleu, J. Dybowski, 
A. Chargueraud, Charles de Bosschere, and several others on a variety of 
subjects to be submitted to the Congress for discussion. 
-Messrs. J. Carter & Co have now a good display of 
Cinerarias at their Forest Hill Nurseries, considerable space 
being devoted to these popular plants for yielding seed. For severs 
years great care has been exercised in improving th strain of CinerariaSi 
and numbers of very bright colours have now beenjobtained, the blooms 
also of good size and substance. All who have greenhouses or conser¬ 
vatories know the value of these plants quite well, their richly coloured 
flowers being most welcome when the scarcity of other floral attractions is 
rather too marked. 
- “ B. D.” writes :—“ I have Odontoglossum Rossii producing a 
large pod of seed. 0. Pescatorei, O. tripudians, and the Dendrobium 
nobile, with numerous other plants, were in bloom inj the same house at 
the same time as 0. Rossii. I think 0. tripudians was gone too far to give 
pollen. Consequently of the large variety of flowers on fine days bees 
were attracted into the house in large numbers, so I conclude the bees 
must havj fertilised the flower in question. Several gardeners have seen 
the plant, but they are like myself, do not know if O. Rossii oftenjyields 
seed in this country. I shall be greatly obliged if some reader of the 
Journal could inform me whether it is a general occurrence for 0. Rostii 
to yield seed so freely, also if it is worth trying to ripen ; if so, the best 
treatment that will suit the plant in order to get the seed propeily 
ripened.” 
- “D., Deal ,” writes :—“ Woe is me 1 Shall I be prosecuted for 
libel, or will the Mayor write to The Times and show me up as a slanderer ? 
I wrote on Mr. Geo. Mount’s Nursery, ‘ a city so abounding in 
churches,’ which somehow or other got transformed into ‘ a city so abound¬ 
ing in smoke.’ My poor dear Canterbury! than which there are fewer 
places that have so strong a hold on my affections. To say it abounded 
in smoke when it is guiltless, I believe, of even one factory ! There are 
