October 17,1889. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
335 
upon trees in the Rio Janeiro province, at an elevation of 2000 feet 
or more. L. prae3tans came from Santa Catherina, but is not so 
well known in cultivation as L. Dayana. The variety alba was 
sent to Mr. Bull in June, 1338, probably from the same locality. 
Another notable Orchid was exhibited on the same occasion as 
those above named— i.e., Cypripedium picturatum (fig. 41) from Sir 
Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M P., and it also was awarded a first-class 
certificate. In shape and general characters the flower is suggestive 
of C. Spicerianum, especially in the dorsal sepal, which is white 
with green and purple veins, the central vein being strongly 
marked exactly as in that species. The petals are greenish at the 
base with a few crimson dots, the margin undulated, with some 
scattered dark hairs, the even polished lip of a purplish hue, as 
also is the staminode. It is a peculiarly elegant flower, and a good 
addition to the list of hybrids.—L. Castle. 
CANKER AND ITS CURE. 
The word canker means a disease in animals and plants, and 
when it is seated deeply in the former its eradication is almost 
and sandy, or wet, retentive clay—often water-logged ; and as soon 
as the roots were removed into good surface soil disease disappeared. 
I beg to offer a few remarks from many notes taken from several 
districts in England and Scotland. When I was an underling in a 
first-rate Wiltshire garden there was a fine collection of hardy 
fruits—Apples and Pears especially—which evidently had been 
planted with much care ; but rich soil, which caused strong, watery 
growth, which was annually cut back to keep the trees to a given 
size, caused ulceration in the trunk and branches and cracked fruit, 
often small in crop. Cutting away the roots entirely underneath 
and inducing them to become fibry near the surface changed 
matters speedily, and had permission been granted I would have 
operated on all the trees on walls and in the orchards as well, as 
few were entirely free from canker. Taking another case into 
consideration, I was entrusted to renovate an old place in East 
Anglia where espaliers had at one time been nearly perfect but 
had gone wrong by deep rooting into wet clay and hard cutting out 
of young wood annually. The removal of downward going roots 
and the placing of plenty of broken bricks and lime rubbish under¬ 
neath and mulching on surface put an end to canker, and the 
wounds all healed. 
Some years after I removed to manage a good Scotch garden, 
Fig. 11.—CYPKIPEDIUM PICTURATUM. 
impossible. It is caused generally from want of proper food, living 
in an unwholesome atmosphere, or neglect of cleanliness: With 
plants its cause is from the same sources, and the removal of the 
evils which cause the disease, when not beyond recovery, soon tell 
most potently on the plant. Causes do not always lead directly 
to the same effects. There may be exceptions, but seldom do we 
find unhealthy plants sound at their roots ; and starvation, super¬ 
fluous supplies of food and moisture, and stagnation caused by bad 
drainage, are some of the evils most generally met with which 
■cause canker. Shrubs, trees, and pot plants of every description 
we have had under manipulation for canker, and have in every case 
seen the disease removed when natural laws, which had been 
violated, were righted. 
The many interesting articles on canker of fruit trees I have 
read have revived afresh a subject which has given me an experience 
of a mixed character. Since my earliest recollections of work 
associated with practical gardening, and in nearly every case where 
canker has occurred, it has been traceable to soil strongly impreg¬ 
nated with iron, or roots growing into unsuitable subsoil—inert 
where a clever predecessor had made strenuous efforts for' years to 
establish a good collection of hardy fruits, and he did so with much 
credit to himself, but the handsome trees being mostly dwarf 
bushes 6 feet in height, and the same in diameter, would persist in 
giving way to canker. They had been planted high on a great 
depth of maiden loam, which gave a clean growth and healthy 
foliage, but in the course of years the roots found their way down 
into a subsoil of inert soil, sandy, with traces of iron through it. 
The bottom roots were cleanly cut away, and a layer of brick and 
lime rubbish firmly rammed below, with good soil from the surface 
placed next the roots. The change in the trees and fruit as early 
as the first season was patent, and though some of the branches 
were almost eaten through with the disease they began to heal as 
soon as the roots supplied with nutriment from the healthy soil only, 
and these being cut off from the poisonous soil in which they had 
been some time embedded, changed the character of the fruit as 
well as wood and foliage. Pears, Plums, and Cherries were manipu¬ 
lated piecemeal, extending over a period of several years, and 
fruit became abundant. Passing over time and distance, we had 
