October 31, 1889. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
383 
with “ The Health of the Chairman,” proposed in his usual felicitous 
manner, and Mr. Sherwood acknowledged the compliments in fitting 
terms, mentioning that Mr. E. R. Cutler, the veteran Secretary of the 
Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution, had been requested to take the 
chair next year. 
Mr. Hudson proposed “ The Honorary and Life Members,” to which 
Mr. William Paul replied in an interesting discourse upon the difficulties 
of gardeners and the progress of recent years. 
Mr. R. Dean performed the task of thanking the Trustees, duly 
acknowledged by Mr. J. Wheeler. “The Health of the Secretary,” 
Mr. W. Collins, was honoured in the same way, and with various other 
toasts, including the hearty thanks of all present to those who had con¬ 
tributed flowers and fruit so liberally for the decoration of the table, an 
agreeable evening was brought to a close. It may be added that the 
tables were most tastefully decorated under the supervision of Mr. 
Chard, and some elegant bouquets were presented to the lady vocalists 
and Mrs. Cutler. 
I WAS told the other day that this variety is capable under good 
treatment of making shoots 16 feet or more in length during the season, 
and that it will break from the eyes along such shoots and flower freely. 
Is this its character? Is it a free bloomer? On what stock does it 
appear to do best? The experience of those who have grown it during 
the past season, with some details of its behaviour, would prove 
invaluable to many readers besides myself. 
ROSES FOR CHRISTMAS. 
For flowering at Christmas I have not yet been able to select a 
variety that will supplant either Safrano or Isabella Sprunt. They are 
both profuse flowerers, good growers, and bear early forcing without 
much injury. Plants intended for this purpose should have been 
pruned and in a liberally ventilated position ; indeed, if exposed to 
the recent frosts all the better. By the time this appears in print the 
house or pit in which they are to be forced should be closed. If the 
Roses are planted out in a permanent bed the soil should be top-dressed 
with rich material and then thoroughly soaked with tepid water. Keep 
the ventilators closed and maintain a night temperature of 50°. If the 
plants are grown in pots keep them in a similar temperature until they 
display signs of moving. In this stage they can be transferred to a 
house or pit in which a gentle hotbed has been formed of Oak or Beech 
leaves. The gentle heat from these will be ample to excite them into 
growth. If aphides have existed upon the plants, the house in which 
they are grown or to be forced should be thoroughly fumigated with 
tobacco smoke. All traces of these insects should be eradicated before 
the plants start into growth. The tender foliage of Roses is easily 
injured by tobacco smoke ; in fact, the quantity necessary to destroy 
green fly will frequently injure their tender foliage during winter and 
early spring. 
ROSES FOR NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. 
As a rule useful flowers for cutting during these months are not so 
plentiful as during the early months of the year. All outside flowers 
are over by the end of October, and without special provision there is a 
break duringthe two following months. The old Souvenir de la Malmaison 
is suitable for flowering from the middle of October until nearly the end 
of the following month. For this purpose the plants should be grown 
in pots outside and housed early in October. It is necessary to give 
them a temperature of 50° to 65°, in which they open their flowers 
freely. Naturally this variety flowers freely in autumn, and can with 
a little care be as well grown in pots for this purpose as when planted 
in beds and borders outside. Plants on their own roots should be potted 
at the present time, and given a little more root room than would be 
necessary for H.P.’s, or the plants can be placed into larger pots towards 
the end of June or early in July. If unduly confined at their roots 
they discontinue growing and fail to start freely from the base. One 
good shoot from the bottom will produce a dozen or more blooms. It 
likes a lighter soil than is good for H.P.’s ; in fact, a compost that is 
suitable for Tea varieties will suit it well. It does well in good loam, 
moderately light, to which is added one-third of leaf mould and one- 
seventh of decayed manure. When plants are grown specially for 
autumn flowering they must have through spring and summer as nearly 
natural treatment as possible. Protection in frames from severe frost 
only is needed, and if pruned towards the end of March and plunged 
outside they will flower profusely in autumn. In pruning cut them 
hard back. The first blooms may not be so plentiful as if they 
were not pruned hard, but it induces them to push strongly from the 
base, and considerably more flowers in autumn will result. 
To follow this variety it would be impossible to select two more suit¬ 
able than those advised for flowering at Christmas. Young plants of 
Niphetos raised in spring or second season plants will flower freely 
enough during November if they are given liberal root room and 
encouraged to grow. As buds only can be expected during the declin¬ 
ing months of the year it is questionable if for quantity Safrano and 
Isabella Sprunt can be surpassed. For small glasses, buttonholes, and 
sprays these are very suitable. They root freely, and for this purpose 
plants struck in spring and grown on in pits throughout the summer, 
and then planted out in Cucumber or Melon houses towards the end of 
September are suitable, and will yield quantities of their choice delicate 
flower buds. Old Cucumber and Melon soil will do for them, with the 
addition of one-third leaf soil. They should be planted thickly together, 
and encouraged to grow by maintaining a gentle warmth about them 
from the time the night temperature shows signs of falling below 60°. 
MARECHAL NIEL IN WARM versus COOL HOUSES. 
For a long time we were under the impression that the stock upon 
which this variety was grown influenced the colour of the blooms in no 
small degree ; but when the colour of the flowers differed widely from 
those of plants on their own roots we were compelled to modify this 
opinion, and look to other causes than the stock. The position in which 
the plants are grown and the temperature of the house has more to do 
with the colour of the flowers than the stock. Plants that are grown 
almost naturally in the greenhouse are much paler in colour, as a rule,, 
than those that are grown in a warm structure. For the production of 
highly coloured flowers the plants should be assisted by gentle heat 
to make and complete their growth as early in the season as possible, so 
that the wood will become hard and firm. Wood of moderate strength 
that is brown and thoroughly matured will produce flowers of a large 
size and good colour, while strong unripened wood will produce those of 
the very palest colour. Plants that were cut back after flowering and 
given greenhouse treatment only are still growing vigorously. Some of 
the shoots are strong, soft, and unripened. Although some of them are 
20 feet or more in length they have not that firmness about them that 
one would desire for yielding the finest type of blooms. Plants in 
various gardens that have come under my notice vary largely, both in 
the colour and size of their blooms ; but I have invariably noticed that 
those which have a somewhat stunted appearance, and make firm, 
short-jointed, hard wood of moderate strength yield large well-coloured 
flowers. These plants are, as a rule, liberally supplied with liquid, 
manure, and very rarely die from canker. A plant on its own roots 
in a cool house, a portion of the growth being trained near the 
top on the back wall of a vinery, is a striking illustration of what 
warmth will do towards ripening the wood and influencing the size and 
colour of the flowers. The flowers produced from that portion in the 
cool house are pale in colour and small in comparison to those from the 
portion in the vineiy. Experience and observation have led me to the 
conclusion that if Marechal Niel were assisted by warmth to make 
an early growth and ripen it thoroughly the results would be more 
satisfactory in many gardens than they are at the present time, 
—Northerner. 
AN INCONSOLABLE JACKDAW. 
We have a handsome and intelligent Jackdaw. It was taken from 
the nest last spring and given to my youngest girl, who is immediately 
in touch with living Nature. When absent during school terms the 
Jackdaw is cared for by the cook, a young woman of gentle and ju3t 
disposition, to whom the bird attached itself strongly. Last week she 
left to be married. She had grown so fond of the jackdaw meantime 
that she would willingly have taken him away with her, but then its 
own young mistress mentioned her pet in every letter, imploring that 
he might be kept. Jack is not so popular generally as with my daughter 
and cook. On the morning of the day (last Monday) that cook left, 
after she had gone I went into my bedroom on the ground floor with 
broad stone s'abs and round bay window ; there sat Jack. I spoke to him, 
no reply. He does say a great deal usually in jackdaw croaks, and even 
tells us “ Jack talks,” “ Come along,” &c., but he made neither sign nor 
sound, and in a minute or two flew on to a low close-clipped Yew hedge, 
where in happier days he used to saunter about in the sun. Evidently 
he could not bear to be sympathised with, and soon disappeared altogether, 
getting into some higher shelter in another part of the garden lonely 
and silent. All day he remained there, resisting every attempt to have 
him down, and he spent the night out of doors in a still higher tree. 
So for twenty-four hours he remained without food. 
Next morning he was got down, put into his wicker, and well fed, but 
imprisoned for a day or two. Then his wings were cut, he was released, 
his bath was prepared for him as usual He began to seem more himself, 
talks a little, and follows me as he always does closely about the garden, 
with all a jackdaw’s quaint curiosity.—A. M. B. 
THE SOURCES OF THE NITROGEN OF VEGETATION. 
No problem relating to the nutrition of plants has given rise to so 
much discussion as that of the source of their nitrogen and the methods 
of its assimilation. It is obviously bo^h a matter of the highest scientific 
interest, and also, owing to the high price of combined nitrogen in 
manures and the comparative ease with which it is washed out of the 
soil in the form of nitrates, one of great practical importance to the 
agriculturist and the community. 
Ever since the discovery of the composition of atmospheric air by 
Priestley, Scheele, and Lavoisier, the question as to whether plants were 
able to absorb and utilise free nitrogen has attracted much attention. 
