May 19,1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
393 
other items, and if Mr. Molyneux had occupied my situation instead of 
Swanmore he'might have had a much larger per-eentage than the 25 per 
cent, of failures (which I am informed on good authority he does not 
house even) out of the 1000 plants which he grows for large flowers. 
It is not easy to comprehend how Mr. Molyneux's friend could fairly 
estimate the quality of our flowers, taking into consideration the fact 
that, besides continually cutting the best for house decoration and other 
purposes, he did not see the remainder for a fortnight after they were 
at their best; and even if they were what is represented, I have yet to 
learn that only first prizewinners at Kingston are the qualified judges 
of the system best adapted to obtain the best results in the West Riding 
of York. Nor does Mr. Molyneux’s reference to my flowers prove a 
tenth part of a point in his favour, because about oue-half of them were 
grown after his system side by side with the other half, and this 1 con¬ 
tend is as true a test of the two systems as any other. 
Mr. Molyneux says nothing about Mr. Ireland’s plants, but professes 
to be sceptical as to the evidence which I adduced in reference to the 
flowers exhibited by Mr. Midgley at Huddersfield. I retract nothing 
which I have written about them, although Mr. Molyneux manages to 
misconstrue what I wrote. I never said that all Mr. Midgley’s plants 
were grown on the topping system. However, as only first prize reconls 
are considered to be trustworthy evidence I have no alternative but 
quoting the records of a Yorkshire gardener. The reason why I did 
not do so in my previous rejoinder was because I know that comparisons 
are odious. Mr. Molyneux, however, seems to have no compunction in 
so trifling a matter as this. I shall mention no names in this com¬ 
parison, but will refer Mr. Molyneux to Mr. AVright, who officiated as 
a judge at several of the exhibitions in this record. This Yorkshire 
gardener exhibited at Stoke Newington the first time in the j ear 1882, 
when he obtained a second prize with blooms cut from plants unstopped 
on Mr. Molyneux’s system. In 1883 he adopted the topping system, and 
although he never grew more than 120 plants per year of incurved 
varieties, the following first prize record is the result, all the flowers 
being cut from topped plants. In this year, 1883, he again exhibited 
at Stoke Newington, and he won first prize for twenty-four varieties 
incurved, and first prize for twelve varieties incurved, these blooms 
having travelled from Yorkshire, and stood for two days and two 
nights exposurc'to the heat, dust, and gas of the Stoke Newington Show. 
A stand of twelve blooms were selected from them and exhibited at the 
Westminster Aquarium, and in a competition of sixteen competitors won 
first honours again. The following week we hear of the same exhibitor 
at Lincoln Show taking first honours for stands of twenty-four and 
twelve varieties incurved, and also the award for the premier bloom of 
the exhibition. In the year 1884 this exhibitor was again to the fore 
at Stoke Newington as the winner of the silver cup for the best twenty- 
four blooms in the exhibition. In 1885 Mr. Molyneux would have had 
a closer acquaintance at Kingston with this exhibitor, but owing to tbe 
lateness of the season the Yorkshire grower was unable to get his flowers 
in for that Show. However, he exhibited later on at Burton-on-Trent, 
and there also secured his first honours for two stands. The same 
flowers, after doing duty for two days, were transferred to an exhibition 
which was being held in the town where they were grown, not for com¬ 
petition, but reference was made to them by the Journal of Horticulture, 
which spoke of them as the “best incurved flowers of the Show,’’ and 
they were highly commended. At this Show there were other exhi¬ 
bitors who grew their plants on the non-stopping system, one whose 
name stands high as an exhibitor at Liverpool, but had removed from 
there to a more unfavourable situation, and another, a friend and 
disciple of Mr. Molyneux, resident in the same town, who also ex¬ 
hibited at other places, such as York, Leicester, Huddersfield, and 
Chesterfield, and always, with one exception, unsuccessfully. At all 
these places, with the exception of Huddersfield, and it was not there 
that he won, the competition against him was light compared with 
that which the “topper” had to scale at Stoke Newington and the 
Aquarium. This is no “ pen and ink theory,” but a record of facts 
which can be verified by reference to authentic sources. If because Mr. 
Midgley did not win first honours with his incurved flowers at Hudders¬ 
field, Mr. Molyneux claims as a point in favour, how many points will 
your readers award to my score, sufficient, at least, to justify me asking 
for the co-operation of Yorkshire growers by recording their experience 
and observations, as by that means successful Chrysanthemum growing 
might, and can be, reduced to practice. 
Mr. Molyneux professes to have no knowledge of bud complications 
and as if that settled the controversy as to there being none, tells me 
that he hopes I am satisfied on that point. I am not satisfied, because 
it is no answer. What are all those buds which show previous and up 
to the end of May, and again in July, but “ bud ” complications? which, 
on the lines laid down in my paper, clearly shows that they so upset the 
fundamental principles upon which the Chrysanthemum makes it 
growth, as to make it a matter of uncertainty (where they occur) as to 
the time those “ buds show ” which are really wanted. Instead of 
answering the question which I put in reference to July buds on Meg 
Merrilics, Bonle d’Or, Princess Tcck, Ac., Mr. Molyneux is very bold in 
assertion, but shrinks back under the cover of what they do generally. 
If the above varieties, and others of slow-growing gross habit do not 
generally show July buds, this is a fact I knew before Mr. Molyneux 
told us so, but it does not prove that they may not be subject to bud 
complications in the earlier stages, as applied to the other varieties 
mentioned by Mr. Molyneux which are of quicker growth than the 
former, and both sections alike may be thus subject to the consequences 
of these complications. Of course a few hundred wasters may be of 
little consequence to large growers where neither time nor expense is 
considered. I took to Leeds, on the occcasion of reading my paper there, 
a quantity of Chrysanthemum stems to illustrate my meaning respecting 
bud complications, and which fully demonstrated and proved to be true 
all I have said and written on the subject. If as good flowers can be 
grown on topped plants as upon untopped ones, and if the evidence 
which I have brought forward is worth anything, it proves that such 
can be done. \\ hen the system is reduced to practice on the lines 
indicated in my paper (vide page Iti(i) by the co-operation of those 
growers to whom it was addressed, they will then confer a boon on 
themselves in many ways, which is unnecessary to recapitulate here, as 
the most important ones are both clearly and fully expressed in my 
paper. 
Mr. Molyneux’s reply re Belle Paule helps him very little, because it 
cuts both ways. If climatic influences played such havoc with this 
variety, Mr. Molyneux docs not show when this climatic influence 
occurred, nor how the same havoc was not played amongst Chrysan¬ 
themums generally, seeing that he frames all his arguments in general 
terms, and also that he is neither clear as to the evidence which he 
adduces in reference to the treatment nor the conditions of the plants 
where they did fail. To quote his own words, “ I cannot admit that he 
has proved me to be wrong.” Now that he has rivetted Mr. Bunn to 
the exhibition board there is no need to further disturb it. Mr. Moly¬ 
neux’s repudiation of any knowledge of bud complication makes it 
unnecessary to again refer to this question in your columns, but I hope 
to have another opportunity of appealing to the gardeners to whom my 
paper was addressed in the first instance, when by such evidence as I 
shall be able to bring forward, put parallel with my copies of this con¬ 
troversy, when I shall show that whatever Mr. Molyneux’s experience 
has been in this matter, in the West Riding of York the bud compli¬ 
cations are the chief factors in our failures in the cultivation of the 
Chrysanthemum.—T. Garnett. 
BABBITS AND ASPARAGUS—STOCKDOVES. 
Some weeks ago a correspondent asked if rabbits eat Asparagus. 
I have not the number by me to refer to, but I do not remember having 
seen it answered. I am always pleased to see gardening matters sand¬ 
wiched with notes on natural history, and should like to see notes 
oftener on birds or animals intimately connected with the garden. As 
I happen to have both wiki rabbits and Asparagus in close proximity, I 
can safely say that rabbits have not interfered with mine. A nest was 
made a few weeks ago within a couple of feet of an Asparagus bed, and 
in due course the young ran, and some are still about the garden—the 
cats of the neighbourhood having had their share. They nibble almost 
everything besides Asparagus. Neither did the mother touch it at night 
when she suckled the young, although there was plenty of good “ grass ” 
handy. I was interested in the note of “ Wiltshire Rector,” page 382, on 
stockdoves, and glad to see he has not forsaken us. As I cultivate—if 1 
may use the word—stockdoves as well as rabbits, it may be of interest 
to “ W. R.” to know that I have succeeded in inducing them to breed 
in a little house—built for a model from which the house of a friend 
was built—placed up in a tree in the fields. Three pairs were reared in 
it in 1835, one bird of which I have in confinement, but it has always 
been very wild. The first nest this season only produced one young 
bird, which died from the cold, like many more of different species.— 
J. Hiam. 
THE ORIGIN OF THE EDGED AURICULA. 
[A. paper read at the Horticultural Club, May 10th, by Mr. Shirley Hibberd.] 
On the 21st of April, 1886, it was my privilege, in discharge of an 
honourable duty, to address the Primula Conference on the “ Origin of 
the Florists’ Auricula.” The horticultural philosophers meeting here 
with the intent to mix wisdom with good cheer, having desired me to 
submit a thesis worthy of their solemn consideration, I have elected to 
discourse briefly on the same subject, but in the endeavour to treat it 
philosophically, sufficient for the present, perhaps, having been said 
upon the history of the flower. 
In my paper on the history of the flower I have presented a series of 
evidences tending to the conclusion that the florists’ Auricula is of pure 
descent from the wild Auricula of the Alps, the Primula Auricula of 
the botanists. By the same method I have assigned the origin of the 
Alpine Auricula to the supposed hybrid Primula pubescens, and this, 
taken at the valuation of Professor Kerner, carries us back to P. Auricula 
and P. hirsuta, its reputed parents. Seeing that we cannot prove every 
proposition, and must allow opinions to have weight, I feel bound to 
say that although my proposals were warmly debated they were not 
less warmly accepted by not a few, even of those who in the first in¬ 
stance disputed them. Not to make a catalogue of names, it shall suffice 
now to say that Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. J. G. Baker, and the Rev. F. D. 
Horner concur in my view of the parentage of our two great sections 
of garden Auriculas. It is no part of my plan on this occasion to enter 
further into that matter. 
Approaching the question in a philosophical frame of mind, I must 
beg of you to note that 1 have carried back the history of the edged 
Auricula to the year 1734, and at that point the edge appears historically 
to melt into a series of stripes, for anterior to this date stripes were in 
favour and edges were unheard of. The first edged flower we hear of 
was called “Honour and Glory,” as though Fate had emerged from the 
abstract to the actual in order to have a hand in providing a name for 
