294 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 27,1894. 
- The Towers, Rainhill.—I have been much interested in 
the account of the gardens at The Towers, Rainhill, which appeared in 
your issue of the 13th inst. (page 246), in which Mr. E. Blythian is 
eulogised as a single-handed gardener, and very justly too. It is 
wonderful what amount of time is taken up by the routine of gardening 
if a place is kept really tidy so as to give pleasure to the employers. 
May I ask your correspondent “ R. P. R.,” whose Liverpool notes I am 
always very much interested in, what is the area of the kitchen and 
fruit and flower gardens, and the number and size of the plant houses 
under Mr. Blythian’s care, and if he is not allowed some assistance 1 
No one is more aware than myself that the difference between gardeners 
and gardeners is astounding, but there is a limit to bodily strength, 
beyond which enthusiasm will not carry a man.—U. T. T. 
- Root-Pruning. —When at Coombe Court recently, Mr. Spring- 
thorpe drew my attention to a large number, probably some sixty to 
eighty, of fine bush Pear, Apple, and Plum trees, growing on either side 
of several kitchen garden walks. These were on the average 8 feet in 
height, and nearly as much through. Many were fruiting well, and 
almost every one doing well. They had been planted some twelve years, 
and now have huge massive stems. All these had become demoralised 
with strong coarse growth, and rarely fruited. Determined to kill or 
cure, Mr. Springthorpe last winter opened trenches around each tree 
some 3 feet from the stem, removed the soil from over the roots, 
literally threw them on to their sides, and cut off all vertical roots, then 
replaced them in position. The result has been a remarkable success, 
though some thanks are due to the season. Coarse growth is now 
checked, and an era of fruitfulness has set in. A lot of standard 
Blenheim Pippins served the same way had never fruited, but are in a 
fair way to do so in a year or two now.—A. D. 
- Conifers on Lawns. —I am sending with this a small land¬ 
scape photo, a peep of a portion of our lawn. The central tree is a fine 
specimen of Abies Nordmanniana, a remarkably good variety, and is 
about 35 feet high, feathered to the base. This tree, with others seen 
in the background, form the boundary of the Conifer ground, planted 
some fifteen years since by the late Robert Thornton, Esq. Some of the 
trees are beginning to attain interesting proportions, and comprise most 
of the choice varieties, such as Abies Engelmani glauca, A. Hookeriana, 
A. lasiocarpa concolor, and A. Veitchi. Pinus and Thuia are well 
represented in many different forms and varieties, as are Retinosporas, 
Juniperus, and Arthrotaxus, I am sending these few notes thinking it 
may interest your numerous readers to know what may be done in a 
few years, and this on a thin heavy loamy soil, with very heavy clay 
underlying.— Chas Hopkins. [We are obliged to our correspondent 
for the small photograph, which admirably pourtrays the fine specimen 
referred to above, but is scarcely suitable for reproduction.] 
- Lilium Harrisi. —This is truly a beautiful plant, of easy 
cultivation, and has become exceedingly popular .since its introduction 
a few years ago. I do not know whether it is generally known that it 
can be flowered twice the same year. I ordered a dozen bulbs last 
autumn, and treated them similarly to the advice given by your 
correspondent, Mr. Hedley Warren (page 253). In due time they sent 
up some strong stems, which flowered beautifully about Easter. After 
flowering I noticed the bulbs began to grow again, and sent up two and 
three stems about 18 inches high, each producing two or three flowers, 
and are at the present time looking very gay dotted about among other 
plants in the conservatory. Two gardeners calling on me a short time 
ago, remarked, “ Those Lilies ought to have flowered at Easter.” I 
answered, “ So they did, this is the second time of flowering;” which 
greatly surprised them. Perhaps some of your readers can say whether 
this is common with L. Harrifi or not, and whether it will have any 
detrimental effect on the bulbs next year.— R. Morse, Berhdey Home 
Gardens, Frome. 
- Coloured Potatoes. —As 1 have never shared in the prejudice 
which exists in many ways against coloured-skinned Potatoes, I never 
could understand it, but I rather think the prejudice is held, like 
to most others, that it is of no use having bias unless it is down¬ 
right deeply indulged in. Now an eye-opener to some persons was 
furnished the other day in connection with a trial of Potatoes, conducted 
under exactly similar conditions—soil, space, seed, and chemical manures 
in every respect identical—and yet out of some forty varieties, including 
some of the known heaviest croppers of white sorts, a coloured variety, 
Reading Russet, came out at the top of the list for weight and cleanness 
of sample, such sorts as The Bruce, Reading Giant, Magnum Bonum, 
and Stourbridge Glory being beaten. Thus Reading Russet gave 69 lbs,. 
King of the Russets 67, The Bruce 63, Conference 60, and Reading 
Giant 58 lbs. I had no reason to suppose that the strong-growing 
whites had suffered more from frost than had the coloured sorts. All 
indeed suffered severely from the May frosts, with the effect no doubt 
of discounting fully one-third of what otherwise would have been the 
tuber crop. The result came as a surprise to me ; and yet I knew that 
Reading Russet—one of Mr. Fenn’s famous seedlings which Messrs. 
Sutton & Sons put into commerce, and still to-day by far the best red 
round we have—was a capital cropper. One good result of the National 
Potato Show, if it can be organised, would be to bring once more into 
their proper place these fine coloured sorts that merit high praise< 
Reading Russet is a capital cooker, and King of the Russets is a long 
way preferable to Adirondack.—A. D. 
-The Crystal Palace Fruit Show and Conferences.— 
The Great Fruit Show to be held by the Royal Horticultural Society 
at the Crystal Palace, on September 29th and October Ist and 2nd, 
promises to be a very large one. It may be as well to remind exhibitors 
that they may begin staging their fruit at 6 A.M. on the 29th inst., and 
must have completed by 11 A.M., at which hour the judges will meet 
the Assistant-Secretary, Mr. J. Weathers, at the Royal Horticultural 
Society’s temporary offices, opposite the Egyptian Court, to receive 
instructions. The gardeners’ luncheon will take place in the Garden 
Hall, on the left hand side of the great clock, at 1.30 p.m. punctually, 
and a large attendance is anticipated. On Saturday, at 3.30 P.M., in 
the Garden Hall, a paper on “ Fruit Growing in Small Gardens,” pre¬ 
pared by the Rev, W. Wilks, Vicar of Shirley, and Secretary of the 
Society, and by Mr. George Bunyard, F.R.H.S., of Maidstone, will be 
read ; on Monday, at the same time and place, one on “ Fruit Growing 
on a Large Scale,” by Mr. C. Wise, F.S.I., F.R.H.S., manager of the 
fruit farms established by Lord Sudeley ; and on Tuesday, on “ Packing 
and Marketing Fruit,” by Mr. George Monro, F.R.H S., of Covent 
Garden Market, 
- Cereus Pecten-aboriginum, —A recent issue of the American 
“Garden and Forest” contains an excellent illustration of this little 
known Cereus, which is a tree 20 to 30 feet in height, with a trunk a 
foot or more in diameter, divided into numerous erect ten or eleven 
ribbed branches armed with stout, straight, ash-coloured spines tipped 
with black. The flowers, which are produced at the top of the branches, 
are 2 or 3 inches long, with purple succulent sepals, fleshy white 
petals and a hirsute ovary; The fruit is dry and globose, 2J to 3 inches 
in diameter, and covered with “ pulvinate densely hairy areolas, which 
are for the most part beset with stiff setaceous unequal yellowish 
spines.” The Indians of Sonora grind the seeds (as they do those of 
many other species of Cactus) and mix them with their meal, and use 
the bristly covering of the fi nit as hair-brushes. The existence of this 
species was first made known by Dr. Palmer’s discovery in 1869 of 
these brushes in the hands of the Papago Indians at Hermosillo, in 
Sonora, although it was not until 1868 that he found the plant that had 
produced them. So far as we have been able to learn, this interesting 
plant is not in cultivation, although the author of the species suggested 
that it may be identical with the Cereus macrogonus of Salm-Dyck, of 
unknown origin, which has been in gardens since before 1850. 
- Veitch’s Climbing French Bean.—O n page 273 “A. D.” 
contributes an interesting note on Runner Beans, in which he refers to 
the fine cropping qualities of the climbing sports from Canadian 
Wonder. The note recalls to my mind the grand rows of this type 
which have for years been grown by Mr, H, W. Ward in the gardens at 
Longford Castle, Salisbury. During the six years that I served in the 
capacity of foreman there these climbing French Beans unfailingly pro¬ 
duced prodigious crops, frequently attaining a height of 7 feet, and 
yielding remarkably fine pods from the middle of July till cut down by 
frost, in fact they were often as prolific in October as in August. Mr. 
Ward was, I believe, the first to select and grow Canadian Wonder 
as a Runner Bean, certain it is that years before any Bean of this type 
was put in commerce it was regularly grown at Longford. Mr. Ward s 
stock w’as last year secured by Messrs. Robert Veitch & Son of Exeter, 
who, in conjunction with the Chelsea firm, have this year sent it out 
under the name of Veitch’s Climbing French Bean. Several fine rows 
of the variety growing in the gardens at Longford Castle are at the 
present time worth seeing, and notwithstanding the assertion of “ A. D.” 
“ That not an atom of difference could be seen between Sutton’s Tender 
and True and Veitch’s Climbing French Bean as seen growing side by 
side at Reading,” I emphatically maintain that those who will take the 
trouble to grow the two varieties side by side themselves will find the 
latter taller and more uniformly late than the former.— H. Dunkin. 
