266 
THE FLORIST. 
in stalk, and polished as sealing-wax; fine large polished leaf, the out¬ 
side petals delicate pink, and the centre intense brilliant rosy carmine. 
This is the greatest beauty I have. If not Bedeau, it may be Inermis. 
NOTES ON THE MONTH. 
One of the hottest summers on record has passed away and no very 
great diminution of temperature has occurred thus far in August; but 
within this last fortnight heavy thunder-storms have swept over the 
country and a great depth of rain has fallen, which will prove of incal¬ 
culable benefit to pastures and root crops, both of which were suffering 
from the heat and drought, and as the latter are every year becoming 
a more important feature in the rotation of farm crops, their failure 
entails a serious loss of stock food during winter and spring; the 
copious rains which have fallen of late, and which we believe have done 
no appreciable damage to the grain crops, will place the root crops safe 
for the season, but great complaints have reached us of the ravages 
committed by the “ fly” early in the season, and Turnips have in many 
instances to be substituted for Swedes. 
The Potato crop has been again attacked more or less intensely with 
the disease, which we observe does not altogether confine itself to that 
plant. Nothing that I have seen or heard appears to throw any light 
on this destrucrive agent likely to prove available as a preventive. In 
some instances I observe the tubers become decayed previous to the 
tops ; in the greater number of cases, however, the haulm is attacked 
first, and occasionally will have died down with a crop of sound tubers 
below, merely smaller than usual, from the growth of the plant being 
arrested before the tubers had attained a full size. In this neighbour¬ 
hood the crops this season, on dry sandy soils, appear to suffer the 
worst, while on heavy calcareous loams they are still growing. In the 
first years of the disease the highest authorities pronounced rich soils 
and manures to be injurious ; experience, however, teaches me that on a 
tolerably heavy loam, enriched with manure, the best crops are 
obtained ; on poor soils the plant seems to suffer from want of vigour, 
and when attacked succumbs at once and dies away, leaving a crop of 
very small tubers, whereas, when the plants have more vigour, they 
partially resist the disease and are enabled to perfect a crop of much 
larger tubers. As a considerable grower of this root, I am decidedly 
against the starving system of Potato culture. 
Flower-gardens have been unusually brilliant this summer, but I 
notice that many are already in a state of decline, owing to the forcing 
weather of June and July having well nigh exhausted the blooming 
powers of many plants, and the late rains have thrown a number of 
things into luxuriant growth, which may prevent their blooming freely 
again for the remainder of the season. One word of advice to the 
amateur as regards propagation. Geraniums of all kinds should be 
struck in the autumn pretty early, to get their wood ripened before 
