232 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ October, 
'parahle. All kinds of Plums have been a complete failure, that great bearer in 
most years, the Victoria^ having only very thin crops even in the most sheltered 
situations. Of Cherries, although I never saw the bloom more abundant, only 
the May Diilce and Morellos on the walls produced crops. 
There is not the least doubt but that by the selection of free-bearing hard}’- 
fruit-trees in planting new orchards and waste grounds, the production of fruit 
in this country might be doubled, and a check put to the importation of so much 
hardy fruit from abroad to our markets. Of course, in unfavourable seasons like 
the present, the foreigners, from their better climate, would always have the advan¬ 
tage of our growers, and the higher prices given them for fruit would compensate 
them for the carriage ; but in plentiful fruit years here, this will not be the case. 
If new orchards planted with the free-bearing sorts of Apples, Pears, and Plums 
were attached to farms that had only old, unproductive ones, and all waste 
grounds and even hedge-rows, were planted in places out of the reach of the million, 
what quantities of fruit might be grown, and then the markets might be sup¬ 
plied at a cheap rate. 
The best-cropped small orchard I have seen this year was where there had 
been a quarry, and the debris of the magnesian limestone surface had been placed 
in it to fill it up. The tenant, an industrious man, had harrowed and carted all 
the road-scrapings within his reach to plant the trees in, and they had seldom 
missed bearing fine fruit. 
Of small hardy bush-fruit, such as Gooseberries, Currants, and Easpberries, 
there might be greater quantities grown in odd corners, in gardens and orchards, 
and in waste places. That delicious and wholesome fruit, the Strawberry, seems 
to be increasing in its more extended cultivation, and every large town and city 
will yet come to have its strawberry farms or gardens.— William Tillery, 
Welhech. 
CURMERIA WALLISII. 
4^r. bull describes this new stove aroid, which he has introduced from 
the United States of Colombia, through Mr. Wallis, as a dwarf-growing 
plant of distinct aspect and ornamental in character. It has spreading 
short-stalked leaves, which are of an ovate-oblong form, entire, slightly 
oblique, rounded at the base, and having an acute point. They are marked with 
very irregular dark velvety-green maculations, some running out from the green 
midrib, and others situated near the margin. The intervening spaces are fur¬ 
nished withbroadish map-like patches of very pale yellowish green, which, in the 
more matured leaves, becomes a greenish grey. Towards the extreme edge, which 
is white, the pale blotches are intermingled wuth small white spots. Though the 
markings, as will be seen from Mr. Bull’s figure annexed, arc very irregular, the 
colours are about equally distributed, bpth as to the size and power of the 
blotches, and being of moderate growth, the plant is one which may very well 
find a way into collections of ornamental-leaved subjects. The spike is shortly- 
