JUNE. 
181 
depends on heat, wet, and contiguity to the atmosphere, and that 
keeping the Potatoes dry in the ranks is the best way to stop its under¬ 
ground development, although it will not stop its existence ; that the 
disease being in the cellular tissue it will be a good thing to remove the 
set” as soon as the Potato is rooted up ; that those who try experi¬ 
ments should have a book, and put down everything that they do with 
nicety; that leaving out of their statements some one apparently trifling 
thing may seriously affect the correctness of their conclusions. 
In fine, let me hope that everybody will suggest and try some 
remedy, and that he who succeeds may receive a substantial testimonial 
of national gratitude. 
Rushton, W. F. Radclyffe, 
CHRISTMAS ROSES. 
Have any of your correspondents ever observed the partiality slugs 
have for the flower buds of Helleborus niger ? For years I have not 
been able to gather a perfect bloom, indeed hardly a bloom at all. 
Last year I thought to baffle them by potting my favourites and 
maturing them under glass, and accordingly did so early in September, 
just after the buds shewed themselves. I found, however, in November 
that most of them were disfigured by these pests, the mischief having 
been done immediately the calyx made its appearance. 
M. 
READING HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The first exhibition for the present season took place on the 23rd ult., 
on the site of the old Abbey. Special arrangement had been made in 
a portion of the inner ruins for the reception of plants, similar to that 
which has been so successfully carried out in the Regent’s Park. At 
Reading, a considerable space of ground is formed into a kind of amphi¬ 
theatre, formed with turf banks, round which the plants are staged 
on grass steps, gravel walks leading round or through the grass slope to 
examine and survey the plants, and a gigantic sheet of tenting covers 
the whole. Altogether, the effect, when filled with plants, was admir¬ 
able ; nor were there the inferior odds and ends generally got together 
to make up a local exhibition. We believe the artistic arrangement of 
the panel garden, with its turf banks and tables for the plants, is due to 
the good taste of G. W. Hoyle, Esq., to whom and his fellow-secretary, 
G. Lodge, Esq., are mainly due, not only the high character of the exhi¬ 
bition brought together for the occasion, but the very business-like and 
gentlemanly way in which the whole was managed. 
As an exhibition, our readers will draw their own inferences, when 
we tell them that Mr. May exhibited the unrivalled collection of stove 
and greenhouse plants which won, the day before, the highest honours 
