1875. ] 
CALANTHES AS DECORATIVE PLANTS. 
5 
out-of-doors in very warm summers. Hathaway’s Excelsior has a beautiful 
round fruit, full of juice, and is likewise very prolific with me on the open walls, 
as well as in-doors. The Large Red Italian is an excellent tall variety, and does 
well on the open walls. General Grant has a round fruit, smaller than that of 
Excelsior ; it grows in large clusters, and is very juicy, and excellent for making 
sauce with. Earley’s Defiance and Orangefield are excellent dwarf kinds for pot- 
culture ; they are likewise the earliest fruiting sorts out-of-doors. The New 
Early Dwarf Red, Powell’s Early, and Keye’s Early Prolific, are all of nearly the 
same type, and excellent for growing in pots, or for the bottoms of south walls. 
Both Earley’s Defiance and the Orangefield, if grown early and well hardened-off 
for planting out in May, will produce plenty of fruit on a south or warm border, 
if well staked and pinched-in. 
It is not necessary to manure the growing plants too highly, as it only makes 
them grow too much to foliage, and if planted on little mounds in the rows, it 
will check their luxuriance in wet summers. In favourable summers like the 
past the Tomato de Laye , an upright-growing variety, will ripen its large red 
fruit; but I never could do much with it in the climate of this Midland district. 
—William Tillery, Welbeck. 
%* We learn that Mr. Tillery also thinks very highly of Messrs. Carter’s new 
and very distinct Green Gage Tomato ; indeed, he attests that for juiciness and 
flavour it is superior to any of the above. Messrs. Carter, by whom it was raised 
from Hathaway’s Excelsior, state that it is very prolific, very early, and ripens 
well in our English climate. This variety received during the past autumn from 
the Fruit Committee a First-class Certificate ct for its singularly delicious flavour 
and distinct character.” The fruit is of medium size, round, perfectly smooth, 
and of a lemon-yellow colour tinged with rose. The flavour is distinct and very 
good. If the plant is amenable to pot-culture it will have its decorative value, 
in addition to its desirableness for general cultivation. 
CALANTHES AS DECORATIVE PLANTS. 
QjpHE winter-flowering species of Calanthe are exceedingly useful where a 
ASS' large quantity of cut flowers is required for decorative purposes during the 
f months of November and December, and they ought to be grown wherever 
there is a collection of stove plants. The cultivation is of the simplest 
description. I grow three bulbs in a 6-in. pot, as being the most convenient size, 
because as the Calanthes when in flower are devoid of foliage, these pots can be 
worked in amongst ferns or other foliage-plants. If large masses of flower are 
required, it is best to pot them in pans. Twenty-four bulbs may be potted in a 
12-in. pan. If a pot is used, the best for this purpose is one fitted with an in¬ 
genious contrivance invented by Mr. Dominy, of Messrs. Veitch’s Nursery, Chelsea, 
and which is made to fit into any ordinary pot by Mr. Mathews, of Weston-super- 
Mare. This consists of a concave piece of pottery, perforated with small holes, 
which, when placed in the pot, has the convex side uppermost, so that the 
bottom of the pot, usually filled with crocks, is merely empty space, 
