1875. ] 
NEW PRIMROSES. 
115 
improvements, I took to writing down and condemning this system of cutting 
raw edges to roads and walks. This had the almost immediate effect of doing 
away in great measure with the absurd custom, driving it, to a very great extent, into 
the corner of curiosities, and setting men’s minds on the improvement of edging- 
shears, with the result that very soon improved articles were introduced for our 
use, and these have since been very much further improved, especially in regard 
to lightness and convenience for expeditious and handy working. 
But after all, I have been somewhat surprised in my rambles during the last 
five or six years to see the old raw-edge system is still practised to a much 
greater extent than I was led to think, or imagine, could be the case ; and that, 
too, in places where one would not think it likely, in these days of improvement, 
neatness, and economy of labour, to meet such an ancient curiosity still in vogue. 
The greatly improved appearance which results from securing a nicely kept, 
evenly clipped green grass edging close down to the gravel, or other material of 
which the walks and roads may be made, instead of the old edging of raw 
earth, makes it all the more astonishing that we still in some places meet with 
this slovenly and dirty system. Surely it must be from lack of thought or 
observation.— James Barnes, Exmouth. 
NEW PRIMROSES. 
@ HE basket of the beautiful single mauve Primrose exhibited at the February 
meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, under the name of Primula 
¥ altaica (which, by the way, it is not), gave an agreeable foretaste of the 
exquisite pleasure afforded to all lovers of hardy flowers by a contemplation 
of some of the new varieties of Primroses which have been raised of late. For 
forty years past, if not longer, this pretty Primrose has been growing in an old 
rectory garden near Bristol, but how it originated no one knows. It is grown 
round London as P. altaica , but we cannot get infused into it the size and depth 
of colour seen in the Bristol flowers. 
A few years ago I found in an old-fashioned garden in the South of England 
that beautiful maroon-crimson variety I subsequently named and distributed as 
P. vulgaris auricula;flora , which looks like an Alpine auricula, and which every 
one who cultivates it so much admires. Finding the last-named seeded a little, 
I set to work to raise seedlings from it, and though it mostly gave me somewhat 
inferior repetitions of itself, it yet threw a few seedlings having shades of violet 
and purple. These were fertilised one with the other, having regard to the neces¬ 
sity for obtaining form and colour, and a few years’ work has produced a progeny 
of great beauty and striking qualities, as those called Violet Gem , violacea , and 
Splendour bear witness, for they have obtained First-class Certificates of Merit 
from the Royal Horticultural Society. Almost all shades of colour have resulted,, 
especially in the way of hues of red; two or three of these are particularly 
noticeable, viz .:—Gem of Roses , pale rosy magenta, with golden centre ; Rosy 
Morn , rosy crimson, flushed with magenta ; and Sunrise , fiery-red maroon. All 
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