102 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
weeks longer if required, the object being to have only one bud to each shoot 
if possible. In September all the plants are again tied to the trellises, &c., 
and brought inside the curbs ; everything is cleaned up, made neat and healthy, 
and, if any weak or superfluous wood is then found, it is taken out. A few 
more washings with clean water are given, in order to assist the foliage and 
shoots to recover themselves after being turned about in tying-in. Some of 
the earliest flower-buds are now opening, and thousands are ready to open 
naturally, or in the short days, with the assistance of a little heat, if required. 
No washing down is done after this till growing time comes again ; water, of 
course, is applied in any quantity required to the roots, taking care not to let 
any be spilled about the house at this season, as it is more or less injurious to 
plants in bloom in the winter months. 
The Camellias growing out of doors have similar soil, but no shelter except 
in very severe weather, and when they are coming in bloom sticking a few 
boughs on the sunny side, to keep off the glare of the sun. The severe winter 
of 1860-61, that killed all the Magnolias, Bays, and many other plants, and 
browned a good deal the common Laurel, never injured one of the Camellias 
here in the least, and they are planted in every aspect. 
James Barnes. 
SPRING-FLOWERING PLANTS. 
I am in my garden surveying a group of the above that are about me. 
Just there is a clump of the common Primrose, singularly gay just now in its 
simplicity of attire—one of the lowest forms of floral life; and yonder there 
are the more stately forms of Tulips and Polyanthus Narcissi—the very 
aristocracy of the community who are gathered here. Some forms are already 
passing away, scarcely a flower relieves the stout grassy foliage of an edging of 
Snowdrops, but just now teeming with “snow-white blossoms.” The quaint- 
looking little Bulbocodium vernum, one of the most unpretending of spring 
flowers, has Crocus-like blossoms of a pale violet, with white tips, too modest 
to make much display, and yet too interesting to be quite overlooked. These, 
with an edging of Crocuses, are “ passing away ” also. 
Of the latter, I flowered this season a large and varied collection. Of 
yellows, I have used only the Golden Yellow, that blooms a little later than 
the Cloth of Gold, but not so late as the common Yellow: it comes into bloom 
with the other colours. Round an oval-shaped bed on a grass plat (in which 
I have a centre of Tulipa Gesneriana, surrounded with Tournesol double Tulip), 
I flowered the following varieties of Crocus :—Golden Yellow. Of blue : Gen. 
Pelissier, Charles Dickens, Vulcan, Sir John Franklin, Jupiter, Von Schiller, 
Sir R. Peel, Othello, Loveliness, David Rizzio, La Simplicite, and Ne Plus 
Ultra. Of striped flowers: Princess Alexandra, sent to me from Holland as 
new, a very large and beautiful variety; Baron Chasse, Napoleon, Sir Walter 
Scott, Leviathan, Philader, Duchess of Sutherland, a small but very novel 
flower, heavily striped with violet; Maria, La Sylphide, Albion, Miss Priestly, 
and Geant des Batailles. Of whites, Grand Vainqueur, Porpus, Isabella, 
Queen Victoria, Marie Antionette, Florence Nightingale, Goldfinder, very 
fine, with rich dark orange stamens; and Mammoth. Though among these 
divisions of colour there were many points of resemblance, yet I seemed to 
detect more or less in each some small distinctiveness of character, either in 
size, or height, or shape, or in the form of the stamens or their colour, in the 
time of flowering, or in the purity and depth of the colour of the flowers. I 
noticed also perceptible differences in the size, and height, and colour of the 
foliage in flowers of the same colour; which, however, might have been 
