Plate 171 . 
GLADIOLUS, CHARLES DAYIS. 
The popularity of this beautiful autumn flower has received 
a rude shock during the present season, owing to the disease 
which has appeared amongst the roots, in some cases sweeping 
off entire collections, in others depriving the growers of any 
bloom, and in many more, injuring it very materially. We think 
therefore that we cannot serve the interests of our friends better, 
than by submitting to them a few observations upon this point; 
for although we have not been sufferers ourselves, having had 
no symptoms of the disease, yet we have paid a good deal of 
attention to it, have conversed both with English and French 
growers, and have formed our own conclusions, which indeed 
may be wrong, but which nevertheless have commended them¬ 
selves to many experienced growers. 
We have noticed that the disease has been most prevalent 
in heavy soils,—the growers about London, on the London clay, 
and in the loamy districts of Hertfordshire, having suffered the 
most, while in the light soils of Ascot and Great Yarmouth, 
neither Mr. Standish nor Mr. Youell have found it prevalent, 
and in our own rich but light and well-drained soil it has also 
been absent. Coupling this with the fact of our having had so 
very wet a season last autumn, when the bulbs ought to have 
been maturing, we are led to think that excess of moisture has 
been the cause; that owing to that, the bulbs were not suffi¬ 
ciently ripened last autumn; and that when they were planted 
in damp and close soils, they very soon became affected with 
the disease ; but that where the soil was open, moisture did 
not rest about the bulbs, and hence thev were enabled to over- 
come their weakness. 
The course which we have ourselves adopted, and which we 
