October 17.] 
strain from all I had formerly seen; and I have had as 
much knowledge of what has already been done that 
way as any one. What is to be done with those seed¬ 
lings—whether they are to be kept for more experiments, 
or to be given out to the trade, or what, I cannot tell; 
perhaps they were only sent to set my teeth on edge; 
but this I can tell for the consideration of young florists, 
that my friend, knowing me to be an old practitioner, 
who would not scruple to take advantage of a “ brother 
chip ” with a green horn stuck on his forehead, took the 
precaution to extract the anthers or pollen-bags from all 
his seedlings before he packed them. Those of us who 
are in the “ fancy ” can see his reason for this careful¬ 
ness at once; and those who are not in the line it will be 
enough to explain to thorn that he took out the pollen 
for fear that the post-office people, or the Suffolk gar¬ 
deners, should get dusty noses by smelling the new 
flowers; just as wicked young gardeners serve a party of 
maidens when they are by themselves: they offer a bunch 
of orange flowers to be smelled all round, and whoever 
happens to get most pollen on the nose, is as sure to get 
first married as I am writing this letter. 
We have spring wheat, winter beans, early and late 
cabbages, and, indeed, almost early and late every thing 
else we grow, and among the rest, early and late Gladioli, 
some to be planted now, some next month, and some not 
till February, March, April, and even to the first and 
second week in May, so that we can plant for six or seven 
months and now have flowers from June'to November, 
just like the roses; and both the rose and the Sword 
lily (Gladioli) have been brought out in that fashion by 
the present race of cross breeders, and yet we are found 
fault with at times for explaining our ways of working to 
all the world, or for explaining our views but in a 
circle, or according to one rule; as if limits could be set 
to our views and operations. It was only the other day 
that I was called a Michaelmas goose for so doing, 
by a spalpeen using one of Peter Pindar’s razors. Five- 
and-tvventy years ago we had hardly a rose to bloom in 
the autumn, and not a single Gladiolus that would 
llower much later than June, if it was planted at the 
right time in October. Since then, cross breeders, by 
the use of the China rose and the Isle do Bourbon rose, 
have given us roses which flower till Christmas; and by 
the skilful application of the pollen of Gladiolus oppo- 
sitiflorus and psittacinus, since 1830, have done the same 
with the Sword lilies, for we have some of them yet in 
bloom; and my friend with the box of seedlings said in 
his letter he is confident of obtaining seedlings of this 
family which will flower on to December, which is better 
news even than that about his improved shapes and 
colours. 
Five-and-twenty years since, after Dr. Herbert had 
completed a circle with cross-bred Gladioli, and could go 
no farther with them for want of newer species, he gave 
a collection of his best seedlings, amounting to twenty- 
four varieties, to a London nurseryman—Mr. Tate, of 
Sloane-street,—and by 1830 they were in the hands of 
other growers, and sold out, as Herbert's Gladioli, with¬ 
out any particular names. Some bought half a dozen 
sorts out of this collection, some a dozen, and others the 
whole set. I had them all by the spring of 1831, and 
flowered 20 of them that season, and crossed them, as 
many others did, not knowing that they were already in 
a circle, and could only be worked round and round 
without the possibility of breaking out of the line; 
although the breeder, with six or twelve sorts, believed 
he had something new, when he only reproduced one of 
the 2-1 first given away by Dr. Herbert. I think I heard 
it said, that Mr. Sweet figured one of them—the highest- 
coloured one,—and called it pudibunclus. At any rate 
pudibuudus was a favourite flower for some years, but 
whether it was a reproduction, or only the original from 
Dr. Herbert’s seedlings, I cannot tell. Many breeders 
33 
believed they had new forms and colours, and gave them 
fancy names, but from one end of the kingdom to the 
other end not one single variation could be met with out 
of Dr. Herbert’s class of seedlings. For more than 15 
years Dr. Herbert gave up crossing them altogether. 
He had his collection in the open borders at SpofTorth 
for 20 years, winter and summer, and the plants and 
flowers increased in size considerably, owing to their 
being not disturbed. The bulbs got so clustered to¬ 
gether, and were so well drained by the remains of the 
old bulbs, that they could stand against any amount of 
rain or wet without injury; and all the protection he 
gavo them was to gather dead leaves over the beds before 
winter, and to uncover them by the end of March. He 
had them in good yellow loam without any mixtures, and 
he had some in peat and loam, but those in the peat, or 
in any light sandy soil, would not bear a very hot dry 
summer half so well as the same kinds in liis yellow 
loam. What became of this collection after his death I 
never heard. 
Dr. Herbert was the first, in 1831 and 1832, to see 
how desirable it would be to have a new race of seed¬ 
lings from the best of the older sorts crossed with 
the then new psittacinus and oppositiflorus, to get late 
flowering varieties; but then there were many breeders 
in the same field, some of whom appeared before the 
public sooner than ho did as the successful raisers of a new 
race. Now, it is from the working of these two races— 
Dr. Herbert’s old sorts and the newer ones by psittacinus 
and oppositiflorus —that people get puzzled about the 
right time to plant the bulbs. Every one of the old col¬ 
lection flowered in May and June, and had to be 
planted in October, but psittacinus and oppositiflorus, 
from the south-east of Africa, have a different season of 
growth from the Cape colony ones, and with us they do 
not require to be planted before February; and they 
may safely be kept dry to the beginning of May, if they 
are wanted to flower late in the autumn; therefore, the 
fine crosses between those two and the best of the old 
seedlings or the old species, as cardinalis, take after one 
parent or another according as the parents were used as 
fathers or as mothers to the new race ; and since then 
they have been crossed and recrossed so much that the 
most skilful of us can only give an approximate guess 
to what side any new Gladiolus belongs, and therefore 
may be put out as to the right time of planting the bulbs. 
Indeed, I should not risk much, if I were to say that I 
would eat every number of The Cottage Gardener 
for twelve months, if a single individual could be found 
in England, Ireland, or Scotland, who could tell from 
any outward signs in a growing Gladiolus what would 
be the best or proper time to plant the bulbs, even with 
a bushel of dry bulbs of different sorts before him, from 
June to the middle of September. Mr. Groom himself, 
whose little finger knows more about these things than 
all the gardeners in England put together, could not tell 
what was really the time to plant out single bulbs out of 
the whole bushel; so that the question about the proper 
or improper times of planting these bulbs may be con¬ 
sidered as finally settled, as far as The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener is concerned, for this generation. Nevertheless, 
after the middle or end of September, an unmistakeable 
sign will be given by the bulbs themselves, so that any 
one can judge of the planting time without asking 
people at a distance, like us; and that sign is the sprout¬ 
ing of the roots at the bottom of the bulb. Ixias, hya¬ 
cinths, narcissuses, tulips, and the like, show this sign 
at the proper time in the drawers or bags in the seed- 
shop, and so will the Gladioli. But it is not necessary 
to put a bulb to this trial in a dry cool room. If any 
one were to send me six bulbs of six different varieties 
of Gladiolus to-morrow, and I wished to prolong their 
season of flowering next summer without injuring the 
bulbs, I should test them artificially after this fashion:— 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
