210 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 22. 
from it were sown in the spring of 1850, and only one 
of them vegetated, and when I left Shrubland, in 1851, 
I told my successor that if he would hut fruit that seed¬ 
ling-vine, his fortune, or at least his fame, would be 
established. But from that day to this I heard no more 
of it, and I forgot to inquire about it when I was there last 
September. Whether my opinions on cross-breeding, 
on sports, on lapses of nature, are right or wrong, they 
carry a certain weight to the ends of the earth ; and if 
there is one thing more confirmed in my mind than 
another, from my own experiments, or from the recorded 
experience of better judges, it is this, that the action of 
foreign pollen lias no more influence on the size, or 
shape of the fruit, or seed, than that of the magnetic 
needle. All this has nothing to do with the value of 
the new Grape. I really and truly believe it to be the 
best English seedling Grape that ever was produced, 
with the single exception of the Esperione, and I con¬ 
gratulate Mr. Busby on bis fortune, knowing as I do, 
that the samechance was in the hands of a youngerman. 
“ Stockwood Park, Nov. 23, 1853. 
“ I am glad and obliged for the frank manner you spoke 
of my seedling White Grape, as it is really a fine thing, and 
I hope to he able, in a year or two, to grow it well, with the 
help of Providence. I write to tell you the pedigree, as 
there seemed some doubt about the parentage previous to 
1840. It had often struck mo that a White Grape, similar 
in character to the Black Hambro’, hardy, a good setter 
and bearer, and in other respects as well adapted for forcing, 
was a desideratum worth trying for, so I set to work. 
Having a Hambro' trained up the roof, I had a Dutch 
Sweetwater planted on the back wall, trained down by the 
side of the Hambro'. They were both in flower at the same 
time, when a little brushing with the camel’s hair pencil was 
all that was done. When the berries of the Hambro' began 
to swell for ripening, or rather when they were ripe, I fancied 
I could see the operation had been successful in one berry 
only. That berry then was carefully saved, and the seeds 
planted in a pot; two plants were the produce; one got 
accidentally broke, the other, after standing in a pot a year, 
found a place in a narrow border at the back of a vinery, 
with the permanent vines covering the roof, and bent down 
the roof. It fruited the first time in August this year-, and 
when the young shows first appeared, so much are they like 
the Hambro', that I said to my young man, I believe the 
seedling, after all, will be only a facsimile of the old Black 
Hambro', its parent. But what was my delight, when it 
ripened, to see a splendid large white transparent Grape, 
just the beau ideal that I had imagined, with a most delicious 
flavour, thin skin, hardy, and a good bearer. 
“ So, you will see there can be no mistake in its parentage, 
as I have only saved seeds from the Hambro’. I have 
another batch of seedlings from a similar strain, but what 
they will prove it is impossible to say. [Ten chances 
to one the berries will be black.—D. B.].—M. Busby.” 
There was a small dish of Cutbill’s Black Prince 
Strawberry from Raynham Hall, Norfolk. I was the 
first who seconded Mr. Cutliill’s account of this Straw- 
| berry, and I have been very well criticised for doing 
j so; but as I never spare others when I think they are 
I in fault, I do not want to he spared myself on anything 
I write about—nothing being more likely to bring out 
the truth than fair criticism. I hold it to he strictly 
l true and correct that this Strawberry is what I and 
| others said in its favour, and also that it is equally true 
about all that has been said to the contrary. The nature 
of the soil makes all the difference, judging from my 
owu experience with the British Queen and the Downton 
Seedling. The Queen I could not grow on chalky soil, 
and I grew the Downton, as the best Strawberry, after 
better gardeners gave it up in despair; but after 
trenching that part of the garden where it did so well, 
I was obliged to give it up also, for try what I would, I 
could never do any good with it after that trenching. 
I recollect, some twenty years back, our friend Mr. 
Erriugton making enquiries in the Gardeners Magazine 
about other people’s experience with the Quince stock, and 
we all know, by this time, that he would as soon plant an 
Upas tree as a Pear on the Quince; but I also recollect, j 
when old gardeners about Edinburgh, and particularly ; 
in the East Lotbians, would have no dwarf from the 
nurseries but on Quince stocks, and that the Quince stock 
had to be first grafted with the Virgolouese Pear, in the j 
nurseries, and then regrafted by the different kinds, or 
double worked; the first kind, or Virgolouese, was a 
secret then, which no youngster from the country could 
learn without first paying his “footing” to the propa¬ 
gators—such a dose of raw whiskey as would choak an 
Englisher. The Virgolouese “took” on the Quince as 
well as it would on a wild seedling Pear stock ; then, the 
union being complete, any Pear would take on the Vir¬ 
golouese. What I want to establish by these old recol¬ 
lections is a better understanding between gardeners 
j and their employers, and between amateurs and their 
| fancy gardens, when things go wrong without the fault 
: of the garden or the gardener, the supposed fault being 
only the misfortune that all things do not do equally 
well on all kinds of soils. I do not go to these meet¬ 
ings to give a full report of what I see and hear; that 
part belongs to the Society, and they do it very well. 
1 merely go for amusement, and to see what inferences 
or conclusions I can draw from things exhibited, and 
from conversing with such gardeners and amateurs as I 
know and meet there, for the use of our own large and 
increasing family. 
From the garden of the Society we had a fine large 
plant of the blue Eranthemurn pulchellum, ditto of 
Manettia bicolor , Cypripedium insigne, with ten large 
| flowers; Gymbidium giganteum, with two spikes bearing 
nine flowers each ; a nice Barkeria Skinneri with three 
spikes densely clothed with crimson flowers; a Vriesia 
speciosa, but called Tillandsia vittata (Which is the first 
published name ?); a large Pine-apple-like plant called 
Bilbergia Moreliana, with grey, scurfy, arched leaves, 
and the usual bright scarlet bracts to the flowers; a 
large flowering variety of Zygopetdlum Mackayii, with 
five spikes coming in succession; a Begonia fuchsioides 
in good bloom, with others; and a cross Begonia be¬ 
tween parvijlora and insigne —a true cross, the growth 
and habit after insigne, and the flowers after parvijlora, 
but no improvement. The Society furnished, also, a 
nice collection of Pompone Chrysanthemums. 
Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, came out strong with a 
fine collection of well-grown Orchids in bloom. There 
i were twelve plants of Barkeria Skinneri and Skinneri 
major, supported, in one pot, on a branched block—the 
plants suspended from the branches after the English 
fashion of a Christinas tree. This kind of Barkeria is 
the easiest to grow of the family, and is a free flowerer; 
the major variety has the flowers of a darker crimson 
than the species. I expected to see among them the 
beautiful Barkeria elegans, one of the scarcest in the 
country, which I saw ten days before nearly in flower; 
two new strong spikes were then nearly open in front of 
a dense mass of old leafless stems. All these Barkerias 
require nothing but to be fastened up to bare chips of 
wood, and to he kept hung up quite close to the glass of 
the roof of a cool Orchid house, winter and summer, 
unless you want to hurry them on to finish their growth 
sooner in a hotter place. The least morsel of them 
flowers with Mr. Jackson on that plan ; and I often go 
to see them. Oncidium Barkeri was in this collection; 
it is not grown half so much as it ought to bo, seoing 
that it is one of the very best of the family, and is as 
sweet as a violet, and never fails to flower in a cool 
house early in the winter, and lasts a long time even in 
the drawing-room. The bulb and growth is like spliace- 
latum, and quite as vigorous ; the flower-spike is nearly j 
two feet long, almost upright, and in this plant had ! 
| twenty flowers, sixteen of which were open. The size 
