44 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 15. 
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tlie obscure ami long-disputed figure of Clusius, reprinted 
in Gerarde, as above quoted, to tliis Cystea (Cystopteris) 
angustata, though the draughtsman lias omitted the ultimate 
divisions of the leaflets, well enough expressed by Hoff¬ 
mann and Villars. I have never received this Fern from 
lVales, but if it be not Ray’s Polypodium. ilvense, it is wanting 
in the Synopsis. The wooden cut of Dalechamp, copied in 
J. Bauhin, and quoted doubtingly by Ray, should rather 
seem to be the totally different Acroslichwn Maranlw , as 
Bauhin himself suspected." 
The cultivation required by this Fern is the same as 
for Cystopteris alpina stated at page 421, of our last 
volume. It requires, however, more shade, and does 
well under the shadow of other plants in a cool green¬ 
house. 
A Meeting of the British Pomological Society was 
held at the Rooms, 20, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, 
on the 7 th inst, Mr. Hogg in the chair. 
There was a large collection of Apples and Pears 
from Mr. McEwen, of Arundel Castle, exhibiting the 
success of Mr. McEwen’s plan of keeping fruit, all of 
which were in the highest state of preservation. Thoy 
consisted of Pears— Easier Beurre, Beurre de Ranee, 
Knight's Monarch, Ne Plus Meuris, Vicar of Winkfteld, 
Knight's Winter Crasanne, and Spring Beurre. The 
Apples were— Herefordshire Pearmain, Winter Greening, 
or French Crab, Yorkshire Greening, American Pippin, 
(a variety which we are not acquainted with,) Cockle Pip¬ 
pin, (very fine,) Golden Harvey, Ribston Pippin Margil, 
Lancashire Reinette, (an unknown variety,) Court-pendu 
plat, Hamilton Pippin, Royal Russet, Dumelow's Seed¬ 
ling, Alfreston, Gloria Mundi, Baxter's Pearmain, 
Broad eyed. Pippin, Stunner Pippin, Blenheim Pippin, 
Norfolk Beefing, and Northern Greening. 
But the most attractive part of the collection were 
three bunches of Black Hambro’ Grapes; the berries 
were large, deeply coloured, and of excellent flavour. 
We never recollect seeing better, and they were quite 
equal to what we are used to see in Juno. There were 
also specimens of British Queen, Keens' Seedling, and 
Trollopes Victoria Strawberries. These wore remark¬ 
ably fine as regards size, colour, and flavour; each 
berry weighed half-an-ounce. There is no doubt but 
that the British Queen, whether forced or from the open 
ground, takes the lead in flavour, as it did in the pre¬ 
sent instance. Trollope's Victoria, though a remarkably 
fine-looking fruit, and a great ornament in the dessert 
at this season, is inferior in flavour to both of the others. 
It is more acid, and has but little aroma. Much credit 
is due to Mr. McEwen for these examples of high gar¬ 
dening. 
The following gentlemen were elected members :— 
Mansfield Parkyns, Esq., Woodborough Hall, 
Southwell, Notts. 
Rev. F. W. Adey, The Cell, Markgate Street, Herts. 
BEDDING GERANIUMS. 
The best kinds of bedding Geraniums which have 
refused hitherto to yield to the art of the cross-breeder 
j are, Sidonia, Lady Mary Fox, Moore's Victory, Queroi- 
folium, Q. coccinea, and Q. superbum, Rouge et Noir, 
Spleenii, and the different varieties of Diadematum. 
Notwithstanding a cross or two which look as if they 
were from Unique, we may justly add Unique to the 
number of this group. 
Sidonia, Lady Mary Fox, and Unique, aro the best of 
them ; then follows the Diadematums, to which Spleenii 
belongs; and the third best section is that of the Querci- 
foliums, to which Moore's Victory may be joined, but 
which stands, in reality, between the Uniques and 
Quercifoliinns. 
Almost all the varieties into which this group is 
divided ought to be propagated only in the spring, as 
from their habit of retaining the present impression of 
the mother plant, so to speak, whatever that peculiarity 
may be, cuttings should only be taken off them when 
the plants are in the best growing state, which is gene¬ 
rally about this time, or a little earlier. 
If we look on them as hybrid perpetuals, that cha¬ 
racter must have been stamped on them by severe, or 
extreme crossing. Some wild kinds, which flower 
naturally in the spring, have been crossed with others 
which produce their flowers only in the autumn, or 
early in the winter; and, as happens in the animal 
kingdom, crosses so remote generally produce a barren 
offspring; at all events, such crosses as we know to have 
been thus extreme among Geraniums have become 
barren not later than the third generation. But there 
is some hidden cause which renders a wild prolific Gera¬ 
nium all but barren after so many years; but how many 
years I cannot say—the fact itself is all that I can 
prove. 
From 1815, or from Waterloo to the crowning of 
Louis Phillipe, the finest, or, at least, the richest, of all 
the wild Geraniums, Fulgidum, would seed and cross, 
cross aud seed, by the merest touch of the pollen ; but 
who can seed it or cross it now, is more than I can tell. 
Several of the most expert among us can barely mako 
bread and cheese out of it now, while, formerly, any 
one might keep his carriage by it. There must be a 
cause for this, and to find out that cause will open the 
way for the secret of extreme crosses turning barren. 
I attribute the Fulgidum, among several kinds of wild 
Geraniums, to be owing to a long course of neglect, and 
bad cultivation, and nothing else. Their native energies 
have been thus so completely exhausted that they can¬ 
not, at present, fulfil the mandate to “ increase aud 
multiply’’ by seed and seedlings. If that be so, if the 
strength necessary to produce seeds can be overcome by 
a long course of insufficient nourishment, can it be 
possible to restoro such plants to a fertile condition once 
more by an opposite course of high nourishment and 
kindly treatment during another long period of good 
cultivation ? I think that could be effected in time. I 
am also of opinion, that if you take cuttings of Lady 
Mary Fox, or of Sidonia, the two most barren kinds we 
know of, in the spring, and do not allow the plants to 
flower at all the first season, nor the next, nor the third 
season, but cut them back to thoroughly ripe parts of 
the shoots every autumn, and make cuttings from the 
thinnings in the spring, not from the tops of the shoots,— 
1 say, that I believe you could, in time, overcome their 
present condition by such a course, under a liberal culti¬ 
vation. Hence my desire to possess all these kin’ds, 
once more to try the experiments; but, at the same time, 
I hope no one will defer an intended experiment under 
the idea of being forestalled by these explanations. 
Sidonia and Rouge et Noir are the two which I con¬ 
sider the most difficult of this group to manage in a 
flower garden, and for opposite reasons. Sidonia, a 
French seedling, from a delicate parent, requires a 
warm, sheltered situation and alight, rich soil, to make a 
good bed of it; and for a summer plant to flower out in 
front of a greenhouse, or drawing-room, in single patches, 
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