30 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October 1G. 
A letter before us asks if we think that “ the editor of 
the Gardeners’ Chronicle is right in advising the cultiva¬ 
tion of the potato to be abandoned, now that it is 
evident that the parasitical fungus causing the disease 
is so decidedly established in this country?” We did 
not know that our contemporary had so advised, but if 
he has, then we think he is as wrong as any one would 
have been to advise that the cultivation of wheat should 
be abandoned because liable to destruction by other 
parasitical fungi—the mildew and smut. Let us admit 
| the assertion that the potato disease is caused by a 
I fungus, yet there are means of as effectually escaping it, 
1 as there are to escape from those which affect our corn 
i crops. This is no mei'e assertion, but proved over and 
1 over again, and to this we would have every one of our 
readers take heed. If you plant in November, without 
manuring the ground, such early varieties as ripen by the 
end of July, or very early in August, you will hare no 
diseased potatoes worth mentioning. We do so ourselves, 
and we have no potatoes affected with the disease. 
When, therefore, we hear, in September, people lament¬ 
ing over the fifty per cent, loss of crop they are enduring, 
and thence arguing that the potato culture should be 
abandoned, we do not know which most to deprecate, 
their obstinacy, or their ignorant conclusion. 
The time is now close arriving for autumn planting, 
and we again warn our readers to adopt the system we 
recommend, have a hundred times recommended, and 
which we will again repeat. 1. Plant whole middle- 
sized potatoes. 2. Plant only early-ripening kinds, such 
as Ash-leaved Kidneys, Rylott’s Flour Balls, and Luker’s 
Oxonians. 3. Plant early in November. 4. Plant by 
the dibble six inches deep, and do not tread on the 
ground after it is dug. 5. Plant on soil without ma¬ 
nuring it; or, if it be very poor, give it a dressing on 
the surface, before digging, either of charred refuse, or 
of soot and salt. 
We do earnestly beg of our readers to try this plan— 
to follow our directions in every respect—and then, 
when they take up their crop at the end of July, to 
favour us with a report of the results. 
GARDENING GOSSIP. 
Our readers have not yet forgotten the observations we 
made upon The Great Northern Tulip Show, nor the 
angry and personal remarks they called forth on the 
part of one of the judges. From these may be learned a 
great moral lesson ; keep truth for your foundation and 
your building is sate; give but a false colouring to any- 
[ thing, and your structure must sooner or later be shaken 
j to pieces by facts. 
the history of this little squabble may be told in a few 
l words. lor many years the southern liorists have consi¬ 
dered a pure ground colour the first essential, in fact, a 
sine qua non to a good Tulip; for many years the northern 
florists considered the colour and marking of Tulips far 
more important than a pure base or ground colour. A 
Great Northern Tulip Show” was held in Derby, at which 
•I , em y Goldham, of London, was a judge, and he acted 
with three more, but they were northerns. As prizes were 
awarded to stained flowers, such as would be considered a 
disgrace to even a poor man’s bed among the true lovers of 
the flower, we censured Mr. Goldham, not for helping to 
award prizes to impure flowers, for we never suspected him 
of doing so, knowing, as we said, the pure taste of his father, 
who has an unrivalled collection, but we censured him for 
not walking out of the place when he found three northern 
judges against him, because he then would not have counte¬ 
nanced the proceedings by his presence. This brought down 
upon us an accusation of falsehood, and we were told the 
judges were unanimous, Mr. Goldham quite agreeing with 
everything that was done. This was making bad worse; the 
attempt to deny that foul flowers had prizes, and that clean 
ones were placed below them, was a sad mistake, because 
we had proofs of the fact—proofs which made one of the 
northern judges confess that foul flowers ought not to win — 
that the northerns no longer unllingly pass them —but that 
they cannot, as yet, carry out their condemnation entirely, 
because there are many poor growers, and so forth. If we 
had done nothing else but force this admission from the 
northerns, who for so many years struggled for the marking 
in preference to pure grounds, we had done enough. Mr. 
Wood, however, invited Mr. Henry Goldham to contradict 
us, and asks him, first, if there were any foul flowers ? and, 
secondly, whether particular flowers mentioned by him were 
a disgrace to a southern bed—mentioning, however, good 
flowers instead of foul ones. Mr. Goldham answers as if he 
knew that the flowers we condemned were not the flowers 
Mr. Wood asks about; but, let us give Mr. Goldham’s own 
words :—“ To your first query, whether any stained-cupped 
flowers were allowed to win ? I answer, I saw none ! ” Why 
Mr. Wood had acknowledged in his work, by the admission 
of a criticism on the show, that there were some ! We cannot 
say Mr. Goldham makes an unfounded assertion when he 
says he saw none, but the floral world will tell him that, as 
judge, he ought to have seen them; but he goes on : “ To 
the second, whether the flowers you have mentioned would 
have disgraced the stand of the poorest southern grower? I 
reply, that several of them are grown in the bed, and all of 
them in the collection of the (I believe pretty generally ac¬ 
knowledged) first amateur Tulip growers in England.” This 
is very discreditable fencing; it is begging the question. 
Did Mr. Wood mention the foul flowers which won, and 
which we alluded to ? No ! he mentioned some of our best 
flowers. But let the answer to this question decide the dis¬ 
pute : Would Mr. Turner, Mr. Goldham, senior, Mr. Law¬ 
rence, Mi’. Edwards, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Dickson, Mr. Saunders, 
or any other first-rate grower, put Vesta in a stand to pass 
metropolitan judges ? Dare they put Lady Crew, with her— 
at the very best—three little spots, into a stand ? Dare they 
put Louis XVI., no matter by what name it is called, in a 
stand ? Either of these three flowers, even in their best 
clothes, would disgrace the stand of a southern grower.* 
We have already noticed the disposition on the part 
of some dealers to run down the King of the Dahlias. 
We now merely wish to say that in Lancashire, where 
there is class showing, it has received justice, and been placed 
repeatedly at the head of the crimson class, and we further 
say, that in spite of all the endeavours to lower the value of 
the flower in the estimation of those who have not seen it, 
there will be more demand for that variety next season than 
for any other; and if it should happen to be a bad keeper, 
which is not unlikely, it will bear a price above some new 
flowers. Mr. Slater, a Lancashire florist, considers The King 
the best of its class. 
At Oxford a Fuchsia, which may he pronounced the 
largest in cultivation, was shown, said to be a cross 
between Fulgens and the Beauty of Leeds. 
It is a pale variety, perfectly monstrous, quite a curiosity 
in its way. It was called The Great Western, and attracted 
a good deal of attention. It may not be a first-rate show 
flower, or even a show flower at all, but as a flowering plant 
* We have received a letter from Mr. Slater, of Chcetham Hill, Man¬ 
chester, fully confirming all that is stated above, but to slay the slain is 
needless. It is now admitted that foul flowers were allowed at Derby to 
defeat pure flowers, and it is said that it shall not be so in future, so 
what more need be said. It is really too much to expect that those who 
are obliged to retreat should not kick up a little dust to conceal their 
mistake.—E d. C. G. 
