318 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 28. 
morning they bore no marks of injury. Mr. Lane had 
a splendid collection. He would have had a stiff job if 
competing with private growers for quality; but for 
general excellence, numbers, and variety, they would 
have constituted a grand attraction if the day had been 
fine. Besides splendid blooms of Baronne Prevost, 
Chenedolle, Duchess of Sutherland, Coupe de Hebe, 
whole boxes of Qeant des Batailles, lots of that elegant 
hybrid Bourbon, Paul Ricaut, &c., I noticed the fol¬ 
lowing in splendid condition:— Crested Moss, Dometclle 
Bicar, and Madame Henriette, Provence. Didon, La- 
titia, Ohl, Shakespeare, and Triomphe de Janssens, 
among the Gallicas. Comptesse de Sagur, among the 
Provence. Elize Renow, General Jacquemiotot, Juno, 
Hybrid Chinas. Amandine, Apollon, Auguste Mie, 
Caroline de Sansal, Chereaux, Enfant du Mont Carmel, 
General Castellane, General de Brea, Inermis, Lady 
Francis Waldegrave, Laure Renaud, Le Lion de Com¬ 
bats, Louis Peromy, Madame Framiore, Madame La- 
moriciere, Madame Rivers, Neome, Pius the Ninth, and 
Standard of Marengo, among the Hybrid Perpetuals. 
Plants. —I shall just do little more than name four 
things shown in collections as very superior, Balsams, 
Gloxinias, Fuchsias, and Achimenes; and these might 
be described as very good, better, best, and very best, 
making thus a double superlative for the occasion. The 
culture of Balsams has several times been given to suit 
different circumstances, but few of our readers have had 
the pleasure of seeing dense bushes, some three to four 
feet in height, and almost as much in diameter at the 
base, and every shoot and twig covered with bloom. 
Other exhibitors showed denser and dwarfer plants in 
good condition. Gloxinias were shown in excellent 
condition, large plants, rich green foliage, and abund¬ 
ance of bloom. Some of the most striking kinds were 
Grandis, Maxima alba, Carminata splendens, Victoria 
regina, Fifiana, Wortley and Tenchlerii, Passinghamii, 
and one something in the way of Handleyana, but much 
better, in Mr. Mackie’s collection. 
Fuchsias were splendidly grown ; when looking at 
them, some one was saying behind us, “ Cottage 
Gardener fashion.” The two chief lots were very 
equal in point of culture, but one had better and newer 
kinds than the other, and, therefore, got the preference. 
The plants were mostly fully six feet in height, trained 
to one stick, pyramidal fashion, the base of the 
pyramid being from two to three feet in diameter, the 
outline of the sides being just enough broken to give a 
relief of light and shade, and the whole supplied with 
bloom, from near the base of the pot to the very summit 
of the cone. Many would like to know the peculiarity 
of treatment employed to produce such results, and I 
do not think I shall offend Messrs. Mackie and Gardiner 
if I tell. 
The most striking plants w r efe potted cuttings last 
autumn ; these were kept slowly growing during winter, 
shifted in spring as soon as they required it, and 
training commenced from the first; side-shoots coming 
strong were stopped, to give two or three shoots instead 
of one, and thus throw strength into the central leader. 
If that leader went too far without throwing out side- 
shoots, that was stopped too, and afresh leader selected, 
after the quiet buds had burst into young shoots. This 
system persevered in, and generous treatment in soil 
and waterings given, fine results may be obtained. The 
frequent stoppings thus secures regularity of outline, 
and great abundance of bloom, though the individual 
blooms will not be so fine as when there are fewer 
shoots. Some of the more striking kinds were Volti- 
geuer, Don Giovanni, Commodore, Rajah, One in the Ring, 
Pearl of England, and Matilda (Henderson’s), a light 
sepalled flower, in the way of Prince Arthur. 
Achimenes. —I have already chronicled how fine this 
tribe of plants were grown at Northampton. The 
growers outdid themselves on the present occasion. 
Such large, compact, densely-bloomed specimens are 
rarely seen. They were thoroughly and well supported 
with small sticks, but they were next to invisible, as 
unless the plant was closely examined near the rim of the 
pot, not a tie or stick could be easily discernable. The race 
was a dead heat between Messrs. Gardiner and Mackie. 
The specimen Achimenes were very nearly the same: i 
one a large bush of Longiflora major, the other, quite 
as large, of Tugwelliana. A few days more, and there 
is every chance the second would have been first. Be¬ 
sides these, the most interesting kinds were Longiflora 
alba, Patens major, Venusta, Lipmannii, Coccinea major, 
Beaumanii hirsuta ; in the way of Grandiflora, Kleii \ 
and Margueretta —a beautiful white one, which every i 
grower should get that does not already possess it. 
Prompted partly by Mr. Appleby’s notice last year of 
the Cassia corymbosa, used as a standard in the flower- 
garden in summer, I paid a visit to Courteen Hall; but 
the way in which standards are used in flower-beds 
there, and the cheapest, the most simple, and the most 
effectual mode of securing the heads of standard roses, 
and other things, as invented and practised by Mr. Gar¬ 
diner, I must defer to “ some other day.” It. Fish. 
CONIFER®. 
(Concluded from page 243.) 
Propagation : by Grafting. —When seeds of any 
fine Conifer cannot be obtained, and it will not grow 
by cuttings, recourse must then be had to grafting. In 
order to succeed in this operation the proper kind of 
stock must be used. Tliis is sometimes difficult to find 
out. When the Cedrus Deodar was first introduced, it 
had so much the appearance of a Larch that several 
eminent nurserymen felt quite sure the Larch would be 
the very sort of stock to graft it upon: and the grafts 
did take upon that stock, and grew well for a time, and 
then began to look sickly, and finally perished. Mr. 
Baron, the talented gardener at Elvaston Castle, with 
his usual sagacity, hit upon the right stock, and that 
was the Cedrus Lebani, or Cedar of Lebanon. This 
species, from its close affinity to the Indian Cedar, he 
rightly concluded would be the best stock on which to 
graft it; and he was quite correct in his conclusions. 
The finest Deodars, perhaps, in Europe, are now growing 
at Elvaston, grafted upon the Cedar of Lebanon. This 
is quite certain, for I have seen them, and a portion of 
the lower parts of trees, the common Cedar, is still | 
growing, or at least was two or three years ago, when I 
saw them. This incident shows the necessity of using 
the right kind of stock on which to graft. 
All the Pine tribe will grow upon the Pinus sylvestris, 
the common Scotch Fir, or upon the Pinus Austriaca, 
the Austrian Pine. I prefer the lafter for very strong 
growers with long leaves—such, for instanco. as P. 
Montezuma, or P. Gordonii; whilst the Scotch Fir is a i 
more suitable stock for such species as P. nobilis, P. 
amabilis, and all such short-leaved Pines. 
For such species as Abies Douglasii the common 
Spruce Fir will be a right stock. These hints will be 
sufficient to guide the amateur to select proper stocks 
for the kinds he may yet feel disposed to increase by 
grafting. 
I mentioned last year, in my “Jottings by the Way,” 
that there was, in the gardens at Finedon. near North¬ 
ampton, the seat of Michael Dolben, Esq., a very 
remarkable variety of the Abies Douglasii, remarkable 
from the fact that it is a decided weeper. I have been 
informed that an eminent nurseryman, not a hundred 
miles from Cheshunt, had fifty scions from this tree 
