August 18, 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
377 
siderable. The disease, in fact, 1ms attained its usual 
universality, hut certainly not with that degree of viru¬ 
lence which it assumed in some former years, especially, 
considering the extremely favourable condition of soil 
and atmosphere to its extension. Unmanured, fresh, 
and dry soils, with a constant care over the seed, seem, 
i at present, to offer the best chances of lightening its 
ravages. 
And, now, as to Salads. Never before did I find Lct- 
: faces so much in perfection; they have been full-sized, 
: crisp, and tender, in the highest degree, and possessing 
\ very little tendency to run to seed. Cucumbers in the 
[ open ridge are all destroyed by the what is termed 
\ “ the Cucumber disease.” This appears to be some 
j minute fungus, which in a few days paralyses the whole 
j energies of tho plants, and in another week or so 
i utterly destroys them. We have had an annual visitation 
of this sad pest for some five years, and, as it presents 
some features resembling the potato disease, especially 
as to the rapidity and amount of the devastation, it is 
deserving close consideration by those highly scientific 
men whose peculiar province it is to prosecute such in¬ 
vestigations. I have been informed, by most respect- 
j able persons, that districts in England, formerly noted 
j for the production of field or garden Cucumbers, are no 
I longer so, and that many have entirely relinquished 
their culture in despair. As with the potato disease at 
j its commencement, I have tried various remedial and 
! preventive plans, but with no effect worthy of consi¬ 
deration. In-door fruits T pass by as getting wide of my 
subject. And now for fair inferences, deduced from 
J the foregoing features of the season. 
In the first place—Fruits. Who could have expected 
such fortunate results, after so extraordinary a spring? 
I know not how to account for this, except on the re¬ 
tarding principle. We in the north are colder than our 
gardeners southwards, and there are those who better 
carry out retarding principles, I conceive, in the former 
case. It appears to me, from reports I have read, that we 
are more fortunate in fruits than those farther south, 
j I have understood from Mr. Eivers that he has had, for 
| mau y years, very indifferent success with the Marie 
! Louise Pear, a favourite of thousands; and who knows 
' much more about fruits than Mr. It. ? But those I 
Quince stocks, I fear, and, certainly, the precocious 
climate upwards, as we north-countrymen say, are not 
altogether favourable to superior crops. And to this 
j may be traced the enormous crops of what are termed 
j bush fruits, such, indeed, as seldom occurs. The partial 
! failures in Plums and Cherries, in our quarter, may 
fairly be placed to early excitability, without the means 
of retardation. 
Apples, too, a monstrous crop ; and here, again, the 
retarding principle meets us full in tho face. During 
the twenty-five years that I have seen Apples blossom 
in this district, I never but once knew them bloom so 
j late; they had, indeed, scarcely finished blossoming in 
I the second week of June. Here, again, a singular 
| season accomplished what, as I believe, the art of the 
gardener should attempt in ordinary seasons, as far as 
his means reach. In bush fruits, we find enormous 
j crops of Black Currants and Raspberries, thus evincing, 
; as i have often suggested in The Cottage Gardener, 
l their identity of habit in regard of moisture ; at least, of 
these two useful fruits. 
To conclude: a few words on vegetables. Salads, 
especially Lettuces, unusually crisp, fat, and tender. 
Here a wet summer may teach young gardeners that not 
manures alone may accomplish all this, but a liberal 
amount of moisture must be added ; they may also take 
into consideration the assistance of a damp atmosphere, 
with an air temperature in an inferior ratio to that of 
ordinary seasons, especially in its relation to ground ! 
warmth. Cauliflowers unusually fine, too : here we ! 
have an illustration of the beneficial effect of the con¬ 
ditions alluded to in the case of the Lettuces. Peas, 
good crops, but I never knew them so slow in filling. 
Most gardeners know, that even Peas will not fill fast 
unless they have a certain amount of warmth as well as 
moisture ; hence noble-looking crops, but slow filling. 
'J o talk about Cabbages, <£c , were almost needless. I 
may just say that I have not seen a blue Cabbage this 
summer ; and that the Cabbage Butterfly has been 
unusually scarce. I have not seen half-a-dozen since 
Midsummer. Wasps must have had a long nap, for I 
have not seen one lor six weeks. R. Errington. 
MEETING OF THE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY, REGENT STREET, July 26 th. 
Disa grandifi.ora. —All round the room, tables were 
loaded with the finest fruits, vegetables, and salad plants 
that possibly could be, and we had flowers which were 
not surpassed in health, beauty, or rarity, at any of the 
shows lor the last twenty years—to wit, those of a very 
fine Disa grandiflora, sent by C. Leach, Esq., of 
Clapham Park. I have known of Mr. Leach’s doings 
lor many years, and I have been under obligations to 
him long before I ever saw him, and now I may as well 
say, that he has crowned his complete success in a 
different line, where ninety-nine out of every hundred 
gardeners that made the attempt failed; namely, he can 
grow, flower, and cross all the most difficult bulbs in 
Africa, with the greatest ease, and very likely he does 
not think that any greenhouse or halt-hardy bulb is 
nearly so difficult to grow as the potato. 
The Disa grandiflora, in all probability, is an ever¬ 
green ! like Valotta 'purpurea, which inhabits the same 
kind of locality, only not so high up; and here is where 
we have been all wrong with it. This plant of it has 
been green, and never died down these three years past; 
it is as healthy as a plant could be, and throwing up 
strong healthy shoots from, what you would suppose, 
underground stolons. There were two flower stems, 
twenty inches high, and each of them had several flowers 
in bud, and one open on each, so that this charming 
hardy orchid flowers more like a Tigridia than any 
thing else. It was in a large 32-pot, and in very, very 
sandy peat, and had nothing done to it out of the 
ordinary run of greenhouse culture these three years. 
Dr. Burch ell said that Valotta purpurea was the only 
bulb ot the order of Amaryllidsthat lie found growing in 
boggy peat in Africa; and we know that Valotta was lost, 
over and over again, while it was treated like the rest of 
tho family, and not as an evergreen, but now a cottager 
can grow it in a window as easily as a Crocus, and more 
so. It will be exactly the same, some day or other,’ 
with Disa grandiflora. 
Who could have thought, the other day, when I pro¬ 
mised to tell how it could be kept, at least for a time, 
that T should have been so fortunate as to learn the 
cause of our failure with it for years, aud how simple 
the apparently most difficult culture seems when we 
know how to pursue it! I am indebted to Mr. Leach 
for this information. 
It is well known to some of our readers that I am 
not at liberty to give the name of the gentleman who 
studied the plant for me on Table Mountain, but that is 
of no moment, as we have a very lucid statement of the 
situation and circumstances from the pen of Sir John 
Herschel, on his return from the Cape. Sir John placed 
a registering thermometer on the summit of Table 
Mountain, and left it there for three years, and the 
lowest temperature was 31U\ and the highest 9<U° 
during that time. 1 well recollect the sensation caused 
in this room, in Regent-street, at the end of 1838, by 
