22 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 10. 
clay between the Messrs. Veitch and Messrs. Rollinson. 
The former sent Phalcenopsis grandifiora, which never 
misses; Vanda tricolor and insignis, Cypripedium villosnm. 
with thirteen large, brown, Ivory-like blossoms, a fine 
specimen, of growth. Ansellia Africana, “ the only 
living plant I know of from Fernando Po,” as the 
lecturer observed, was, indeed, a strong plant, that will 
keep till the May shows in an intermediate house, 
as it was only just opening its hundreds of flowers to¬ 
day ; Dendrobium Farmerii, with eight racemes of large j 
blush-white flowers, having a soft yellow eye; there 
were sixteen flowers, on the average, on each raceme; 
and a Dendrobium nobile. The Messrs. Rollinson op¬ 
posed to these a large plant of the balsamic Dendrobium 
macranthum, trained upright, with some scores of large 
pale purple flowers, which scented the whole room. 
Dendrobium densifiorum, with seven drooping racemes of i 
the richest golden flowers, but how many flowers in a J 
raceme, goodness knows. Cypripedium Lowii, the most I 
elegant and graceful flower in the whole order, with two j 
flower-spikes, one of which was thirty inches high, bear¬ 
ing three magnificent slippers, Oriental fashion; and 
the other was twenty inches high, with two such blooms 
on the top. How delighted my young friend, Mr. Low, 
jun., must have been when he discovered this Orchid in 
Borneo. How disinterested of him to have suggested 
a higher name for it; and how graceful the compliment 
to depart from this suggestion, in order to commemorate 
the name of the first colonial secretary of Labuan. 
Cattleya Acldandue was the next, with two large, hand¬ 
some flowers, purple and brown. Odontoglossum liastu- 
latum —a beautiful thing,—a large white lip, purple eye, 
greenish, starry sepals, barred with purple and brown 
half their lengths; Vanda suavis, a large plant, together 
with extra plants of Dendrobium macranthum major 
(giganteum is inapplicable). Burlingtonia fragrans, with 
five drooping racemes of white flowers; Brassia cinna- 
momuni, with five long spikes of real cinnamon flowers, 
all but the lip, which is nearly white,—a very marked 
kind; and Odontoglossum Pescatorce, a delicate French- 
white flower. In Mr. Veitch’s miscellany were Chises 
bractescens, with three flower-shoots ; Oncidium sarcodes, 
a medium-sized flower, and many of them on a long, 
curved stem, the colour yellow and brown ; aud a Den¬ 
drobium “ sp.,” being the scarce drooping variety of 
Nobile, which was exhibited three years since by Mr. 
Bunney, and I think later by Mr. Farmer’s gardener. 
Next the Chairman were two very singular plants, the 
true Saracenia /lava, from Mr. Veitch, and an entire 
new form of Rhododendron, from the mountains of 
Java, sent by the Messrs Rollinson. This plant looked 
like some small-leaved Daphne, or a Cornea, with heads 
of spreading flowers on the top, and the flowers very 
nearly like those of Pentstemon conli/olius, a most singular 
Rhododendron. Next to these was a large plant of 
Nephrolepis Davallioides, a “ singularly beautiful Fern,” 
as we were told, from Mr. Moor, of the Apothecary’s 
Garden, Chelsea; and a cut branch of the old Thun- 
bergia grandifiora, from Mr. Ingram, of the Royal 
Gardens. 
ACACIA DRUMMONDI, AND ACACIA CULTURE. 
The premier plant of the day, however, and the most 
generally, or likely to be most generally useful plant, 
was a specimen, five feet high, and nearly as much 
through, of the elegant Acacia Drummondi. This is 
news indeed. It was only in February or March last 
year that we had two little plants of them in this room, 
and 1 said that one of them was not the real thing, as 
will be seen in my report. The stars were all against 
me at the time ; but I was right, and all of them agree 
v ith me to-day, that the true Acacia Drummondi is one 
of the very finest of the group. Mr. Appleby told us 
as much not long since; but no one knew the plant 
would make such a magnificent specimen. It put mein 
mind of the Cytisus racemosus, or rliodopliena, as it was 
once called, ft is just as healthy-looking, as close 
and strong in growth, and as full in bloom. A gentle¬ 
man in the room asked me very closely about how to 
manage this Acacia, and said, that he had “ no luck” 
with any of the tribe; that they soon got too big 
or too straggling for him, but that he was fond 
of them. He reads The Cottage Gardener, and I 
promised to answer him in black and white, as such 
explanations was the chief object I had in view in 
giving these reports. All the greenhouse-plants, the 
Geraniums and Azaleas, the fruits and vegetables, at 
this meeting, will furnish texts for next week; and we 
shall now conclude with the treatment of Acacia Drum¬ 
mondi and others. 
The grand secret in growing any plant of this stamp, 
is to know how to prune it, and what is the right time to 
prune. I hold this to be the first principle in the culti¬ 
vation of all woody plants whatever. Five hundred 
kinds of plants will grow to perfection in the same com¬ 
post, with the same quantity of water, the same degree 
of heat and cold, and all the rest of it; but one wrong 
pruning, either as to cutting, or the time of cutting, 
may put any one of the five hundred, or the whole of 
them, in one season, out of tune; or, in other words, 
destroy their bloom or their fruit at least for one year; 
and a series of wrong pruning will soon bring the tamest 
plant to the condition of a wild colt, if not to the con¬ 
dition of a British soldier under certain mismanagement. 
From the middle of April to the middle of May is the 
only time in the year when Acacias of all sorts may be 
pruned; under greenhouse culture, a few show flowers 
occasionally in the autumn, or late in the summer; but 
that is more from bad management than a natural habit. 
Every one of them, in our hands, ought to be out of bloom 
by the middle of May; some of them cease from flowering 
as early as January, some in February, some in March 
and April; but no matter how early they go out of 
bloom, they should not bo “ cut” before the middle of 
April. The whole race flower on the wood which was 
made the summer before, or on last year’s wood, as we 
say ; they will not flower on the wood that was made the 
spring before, or the late autumn, before blooming. If one 
had an Acacia as big as an Elm tree in a hedge-row, he 
might “ shred ” it up, as they do such Elm trees in England, 
by cutting off every side bough, shoot, and twig, to the 
very topmost, say about the end of April; after a while, 
such an Acacia would sprout out all over with young 
shoots; some strong, some half strong, and some not at 
all strong. Now, if a man takes a ladder, and rubs oft’ 
all the very small shoots from top to bottom, there will 
be more room for the rest; but if he does no more, and 
allows the very strongest shoots to go after Nature, they 
will overshadow and spoil the middling ones, which are 
the best for blooming, and become “ bony,” or too woody 
themselves to bloom well. This shows that the middlings 
ought to be taken the greatest care of, and the biggest 
branches should be kept in subjection, either by rubbing 
them oft' at an early stage, or stopping them before they 
got too strong. Then all the summer treatment, after a 
hard pruning, is to thin out the weakest, to stop the 
strong, and see that none are too crowded, and the whole 
of this young wood will flower next spring, whether it 
be from one stem, or from ten stems on the same plant. 
As far as the theory of the thing goes, you might cut 
every Acacia as close as this every year of your life, and 
have as much bloom one year as another. But we never 
want to go to this extreme ; plants must have so manybig 
branches to form a specimen, whether it be a bush, or 
a standard, or for training against a wall, and these are 
| to be got first, and after them, the side-shoots from 
| them, will have to get the annual close pruning. There- 
