299 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. February 19. 1861. 
PRESERVING SOWN SEEDS EROM BIRDS 
AND MICE. 
At page 268 I find red lead recommended to prevent the 
ravages of birds and mice on newly sown seed-beds. As red 
lead, or lead in any form, is a very‘deleterious article, and if it 
does not enter the tissues may adhere to the surface of the root 
crops, I would advise the use of powdered carbonate of barytes, 
as being far preferable. This article is innoxious, or nearly so, 
to the human race or the larger animals, yet it is certain death 
to birds, mice, and rats. It may be used in the same manner as 
the red lead for the small seeds, as well as for Peas and Beans. 
A few of the dressed Peas, a little of the powder mixed with Oat¬ 
meal, or dusted betwixt two pieces of bread and butter in the 
way that deadly poison arsenic is too often used, and placed near 
the runs of rats and mice, will soon effect a clearance of these 
pe3ts without danger of accident.—B. 
[There is not the slightest danger of injury in any way from 
using red lead to preserve sown seeds from birds. We are not 
sure that its colour is not concerned in deterring the marauders 
from pilfering the seed. It certainly would neither enter the 
tissues nor adhere to the roots in any way that washing and the 
process of cooking would not remove. We would use the red 
lead much sooner than we would carbonate of barytes between 
pieces of bread and butter if we did not wish to risk poisoning 
our cat or dog.— Eds. C. G.] 
THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S 
GARDEN AT KENSINGTON GORE. 
The first meeting of the Fruit and Flower Committees 
of the Royal Horticultural Society in the new offices at 
Kensington Gore took place on Shrove Tuesday—a fine 
frosty day, the frost of the preceding night being 12 Q here 
(in Surbiton) and at Chiswick Garden, and the consequence 
was that no one would venture to send flowers out for 
prizes with the glass down to 20°. Yet Mr. Eyles sent up 
a choice collection of Chinese Primulas and some Ca¬ 
mellias from the garden of the Society ; and the Messrs. 
Henderson, of the Wellington Road Nursery, sent a 
collection of a dozen kinds of Cyclamens in bloom; another 
collection of Chinese Primroses, including plants of the 
white and the purple Fern-leaved Primula sinensis. 
This departure from the usual form of the leaf of these 
Primulas was first exhibited in Regent Street; and it, of 
course, must be continued from cuttings—at least, pro¬ 
bably so, as the chances are that seedlings from the Fern¬ 
leaved Primulas would come with the leaves of the type 
plant. 
On the other hand, we had evidence in Mr. Eyles’ 
collection that the nearest variety or variation in these 
Primulas comes just as true from seeds as the best natural 
species in our books. Mr. Eyles saw a new-coloured Pri¬ 
mula sinensis advertised, he got a packet of the seeds, and 
all the plants which have yet bloomed of the new colour 
came quite true to the new colour, and a very nice colour 
it is, and a welcome addition to the conservatory, and 
to the show-house. It is a rosy red, and quite different 
from the purple red of the old and original kinds. The 
first of this breed was shown by Mr. Eyles at one of our 
last autumn meetings, and the colour is now even better. 
It is of the fimbriated, or frill-on-the-edges, strain of 
Primulas, which strain is the opposite to the florist’s 
merit in a Primula flower. Nothing short of “rose 
edge ” will satisfy the rules of floristry ; but frills and 
wavy margins to flowers of good colour are always wel¬ 
come to the ladies. Therefore, as the garden and rooms 
of the Society are now in London, and as ladies will be 
constantly in and out to see the flowers for the shows in 
these rooms, and in the beds and fancy borders of the 
new terrace garden, anybody and everybody who may 
have new flowers from foreign parts, or new seedlings of 
their own, ought to send them up there to be judged and 
spoken about, and be made more known. 
There is no fault in any new or old flower which is 
merely for decorative purposes—that is, for beds and 
borders and for drawing-rooms and conservatories, if it has 
no signs of the character of a florist’s flower about it. 
All that are wanted in decoration plants are good habits 
and good colours, and all that is admitted and acted on 
as far as possible in the awards of the Floricultural Com¬ 
mittee ; but the tests we use are most severe in both 
classes of flowers—in the florists’ or exhibition flowers, 
and in those for mere decoration. But a triangular 
flower, if such could be got, is just as good for decoration 
as round ones are for exhibitions, and both kinds will 
have their rewards according to their different merits, 
so that no one need now hesitate to send up new flowers 
to London to be judged. 
The Fruit Committee is now held in the same room 
and at the same time as the Floral Committee, and after 
the subjects are judged the things are all re-arranged 
and set ready for exhibition, and all members or Fellows 
of the Society and their friends may go in and see them. 
The show-room is lighted entirely from the roof, is 
well heated and ventilated, and is large enough and 
sufficiently ornamented for a billiard-room in a duke’s 
mansion, and is more in that style than anything the 
Society had hitherto aimed at. Part of this office build¬ 
ing is to form there the back wall of the Italian arcade, 
which encloses the terrace garden : the elevation of these 
offices, therefore, must be to suit the arcade, and that 
accounts for having the light of the show-room from the 
roof, which is all but flat, and in large squares of very 
thick glass. It is the best arranged room in London for 
seeing flowers in-doors to the best advantage, and is on 
the opposite principle to the murderous old iron tent for 
the Chiswick shows, which The Cottage Gardener 
condemned the first day the experiment was tried with 
it. But the Crystal Palace people went just as far wrong 
in the first flower show along the front whole-length side 
of the Palace, as the Chiswick authorities did wdien they 
darkened the roof of the iron tent, and got in the light 
on to the flowers over the shoulders from behind the 
visitors—the worst arrangement for seeing colours 
effectively of all other modes of admitting light. Now we 
have it, the light of day, through the light of practical 
science, without a single theoretical wave in it, and it is 
open now to the gardening world to see and to learn 
the difference. 
Out in the garden the works have progressed much 
more rapidly than any one accustomed to such things 
could expect, seeing the torrents and the pourings of last 
summer, and the Greenland of this winter. The large 
coloured engraving of the plan of the garden, which was 
distributed to the Fellows of the Society, gives but a 
very faint idea of the beauty of the place. But it is so 
entirely a terrace garden, and so jealously excludes the 
faintest idea of any other style, that hundreds had been 
led by the engraving to doubt of the telling effect of the 
beauty of the garden on the public mind. Bat when you 
come to see the idea of the artist realised, and put into 
shape and order before you, flight by flight as you go up 
from the side entrance, or come down from the conserva¬ 
tory, which is on the highest part of the slope, you must 
have a queer notion of terrace gardens if you will not be 
highly delighted with the whole thing. I never went 
near it from our anniversary of last May, when the 
first turf was only just lifted, to this flay (Shrove Tues¬ 
day), and the first thing I did was to step over every foot 
of the paths without any one with me ; so that I could 
judge for myself, without any influence for or against 
all or any part of the whole ; that was before the meeting, 
and before the sun was on the meridian of its course, 
which is very near the meridian of this terrace garden, 
I went over it again in the afternoon with a good light 
from the sun coming sideways, and I think I atn not 
deceived in the opinion that the new garden at Kensington 
Gore will be the nearest step to the perfection of that 
style that we have in England; but it is a fleabite as 
compared with the grounds of the Crystal Palace and 
