190 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 30, 1857. 
! 
well understood, too, amongst gardeners that for keep¬ 
ing properties the small bunches are superior to the 
large ones; and, indeed, no wonder — they are better 
‘‘fed,” to use an ordinary garden phrase. This was a 
favourite plan of Mr. Crawshay, of Colney-hatch, who 
used to produce such fine winter Grapes. On going 
there to examine the practice some twenty years since 
I was somewhat astonished to find two or three shoots 
emanating from one spur, from what Mr. Crawshay 
termed “ spawn eyes.” The gardener told me that they 
preferred three shoots with half a pound on each to one 
shoot with a pound and a half bunch; he said they 
coloured and kept better. 
There are many singular matters connected with 
Vines and their culture that are but imperfectly under- 
I stood, and they deserve, in my opinion, every attention. 
In some future paper I may turn to the subject again. 
R. Errington. 
I 
> _ 
THE BEDDING SYSTEM. 
When one of our good old English Lord Chancellors 
made a new country magistrate out of the old materials 
of a good sensible country gentleman he is said to have 
never omitted to give this advice to the new limb of the 
law : “ Decide all cases which come before you according 
' to your own judgment, but never add the reason why 
1 you decided that way ; for your judgment, though sound 
and good, may be supported by reasons which may be 
strictly illegal, and which an adversary might turn 
against you, and upset your judgment, though ever so 
; good.” 
Now, having occupied the woolsack for some years, 
1 such cases come before me occasionally. The last of 
; them is at page 177, the week before last. Mr. E. Simons 
there repeats what I had often said of the bedding 
system, of the florists, and of the Flower Shows. Each 
and all of them do and have done a vast deal of harm 
i and a “prodigious” amount of good. In my “ capa- 
| city ” I seldom fail to give the reason for my decisions, 
j Mr. Fish says I always do, and, although I am “ bearded ” 
! occasionally, my decisions generally carry a high legal 
authority. This is an appeal day, and I am “ sitting ” 
on one case only—that of Mr. E. Simons aforesaid— 
referred to this court by the Editor. “What will Mr. 
Beaton say to our correspondent’s heterodox postscript ? 
‘ The bedding system (bad luck to it!) has driven so 
many herbaceous plants out of cultivation, that when I 
lose a plant I find it difficult and often impossible to 
replace it. If the only use of plants is to produce cer¬ 
tain effects by the arrangement of different colours, why 
cannot those effects be produced by painted boards or 
posts ? ’ ” 
Here, then, is another good example of a sound 
judgment being controverted by false reasoning. The 
, bedding system has thrown many good plants out of 
the trade, and it is indeed very difficult to find them 
when one happens to lose them. The Flower Shows 
have been still more arbitrary, and the florists the 
i worst of all. Why, therefore, on Mr. E. Simons’s way of 
reasoning, should not wax flowers do at the shows? 
Wax flowers would save the florist a world of trouble; 
; and why should Mr. E. Simons bother himself about 
long-lost “ herbaceous” plants? • If he is satisfied with 
them without producing effect, would not their names 
j written in his garden book be quite as good for him as 
painted “ boards and posts” would be to us and ours? 
The most popular bed of this season is the Nosegay 
bed; it has also been the most popular bed since 1840, 
! when I first took to it at Shrubland Park —the pink Nose- 
j gay. In 1844 Mr. Fleming sent me his lilac Nosegay. 
J Again, in 1856, he sent me a “ red Nosegay,” with this 
I question: “ Is not this the Horseshoe Crimson you say 
is lost ?” “No,” said I; “but it seems a good one, and is 
of a different section, that of the old F'othercjillii of Sweet, 
alias Nosegay of gardens. Your plant was not known to 
Sweet, and comes very near an older Nosegay which was 
figured by Andrews under the name of Bentinclciamim. 
Pray give me the history of your Nosegay.” He 
answered thus: “ The red Nosegay is an old one 
raised by Mr. Patrick, gardener at Stoke Pogis, | 
Bucks: it is little known except in that neighbour¬ 
hood.” Sweet writes that his Fotherrjillii, alias Nose- | 
gay, was a Cape species. Andrews said the same 
of his Bentinclciamim; but from some revelations 
by dusting pollen I suspected both of them were 
wrong, and that if I could procure a kind which I 
thought was lost, but which was common in their days, 
I thought I could prove them to be wrong, for without 
proving a pudding one may as well do without it, and 
1 take dry bread and cheese. I have the legal proof 
| in my hands that they were mistaken; the Nosegays , 
I are an English race. I have made the old Nosegays 
over again; the one of them which I firmly believe was j 
common in Miller’s time is an improvement on ‘Mr. 
Patrick’s plant, and there is a full bed of it in flower j 
now in the Experimental—a very effectual bed, which 
no paint or painter could give on a board or post. I call 
it Miller's Nosegay, to distinguish it as one of the three 
original Nosegays. Patrick’s plant will give a good idea i 
I of it; but, to make sure that I was not deceived by Mr. 
Fleming’s young plants, I brought flowers of both kinds 
for him to decide at the Crystal Palace Show last autumn, j 
and after his decision I left the plants of Patrick’s j 
seedling to the frost. Miller's Nosegay will stand as the 
darkest shade of red. There is a red Nosegay in the 
nurseries; I saw it at Pine Apple Place Nursery last 
May, but I never had a bed of it. It is the Fothergillii 
purpureim of Sweet’s Geraniacese, and cannot be dis¬ 
tinguished from the pink Nosegay, which is a purplish 
pink by growth or leaf. 
Mrs. Vernon is a good Nosegay for the centre of a 
bed. It has a large truss and clear reddish pink colour, 
but the flowers are very thin. Frewer’s Nosegay , I 
believe, was raised by a nurseryman of that name in 
Stowmarket. I had it from Shrubland Park, and saw it 
there last autumn. It is a red flower, and is not so 
good as Mrs. Vernon. 
It is curious that the taste for Nosegays never be¬ 
came general till the French poured in their broad- 
spotted Geraniums, although they were considered the 
best kinds throughout the last century. The father and 
grandfather of the present generation of Hendersons 
told me that all along they had to propagate a certain 
number of Nosegays for a section of the Pine Apple 
Nursery customers, who preferred them to all others. 
At first they were sold as “ Green’s Seedlings,” and, 
being then the only kinds with large trusses, they got 
the name of Nosegays. Sweet named them after Dr. 
Fothergill, but at the same time retained their popular 
garden name of Nosegays. And now what will Mr. E. 
Simons say to the ladies, who prefer them on account 
of the light and airy way they seem to give what 
painters call “ light and shadow ” to effective pictures 
in massing beds? Why, any good painter could give 
light and shadow on a flat board, to be sure. 
The Variegated Nosegay at the Kingston Nursery must 
have some other name down the country, where it was 
picked up without a name, and any one who can prove a 
claim to a previous name is welcome to it. This is the 
only Nosegay I have seen among variegated Geraniums. 
Last year I told of the quickest way to catch a new 
variegated Geranium by taking advantage of “ sports”— 
to cut down a plant to a branch which showed white or 
variegated leaves—and I instanced a seedling which I 
thus turned to account. It is now three years old, and 
has just flowered, and if I can save it I am quite sure it 
