THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, July 14, 1857. 
230 
measuring from sixteen inches to nineteen inches and a 
half across! Mr. Spencer and Mr. Macqualter, gardener 
to Col. Challoner, were put on the same footing with 
Mr. Hill for their Muscat Grapes. Mr. Dunsford, 
Chingford, Essex, sent a beautiful basket of Muscats; 
and the delicious Black Frontignan was fine from Mr. 
Allport, gardener to — Ackroyd, Esq., Doddington. Mr. 
Shrimpton, gardener to A. J. Doxat, Esq., Putney 
Heath, sent a collection of Grapes, consisting of very 
fine-coloured West's St. Peter s, with Hamburghs and 
Muscadines. 
Mr. Spencer sent a collection of Cherries, and there 
were several dishes of Cherries from other exhibitors. 
The Peaches and Nectarines were very good; the best 
was a dish of six Violette Hdtive Peaches (not Nectarines), 
from Mr. Snow, gardener to Earl de Grey. Mr. Spencer, 
Mr. Errington, Mr. Macqualter, and Mr. Frost had the 
next best Peaches and best kinds—the Royal George and 
Bellegarde ; but there were several other dishes of very 
good Peaches and Nectarines. 
Melons were numerous and very good. The true old 
Egyptian Green-flesh Melon, from Mr. Spencer, was 
considered the best-flavoured, and is still, most certainly, 
the very best-flavoured Melon in England. 
There was a dish of the Sir Harry Strawberry, from 
Mr. Yates, of Manchester, and trusses of the same kind to 
show how it comes in succession. These were spoiled by 
carriage, but the fruit was very large, and respecting its 
flavour we were told that two opposite opinions prevail 
among gardeners and others. Some say it is too acid, 
and some count it among the best of our Strawberries. 
The Horticultural Society consider it as good to eat as 
Keens Seedling. Mr. Browne, gardener to Col. Bid- 
dulph, M.P., sent a Strawberry called Stirling Castle; 
but the Judges did not consider it worth much, nor the 
new seedling from the royal gardens. 
There were models of flower and fruit gatherers very 
ingeniously contrived by Mr. Jones, of Constitution 
Row, Gray’s Inn Road, who was there to show the 
working of the instruments; and I would advise 
Londoners to call on Mr. Jones and see his new con¬ 
trivances, which are very useful in some cases, although 
we gardeners look on all such useful things as mere 
toys. It is but too true that some gardeners use cos¬ 
metics, and some put rings on their little fingers, and 
despise wooden shoes and flannel shirts, also as mere 
toys. 
Mr. McEwen sent three dozen kinds of Peas in the 
straw from the garden of the Society, and ten kinds of 
Dwarf Kidney Beans , and placed them on the tables in 
the order of their ripening, and the earliest six or 
seven of the kinds ran thus— Peas: 1. Early Sebas¬ 
topol, two feet high. 2. Eastling’s Early Dwarf, one 
foot and a half. 3. Carter’s Earliest, two feet. 4. Sang- 
ster’s No. I, three feet. 5. Emperor, three feet. 6. 
Early Nimble, one foot and a half. 7. Harrison’s 
Glory, and so on to six-and-thirty. The Kidney Beans 
stood thus—1. Pale Dun. 2. Newington Wonder. 
3. Liver Colour. 4. Long Pod Negro. 5. Early Six 
Weeks. 0. China Speckled. 7. Mohawk. 8. Fulmer’s 
Glory. 9. Black Speckled; and 10. Red Speckled. 
There was also a large contribution of plants from 
the garden of the Society, chiefly fine-leaved plants, 
two good specimens of Achimenes Liepmanni and Mount- 
fordii, which is like the old scarlet one; Diplacus glu- 
tinosus grandiflorus, the straw-coloured kind, which is 
much admired in a mixed border out of doors in the 
Experimental; Aphelandra squarrosa citrina; a nice 
dwarf plant of Conoclinium ianthinum; and a very 
pretty specimen of Pelargonium citriodorum album, and 
others. 
Messrs. Veitch sent a noble collection of Aerides and 
a new form ot Cypripedium barbatwm, which is very 
distinct; also a good example of their Princess Royal 
hybrid Rhododendron. The Aericles were these— Lar- 
pentce , maculosum, afline, very fine; two Lindleyi, Lobbi, 
guttatum, and a new kind in the way of maculosum. 
Mr. Rucker sent a fine specimen of Aerides nobile, 
with long and many-branched flower-spikes. The lip, 
or labellum, in this kind is folded and turned up towards 
the column, with the spur below pointed out like the 
spur of a Larkspur. 
Mr. Gains sent a large collection of pot Ferns, to 
which the lecturer advised the lovers of Ferns to look 
very particularly, as the kinds were very choice, very 
easy to grow, and probably very cheap. His next 
contribution was a most beautiful new Geranium ; that 
is, not a florist’s Pelargonium. It is as showy as a fine- 
looking woman at a ball. He made it himself, and, 
having come so near the mark, I will tell you how he 
did it as confidently as if I had seen him do it, and I 
shall be bound for it as true as his stud book can tell 
him. He took a healthy plant of Dr. Andre, a French 
sort, which “ came out” at the Regent’s Park in 1852 or 
1853, 1 forget which; but the Doctor is registered in The 
Cottage Gardener for that summer. Well, he was 
then in love with the new French race, and seized on 
the best of the English kinds which came nearest to 
that race—I mean Sanspareil —and with the pollen of 
Sanspareil on the stigma of Dr. Andre this beautiful 
Geranium was made. It was not named. 
Mr. Cutbush, of Highgate, sent a mossed boxful of 
his new variegated Petunia, which must look well in an 
edging to a bed on grass, or as a variegated bed by 
itself. The flowers are white, but the novelty and 
beauty lie in the variegated foliage. 
Mr. Ingram, gardener to J. J. Blandy, Esq., sent a 
most beautiful Hcemanthus, the best grown and bloomed 
of the family I ever saw; but his name, coccineus, is 
not the right name, nor did the lecturer notice the 
error; but if it had been an Orchid itw'ould have caught 
his eye in a moment. Hcemanthus coccineus, and five or 
six or more kinds related to it, always flower, like 
the Belladonna, before the leaves push. Coccineus pro¬ 
duces only a pair, or at most two pairs of leaves in one 
year, and the leaves have no footstalks; they fall re¬ 
cumbent on the right and left of the bulb. 
Mr. Blandy’s plant is Hcemanthus puniceus, and be¬ 
longs to a small section of the family of which Dr. 
Herbert thus remarks: “ The most startling difference 
is that those of the first section flower with the leaves 
in vigour, instead of before their appearance.” The 
leaves of the plant in question could not be more 
vigorous; they come in fours, so close together as to 
look column-like, from the stalks of the leaves appearing 
to unite ; this part and the bottom of the scape are much 
bared. It is the finest of the race, and the best old plant 
in the country. Nurserymen should get and grow it 
once more for sale. The flower-heads are more like an 
Ixora than those of a bulb, and it keeps in bloom above 
two months. 
But probably the most valuable plant in the room 
for the country at large was the new Cupressus Lawso- 
niana, three plants of which were exhibited by the 
Messrs. Waterer and Godfrey, Knap Hill, Woking, along 
with one of Cupressus borealis. Lawsoniana is un¬ 
questionably the most beautiful growing plant of that 
race at that age. It, or rather they, the three plants, 
looked at a distance as if they were specimens of Acacia 
aflinis about a foot high, while borealis, of the same 
size, looked like a free seedling of the common upright 
Cypress of Italy or Italian gardens. The lecturer said 
that by some mistake Lawsoni, or Lawsoniana, was 
mixed up with some other kind, the name of which I 
did not catch, probably with borealis;' if so, there are 
no two plants in that genus more unlike each other, and 
he, the lecturer, pledged his word that the plants before 
us were of the true species. I can vouch for the same 
