T1IE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 25, 1859. 
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teste that was thought worthy of being printed so many years 
after his decease, for his Treatise de Artibus IAberalibus and his 
Commentary on Aristotle were published at Venice in 1514. 
Bishop Robert Greathead, for he was an Englishman, and his 
real name was only foreigned by such translations as “ Grost- 
head ” and Grosseteste,” was a man of high attainments, and of 
a mind enlarged far above the generality of his contemporaries. 
He was the friend of Roger Bacon, and studied as he did the 
Natural Sciences. He was, says Sharon Turner, “ intrepid and 
patriotic, foremost in every useful pursuit of his day, the friend 
and cultivator of poetry, scholastic philosophy, Arabian science, i 
natural philosophy, mathematics, divinity, and canon and j 
civil law. He was also the fearless and successful assertor of 
the liberties of the English Church, and a protector of the 
English clergy against the taxations and tyraimy of the Pope.”— 
( Turner's Hist, of Middle Ages.) 
His letter to Pope Innocent in 1253 may he read in the 
Chronicle of Matthew Paris, and was so displeasing to the 
Pontiff, that he threatened to hurl upon him confusion and i 
destruction. Greathead went fearlessly on to declare the Pope ; 
both a heretic and antichrist; and after death the Bishop was j 
believed to have visited the Pope, and to have threatened and i 
terrified him from his purpose of having the Bishop’s bones dug I 
up and thrown out of the church. The diffusion of such an idle 
tale implies the popularity of Bishop Greathead, and the preceding 
facts readily explain why the applications to Rome for canonizing 
him were but coldly received.—( Wilkins' Concilia , ii., 287 ) 
There is no sound reason, then, for doubting that Bishop 
Greathead wrote the “Tratyse of Husbandry and if he did, it 
is certainly the earliest relation we have of the earliest practices 
of English Agriculture, for he died in 1253, at Buckden, the 
episcopal residence of his see, and the agricitlture he describes 
was that of the reigns of Henry II., Richard I., John and 
Henry III. 
WINTERING CANNAS—BED OF GRASS-LIKE 
PLANTS. 
Respecting the plants of Canna which you have noticed in 
your paper, am I to pot in Bandy compost, and give no w r ater 
till the spring, like the Callas ? 1 have a fine plant of Canna in 
a 24-pot, the leaves of which are turning at the edges. Ought I j 
to leave off watering it ? 
I cannot devote more than one bed to the plants you mention. 
I propose planting the Pampas Grass in the centre; then a I 
circle of Tritoma and Canna; and outside a circle of Ribbon j 
Grass. Wliat do you think of this ?— Kate. 
[The Cannas for the out-door purposes may be wintered like 
Callas, or just likfe Potatoes. The “roots” of Cannas will keep j 
dry and out of ground as long as the late Potatoes, away from ! 
frost or damp. We had a potful of the “ Opera Girls ” (Man- I 
tisia isallatoria ) sent us by a gentleman last May, which look ! 
much like your young Cannas. They (the roots) were so un- ! 
willing to leave our snuggery and go to rest for the winter that ; 
we had to cease watering altogether by the beginning of October; 
turned out the ball on a shelf, and the leaves are not yet quite 
dried up. That will often be the way with the Cannas; they 
can be petted till they are spoiled, like children, will then have 
their own way, and be green and doing all winter, but by the 
middle of October they will have done the season’s work ; and 
whether they seem to like it or no, they ought to be made to go i 
to rest for the winter. j 
Your idea eclipses ours with respect to the Pampas bed. The j 
smallest plant of Pampas Grass will need a circular bed ten feet j 
across in two or three years, and it would be “love’s labour j 
lost to plant Tritomas nearer to it than five feet. Then Tritoma 
in two or three years will need more than a yard of room-—sav 
fourteen feet to the circle ; and a row of Cannas will certainly 
need two feet; but say fifteen feet in diameter is the smallest ! 
circle to hold Pampas, Tritoma, Canna, to say nothing of Ribbon 
Grass, which can be made to occupy but one foot, if need be ; 
but a yard is not near enough for it to have its own way.j 
CAMELLIAS and ORANGE TREES in Al'ESHIEE. 
i Accept my thanks for the names of the best six evergreen 
plants for an orcnaro-housc ; and also tor your suggestion as to 
tlie Camellias. 1 lea', however, that these would not thrive even 
in the way you mention. Some years ago when I first had my 
orchard-house (winch, however, is a little better than as Mr. 
Rivers described, for it is span-roofed, and fourteen feet high to 
the ridge), I had two or three Camellias planted in the border. 
All through the winter months they looked pretty well, but 
when February came, although they were not quite killed, they 
were next to it,—their blooms were finished. 
I have an Orange tree which was also planted out in the 
border, and suffered in the same way. I had it potted in the 
following spring, but it has never done much good since. It is 
horribly infested with the scale. This summer it has been again 
repotted, and now it is sweating at the leaves most profusely. 
It exudes a sweet juice, which stands on the leaves like dew, and 
it even seems to squirt it out, because the ground around where 
it stands is quite covered with the nasty stuff. It is quite clear 
but sticky, and becomes black alter a little while upon the leaves. 
Will you kindly help me to a cure, or at all events, to an ex¬ 
planation of the phenomenon ? 
I do not grow my fruit bushes in pots with the bottoms 
knocked off them, as recommended by Mr. Rivers. I take the 
tops of the chimney pots commonly used in this part of the 
country. They are twelve inches across the top, about ten at 
the bottom, and about ten deep. They are open throughout, but 
one or two sticks jammed in, make a good-enough bottom till 
the ball of the plant fixes itself like a wedge. They answer 
admirably and are cheap.—F. 
t in your latitude the Camellias had a worse chance in your 
eated orchard-house, span-roofed and fourteen feet high to the 
ridge, than in a common lean-to house, because the heat stored 
up in the wall would prevent the enclosed air getting so cold as 
in a span-roofed house. Your Orange tree has also suffered from 
cold, and, we fear, will do so both in the ground and out of the 
ground in a pot. If you wished to enjoy such a house thoroughly, 
why not run a pipe-flue through it, merely to keep out frost, as 
has frequently been mentioned ? Your Orange tree is affected 
with honey dew. You can do little with it at present, but wash 
it clean with a sponge and soap and water, and then syringe it 
with clean water. If you can keep the stems alive until February, 
and then put your plant where it could get a nice moist heat, 
you might yet make a fine healthy plant of it, and get it well 
hardened to stand over the next winter. It would need pro¬ 
tection with mats, Ac., in cold nights, if you could not heat the 
house to keep the frost out. 
We quite approve of your chimney crockery for pots. If 
cheaper than pots of the same size and as lasting, they are just 
all that the better. The sticks across the bottom are a capital idea. 
Some folks would despair and keep crying to Hercules to help 
them, before such a simple affair would have suggested itself 
even on an emergency.] 
MAUVE COLOUR VERBENA. 
I HASTEN to congratulate Mr. Jeffries, of Ipswich, on his good 
luck in raising a Verbena at last worthy of the name of Lady 
Middleton. It has passed through the office of The Cottage 
Gardener to our censorship, and I had a glimpse of it. Its 
fragrance filled the room, the colour is charming, and it is now 
warranted to stand all weathers, as well as Geant des Bat allies or 
Mrs. Ho ford. Five out of seven of the fashionable dresses of 
this season are of the same colour as this Verbena; and Mr. 
Jeffries would be in the fashion next year, by sending out his 
Lady Middleton Verbena as a mauve colour. But a disciple of 
her ladyship in colours, must not pass mauve colour into the 
garden on such easy terms. In less than six months after Her 
Majesty Queen Victoria wore a dress of mauve colour at the 
wedding of the Princess Royal, there were five or six imitation 
shades of it, and I myself saw two of the shades then on ladies 
high up in the peerage, which tickled my fancy at the time; and 
I foresaw that by well ventilating the new colour with crinoline, 
we should soon have endless imitations of it, and endless shades 
of itself, for in fashions, as in other things, it never rains but it 
pours. 
The first time I met this difficulty in practice was last March, 
when I was classifying the colours of the Hyacinths at the ex¬ 
hibition of the Messrs. Cutbush and Son, at Highgate. When I 
came to purplish-lilac in the flowers of Handy and Honneur 
d’Oversea, I said “there wa3 too much red for lilac, and too 
much lilac for purple in both of them,” and that “there is only 
one real purplish-lilac, and a most magnificent tiling it is 
