THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S 
to sail, she might furnish the best opportunity for shipping. 
Please to send me also a good lot of seeds for stocks for 
the different kinds of fruit trees, and seeds of wild Roses 
and Briars.”—G. H. 
POTTED PLANTS IN WARDIAN CASES. 
_ I have just been reading Mr. Beaton’s remarks on the 
right way of having Wardian cases. The plan is excellent 
for those who can afford it, but for those who, like myself, 
cannot, it is useless. What we want is a manual something 
in the style of “ Greenhouses for the Many.” Such a manual 
for the management of Wardian cases, with a few designs 
for cheap cases, and a list of plants adapted for growing in 
them, would be hailed with delight by hundreds who wish to 
grow Ferns, but do not know how to go about it without 
making it an expensive affair. 
I have grown Ferns in cases these six years past, and at 
first I lost a great many. Now I grow them in pots the 
plants are healthy, and I have not lost one for a long time, 
and I have raised plenty of seedlings. 
Many people may object to pots, but we grow plants in 
pots in our windows and greenhouses, and why not in our 
Fern cases ? It certainly does not look so pretty as rock- 
work and all that sort of thing; but if Ferns are your object, 
that is the way to have them. You can get at the plants 
much better, and if anything is wrong you can set it right, 
aud by a little management the pots may be entirely hid by 
the foliage.— Filix Mas. 
HOYA PAXTONII. 
In page 202 of the present volume of The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener I promised to report to you which is the best Hoya, 
and now that I have a little spare time I will try to fulfil that 
promise. I certainly think that the best of all Hoyas is one 
that goes under various names in the trade catalogues. 
Some have it as H. bella of Van Houtte; others as Cyrtoceras 
Puxlonii. and II. Paxtonii, which last, I think, is the right 
name, for I cannot think that it is a Cyrtoceras. I believe 
that this Hoya was sent out by Van Houtte for H. bella 
about the same time that the true H. bella made its ap¬ 
pearance. However, I happened to obtain both about that 
time, and grew them side by side. 
Hoya Paxtonii is easily distinguished from H. bella by its 
having a longer and more sharply-pointed leaf than has the 
bella. The foliage is of a peculiar light-green colour, and is 
not so thickly set on the branches. It also has a very 
graceful weeping habit of growth. Even when the branches 
are tied up to neat sticks it will adopt this weeping form as 
soon as the branches get above the supports. Thus it is 
quite distinct from H. bella, for I do not know a plant with 
such a dar/c, heavy foliage as H. bella has when in good 
health. 
I have no doubt that if an amateur were to see this plant 
blooming in a small state he would think it not worth grow¬ 
ing by the side of H. bella, for such was my thought when it 
first flowered with me; and for the first two seasons I even 
promised it a place on the rubbish-heap. Manage it in 
whatever manner I could think of, I could not get it to 
I assume that fine, dark, healthy green foliage which H. bella 
1 did. In fact, H. Paxtonii looks, when in perfect health, as 
| if it were sickly and water-logged. But it is for this peculiar 
light-green foliage that I recommend it as the best; for bear 
in mind there is no perceptible difference in the flowers of 
this and H. bella, but when in bloom and placed side by side, 
then it is that Paxtonii shows itself to advantage. 
The way to prove the truth of what I say is to place the 
! plants upon the front shelf of the show-house, and walk 
away a few yards in front of the house, where you will soon 
| lose sight of the flowers upon II. bella, its dark-green foliage 
drowning them ; then walk as far again from the house, and 
i you will be able still to see almost every flower upon H. Pax 
' tonii; for its light-green foliage seems to set off the bloom 
to the best advantage. 
I saw a plant of Paxtonii last summer a yard through and 
COMPANION, February 3, 1857. 307 
rather more than a yard high, completely covered with bloom, 
and a more noble object I never saw. 
Another superior property is its hardier constitution; for 
I have found it to stand the winter in a greenhouse, and it 
will grow tolerably well in any warm house or pit where the 
house is closed up with a little sun heat in summer; but I 
have treated it through the growing season the same as H. 
bella, with the exception that I did not sift the soil for it, 
as I recommend to be done for that plant. For any one 
in want of a Hoya that will make a good plant and that will 
stand common-place treatment, H. Paxtonii is the plant; 
but he must make up his mind to grow it into a moderate¬ 
sized plant before it will show its true character. Afterwards 
it will keep in good order for years by a little cutting-in aud 
a small shift annually.—W. Dyment, Headingley, Leeds. 
ASSOCIATIONS OF GARDENERS FOR MUTUAL 
RELIEF AND INSTRUCTION. 
I do not know I ever read in the columns of your in¬ 
teresting paper (and I have read some hundreds) an article 
that gives me so much pleasure as the one furnished you by 
that industrious, intelligent, and philanthropic man, Mr. 
Brewer, of Pine Apple Place, respecting a Gardener’s Society 
he has established for the relief of our much-neglected race 
when sickness, or adversity, or misfortune befalls us. What¬ 
ever he takes in hand is generally crowned with success. 
I happened to know him twelve years hack, but have not 
seen him since. He then established in the neighbourhood 
where he lived—at Messrs. Noble’s, Fleet Street—a similar 
society of a penny a week to relieve poor, distressed people 
of good character, but brought down to poverty through 
disease and old age. He was Secretary of that, and a better 
regulated or more successful society cannot exist. It has 
relieved hundreds of distressed poor, and still continues to 
do so, with a fund now of between twenty and thirty pounds 
at the Society’s disposal, and collected by pence principally. 
It also has caused another one to be started very near, and 
on the same principles as that. This more recent Society 
has already relieved distress to the amount of forty pounds 
in two years. When Mr. Brewer left the neighbourhood he 
was presented by the Society with a testimonial for his 
honorary services. I know these facts, for I belong to both 
Societies. 
His scale of relief according to the funds is excellent, and 
I trust, when this comes to be read by our town and country 
nurserymen and market gardeners, they will follow the 
example by establishing similar associations among our 
hard-working, industrious class. I tried some years back to 
bring all the “ square gardeners ” together in the metropolis 
for the same object, but was not so successful as Mr. Brewer, 
for I broke down in a twelvemonth. I also wanted to dis¬ 
cuss matters relating to the floriculture of the squares, such 
as informing each other as to what would do best in London 
smoke, and make the squares look more like gardens than 
at present; for, for the most part, each is a shrubbery of i 
half-starved, sickly Lilacs. I wished to introduce more 
flowers, and to impart to each other any knowledge our 
metropolitan experience had taught us; but this attempt to 
bring them together amicably was perfectly useless. I could 
not get them to take any interest in it, so I gave it up. I ! 
have half a mind to try again, for our squares ought to look I 
much better, and might do so with a little perseverance. I 
am persuaded that the inhabitants of our numerous squares 
would be much better pleased to see them well filled with 
flowers all the summer than as they are at present, with here 
and there a half-leafless Lilac, scarcely showing a bloom. It 
would be the means of their becoming more liberal to the 
gardener, and of laying out more money to furnish plants 
for improvement. 
I am satisfied, from my own experience, that by such an 
association enabling us to impart our knowledge to each 
other by friendly meetings, we might, with little more 
expense to the inhabitants, make the squares an ornament 
to this great metropolis.— Samuel Broome, Temple Gardens. 
