THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
The Capes before alluded to, which are, when true, of 
great importance as links in a chain, are more apt to 
degenerate, perhaps, than any. This is most un¬ 
fortunate. It is a custom with some gardeners to sow 
a border of Capes in drills, about fifteen inches apart, 
in June, and merely to thin them out in the drills to 
about a foot. Such a border may be visited any time 
during September and October, and a dish of nice little 
Broccoli may always be obtained. 
In casting our eyes over the Broccolis as a body, we 
may see, I think, just six distinct classes. 1st, the 
Capes; 2nd, the Impregnated and Wgjcheren; 3rd, the 
Branching; 4th, tbe Midwinter Broccolis; 5th, the 
Spring Broccolis; and 6th, the Particular Late Whites. 
The Capes may be described as coming into use from the 
middle of August; the Impregnated through September, 
October, November, and December; the Branching 
through January and February, or later; the Midwinter 
in January, through February, aud into March; the Spring 
Broccolis in March and April; and the Particular Late 
Whites through May, and perhaps into June. 
I may here observe, as to a great variety of kinds, that 
if I could obtain genuine Capes, Orange's Impregnated 
as it was forty years since, some good Snoiv’s Winter 
White, and the old Somers Particular Late White, I 
could undertake, with the aid of Cauliflowers, to cut 
every week through the year. 
As to Cauliflowers, everybody understands something 
about them; through all the grades of society they are 
in request. Mr. Robson, my clever coadjutor, has 
written some good things about them, and whatever he 
undertakes he is sure to throw light on. But I may 
just observe, that having a large stock in the last 
October, when the frosts began, I had their leaves tied 
together just at the points, and thus in some measure 
made them self-protecting, and they were in use a long 
time. Let me here repeat that purchasers should not 
aim at too many kinds; it is more their fault than the 
seedsmen’s that their lists are so crammed with kinds, 
many of them having nothing to boast of but a fine 
name. R. Errington. 
MEETING OF THE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY.— March 3rd. 
• 
There was a large attendance at this Meeting; too 
large, indeed, for moving about and seeing the things 
in comfort; and if the Society goes on increasing for the 
next five or six years as it has done for the last six 
months the sooner the house in Regent Street is got 
rid of, the sooner our debts will he paid off, and the less 
need for insuring our ribs against the chances of our 
own jostlings. There is nothing under the sun which I 
value so much in a man, or in a set of men and women, 
like ourselves of the Horticultural for instance, as in¬ 
dependence of character; therefore I was more pleased 
than not, last autumn, when I was told that the govern¬ 
ment of Lord Palmerston refused outright to give a 
house or home to our Society, as it had done to other 
societies which really needed a helping hand. This 
refusal was given although some of the very highest 
names in the kingdom were appended to the petition, 
asking the shelter of a government roof to the insolvent 
gardeners. “ No, you shall never come here if I can 
help it,” said his lordship in effect; “ you are a dangerous 
lot; you cannot manage your own affairs like honest 
men ; and you propagate all sorts of outlandish fancies, 
and even send to that troublesome China for things, on 
purpose to satisfy this craving propensity, so that no 
government would be safe one month under the same 
roof with such propagandists as you are; ” and so 
ended tbe humiliating spectacle. But this “pressing 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 10, 1857. 391 
from without ” will force the new Council to provide 
elbow room for us all somewhere else. Next winter we 
shall be as merry as crickets. Our managers have done 
famously this time ; they actually have secured “Willis’s 
Rooms ” for our next winter’s “ propagated fancies,” 
and in October we begin there with the Pomological 
Polka, and if it pays we shall have a “run” there, to 
get us out of all our difficulties, if we may not be said 
to be all but out of them already. 
We balloted eleven new members at this Meeting, aud 
had many proposals for the next ballot, and better 
signs than even that. Three of our very best gardeners 
were among the fresh candidates—Mr. Ingram, of the 
Royal Gardens at Windsor; Mr. Frost, gardener to 
Lady Grenville, at Dropmore; and Mr. Tillyard, gar¬ 
dener to the Right Hon. the Speaker. Such names as 
these are the pillars of a national Horticultural Society. 
Every one of them is worth ten dukes in our way. 
Then our bead gardener, Mr. McEwen, is one of our 
most popular men; every gardener in the country likes 
him, and that is always half the battle in a popular 
society. Colonel Cballouer was in the chair, and he 
repeated the assurances of our last Meeting’s “ chair,” 
that the Society would live, and move, and propagate 
more fancies than most of us were yet aware of. He 
wished to ballot the new batch all in a lump, as at our ! 
last gathering; but there are some technical difficulties j 
in the way of displaying so much merriness all at once, 
which the gallant Colonel much regretted “ when he saw I 
so many fair faces before him, in which he could plaiuly 
read the anxiety to see the flowers,” without the bother j 
of waiting for a dry balloting. 
So the lecture began simultaneously with the rounds 
of the ballot-box, beginning with the fruit, among 
which was a new kind of Pine Apple from Mr. Eyles, 
the head curator of the garden department within. 
Three plants of this most curious Pine Apple were 
bought by the Crystal Palace Company at the Messrs. 
Loddiges’ sale, and were handed over to Mr. Eyles, who i 
is the first gardener in Europe to fruit this, the “ Branch- j 
ing Pine Apple” of Penang and the Straits of Malacca. : 
The extreme heat and moisture at Penang, and the 
richness of the soil there, have had the same kind of J 
influence on the development of this kind of Pine as ! 
strong doses of stimulating liquid manure and hot, j 
wet summers have on that of any kind of Roses in our 
own land, to force the parts of the flower from the flower 
character to that of a natural branch. In the eye of 
science a Pine Apple, a Rose, a Strawberry, and all 
kinds of flowers, are but some modification of a normal 
branch. That was the substance of the preface to a 
most interesting explanation of the Pine before us. 
The Crystal Palace fruit or Pine Apple was crowned 
with a coxcomb growth, without the semblance of a 
leaf farther than a short fringe, as one may see on a 
“ coxcomb ” growth of some Sedum or Stonecrop ; and 
there were twelve or thirteen young fruit of different 
sizes and lengths round the bottom instead of “ gills,” 
or small suckers; and instead of crowns each of them 
ran out at the top into a kind of round, leafless branch, 
clothed with the fringe. 
Next, a large book of drawings was produced to show ! 
how these Pines “branch” in the far East. These j 
drawings were made for the late Mr. Reeves under his 
own eye, while in China, to authenticate several things 
which could not be depended on from Chinese drawings. 
There were three kinds of development, or rather, three 
degrees of the branching of Pine Apples in these 
drawings which might puzzle all Europe, as well as our 
Meeting, unless the fact had been authenticated by 
these drawings from the valuable collection of that 
honest, true, “ old English gentleman,” Mr. Reeves, 
whom we all so much miss at these Meetings. Beevesii 
and Reevesiana are household words in gardening ; but 
