4 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 5, 1858. 
COMPARING NOTES. 
(Continued from page 405, Vol. XX.) 
CALCEOLARIAS FAILING. 
What a general wail there has been about these ! 
Many gaps have been made, or else they have been 
filled with things never thought of at planting time. 
The season, as a whole, has been as trying to Cal¬ 
ceolarias as it has been favourable to Scarlet and 
other bedding Geraniums. Clear sunshine and com¬ 
parative dryness are the glory of the latter. Clear 
sunshine and a warm atmosphere also suit the former, 
but only if the roots are moist and cool. This is the 
great secret of getting well-furnished beds of Cal¬ 
ceolarias, and the idea is borrowed from the position 
in which they are naturally found on the sides of the 
mountains of Peru. Notwithstanding all this care, 
however, it would appear that many of our best kinds, 
such as Caies’ Yellow, aurantia, floribunda, visco- 
sissima, &c., are kept healthy with great difficulty. 
One reason is, that the kinds get tired of the soil. I 
have two beds of Caies Yelloto that are pretty good 
this season, but nothing to what I have had it; but a 
year or two ago it was next to a failure in a prominent 
place, partly owing to being too dry, and water being 
too scarce for the purpose. The Kentish Hero used 
to be a gem with me, producing, not bunches, but 
branches of bloom, more than two feet in length. 
Now I have pretty well given it up in despair. The 
leaves get covered with black spots, as if affected with 
leprosy, and I have found no complete cure. I have 
hitherto had little trouble with the older species, such 
as rugosa and angustifolia. This season, my least 
effective is a row of rugosa ; but that I chiefly attri¬ 
bute to two things:—first, there was a row of Cal¬ 
ceolaria in the same place last year, rather against my 
usual system, as I can seldom change the soil in a 
bed; and secondly, in such circumstances, I ought to 
have planted much thicker, and then the effect would 
have been more massive. As it is, the plants are too 
thin, though they might have grown better under 
more favourable circumstances. 
I have had compact, neat beds of rugosa. Yet, 
unless for its more light lemon colour, I do not con¬ 
sider it equal to angustiflora, or what I call such; and 
here I wish I had the memory of my coadjutor, Mr. 
Beaton. The sort I mean has rather an upright, spiry 
growth, and very dark green foliage. There is a va- <> 
riety of integrifolia —though how, with its serratures, 
it should get that name, I never could see—called 
angustifolia, —or, I presume, something of that way, 
—which is not so strong growing as the one I have 
spoken of above : it is weaker altogether in its habit, 
the flowers more inclined to droop, and the leaves 
much narrower, and rather yellowish green in their 
hue. The latter is to be avoided, if the first, with the 
dark green foliage and stronger habit, can be obtained. 
A friend of mine has used the weaker sort in a ribbon 
border, and has been disappointed because it did not 
grow tall enough. I have seldom seen the old green¬ 
leaved variety fail. I have had several beds a perfect 
mass of bloom this season, even though, after high 
winds and heavy rains, great quantities of flowers have 
been dislodged. Another dwarf yellow has done 
moderately well here,—and extra well in some places, 
called the Clumber Yellow. 
Round some of the angustiflora beds, I had a ring 
of a dark one,— Indian Chief, —raised by the late Mr. 
Brown, of Hampstead Road, which is upright in habit, 
and with small, narrow foliage : it is an old favourite, 
but being outside, and not sheltered by plenty of 
foliage, the heat and dryness have been rather too 
much for it. Among darkish kinds, the Prince of 
Orange (a brownish orange) has been everything that 
could be desired for two years; but it has done extra 
I best, where its own green foliage, and a thick edging 
I of something else, have kept the roots from being 
freely acted upon by sun heat. 
The aurea floribunda looks as if it would do well 
for a dwarf bed; but I have noticed a few leaves with 
the black patches. In the spring of the year, I no¬ 
ticed some plants in the garden of Mr. Kemp, a 
tradesman of St. Albans, that seemed to have the 
compactness of aurea floribunda, with much more 
vigour and luxuriance of growth; but I have heard 
nothing of them since. Mr. Kemp had a small house 
filled with seedlings. From that quarter wo have had 
some of our best bedders. Mr. Coles, I believe, 
raised Prince of Orange. 
On the whole, then, if we cannot succeed with some 
of the finest shrubby hybrids, we must fall back upon 
some of the older species, as angustiflora, amplexi- 
caulis, &c. And, so far as colour is concerned, we 
cannot be so badly off for yellow, when we have double 
Chrysanthemums, which bloom all the summer over ; 
dwarf double yellow Marigolds, which come true from 
seed; Calliopsis Drummondii, not seen so often as it 
deserves to be; and CEnothera macrocarpa, which, if 
encouraged, will be a blaze of orange yellow in the 
summer and autumn months; not to speak of CEno¬ 
thera prostrata, for small beds and edgings. 
snow’s lettuces. 
In noticing these last season, I regret that I only 
helped the seedsmen to make confusion worse con¬ 
founded, amid their Compact and Matchless, as described 
in their seed lists. The Messrs. Henderson, who had 
the seed true, fell into something of a similar error. 
Be it known, then, that Mr. Snow has sent out no 
Lettuce which he calls Compact. Instead of that, it 
should be called for under the name of Matchless. It 
is the best Lettuce I have met with, for late autumn 
use, for standing the winter, and coming in very early 
for use in the spring, at the foot of a wall or otherwise, 
folding itself up tight as a green Cos, and needing no 
tying. As I previously remarked, though it does well in 
summer also with some people, with me it bolta sooner 
than many others. For autumn, winter, and spring use 
it is invaluable, and as yet, I believe, matchless. The 
other sort is a hybrid, and named the Champion, a 
large, crisjr, summer Lettuce. Having found the names 
confounded, and helped to keep them confounded, I feel 
a pleasure in setting the matter right; and I hope that 
in future mistakes will not so occur as to neutralise the 
efforts of the grower, as each Lettuce is chiefly valuable 
in that season in which it is recommended to be grown. 
R. Fish. 
APRICOTS. 
There has been much discussion about the eligi¬ 
bility of the stock on which the Apricot is budded; 
but the question would appear to be unapproachable, 
for no progress seems to be made therein. The dying- 
off of shoots or branches, here and there, has been at¬ 
tributed to the defective stocks; but there is some room 
to doubt this. It requires some stretch of imagination 
to think, that whilst one portion of a tree is extremely 
healthy and productive another portion is barren or 
dying away. Besides, although such complaints do 
exist, yet it is notorious that every year, in one portion 
of the kingdom or another, Apricots do succeed to ad¬ 
miration. So that, after all, is it not possible that the 
failures complained of may be chargeable on climate 
alone P One thing is quite certain,-—the Apricot will 
not endure a very low temperature in the growing 
season, and is, as I think, by no means indifferent to 
extreme winter depression. As for a low spring tem¬ 
perature, when Apricots are in blossom, or advancing, 
it is perilous in the extreme. Therefore, whatever 
