THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 7, 1858.] 
families iu the kingdom partook of them, without ever 
knowing they were not Earl Somer’s best hothouse 
Grapes. Therefore, it is sheer nonsense on the part of 
Dr. Lindlcy, to pretend that there is any novelty in 
ripening black Grapes in the south of England without 
more aid than that afforded by a south wall. I argued 
the subject of growing out-door Grapes, with Dr. 
Lindley, this time last year, in Willis’s Dooms, and all I 
could get out of him was, that some forty years back he 
had seen a crop of them in Norfolk, but that there was 
no use to try them in times like the present, for no one 
would eat them. Being a great advocate for out-door 
Grapes myself, I cannot but be well pleased with the 
Doctor’s change of opinion on the subject. But I much 
regret that he should place the matter in that kind of 
light called novelty, by which he is sure to raise a host of 
prejudice against the system, in the minds of practical 
men, whose aid would be most valuable in setting the 
system in smooth motion. These are two subjects be¬ 
longing to this year which are now clearly off my con¬ 
science. 
The third subject is a most useful, and a perfectly novel 
thing in the family. It is a little new kind of Bho- 
dendron, which I mentioned as having seen in St James’s 
Hall last spring. It was in a collection which was ex¬ 
hibited by Messrs. Hugh Low and Co., of the Clapton 
Nursery, and called Rhododendron virgatum. Of course, 
I inquired after it the other day, when I was at that 
nursery, and found it just as I expected,—in large 
numbers and selling cheap. It is quite hardy, blooms 
much like ciliatum, with a much smaller growth, and 
blooming, or in blossom-bud, exactly like an Epacris. 
The young shoots of this season are studded with bloom- 
buds, from top to bottom, at every joint,—a way in 
which no other Rhododendron, with which I am ac¬ 
quainted, blooms. The reason why I did not mention it 
in the report of the nursery was, in order to have more 
space, that I might point it out more especially to the 
attention of cross-breeders. But it is as good, and useful, 
and as early, as ciliaris with other folks. Now, can the 
cross-breeder get this Rhododendron virgatum habit into 
seedlings, for a new section, or new, race of dwarf plants, 
to come in for forcing from February onwards ? If so, 
there is not a plant in England, at this moment, from 
which more really useful crosses could be looked for. The 
seedlings would be everybody’s plants, being dwarf and 
hardy. But I have little experience in crossing the best 
kinds of llkododenclrons; and since the late Dr. Herbert 
wrote upon that subject, twenty-two years back, we have 
not had much light thrown on it, to guide the young and 
ardent from a scientific point of view. What is done and 
said on a haphazard venture is but too often a crossbar 
against the cross-breeder, who, if he wants to arrive at 
facts, has to spend his time to prove things for himself. 
But my conscience is clear on that, as on this subject; 
and let us try subject the fourth ; but it is too long, the 
fifth must come in before it. 
Farfugium grande, the grand, variegated, great Colts¬ 
foot of Japan. This I mentioned as coming from cuttings 
of the leaves with the footstalk, just like Geranium leaves. 
That was on the authority of a London nurseryman, to 
whom I shall now look for the first plant of it for the 
Experimental garden, by way of paying me for “ eating 
my own words,” or rather for being driven, by this con¬ 
science, to eat his words. I was told at Clapton, that the 
footstalks of Earfugium root sure and fast enough, but 
not in the sense I wrote about. Although they root 
freely, they do not send up a shoot, leaf, or bud—at 
least, the first season. But the plant increases so sure 
and fast from running pieces of the roots, that Farfugium 
grande may soon be had, in Covent Garden, as cheap as 
I said, after all. They have large patches of it, out-of- 
doors, round a pond, on rockwork, at Messrs. Low’s, and 
the plant looks nearly as well as it has been seen at the 
shows. It was also in bloom at the September Crystal 
Palace show, and not much different from tho yellow 
of our own Coltsfoot, only a little taller in the flower- 
stem. 
I he last subject to-day will be the new and very 
dwart Zelinda bedding Dahlia, Coccinella. This, also, 
was mentioned in the summer, as a very promising sub¬ 
ject, which was received at the Experimental on St. 
Swithin s day. This plant did not flower; but the whole 
top of a flowering-plant was sent to me after the first frost 
in October. It was full of blooms and bloom-buds, and 
was packed in a box eighteen inches long, nine inches 
wide, and about the same in depth. A ball of wet moss 
was round the cut end, and the rest was free. In this 
way it came from a midland county, through London, 
as fresh as when cut. I put the moss in a 48-pot, and 
potted the whole thing in the moss ; and thus I kept it 
alive, and in bloom, among my Geraniums, just one 
month, and I verily believe I could have caused it to root, 
if I had thought of that in time. The flowers are of an 
orauge scarlet, and the plant is the dwarfest of all the 
Dahlias I have yet seen. The habit also seems very 
good for bedding. Now, or rather in after years, when 
it will be a regular fashion to cut down dwarf Dahlias 
on the evening of the first frost, and to plant their 
blooming heads in damp moss, in pots, to prolong their 
season another month,—old gardeners, who may be 
sucking their thumbs just now, will hear of the plan as 
being hit upon first with Coccinella, by some writer 
on gardening, whose name has been lost long-ago ; but 
all that he said about Coccinella must have been right, 
for there it is to this day, and so is D. Beaton. 
EEUITS AND FRUIT BOOMS. 
Notwithstanding all that has been written and urged 
about fruit rooms, the world is anything but unanimous 
as to the conditions requisite. Some years since, there 
was a great pucker about ice-houses ; and, whatever the 
character, or value, of the knowledge extant, concerning 
them may be, the ice-house men certainly reduced the 
question to a narrower and more satisfactory basis. Now, 
we may inquire into the conditions requisite in preserv¬ 
ing fruit; and, in order to make the subject tangible, I 
must assume that our inquiry is, as to the best mode of 
keeping choice Apples and Pears through a long winter 
and a tardy spring. I urge this view of the question, 
believing, that whatever conditions are proved to be 
necessary for this one object will carry out every collateral 
point with regard to other fruits. I have a fruit room 
here, which I think possesses every requisite for keeping, 
and I may as well give its history. 
It is about forty feet long, by twelve feet broad. Twenty- 
nine years since, this was an old back shed, the timbers 
overhead so low, that, unless you bowed like a genuine 
Frenchman on entering, the penalty was likely to be a 
broken pate. About that period, there arose perhaps 
the first public discussion about fruit rooms ; and this, as 
our knowing modems say, began to ventilate the subject. 
Some advocated keeping fruit upstairs, some down; 
others would have a cool cellar. Amongst the rest, that 
facetious and waggish fellow,who called himself Agronome, 
settled the matter by one stroke of his pen, affirming 
that what was the best place to keep ale was sure to be 
best for Apples. 
But funny as Agronome was, his bold jokes could not 
pass for sound logic with persons of education. They 
stood merely as bold affirmations, however right they 
might prove. But, say they, the great fault of upstairs 
work is, that the Apples shrivel prematurely ; and, 
indeed, they do. If we go downstairs, the place is so cold 
that the Pears do not ripen: some of the late kinds 
become, as it were, petrifactions. As for bletting, as it is 
called, or that chemical or other change by which the 
flesh of the Pear becomes like a Medlar, they seldom, 
