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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. Mat. oh 29, 1S59. 
Lilac blue, Porcelain Sceptre, and the nearest to it is 
Prince Frederick. 
Purplish-lilac, Dandy, and Honneur d'Overcen; but 
there is too much red for lilac, and too much lilac for 
purple in both of them,—rather call them fancy lilacs. 
There is only one real purplish-lilac, and a most mag¬ 
nificent thing it is—quite new, and, what is better, the 
name is Prince of Wales. They say Her Majesty wore 
a dress of this colour at the wedding of the Princess 
Poyal, or about that time, with a foreign name to the 
colour, for which wo have no equivalent. 
It has just struck me that bronzy-lilac would tell with the 
colour ot Dandy and his Honneur dl Overeen better than 
fancy lilac. But these new colours and new kinds must 
be ordered in all the collections next year; and some ladies 
will soon decide on how to plant or place them. 
Give me the tune, I know where to whistle it; but, 
after all, I have one more Hyacinth, and I cannot make 
up my mind where to place it. The name is Ironing Van 
Holland; it is a creamy yellow, with a bhish-red'tingc, 
just like a Ghent Azalea of such a caste. And I have 
one more, the most ladylike of all the Hyacinths, single, 
of course — there is a chance for you. It is indigo 
blue and violet, with a man’s name— Argus, a man with 
many eyes—and he would need all at Hyacinth Shows. I 
spoke of Lord Byron, a simple old Hyacinth, on account 
of the two different colours which were so distinctly 
defined in each llower after it was past its best. Coccinella 
was the nearest to it at this show. 
Geraniums. —Mr. Cutbusk has the most uniformly- 
grown houses of Geraniums I ever saw. I could pick the 
first hundred, and say they were made in the same mould; 
and so with the rest. All the bedding kinds he finds a 
ready sale for; and his stock of variegated Geraniums is 
as good-looking, and just as uniform as the rest. Ho has 
the shot-silk bed variegated, or old Scarlet Variegated; 
but the fellow to it, the old Crimson Variegated, is not in 
any nurseiy that I see, although it is the best bedder of 
the two, besides being a crimson flower. It was in at¬ 
tempting to get the plain green original crimson from this 
plant that the Imperial Crimson made its appearance. 
Leptodactylon Californicum is kept here all the winter 
in the cutting-pots, with sand over; and they come in the 
spring from cuttings as fast as blue Lobelias, of which—or 
say of spcciosa— Mr. Cutbush will have ten thousand 
plants to oiler in May ; an equal quantity from Ipswich 
and from Southampton have been mentioned to me since 
I told how scarce it was about London, at the beginning 
of the propagation, when good plants of it would fetch 
a shilling each; but it will be just as cheap in May as 
usual. 
A largo number of very fine plants of Lisiantlius Bus- 
sellianus were in the same house as the French-spotted 
Geraniums. All the best bedding plants are propagated 
here, as everywhere, to a very great extent; and now 
Tropceolum elegans, from the Crystal Palace, is seen here 
by the score or hundreds ; also the new Phloxes, and the 
Hepaticas, by the square yard. One bed of the single 
white was four yards one way, and three yards the other, 
in the fullest bloom. It was not this, but the double 
white I never saw. 
Tritonia media was just out of bloom, and Tritonia 
aurea getting a-liead suprisingly ; but in the Experimental 
Garden, where it is grown as an evergreen, the young 
growth is now six inches long, after resting to the end of 
January, and after flowering to see the last Chrysanthe¬ 
mum out of the house. Cyclamens are just coming in 
vogue at Highgate; but there aro no vernums. Stove 
and hardy Ferns, Begonias, variegated plants, and line- 
leaved plants, as everywhere. Two match specimens of 
A racia Drummondii, four feet by four feet. Many match 
pairs among the Conifers, and all the new ones, do rc- 
markably well in the free air and fine yellow loam of 
Highgate. Cuttings of variegated Hollies by the ten 
thousand, and all the Conifers, do as well from cuttings 
as from seeds, except the Firs and Spruces. Evergreen 
Oaks, in pots, plunged, and up to four and five feet regular. 
Irish Y ews, new lioses, a Maiden Hair Tree forty feet 
high (a fine specimen), YYcllingtonia, above five feet, and 
going to double its rate of growth for the future by 
docking the lateral growth. 
The best hybrid llhododendrons, hardy Heaths, and 
Andromeda jtqribunda, doing to perfection, in strong 
yellow loam. Deodars in it grow faster and more spiral 
than the Larch. The old Glycine made shoots, thirty-three 
feet long last summer, against a wall. Teu or twelve of 
them will be layered at every second joint; and the sale 
for it is as good as at any period from its introduction. 
A fine grove of standard Mulberries, the most wholesome 
fruit we grow—as, if one happens to partake of too much 
fruit, this is the best corrector. A large and varied col¬ 
lection of nice rock plants, Everlastings, Feather, and 
Pampas Grasses. 
But anyone who can spare a day from London should 
go to Highgate, to breathe fresh air, and see all these 
fineries, and ask to see the Hyacinth-bed, and the early 
Tulip-beds in the private flower garden in front of Mr. 
Cutbush’s house. 
The Tulip-beds are in four distinct colours, and the 
large Hyacinth-bed is edged with the Tournesol Tulip- 
one of our old best dwarf forcers- The colours of the 
Tulip-beds are brought out by La Candeur, for the white ; 
Imperator, red (an improvement on the old Bex rubro- 
ram); Yellow Bose, a bright yellow ; and for purple he 
uses the Couronne Pourpre, a very decidedly dark purple. 
All these are double flowers, and such as a man of business 
would plant for his own “ sweet home.” For, after all is 
said and done, we must all come to that. D. Beaton. 
FEUITS: ON WHAT DO THE IB QUALITIES 
DEPEND ? 
I am well aware that this is a question which no 
person is able fully to answer; involving, as it does, so 
many considerations, and so many debatable points, which 
await a vast amount of inquiry before they can be deter- 
minately answered. Such, however, constitutes no solid 
ground for avoiding an investigation. Our pomological 
societies are doing the state some service in this matter. 
No man, however experienced, but may enlarge his mind 
by examining the statistical information that their reports 
contain. I verily had thought that I knew all about the 
Winter Kelts Pear—a great favourite of mine for years ; 
but I could not but feel that I had acquired interesting 
information in comparing the various conditions, both 
above and below ground, which certain exhibitors fur¬ 
nish : added to this, there was the ■ testing of my own 
opinions as founded on what I had experienced. I do 
hope that those who continue to exhibit will carefully 
state a few of the main conditions under which the fruit 
was produced. No man can put such information to 
better use than a really good gardener—a man experienced 
in such things. There is no spoiling him with crude 
notions; and, after carefully digesting the whole, he is in 
a capital position to sum up the evidence, and, as Burns 
said, to “prentit.” 
On what conditions, then, does the quality of fruits 
depend? Let me first state what conditions are inimical 
to quality in the average of fruits:—The ripening too 
much hurried; ripening, in some cases, arrested through 
low temperatures ; excess of root-moisture ; also of hu¬ 
midity iu the ah*; gross and succulent growths; de¬ 
ficiency of light; a stagnant air through the want of a 
due circulation ; and lastly, the attacks of insects. 
Now, these remarks, although applying, in some cases, 
almost exclusively to indoor fruits, I intend to offer in 
such a shape as to be common to all. 
A forced, or hurried, ripening, whether occasioned in 
doors or out, is in general averse to high qualities. This 
