2 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 3, 1860. 
greater number are in pots, and are intended to be grown on the 
“ rod system.” The old range of Pine-pits has been cleared out, 
the party walls removed, and an entrance made by a door at the 
back. These pits, now forming one uninterrupted range, are 
filled with Vines in pots, which are being forced for the purpose 
of testing their adaptability for this mode of cultivation. Several 
alterations have been made in the means of heating where it was 
found to be defective, and the whole place has an air of activity 
and vitality about it, which it has not had for many years past. 
Presentations to the collection of fruit trees are pouring in on 
all hands. There have already been added, 27 Apricots ; 44 
Peaches ; 24 Nectarines; 140 Plums; 136 Cherries ; 63 Vines ; 
120 Pears; 29 Currants ; 23 Raspberries ; and 12 sorts of Nuts. 
These and the vegetables have been contributed as follow :— 
Adams & Co., Brentford—25Peaches; 15 Nectarines ; 7 Apricots; 
2 Plums ; and 4 Cherries. 
Batt, Rutley, & Silverlock, Strand—3 Peas ; 4 Cucumbers; 
6 Broccolis. 
Butler A McCulloch, Covent Garden—11 Cucumbers; 10 
Broccolis. 
Carter & Co., Ilolborn — 8 Peas ; 3 Beets ; 7 Cucumbers ; 
7 Broccolis, besides an immense collection of flower-seeds. 
Charlwood & Cummins, Covent Garden—11 Peas; 11 Cucum¬ 
bers ; 4 Broccolis. 
Cut hill, J., Camberwell—3 Cucumbers; 1 Melon ; 1 Celery. 
Dean, W., Bradford—1 Cucumber. 
Dickson, J., & Co., Chester—2 Cucumbers. 
Dillistone & Co., Sturmer—1 Pea; 1 Cucumber. 
Donald & Son, Woking—3 Vines : 6 Cherries; 2 Plums ; 2 Apri¬ 
cots ; 6 Peaches. 
Eraser, J. A J., Lea Bridge Road—12 Plums; 4 Cherries. 
Eraser, Richardson, & Goad, Bishopsgate Street—3 Cucumbers; 
3 Broccolis. 
Garaway,Mayes,& Co., Bristol—29Currants; 2Apples; 6 Plums; 
1 Peach ; 1 Apricot; 4 Vines. 
Hogg & Wood, Coldstream—2 Cherries. 
Hurst & McMullen, Leadenhall Street—7 Peas ; 18 Cucumbers; 
2 Beans ; 5 Broccolis. 
Glendinning, R., Turnliam Green—2 Apples; 4Pcars ; 13Plums ; 
5 Cherries; 1 Vine. 
Ivery & Son, Dorking—1 Vine ; 1 Lettuce; 1 Celery. 
1 very, Peckham—1 Lettuce; 1 Celery. 
Jackman A Son, Woking—3 Nectarines ; 2 Apricots; 4 Cherries; 
1 Plum. 
Lane A Son, Berkhampstead—3 Vines ; 1 Cherry. 
Lee, J., A Co., Hammersmith—9 Cherries; 15 Plums; 6 Vines; 
1 Broccoli. 
Low A Co., Clapton—15 Cherries ; 2 Plums ; 7 Peaches ; 1 Nec- 
Mnsters A Son, Canterbury—1 Cucumber. [tarine. 
Milne A Co., Vauxhall—4 Grapes ; 1 Cun-ant. 
Moore, T., Chelsea—1 Pea; 10 Cucumbers. 
Nutting A Son, Barbican—6Peas; 2 Beans; 1 Broccoli. 
Osborn A Sons, Fulham—10 Cherries ; 12 Plums ; 10 Vines. 
Rivers, T., Sawbridgeworth—19 Cherries ; 22 Plums; 21 Rasp¬ 
berries. 
Rogers, J., Chelsea—1 Cucumber. 
Southby, C., Clapham—2 Cucumbers ; 2 Melons. 
Sutton A Sons, Reading—13 Peas; 7 Cucumbers; 1 Beet. 
Tiley, E , Bath—4 Cucumbers. 
Turner, C., Slough—15 Peas ; 21 Cucumbers ; 2 Nectarines ; 
1 Apricot; 3 Cherries ; 6 Plums. 
Veitch, Jas., jun., Chelsea —15 Plums; 11 Cherries ; 2 Peas ; 
2 Cucumbers ; 13 Broccolis. 
Veitch A Son, Exeter— 2 Apricots ; 4 Nectarines ; 5 Peaches ; 
2 Cherries ; 1 Plum. 
Vilmorin, Andrieux, A Cie., Paris—48 Haricots; 7 Sugar Peas; 
29 Cabbages and Borecoles. 
Wild, T\, Ipswich—2 Cucumbers ; 1 Melon. 
Wood A Ingram, Huntingdon—-7 Cucumbers. 
In addition to these there have been numerous and extensive 
presentations of flower-seeds, florists’ flowers, and bedding plants 
from other nurserymen and florists, which we shall enumerate 
at length when the collections are completed. What we have 
already mentioned is sufficient to show that the interest the 
public take in the maintenance of the usefulness of the Society 
is as great as ever it was; and that the garden at Chiswick is 
still regarded as the place where experimental horticulture is to 
be carried on. 
The Society is making arrangements, we believe, for sending 
out a plant-collector. 
BEDDING PLANTS. 
No sooner said than done, or rather no sooner done 
than up it comes. Three weeks hack in the midst of 
cold, piercing winds, we cast our net at a venture, and up 
came the—what would you think ?—the Trentham 
Scarlet Geranium, which had been so luckily proved at 
the Crystal Palace, in 1858; and if J. A. Summers, of 
Howard Park Nursery, near the Crystal Palace, has the 
good luck to be able to supply all comers with it next 
May and June, death and oblivion will fall assuredly on 
Tom Thumb in a very few years. 
There is no memorandum at Trentbam respecting that 
Trentham Scarlet Geranium, else we should have heard of 
it ere this time; and as another well-known breeder has 
put in a claim for the honour of being the raiser of the 
Crystal Palace plant, the best plan would be to give up the 
honour on both sides, and call the kind the Crystal. Palace 
Scarlet. But no man has a right to change a name, not 
even the name of a weed. I do not suggest the change, 
therefore, merely from being a public writer on bedding- 
plants, but for the convenience of those for whom I write, 
to go on saying “ the Crystal Palaee Trentham Scarlet,” 
or “ Crystal Palace Shrubland Dwarf Scarlet,” for ever, 
would be monstrously plaguey. After this I shall call it in 
The Cottage Gardener, the Crystal Palace Scarlet, 
unless a majority of the readers vote against me. 
It was in the autumn of 1858, that I first saw it at 
Sydenham. I knew it in a moment, and asked the men 
about it, but none of them cared to tell me, till I readied 
the top of the Bose Mount, and there it was again. Tom 
Thumb was also all over the garden at the same time. 
The man on the Bose Mount told me they were trying it 
against Tom. “ But how did you find it out?” he asked. 
“ I suppose,” said I, “ it is because you put it out in 
different parts of the garden,” and that was all that 
passed. But to tell the plain truth, it struck me at the 
time that the Crystal Palace gardeners wished to keep 
the plant a kind of secret, and to make people’s mouths 
water at the supposed superiority of their Tom Thumb 
at the Crystal Palace, through their superior- skill in 
managing it; but that could not hold out long, as there 
was more than one person in the secret. 
In 1859, or the beginning of last year’s bedding-out, I 
made up my mind to fathom out the depth of that, secret-; 
and so I did, and spoke of it in these pages. The last 
time I saw Mr. Eyles was that day in last autumn. He 
showed me the propagation-department, and all the Tom 
Thumh-hcAs were then full of this Trentham Scarlet, and 
Mr. Eyles told me then that they would never use Tom 
again ; and at this distance of time, I can see it in masses 
round the Araucarias, and Lobelia speciosa edged every 
one of the beds in my mind’s eye, as vividly as no other 
Geranium ever was in my eyesight; and the moment I 
saw Mr. Summers’s advertisement about it, I ordered a 
dozen for the Experimental Garden. Then we shall 
have Trentham Scarlet, Crystal Palace Scarlet, and 
Shrubland Dwarf under two tallies. 
The Dandy Geranium is a constricted sport from the 
Cape species, called Grossularicefolia, or the Gooseberry- 
leaf seal-let, and it is the only one in the whole race which 
will not always give the original from a sporting branch. 
Dandy is variegated, and when it runs into plain leaf, or 
sports back as we say, the green is not the true Grossu- 
laricefolia, nine times out of ten. “ A constricted sport” 
is one in which all the parts of a plant are on a much 
smaller scale, and the constitution is reduced below one- 
fourth of the strength of the original. Yet Dandy, the 
very smallest of all the little Geraniums, makes capital 
standards on their own roots. I have had scores of them 
in my day. I have bedded them in little terrace-beds, 
and in children’s gardens, and everybody admired them, 
and I would advocate the pincushion-beds of Dandy, 
which are to come into fashion fi’om Mr. Eyles’s doings, 
to be one-third of standard Dandies, one-third Dandies 
not standards, and one-third Lobelia speciosa, from cut- 
