1883.] 
CROCUS CULTURE. 
183 
well coloured ; Beauty of Kent, and Warner’s King. 
—The prizes for 15 Table Apples were well con¬ 
tested, Mr. Haycock again coming in 1st, his col¬ 
lection being well set up and varied, though the 
fruit was possibly a little too large for a select 
dessert; it consisted of Pine Golden Pippin, Wash¬ 
ington, Blenheim, Margil, Melon, Golden Russet, 
King of Pippins, Ribston, Braddick’s Nonpareil, 
Queen Caroline (a fine foil for the other sorts, but 
scarcely a dessert fruit); Court Pendu Plat, Mother, 
well coloured; and Ross’s Nonpareil.—In the Apple 
class for best present flavour, there was a keen 
contest, the Mother Apple was well 1st; Cox’s Orange 
2nd ; Hereford Old Pomeroy 3rd ; and Crimson Gilli- 
flower 4th.—The heaviest Apple class gave another 
victory to Mr. Haycock, with specimens of Belle 
Dubois weighing 20 oz., being 2 to3oz. over some won¬ 
derful examples of Peasgood’s Nonsuch from Mr. 
Higgins,a local grower.—Intheclass for newCulinary 
varieties the 1st prize was awarded to Saltmarsh’s 
Queen, very finely marked fruit, sent from Chelms¬ 
ford. The 2nd prize went to the Rev. Mr. Pilson, 
for a pale primrose Apple of the Golden Noble race. 
Por Dessert Apples the 1st prize went to Ballard’s 
Seedling, an Apple of which we ought to hear more, 
since Cox’s Orange is one parent, and probably 
Braddick’s Nonpareil the other; the fruit is hand¬ 
some, fine in colour and shape, and seems likely to 
keep till March. The 2nd prize went to Gipsy King, 
heavy and well coloured, shown by Messrs. Geo. 
Bunyard & Co., of Maidstone. 
The Pear classes were fairly contested, Mr. Haycock 
was 1st with 15 varieties, which were all grand, the 
Pitmaston Duchess being very large, and just colour¬ 
ing elegantly; Doyenne Boussoch, Triomphe de 
Jodoigne, Doyenne du Comice, Beurre Diel, Easter 
Beurre, Beurre Hardy, Beurre Superfin, General 
Todtleben, Conseiller a la Cour, Durandeau, Passe 
Crassanne, Duchesse d’Angouleme, Nouveau Poiteau, 
being all large and of good shape; the grand late 
Pear Marie Benoist was also included. Sir H. Scuda¬ 
more Stanhope (who only a few days ago inherited 
the title of Earl of Chesterfield) won the 2nd 
place with a fine collection from the Holme Lacey 
cordon trees, Beurre Hardy, Elemish Beauty, finely 
coloured; Marie Benoist, Doyenne Boussoch, Chau- 
montel, and Beurre Ranee being conspicuous.—In 
the Pears for present flavour there were a large 
number of entries. The 1st prize was unanimously 
given to Thompson’s, grown by Mr. Piper, of Led¬ 
bury ; 2nd to Marie Louise (from a standard tree); 
3rd to Seckle, grand fruit from Welford Park ; 4th 
to Beurrfi Superfin. In the Heaviest Pear class Pit¬ 
maston Duchess was 1st with a bulk of 24£ oz.—M. 
CROCUS CULTURE. 
tfTT T the last of the experimental summer 
y7i evening meetings of the Royal Horti- 
/Q) cultural Society, Mr. G. Maw read an 
interesting and valuable paper on the 
Geographical Distribution and Cultivation of 
the Species of Crocus—a subject to which he 
has given special attention. A few of the open¬ 
ing sentences, with some cultural remarks, 
are here transcribed as likely to be useful to 
cultivators and lovers of these bright spring 
flowers:— 
Out of a genus which is now known to 
number about seventy species, two only, 
Crocus vermis and C. aureus, and their 
varieties, can be said to be thoroughly 
adopted as decorative plants. Crocus vernus, 
the parent of all the blue, violet, lilac, 
feathered, and white vernal Crocuses, ranges 
in a wild state through 23° of longitude, from 
the Pyrenees to the Carpathians, and through 
12° of latitude, from Sicily to the Carpathians. 
Crocus aureus, the parent of the Dutch yellow 
and its several varieties, is indigenous to 
Western Asia Minor, Turkey, and the Danubian 
Principalities ; and extends as far north-west 
as Hungary. No records exist of the date of 
their introduction, but it is clear from the 
Crocuses preserved in the various ancient 
herbaria that these two species at least were 
well known to cultivators at the end of the 
sixteenth century. 
In addition to C. vernus and C. aureus, 
eight or nine other species appear to have 
been sparingly in cultivation during the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, viz. :— 
the Cloth of Gold, Crocus susianus ; the Cloth 
of Silver or Scotch Crocus, C. biflorus ; C. 
versicolor , C. nudiflorus, C.sativus, C.speciosus, 
C. serotinus, C. byzantinus or iridiflorus, and 
one or two others ; but up to nearly the end of 
the first half of the present century, scarcely 
more than a dozen species out of the seventy 
now known existed in English and Dutch gar¬ 
dens ; and of these but two were generally 
employed for decorative purposes. 
Cultural directions for a genus so well 
known and so easily grown seem almost super¬ 
fluous, but there are a few points to which it 
may be convenient to refer in dealing with 
the Croci as decorative plants. Taking the 
whole genus of about seventy species, they 
must be viewed as in continuous succession, 
from the beginning of August till April, and 
of these it is only the earlier autumnal, or the 
distinctly vernal species, that can be relied 
upon in our climate for open-air garden 
decoration. Although all are hardy, and 
most of the winter flowering species will 
flower in the open ground, those that flower 
in November, December, and January, are so 
liable to injury by frost and rain, that they 
are practically worthless as decorative plants 
for the open garden. For such, as well as 
for the less robust and less floriferous species, 
the protection of a brick pit is necessary. The 
