1880 .] 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
95 
out-doors, but to have it in all its snowy purity, it 
should be cultivated in pots in a cold frame. 
— ©he White Scale is a terrible foe, and 
one wliicli it is difficult to vanquish. It is 
especially troublesome when it gets lodgment 
on plants of the pine-apple, as it is there so difficult 
of access. “Nemo,” writing in the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, states that he got rid of it by the following 
means :—Dissolve 16 oz. of Gishurst Compound in 
a gallon of soft water ; immerse the plants, and let 
them remain in the liquid for three minutes; then 
take them out, turn them bottom upwards to drain, 
but do not wash or syringe after dipping; when the 
plants are dry, plant them in a bottom-heat of 90°, 
and keep up a good moist heat in the house; shade 
them from the sun until they begin to make growth, 
after which treat them in the ordinary way. The 
houses or pits in which the plants have been growing- 
will of course require a thorough cleansing before 
waking use of them again, scrubbing the walls and 
woodwork thoroughly, for which purpose Gishurst 
compound may be used of the same strength as that 
in which the pines have been dipped, or seeing there 
is nothing to injure or kill but the scale, the stronger 
perhaps the better. He states that he had practical 
proof of the efficacy of this recipe. 
— ©HE Mackaya BELLA, a plant which has 
been considered difficult to bloom, has been 
flowering abundantly in Mr. F. E. Wilson’s 
garden at Edgbaston. The plant was raised 
from a cutting in May, 1877, and was potted 
in peat chiefly, but made no progress. It was then 
shaken out and repotted into loam, with a mixture 
of charcoal and sand, and grown freely in a moist 
stove-heat. Last summer it was fully exposed to 
what sunshine we had, being kept in a cool house 
near to the glass, when it formed its flower-spikes, 
and in November it was removed to a warmer tem¬ 
perature. The plant is in a 12-inch pot, and is 
about 5 feet high and proportionately bushy, and has 
had fully four dozen sprays of flower upon it, which 
began opening early in March. 
■—■ ©he curious, old-fashioned Xebophyl- 
lum asphodeloides was shown last summer 
(June) by Mr. G-. F. Wilson. The plant is 
one of the Melanthacese, a native of the south¬ 
eastern States of North America, whence it was in¬ 
troduced as long ago as 1765, and is of tufted habit, 
with very numerous crowded leaves, from the centre 
of which rises the tall flower-stem, with small linear 
lance-shaped bracts below, and a dense many- 
flowered raceme above. The flowers are whitish or 
yellowish-white, and altogether it is a stately plant 
for the herbaceous border. Mr. Wilson writes that 
one of his two plants occupies a shady part of his 
rock-work, on a soil of about half loam and half 
sand, and then peat added, where it grows and 
flowers fairly well; but his best plant is in a shaded, 
cool, damp rook border, the soil being about two 
parts peat and one of sandy loam. Here, along with 
Trilliums, Cypripedium spectabile, Lygodium pal- 
matum, Andromeda tetragona, and A. fastigiata, it 
seems thoroughly at home. 
•— ©he beautiful Hippeastrum (or Amaryl¬ 
lis) Ackermanni pulcherrimum lias stood the 
late severe winter in the open border without 
the slightest injury. The Lev. H. Harpur-Crewe 
notes in the Gardeners’ Chronicle that he saw a long- 
conservatory border in Dex-byshire some weeks since 
completely filled with it. The bulbs were simply 
covered with a little dry fern, and they were coming 
up as strong as Daffodils. 
— 2Me have lately seen a sample of the 
New Crimson East Lothian Stock, from 
which we conclude it is a really fine variety. 
The colour is exceedingly bright and deep—an in¬ 
tense crimson-magenta, and the very fragrant blos¬ 
soms form a dense spike of unusual atti-activeness. 
It will be a valuable acquisition, on account of the 
richness of its colour. 
— ®E note, concerning Fruit Prizes, that 
at the last Court of the Worshipful Company 
of Fruiterers a prize of £10 10s., to be awarded 
for fruit, was placed at the disposal of the Royal 
Botanic Society. This prize will be competed for 
at the exhibition in the Society’s Garden, Regent’s 
Park, on June 16th. 
— In the improved Rotary Pump of Messrs. 
Meynell and Inman, of which a figure is an¬ 
nexed, the motive-power, instead of being 
obtained by means of a lever handle, is set in action 
by the aid of a rotary wheel, whicli affords a con¬ 
tinuous in place of an intermittent suction-power, 
and at the same time increases that power, so that 
a copious and regular flow of liquid is secured. The 
hose and fittings appended to the machine are so 
made that if irrigation in a conservatory, pai-k, 
or gai-den is to be the main purpose of the pump, a 
rose is fixed for the disti-ibntion of the water; while 
in place thereof a brass nozzle with a tap is supplied, 
where a more powerful current is desired, as, for 
instance, in the case of fire, court-yard cleansing, 
flushing, &c. These pumps are guaranteed to lift 
from 23 feet vertical depth, and throw to an alti¬ 
tude of from 50 ft. to 70 ft., in proportion to the size 
of the machine employed. They do not require 
nearly the same expenditure of manual force in 
working as do the ordinary lever-handle pumps, and 
the force that is actually requisite is largely self- 
supplied by the weight of the fly-wheel. The entire 
pump is wrought in iron and bronze, without leather 
or indiarubber fittings to get out of l-epair. These 
points will commend themselves to practical men. 
— ©he Whitsun Show of the Royal 
Horticultural and Botanical Society of 
Manchester, which was open from May 14tli to 
May 21st, has proved one of the most successful the 
