June 19, 1886. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
659 
GEO. COOLING & SONS 
MAKE A SPECIALITY OF 
ROSES I m PQACS, 
and have a large collection, now ready for sending out, including 
all leading 
HYBRID PERPETUAL VARIETIES (10s. 6 d. per dozen). 
TEA-SCENTED (16s. per dozen). 
CLIMBING VARIETIES, extra strong (16s. per dozen). 
NEW ROSES. 
HER MAJESTY, and all latest introductions. 
SINGLE ROSES:—FAIRY OR MINIATURE ROSES. 
OLD-FASHIONED ROSES, &c. 
All strong plants, suitable for pot culture or planting out. 
Descriptive priced list post free. 
GEO. COOLING & SONS, 
THE NURSERIES, BATH. 
ROSES IN POTS. 
H er majesty, the beunett rose, 
and all the best new English and Foreign varieties. 
All the choicest well-tried sorts in pots, 15s. to 36s. per dozen. 
Descriptive List free on application. 
RICHARD SMITH & Co., 
NURSERYMEN AND SEED MERCHANTS, 
WORCESTER. 
CHOICE FLOWERS OF STERLING 
MERIT. 
MY COLLECTION, which consists OF ALL THE NEWEST 
AND CHOICEST FLOWERS FOR THE GARDEN AND 
CONSERVATORY, being now UNANIMOUSLY' PRO¬ 
NOUNCED THE BEST, MOST SELECT, AND COMPRE¬ 
HENSIVE EXTANT, all intending purchasers should be in 
possession of my NEW DESCRIPTIVE PRICED CATA¬ 
LOGUE, of nearly 100 pages, FOR 1SS6, before ordering from 
any other source, free on application. 
JOHN FORBES, Nurseryman, HAWICK, N.B. 
FERNS A SPECIALITY. 
AN IMMENSE STOCK IN SPLENDID CONDITION. 
CATALOGUE of over 1,300 Species and Varieties, including 
Descriptive “List of New, Rare and Choice Ferns" and 
“ Hardy North American Ferns,” free on application. 
W. & J. BIRKENHEAD, 
FERN NURSERY, 
SALE, MANCHESTER. 
G ooseberries, triumph, direct from 
the originator, at $5 per dozen, or $40 per 100. To get 
lowest prices, and keep posted on new and desirable novelties, 
subscribe for the Nxirserymen's Trade Journal, Palmer’s Monthly. 
Kansas City, Mo. 
FLOWER SHOWS. 
R oyal horticultural society, 
GREAT PROVINCIAL SHOW AT LIVERPOOL. 
June 29th to July oth, 1S86 
GREAT EXHIBITION of PLANTS, FLOWERS, FRUIT, 
VEGETABLES, &c., in the BOTANIC GARDENS and WAVER- 
TREE PARK. 
Schedules and full particulars as to space, &c., may be had on 
application to the Superintendent, Mr. A. F. BARRON, Royal 
Horticultural Society, Chiswick, London ; or to Mr. J. 
RICHARDSON, Botanic Gardens, Liverpool. 
NOTICE.—Entries close June 21st. 
R oyal horticultural society, 
SOUTH KENSINGTON, S.W. 
NOTICE !—COMMITTEE MEETINGS, Fruit and Floral, at 11 
a.m., in the Conservatory ; Scientific at 1 p.in., in the Lindiey 
Library, on Tuesday next, June 22nd. 
SHOW OF PELARGONIUMS, &c. 
N.B.—Open to Fellows at Twelve o’clock, and the Public at 
One o’clock. 
/CRYSTAL PALACE. GREAT ROSE 
VP SHOW of the Season, Saturday, July 3rd. For Schedules, 
Entering Forms, &c., apply to Mr. W. G. Head, Garden Super¬ 
intendent, Crystal Palace, S.E. 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Amateurs' Garden, the.... 663 
America, Notes of a Trip to, 661 
Burford Lodge, Dorking .. 660 
Clapton Nurseries. 665 
Cuckoo Spittle . 6G7 
Cuerdon Hall, notes from 664 
Dendrobium thyrsiflorum 669 
Ferns, variation in. 664 
Floriculture. 669 
Flower Shows and the 
Election. 659 
Gardeners’ Calendar, the .. 669 
Horticultural Societies.... 669 
Leafy June . 662 
Manchester Botanical and 
Horticultural . 669 
Mulching . 663 
Nepenthes Findlayana .... 665 
Orchid Growers Calendar.. 668 
Orchids at Manchester.... 66S 
Orchids, Fertilisation of .. 667 
Pnasies and Violas. 669 
PAGE 
Paragon Rhubarb. 667 
Pseonies. 667 
Pelargoniums, double, Ivy¬ 
leaved . 666 
Plants, Herbaceous and 
Alpine . 664 
Plants, Hardy, in flower.. 666 
Plants, new, certificated .. 660 
Pyrethrums and Pansies .. 660 
Rhododendrons, dwarf.... 666 
Rose Culture in Towns.... 660 
Rose Prospects . 666 
Royal Caledonian Horti¬ 
cultural Society. 660 
R. H. S.,Liverpool Show .. 660 
Scottish Gardening . 663 
Strawberry Runners. 663 
Sycamore, Kershaw’s Crim¬ 
son . 667 
Tobacco Vaporizer. 668 
Turnip's, Early . 663 
Weeds .-... 659 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.’’— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1886. 
Weeds. — How many a pretty sermon lias 
been written about weeds, to bow many others 
will they form the text in time to come, travel¬ 
ling over the same ground, dispensing the same 
thoughts, and stereotyping almost the same 
ideas 1 A weed is, of course, had. It is the 
produce of a primal curse; it is evidence of 
degradation unto labour; it is, indeed, about as 
had as can be. So far the preachers. Of course, 
we must uproot, kill, destroy, pull out—in fact, 
get rid of weeds altogether ; hut the preachers’ 
weeds are of a metaphorical kind, whilst the 
gardener’s weeds are physical and material. And 
yet a word may he said for these terribly con¬ 
temned weeds, for they aspire to make beautiful 
the earth in their simple fashion, hut too often 
they strive to that end in the wrong place. 
What vast quantities of weed-seeds lie buried in 
the earth, awaiting, as it were, a day of resur¬ 
rection, and which, to myriads of them, will 
never come. The gardener who digs deeply 
a piece of fresh ground liberates millions, the 
excavator who constructs a railway liberates liis 
millions too ; and though these seeds may have 
been lying dormant in the soil apparently for 
ages—at least, such is the common impression—• 
yet no sooner are they exposed to the vivifying 
influences of light and warmth than they ger¬ 
minate and become plants, beautiful or otherwise 
in our eyes, just as we look for beauty according 
to our tastes. 
If the doctrine of the survival of the fittest 
in vegetation be universally admitted, then 
would weeds, if left alone, soon show the upper 
hand. In our gardens, even where vegetables 
and various plants of the most robust kind are 
cultivated, weeds, if left for a short time un¬ 
checked, would soon kill and choke the fittest 
but not the strongest. Weeds, indeed, are 
irrepressible, and because of that faculty we can 
give them no quarter. They must be killed, or 
they will kill us by starvation. It is the curse 
of life, perhaps, or it may be for our good, that 
we should find few or no blessings in the form 
of earth products without hard labour. If the 
weeds he a curse, they are so only because they 
demand so much of our labour to keep them in 
check, and yet to myriads they are a blessing, 
because they provide or promote labour. Really, 
weeds are beautiful on the whole, hut are weeds 
only because growing in the wrong place. A 
field of Buttercups or scarlet Poppies give 
elements of beauty such as we may look for in 
vain in the most admirable of gardens ; but in 
gardens these plants are abominations, because 
there no longer regarded as garden plants hut as 
weeds. We term the lower grades of humanity 
in towns roughs, and do so contemptuously, but 
forget that they are, after all, as good as our¬ 
selves, hut simply need cultivation. 
Vast quantities of those despised British plants 
•which we also somewhat contemptuously call 
weeds are beautiful beyond compare, but only 
want cultivation to bring out their nobler forms 
and higher natures. Why our gardens now are 
gay with what are the weeds of other climates 
and countries prized because once rare to us 
they have found care, cultivation, and develop¬ 
ment. We have cared very little indeed for 
the plants in our own fields and hedgerows 
because they are already abundant, and are so 
feared that if encouraged in gardens they may be¬ 
come a pest—almost a terror. Hence, over every 
garden entrance may he said to he written 
emblematically, “Hative plants ruthlessly de¬ 
stroyed.” After all, our gardening is laid on 
very matter of fact lines, and we cannot permit 
sentiment to overpower our necessities. If we 
are to live by cultivated plants, all uncultivated 
ones must be exterminated when they interpose 
between our love of natural beauty and our 
necessities. Hay, more, such is the cruelty in¬ 
duced by these necessities that we, like Herod, 
slaughter the innocents wholesale almost ere 
they have seen light. Bad is it for the gar¬ 
dener who permits his sentiment in favour of 
Aveeds to override his requirements, and finds 
too soon that the weeds have become his master. 
Dirt may be but matter in the wrong place, 
and weeds, things of life and beauty, where 
they should not he ; but there, at least, they 
must not be if humanity is to live, and living 
is the potential element which sets man working 
to kill weeds. The present season is a very 
paradise for weeds; they grow in rich luxuriance, 
and will not be checked by any half measures. 
Only forces of the most determined kind can 
keep them in check and repress their exuber¬ 
ance. If the cultivator must employ more of 
labour in the extermination of these vegetable 
enemies, he solaces himself with, the belief that 
the elements of weed production and growth 
are also elements of plant life and vigour, and 
if he can master the weeds by employing ample 
labour, his reward will he found in abundant 
crops. If such be correct, a weed season is not 
so had after all, much as we may deplore their 
appearance. Certainly, the labourer, if his 
work is a curse, finds in his pay a blessing. 
_ 0 -» iJ _ 
Elower Shows and the General Election. 
—The sudden bursting upon the country of a 
general election at and immediately upon mid¬ 
summer is an event which has naturally startled 
the numerous exhibition committees scattered 
all over the kingdom, and most of which hold 
their summer shows during or about the month 
of July. During the past twenty years flower 
shows have increased so wonderfully that any 
considerable agitation in the public mind at 
their chief season is calculated to do them 
material harm, and not least for the reason that 
the committees conducting them are largely 
composed of discordant political elements, and 
under such conditions the exhibition machinery 
can hardly be expected to run smoothly. We 
do not assert that of late years more decided 
elements of acerbity have been introduced into 
our political contests, but the last one saw much 
introduced, which it would have been far easier 
and more creditable to have omitted 
Going hack to 1868 we find the election 
fell early in the winter; in 1874 it came off 
early in the year; in 1880 just after Easter; 
and last year, as we all remember, it came at the 
end of Hovember, but did not appreciably effect 
the Chrysanthemum shows; hut those, of course, 
have by no means the same wide range which 
summer exhibitions have. We look with some 
apprehension to the influences the election may 
have upon the Great Provincial Exhibition of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, which opens 
at Liverpool on the 29th inst. In that huge 
seaport there is a vast and somewhat exciteable 
population, amongst which the special and 
troubulous question of the day—and the issue 
of which is to he fought out at the polls— 
will certainly exercise considerable influence. 
Already the Royal Horticultural Society lias 
before it the competition of a big exhibition 
of marine objects, opened with so much eclat by 
the Queen. We do not hear that any dis¬ 
tinguished or specially attractive personage will 
open the coming flower show, hence it will lack 
one important element of success. 
