1882 .] 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
127 
is perfectly liardy in any winter, however severe, 
having planted it out along with Cabbages for 
several consecutive winters, including the last. The 
Early London and Dwarf Erfurt melt away by the 
side of this variety in severe weather. If the variety 
behaves everywhere as it is said to have done 
in this case, gardeners will be glad to make its 
acquaintance as soon as possible. As seen at Win- 
slade it is not a vigorous grower, and the heads are 
of moderate size, well-formed, solid, and apparently 
of first-rate quality. 
— ([The Princes Street Gardens in Edin¬ 
burgh are to have a Rock Garden under 
Glass, a patriotic lady, Mrs. Ross, having 
bequeathed £1,500 for the purpose. The design 
which has been prepared shows a series of three 
dome-shaped buildings, the central and largest of 
which is 60 ft. in diameter, and 47 ft. high. The 
smaller ones will be 37 ft. in diameter, and 30 ft. 
high, and they will be connected with the central 
building by corridors 32 ft. in length and 25 ft. 
in width. The superstructure, built of iron and 
glass, will have a frontage of 200 ft. The rockery is 
to consist of winding paths, caverns, recesses, and 
rugged projections studded with ferns and other 
suitable plants, the rockwork reaching a height of 
15 ft. Outside the covered fernery, rockeries will be 
formed, and furnished with hardy ferns and plants. 
-— ^The following new method of training 
Tomatos is from the Garcl. Chron. (xvii., 834): 
—As the public demand for English-grown 
Tomatos increases, the one-leader system will have to 
be given up, and the side-shoots more depended upon 
for a general crop. As a matter of fact the side- 
shoots are the most prolific, and if they do not bear 
the largest fruit, they produce the greatest quantity, 
and already the market growers are finding this out, 
and are very wisely altering their tactics. In one 
case the system now adopted is to plant out in a 
narrow border in front of a Cucumber house, and peg 
down the side-shoots upon the surface of the border, 
where they root in a short time, and have to be 
supported under the weight of their crops. Instead, 
therefore, of having long naked stems, we shall 
in future have a border covered with medium-sized 
shoots, and laden with fruits. 
— Che Root Pruning of Fruit-trees is a 
work that should be performed as soon as the 
wood is fairly hardened and the leaves 
matured. It cannot be too well understood, how¬ 
ever, that much pruning of the tops and pruning of 
the roots are inimical to each other. Cutting off the 
roots means cutting off the supplies, and cutting off 
the branches means reducing the demand on the 
supplies. Consequently, a tree that has its roots and 
branches curtailed at the same time is in almost the 
same condition as it was before ; and yet simultaneous 
root and branch pruning is the rule. Hence root 
pruning is a work that enters largely into the 
restrictive trainer’s practice, without much visible 
advantage. Those who have very large or vigorous 
but barren orchard trees should use the knife at the 
roots, and let the tops alone. It is futile attempt¬ 
ing to put fertility into an over luxuriant tree by 
reducing the number or extent of the branches.— 
( Garden.) 
— Che new dwarf variety of Capsicum 
called Little Gem, proves to be one of the 
prettiest of those grown for ornament. It has 
lately been finely in fruit at the Victoria Nursery, 
Upper Holloway, from whence it was distributed. The 
plants form bushy, spreading tufts, 6—8 inches 
high, and each branchlet is laden with small, bright 
red fruit of the size of hazel nuts. Eor decorative 
purposes it will be found very useful. 
— £Ehe well-known Davallia elegans 
when grown as a pyramid, produces an effect 
at once pleasing and artistic, and indeed in 
this category it is entitled to a place in the first rank. 
It will creep over the surface of a pyramid clothing it 
from base to vertex with its charming evergreen 
shining fronds in a manner so natural as to elicit 
admiration. The fronds are borne upon stems from 
6—9 inches long, which hang loosely from the frame¬ 
work in natural order, and thus it forms altogether 
an object of singular beauty for a sitting-room. 
— 212He learn that the partnership in the 
seed business hitherto carried on under the 
style of Barr & Sugden has now ceased ; and 
that Mr. Peter Barr, the managing partner, has opened 
a business under the style of Barr & Son, at 34, 
King Street, Covent Garden. The new firm first put 
in an appearance in public at the National Rose 
Show at South Kensington on July 4th, and at the 
Royal Botanic Society’s Show on the following day, 
when they set up an extensive and remarkably 
beautiful collection of hardy plants and cut llowers. 
— Ht the Royal Botanic Society’s Evening 
Fete, the Best Arranged Table, according to 
the opinion of the Judges, says the Garden, 
“was that from Mr. Walter Wood, of Conduit 
Street. This consisted of low, gilded bowls, round 
in form and about 4 in. deep. In the middle 
bowl was arranged a centre plant of Cocos Weddel- 
liana , small plants of the graceful variegated Eulalia 
j iponica., Caladium argyritis , and variegated Honey¬ 
suckles. Amongst these were dibbled in white 
Gladiohis Colvillei, yellow Aquilegia chrysantha, 
white, sulphur yellow and deep yellow Spanish Irises, 
white Marguerites, Welsh Poppy, and Perns, all 
rising from a bed of moss. Two smaller bowls of the 
same pattern, placed a short distance from the centre, 
were filled similarly to the centre bowl, except the 
addition of a few pink Carnations put in here and 
there. The bowls placed at each of the corners were 
similar, and eighteen small ones (too many by half) 
filled with tiny Palms, Caladiums, and Ferns, were 
placed at intervals along the sides. The principal 
points of this arrangement were the simplicity of 
style and general harmony of tone of colour, which 
ran through the whole of the materials used.” 
— IcUiong the many species of Dianthus, 
D. barbatus, the Sweet William has long held 
and still holds a prominent position as a popu¬ 
lar garden flower. Some f*w years ago it was taken 
up by one or two florists, especially by Mr. Hunt, of 
Wycombe, and considerable improvements in the 
size, colours, and smoothness of the flowers was the 
result. Since that time the work of improvement 
has slackened, perhaps because a tolerably good 
modern strain meets all the demands of the public. 
TTe have just received some fine cut blooms from Mr. 
W. Caudwell, of Wantage, among which were many 
striking flowers remarkable for their size—upwards 
of one inch across—and for their richly coloured 
markings of different shades of crimson and rosy- 
purple with white centre and margin ; most of these 
being also smooth on the edge. They represent a 
