104 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
October 15, 1887. 
absolutely not desirable to be retained, for they only 
prove an incumbrance, to the detriment and well-being 
of those that must be kept. The idea must first be 
grasped that things worth growing are worth growing 
well, and that what is not worth treating in this way 
had better be dispensed with immediately. Arrange 
what Ferns and flowering plants there are to the best 
possible advantage, and even at this dull time the 
whole may be effective and interesting. If Chrysan¬ 
themums are housed, keep the house well ventilated to 
prevent them becoming drawn. 
Flower Garden’.— Much will have to he done in 
this department to keep up the best appearance possible 
during the waning days of autumn. The labour will 
be all the more increased if there are trees about, the 
leaves of which drop, and so keep everything in a 
littery condition. These should be swept up, the walks 
cleaned and rolled. If it has not been already done, 
the lawn should be closely mown for the last time this 
season. Before doing this, however, it may be found 
necessary to roll the lawn to level down all worm 
castings. This may be done one day and mown the 
next, so that the grass may rise up after the operation 
of rolling. By doing this now the lawn will present a 
neat appearance all winter, and besides be in better 
condition for mowing with the machine in spring. 
As soon as the beds have been emptied of their 
contents, manure them, and dig them up immediately. 
They will thus look tidy should no planting be done ; 
but at the same time they may be filled with spring¬ 
flowering bulbs and bedding stuff, or with conifers, 
Box, Hollies, Euonymus, Heaths, or other bedding 
plants, whereby an interesting appearance may be 
maintained during winter.— F. 
—-- 
GOOSEBERRIES. 
An old gardener writing to us a few days ago 
remarked, “In making a fresh arrangement of my 
Gooseberry stock, I made a selection of the sorts, and 
planted each sort in lines by themselves. First, as the 
most useful green Gooseberry, I selected the 'White¬ 
smith, an upright grower, and good cropper, excellent 
for gathering green, and early for tarts or bottling, 
and first rate to eat ; when ripe, white and dull in the 
skin. Next came the Ironmonger, another very 
upright grower and strong, the berry not large, oval, 
and hairy; a first rate old Gooseberry in repute for 
bottling, and hard to beat when ripe. Then came the 
Red 'Warrington, the best of the large red, the young 
wood always describing a curve—pendulous is not the 
word ; a cranky bush, but the best for netting to hang 
late, and also in repute for preserving for jam. I had 
plenty at the end of September last year, and they 
might have been much later, but they cannot be served 
up and hang on a bush at the same time. 
* ‘Next, a very few of the Sulphur and Early Sulphur, 
as the latter are always the first ripe Gooseberries. 
Also a good line of the Amber, a very robust grower, 
the growth curving and spreading, and a great bearer ; 
amber-coloured, firm in berry, and a capital one for the 
coal-pit districts. I have also a sprinkling of the 
Lancashire prize sorts, but do not know much about 
them by name. They are mostly distinguished for 
bulk and insipidity, some like purple Magnum Bonum 
Plums, for instance, Roaring Lion, and some of the 
green ones whose names I do not know ; quite im¬ 
practicable for ordinary mouths at a single effort, and 
require to he eaten like an oyster. I have pleasant 
recollections of the Green Gascon and the Hedgehog. 
I would always hack a hairy Gooseberry for flavour, 
and the more hairy the better, in the same way as a 
russety Pear or Apple—a peculiarity which is also 
supposed to be associated with rough-skinned Potatos, 
The old Scotch Jam Berry, small and hairy, I scarcely 
ever saw in former days. I remember three bushes of 
it which used to bear several bushels every year. They 
were, at least, twenty years old, and now, after eighteen 
years, may be still in the same spot. They would each 
he about 8 ft. in diameter, and covered with green 
moss, the low spreading branches feathered on each 
side with spurs, from the undersides of which the 
berries used to hang in handfuls ; the trees had ceased 
to make any young wood. They were delicious when 
black-ripe, and made the most perfect jam. The soil 
was deep, light, and sandy, and the bushes slightly 
shaded with Apple trees. 
“One Gooseberry of my schoolboy days, which I 
called the Crystal Skinned—a delicious and distinctly 
flavoured fruit—I should like to meet with again. It 
is, no doubt, common somewhere—a good medium-sized 
berry, perfectly oval, white and glassy, smooth, trans¬ 
parent, the white veins and seeds showing distinctly 
through the skin, and by far the best smooth-skinned 
Gooseberry I have ever asted,” This is a common- 
sense vindication of several good old sorts of Goose¬ 
berries. Not long since I was in an old market garden 
in Lincolnshire, and there saw some very fine 
bushes of Gooseberries under some old Apple trees, 
where one would have thought it impossible that they 
could grow and bear fruit. But they carry enormous 
crops every year, and they prove very remunerative 
ones.— R. I). _—> 2 rc»_ 
NEW PLANTS CERTIFICATED 
By the Floral Committee of the R. H. S. 
October 11 th. 
Cypripedium Harrisianum superbum. 
The superiority of this variety was at once apparent 
by its great size and fine appearance. The whole flower 
possessed the same polished appearance as the type, 
and the standard was of a deep brownish purple, 
shading off into purple at the white margin. The 
petals were of a deep purple, and the labellum was 
large but of a paler purple. The foliage was short, 
healthy, deep green, and distinctly marked with paler 
blotches. The dwarf character of the foliage, if per¬ 
manent, would be an advantage, as compared with the 
grosser growth of the foliage of the type. Exhibited 
by F. G. Tautz, Esq. 
Chrysanthemums. 
William Cobbett. —This is a new Japanese variety, 
with narrow, reflexed, and soft rose-coloured florets. 
The central ones, when expanding, are yellow, but as 
they expand they gradually change to a deeper rose 
than those towards the circumference of the flower 
head. Exhibited by Mr. G. Stevens, Putney. 
L’Africaine. —The flower heads of this new Japa¬ 
nese vai'iety are large and massive, and of deep crimson 
when fully expanded and recurved. The centre 
exhibits a yellow tint during the expansion of the 
florets, but this disappears as the florets get older. 
Exhibited by Mr. William Holmes, Frampton Park 
Nursery, Hackney, London. 
By the Fruit Committee. 
Apples. 
Bismarck. —In shape this is depressedly globose or 
slightly inclined to be conical, with a deep, moderately 
angular and shallowly-ribbed closed eye. The short 
stalk is also set in a deep rounded cavity at the base. 
It is a large and handsome Apple, and is pale green, 
fading to a whitish tint and deeply suffused with red on 
the exposed side. The flesh is firm and white, and the 
fruit is classed as a kitchen variety. It is an abundant 
bearer. Exhibited by Messrs. J. Yeitch & Sons. 
Gascoigne’s Scarlet Seedling. —This is a medium 
or large-sized Apple, shortly conical in shape, some¬ 
what five-angled at the top, and exceedingly handsome 
when well grown. It is greenish yellow, often changing 
almost to a creamy white, while the whole of the 
exposed side is a deep rich shining red. The flesh is 
firm and sweet. Exhibited by Mr. Gascoigne. 
-->K—- 
A HYBRID SPROUT. 
Two years since, from some late Coleworts, I selected 
one of conical form for the purpose of seeding it the 
following year for my own use. When in bloom, to 
protect it from becoming cross-fertilised with pollen 
from Brussels Sprouts growing near, I covered the 
flowers of the Coleworts with fine muslin. Seed was 
sown as soon as ripe, and plants put out in anticipation 
that they would give Colewort heads. Instead of that 
result, however, they grew strong and tall, and so 
stood the winter, becoming still stronger and taller 
through the summer, and finally producing good firm 
heads of half Colewort half Brussels Sprouts type, with 
a tendency to sprout up the stems. Unfortunately, 
throughout this locality, aphis terribly infested much 
of the green stuff, and my hybrid plants were so 
troubled—good evidence of their sweetness. 
However, the texture of the heads is soft, marrowy, 
and pleasantly flavoured when cooked ; whilst stems 
which have had the heads removed are developing very 
fine Sprouts, which, when cooked, are delicious to eat. 
I am thus assured that the strain is a true hybrid, and 
also that the fine particles of pollen from the Brussels 
Sprouts must have been driven by the wind through 
the muslin covering of the Colewort flowers and entirely 
impregnated them, as the greater portion of the plants 
show this enlarged Brussels Sprout form. It will be 
two years hence ere seed saved next year from the best 
forms can be made to produce new plants, and the 
steadfastness of the strain fairly tested. It may then 
prove to be a good thing, or be found useless. Time 
will show, but it is good now in any case. — A. D. 
-- 
HYBRID ORCHIDS, &c, AT THE 
ROYAL EXOTIC NURSERY, CHELSEA. 
Now it is that their labours of many years as Orchid 
hybridists have brought the great firm of Messrs. 
James Yeitch & Sons a well-merited reward for their 
pains every season—and, indeed, every few months seem 
to add new and beautiful treasures to the already noble 
list of their home-raised Orchids—as by their slow 
process of development the tiny, almost leafless, seed¬ 
lings which Mr. Seden handled for the first time, 
perhaps, eight or ten years ago, now come into bloom. 
The history of the lovely Cattleya exoniensis, one of 
the earliest hybrids, its still rising price, and the 
knowledge which we have that it has marvellously im¬ 
proved in the size and beauty of its flowers since it was 
distributed, ought to be a very good excuse for the 
praise given to each new one on its first coming into 
bloom. The fact is that, as a rule, not until two or three 
years after hybrid Orchids are first sent out are their 
real beauties known, and then, if the plants be well 
grown, in by far the greater number of instances, even 
although the price might have been thought high when 
purchasing, the owner finds he has a far better thing 
than he anticipated, and worth, probably, three or four 
times the value given. 
It is now getting hard upon 100 grand varieties of 
hybrid origin with which Messrs. Yeitch have enriched 
our collections, comprising some two dozen Cattleyas, 
some three dozen Cypripediums, and a goodly number 
of Lselias, Galanthes, Dendrobes, and other genera. If 
we enumerate at random such things as Cattleya 
Chamberlainii, C. triophthalma, C. Yeitchiana, Lidia 
callistoglossa, L. Canhamiana, L. Sedeni, Cypripedium 
Morganue, C. Scliroderie, Calanthe Yeitchii, or, indeed, 
any selection from the long list, it will readily be seen 
that the work of the raisers has been a great work, 
bringing, by their steady perseverance and patience, a 
grand and beautiful collection of plants into our plant 
houses, which could not be done in any other way. 
Amongst those now in flower at the Royal Exotic 
Nursery, many of the handsome Cattleya porphyro- 
phlebia (C. intermedia x C. superba) will be found, 
all beautiful, with large wax-like flowers varying in 
tint from nearly white to deep blush, and in the colour 
of the beautifully-fringed labellum from rose to crimson, 
each having a light chrome tinge on the lip. This 
plant is evidently as free-growing and flowering as it is 
pretty. Cattleya leucoglossa (C. Loddegesii x C. 
Fausta), too, is in bloom, with' finely-formed pale rose 
flowers, the front lobe of the lip lighter and prettily 
crimped, a soft yellow blotch being on the labellum 
just below the column. Cattleya Brabantise also, one 
of the earliest hybrid Cattleyas, but still very rare, 
bears a spike of its waxy blush flowers, prettily dotted 
with chocolate. A new variety, named Eurydice, 
obtained by crossing summer-flowering C. labiata with 
C, Acklandiie, bears a gorgeous flower, which for 
richness of the violet-crimson of its finely expanded 
labellum may be said to beat all its predecessors ; the 
throat is yellow, as in some of the forms of C. labiata, 
and in other respects it partakes of the best qualities 
of both parents. 
Following the several beautiful hybrid Phalfenopses 
which have recently bloomed here, another is now in 
bud, from which great things are expected. Some 
hybrid Dendrobes and other things are also in bloom ; 
but, as usual, and as is the case all the year round, the 
hybrid Cypripediums have the best part of the show, 
many of them being in bloom. Commencing with the 
neat old Cypripedium Dominii, and everybody’s 
favourite, the perpetual-flowering C. Sedeni, we find 
C. S. candidulum, a chaste flower ; C. albo-purpureum, 
C. calurum, and C. cardinale, all magnificent things of 
the Sedenii section ; C. stenophyllum (C. Schlimii x C. 
Pearcei), C. Arthurianum, and C. vexillarium Fairrie- 
anum hybrids ; C. Harrisianum, the richly-coloured C. 
oenanthum superbum, C. politum, C. marmorophyllum, 
C. selligerum majus, and, in bud, C. Tautzianum, 
with several others not yet bloomed ; but last come the 
greatest novelty in Cypripediums, which, we believe, 
is to be named Chas. Canham, in honour of the clever 
grower of Messrs. Yeitch’s general collection. It is the 
result of a cross between C. villosum and C. Yeitchii, 
and has noble flowers of much the same shape as 
the former, but with broader petals, having a few 
crimson dots on them. The flowers are yellow suffused 
with delicate rose, and the top of the upper sepal is 
