March 3, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
427 
Hardening 
ISCELLANY. 
Peas for Exhibition in June. 
At p. 411 of your last issue, “ J. L. P.” mentions my 
name in connection with this subject, and in reply to 
his query, I have to say that I have only experience of 
Sutton’s Main Crop Marrowfat; and though it is by no 
means an early variety, it matures sooner than many 
of its class, and might possibly be had ready for a show 
in the middle of June. Of course, “J. L. P.” knows 
that people who are really in earnest about exhibiting 
a certain article, and mean to win, do not mind taking 
a little extra pains to get that said article ; and if 
“ J. L. P.” will but sow these new Marrowfat Peas on 
turves, the same as is done to get an extra early crop, 
and plant out as soon as the weather permits, he will 
certainly be able to gather Peas early in June. Is 
“J. L. P. ” certain that the Diss Show is to beheld 
“early in June”? I have a note of it having been 
held on July 12th last year, and I believe it is fixed 
this year for July 3rd. By that time “ J. L. P. ” need 
have no anxiety, as by early sowing in the ordinary 
way he may have all the kinds named ready by that 
date.— TV. TVildsmith, Heckfield Place. 
Your correspondent, “J. L. P,” has fallen into a 
serious error as to the date of the Diss Horticultural 
Society’s show. That given to us by the secretary, 
and advertised in the papers, is July 3rd, by which 
time either of our new Marrowfat Peas should, under 
proper cultivation, be quite fit for exhibition. —Sutton <i 
Sons, Reading. 
The Best Daffodils for Pot Culture. 
For early blooming, where forcing is not resorted to, 
the Tenby Daffodil will now be in bloom. The Irish 
Spurius—Ard High—is earlier still ; and as it can be 
potted up in July will be in bloom at Christmas. For 
variety with these, the smaller N. nanus and N. minor, 
both dwarf, will be in bloom with greenhouse treat¬ 
ment in January. Paper White and double Roman 
will give scent and further variety then ; but among 
N. Tazetta I like Grand Monarque and Gloriosa best 
for pot culture and scent. For succession use such 
giants as Sir Watkin and N. bicolor Empress, and then 
N. bicolor Emperor to bloom in March; and then 
single and double Incomparabilis. Among all I must 
confess my favourite is the King of Daffodils, N. 
bicolor Horsfieldi. It is robust, a certain bloomer, 
and the white and yellow of the perianth and trumpet is 
a better contrast than any other.— TV. J. Murphy, 
Clonmel. 
Asters and Violas on Heavy Soils. 
The soil in this neighbourhood is very heavy, and we 
grow a great many flowers during the summer ; but 
especially find that Asters and Yiolas do particularly 
well with us. Of the latter we grow a lot of the 
Countess of Kintore—a grand thing—as well as Peach 
Blossom and Skylark, the first-mentioned variety doing 
especially well, and flowering abundantly all through 
the summer months. Asters thrive well also, the 
blooms attaining a great size—notably the Victoria and 
Chrysanthemum-flowered varieties, which seemed to 
stand the dry summer last year well. We get plenty 
of road-scrapings, and this mixed with manure and 
applied to the soil makes a compost in which they 
seem to grow like weeds. The hint here given may 
prove valuable to those who have a stiff clay soil to 
deal with.— E. B., Shortlands, Kent. 
Cabbages, &c., Attacked by Larks. 
Can any of the readers of The Gardening World 
give any reason why Cabbages, late Broccoli, Brussels 
Sprouts, &c., have been so much attacked by Larks ? I 
enclose a specimen of my Cabbage plants and other 
kinds, in order that you may see the havoc they played 
among these useful vegetables during the late snow. 
We had about 1,000 Cabbage plants, such sorts as Green’s 
Early, Ellam’s, Waite’s Jubilee, Veitch’s Earliest of All, 
and Nonpareil, all of which were looking quite well and 
beginning to heart up, but on going into the garden 
after the thaw I found them completely stripped of all 
their outside leaves, the plants looking as if 10,000 
caterpillars had been at work ; but on a closer inspection 
I found it had been the work of larks, which are 
getting very numerous in this part. Since noticing my 
own plants, I have heard complaints from other people. 
One gentleman’s gardener told me that his were com¬ 
pletely spoiled and useless to anyone. Has such ever 
been witnessed before ? I have had now about thirty- 
five years’ experience, and have never seen the like 
havoc carried out by small birds.— Joseph Lome, 
Palgrave, Diss. [We have had a similar experience 
with wood pigeons during severe weather, when Greens, 
Cabbages, Brussels Sprouts, aud others of the Brassica 
tribe were covered with snow except the tops, which 
were attacked and destroyed by those hungry and 
rapacious birds. The specimens you sent are very 
much destroyed and present a discouraging appearance. 
—Ed.] —- 
Iris japonica. 
In gardens where above all things conservatism in 
nomenclature is observed, it must be extremely annoy¬ 
ing to gardeners to find the names of plants so frequently 
undergoing change. The species under notice is a 
native of China and Japan, from whence it was intro¬ 
duced to this country many years ago. In the Botanical 
Magazine, t. 373 and t. 1797, it is figured under the name 
of Iris chinensis ; since then I. fimbriata has been 
adopted, and now I. japonica is the name used. 
Leaving aside nomenclature, it is a beautiful garden 
plant flowering in winter, requiring greenhouse pro¬ 
tection as it is tender. We noticed it the other week at 
Devonshire House, Stamford Hill, the residence of W. 
F. Darnell, Esq., where one inflorescence carried twenty - 
four flowers, several of which were fully expanded, and 
deliciously fragrant. The standards and petaloid 
stigmas are of a beautiful soft blue or some say lilac, 
while the falls are much broader, irregularly fimbriated, 
toothed or jagged at the margin, and beautifully 
variegated or reticulated with white and golden yellow 
along the centre. The foliage is evergreen, and beau¬ 
tifully arranged in fan-shaped tufts on each rhizome or 
stem. It merits much more extended cultivation. 
Freesia refraeta alba. 
Well-grown plants of this never fail to please, 
whether as cut flowers or as decorative plants in the 
conservatory. Cape bulbs generally are often con¬ 
sidered difficult to cultivate ; but there is no reason 
why they should be so, provided their requirements 
are attended to. Owing to the esteem and popularity 
in which it is held this plant has received considerable 
attention within the last few years. Some cultivators 
succeed admirably with it, not only in growing the old 
bulbs, but raising fresh ones from seeds and flowering 
them in a comparatively short time. A fine batch will 
soon be in full bloom at Westwood House, West Hill, 
Sydenham, the residence of H. Littleton, Esq. Mr. 
Churchfield, the gardener, grows the bulbs on a shelf 
close to the glass in a cool house, where the temperature 
up till now has not exceeded 40° to 45° at night. 
Chinese Primulas, Owen’s Imperial Strain. 
Should even a moderate percentage of seedlings come 
true to the sorts—flowers of which we have received 
from Mr. R. Owen, of Maidenhead—we should say 
that no reasonable man ought to be dissatisfied with 
the results. Out of a large number of blooms sent us 
hardly two are exactly alike ; and even should some of 
the varieties fail to please, there is a rich store of 
very beautiful blooms from which to select. The eye 
is in most cases large and well defined, being usually 
lobed, of a deep golden yellow, sometimes tinted with 
green, and often surrounded with a crimson or white 
line, that adds greatly to the general appearance of the 
flower. In one or two cases the orange colour of the 
eye occupies about half of the whole flower. The 
ground colour presents a wide range, from pure white, 
running through blush, pink, lilac with a white margin, 
rose, rosy carmine, deep carmine, crimson, blue, and 
various spotted forms, one being beautifully mottled 
with purple on a white ground. The greater number 
of the flowers are flat, with much fringed and over¬ 
lapping segments. One very beautiful flower, however, 
has much undulated or crisp segments, reminding one 
of the Indian Lace Tree (Lagerstrcemia indica). 
Adiantum reginse. 
The number of beautiful plants that have originated as 
seedlings from A. scutum is truly surprising, and each 
new one that crops up seems to excel the preceding. 
We need not enumerate the kinds already in cultivation, 
suffice it to say that the present is destined to become a 
popular and useful sort for decorative purposes. A 
quantity of young plants in the nursery of Mr. H. B. 
May, at Dyson’s Lane, Upper Edmonton, present a 
uniform height of about a foot, with gracefully arching 
fronds, and wedge-shaped pinnce of remarkable size, 
compared with those of the type. In size they may 
correspond to those of A. Farleyense, but they differ in 
shape, colour, and substance. The pinnse of the latter 
are pale green, thin and fan-shaped, and the plant 
requires good cultivation to preserve it in health and in 
presentable condition for any length of time, whereas 
in A. regince they are of leathery consistency, deep 
green, but bronzy when young and of great decorative 
value. — 
The Washington Plum. 
The name of this well-known variety intimates that 
it is of American origin. Dr. Lindley has left on 
record the following account of its first being brought 
into notice. “The parent tree, it appears, was pur¬ 
chased in the market of New York towards the end of 
the last century. It remained barren several years, 
till, during a violent thunderstorm the whole trunk 
was struck to the earth and destroyed. The root 
afterwards threw up a number of vigorous shoots, all 
of which were allowed to remain, and finally produced 
fruit. It is, therefore, to be presumed that the stock 
of the barren kind was the parent of this. Trees were 
sent to Robert Barclay, Esq., of Bury Hill, in 1819, and 
in 1821 several others were presented to theHorticultural 
Society by Dr. IJosaek, of New York.” Mr. M. Saul 
has also placed on record the following as bearing 
upon this Plum. He states that “in 1819 1 obtained 
a fruit-bearing tree of the Washington Plum from Mr. 
Prince, the eminent nurseryman and proprietor of the 
Botanic Garden of Flushing, Long Island, New York. 
This tree, most undoubtedly the first introduced, was in 
1860 growing in the orchard of the Rev. Dr. Mackerath, 
near Lancaster. It always produced a fair crop of 
fruit since the second year of its being planted ; it is a 
standard, and was in the year just mentioned a large, 
handsome and hardy tree.” This is interesting, but it 
will be observed no light is thrown upon the origin of 
this Plum.— R. D. 
Useful Decorative Aralias. 
One never sees these beautiful garden plants in better 
condition than when of a suitable size for table decora¬ 
tion, as most or all of them grow out of character when 
they attain any size, the leaves becoming broad and 
coarse. They are never allowed to attain this size, 
however, in a market nursery, where all the plants 
must find a customer or be cut down and re-propagated. 
All the best and more ornamental garden Aralias are 
grown by Mr. H. B. May, at the Dyson’s Lane Nursery, 
Upper Edmonton. A. Veitchii is well known and 
needs no comment, while the allied form, A. gracillima, 
with its undulated margins, linear, leafless and pink 
midribs is really charming. The pink midrib seems to 
be a peculiarity not possessed by all plants of this kind. 
A. elegantissima and A. leptophylla, each possess their 
own peculiar beauty, and have found their way into 
many gardens where decorative stuff is indispensable. 
A. reginse is newer than the last, but characterised by 
much longer leaflets that recurve gracefully at the 
upper end ; the petioles are also spotted and present 
more or less of a polished appearance. The spotted 
character, however, is common to many species. A. 
Chabrieri will always be held in esteem where decora¬ 
tive plants are grown ; but unfortunately for its 
dissemination in gardens, growth is very slow, although 
that might even be a recommendation as a table plant, 
because it does not quickly exceed the permissible size. 
Another plant that is by no means so common as its 
merits deserve is A. Kerchoveana, with somewhat 
circular leaves of eight or ten lance-shaped, deeply- 
toothed or cut leaflets, all of which are of a deep green, 
with spotted petioles. Young plants about a foot in 
height, and well furnished with leaves, present a very 
bold and attractive outline. 
Lygodium scandens. 
To what varied purposes this beautiful Fern can be put! 
Occasionally we see it draping pillars, and again grown 
in such a way as to cover the whole of a back wall with 
a living covering of the most beautiful greenery. In 
Dyson’s Lane Nursery, Upper Edmonton, plants of a 
suitable size are put into 43-sized pots, and grown to 
some size. Three long upright stakes are put into 
each pot, and the young stems in twining round them 
form very beautiful objects for various decorative 
purposes. Another way of growing this useful but 
comparatively neglected plant is by furnishing it with 
a piece of string, which the twining rachis invests with 
the greatest regularity along its whole length, furnished 
on all sides with the graceful and much branched 
pinnaj. AVhen the twining fronds have grown the 
entire length of their supports, the whole is cut away 
and used as wreaths for decorative purposes. 
