April 7, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
501 
CARTERS’ 
TESTED SEEDS 
FOR GARDENS OF ALL SIZES. 
CARTERS’ BOX, Sss 2/6 
of Vegetable Seeds price p QS { f rgg 
CARTERS’ BOX, g-zist 5 " 
of Vegetable Seeds price p QS ( f reg 
CARTERS' BOX, SsSS 7/6 
of Vegetable Seeds price p os( f rgg 
CARTERS’ BOX, in/fi 
of Vegetable Seeds and 12 varieties of ■V/ V 
Flower Seeds price Post free. 
CARTERS’ BOX, SSSS? | A I- 
of Vegetable Seeds and 20 varieties of ■ / 
Flower Seeds price Post free. 
CARTERS’ BOX, g™£3 20 /- 
of Vegetable Seeds in sufficient quantities “ v / 
to produce a constant supply of the best carriage 
Vegetables all the year round price free. 
Larger Boxes, 30/, 40/, 60/, carriage free. 
Particulars of Contents on Application. 
Seedsmen by Sealed Royal Warrants, 
237 & 238, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON. 
Bath and. West of England Society and Southern 
Counties Association. 
<£300 
N ewport (mon.) meeting, 1888, 
Commencing June 6th. 
THE FOLLOWING PRIZES WILL BE GIVEN, Viz. 
A Cop or Money, value £10, for the Best Group of Orchids. 
AMATEURS. 
Also a Cup or Money, value £5, for the Best Box of Tea and 
Noisette Roses. Ditto for NURSERYMEN. 
For further particulars, apply Hon. and Rev. J. T. BOSCAWEN, 
Laraorran Rectory, Probus, Cornwall. 
IN PRIZES FOR 
FRUIT, FLOWERS, 
A EGETABLES AND HONEY. Open to 
Members of Co-operative Societies through¬ 
out the Kingdom. 
£100 given by the Agricultural and Horti¬ 
cultural Association (Limited) for produce 
grown from tlieir “ One and All ” Seeds. 
Schedules on application to 
WILLIAM BROOMHALL, Secretary. 
1, Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C. 
S hrewsbury floral fete, 
AUGUST 22nd and 23rd, 18S8. 
For Twenty PLANTS, £25, £20, £15. For GRAPES, £66. For 
Collection of FRUIT, £10, £6, £3. For VEGETABLES, £50, 
including Valuable SPECIAL PRIZES by Messrs. Webb & Sons 
Messrs. Sutton & Co., and Mr. T. Laxton. The VEITCH 
MEMORIAL MEDAL and £5 will be awarded for VEGETABLES 
at this Show. Full particulars, with Schedules, post free on 
application to the Hon. Secs., 
Messrs. ADNITT and NALTNTON, Shrewsbury. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Tuesday, April 10th.—Royal Horticultural Society: Meeting of 
Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 a.in. General Meeting of 
the Fellows at 111, Victoria Street, S.W., at 3 p.m. Sale of 
the first portion of the Broomfield collection of Orchids, at 
Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. Sale of Roses, Carnations, &c., 
at the City Auction Rooms, by Protheroe & Morris. 
Wednesday, April 11th.—Sale of Orchids in Flower and also 
Imported Plants, at Stevens’ Rooms. Sale of Nurse’ry Stock, 
Stove and Greenhouse Plants, from sample, at Protheroe 
& Morris’s Rooms. 
Thursday, April 12th.—Sale of Imported Orchids at Stevens’ 
Rooms. 
Friday, April 13th.—Sale of Imported Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
Saturday, April 14th.— Commencement of great Quinquennial 
Exhibition at Ghent. Sale of Lilies, Roses, &c., at Protheroe 
& Morris’s Rooms. 
FOR INDEX TO CONTENTS, SEE P. 510. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.” —Bacon. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1888. 
The Season.— Whilst it is generally admitted 
that the spring is a late one, there seems 
to be some divergence of opinion as to the 
merits of early and late springs. The 
optimist avers that with a late spring the 
fruit crop will be safe; the pessimist as 
stoutly holds that when we have late springs 
all ordinary crops suffer, because we have 
the drought of summer setting in before 
any appreciable growth has been made. 
That result was very specially evidenced 
last year, much to the later harm of the 
crops. It is even not absolutely certain 
that a protracted period of cold weather in 
the spring, although it may check blooming 
of the fruit trees, is yet beneficial to them. 
We have seen in some previous years a 
glorious promise of bloom sadly discounted, 
because protracted cold had stunted the 
bloom germs and checked fertilisation; it 
will be well for us should no such mishap 
occur this year, hut should such be the 
case, the cause will he apparent. Trees are 
having a very long rest, for owing to last 
year’s drought, the September rains not 
reaching the roots, leaves fell somewhat 
early, and in the ordinary course of things, 
growth should have started early this year. 
The remarkably low temperature which has 
marked the past month of March and even 
the early days of April, allied to snowstorms 
and heavy rainfalls, have seemed to cool 
the soil to an unwonted degree, and in 
every way the season, as well as its work, 
is backward. 
The rain has proved of immense value 
prospectively, hut has rendered the soil 
somewhat sodden and pasty; still, a few 
fine days may do much to remedy that. 
Early-sown seeds have had a bad time of 
it, whilst those sown at once will doubtless 
produce by far the best and, perhaps, earliest 
results. 
Is the Stock a Native Plant 1 — If the 
question be asked concerning Mathiola incana, 
we should say existing evidence is very 
slender that the Stock is a native, or, in 
other words, indigenous to any part of the 
British Islands. That it is found wild in 
several places along the south coast of 
England and in the Isle of Wight there can 
he no doubt; but in all of the localities 
in which we have detected it, there is 
abundant evidence to show that it is merely 
a garden escape, and finding the conditions 
suitable to its requirements, it has had no 
difficulty in obtaining a foothold on the 
precipitous sides of the bluff headlands or 
chalk cliffs that crop out along the coast of 
Sussex, Kent, and Hampshire, including the 
Isle of Wight. 
The single form has been little altered by 
cultivation, and where that has taken place, 
the alteration is chiefly what would be 
brought about by cultivation in rich garden 
soil, with an abundant supply of moisture 
and other concomitant luxuries with which 
cultivated plants are supplied. Under these 
conditions, the leaves are apt to lose their 
hairiness, become greener, and lose the hoary 
character which the plant assumes when 
growing on the dry and crumbling faces of 
the chalk cliffs which it affects, and for 
which it is well adapted in a state of nature. 
The hoariness or white appearance of the 
wild plant is due to the development of a 
dense coat of branched and star-like hairs, 
similar to what occurs on many other Crucifers 
adapted to live in dry or rocky places. Of 
the garden races, the Brompton Stocks have 
the leaves smooth on both surfaces, whereas 
the wild form is felted equally all over with the 
stellate interlocking hairs as above mentioned. 
Mathiola incana is indigenous to the west 
of Europe (continental), the Canary Islands 
and the Levant. It formerly existed on the 
cliffs east of Hastings, in Sussex, where, accord¬ 
ing to a good authority, it is described as 
extinct; but it still grows wild further west¬ 
ward, as on the rocky sea cliffs near Beachy 
Head. Here there can be no doubt that it 
has escaped from a neighbouring garden at 
the coastguard station. Further west, between 
Brighton and Rottingdean, it is spread over 
the precipitous sides of the chalk cliffs for a 
distance of 730 paces extending east and west 
of the coastguard station, which is situated on 
the level ground at the top of the cliffs. Now 
there can be little doubt that it originally 
escaped from the garden there—circumstances 
being favourable to the distribution of the 
seeds over the cliffs by accidental means, or 
by the garden rubbish, containing plants of 
the Stock in seed, being thrown over. 
At Ventnor and Freshwater, in the Isle of 
Wight, the other localities given as habitats 
for the Stock, the same conditions for its 
escape from gardens apply. At Ventnor it 
occurs on the shelving, broken and wasting 
cliffs between the town and the sea, so that 
seeds, or any rubbish containing them, have 
every chance of being carried over and estab¬ 
lishing themselves. This place, which is 
known as the English Madeira, is very 
favourable to plants of warm and temperate 
countries and to those that thrive in the 
vicinity of the sea, so that many of these 
things thrive luxuriantly in the open all the 
year round, and many things have run wild. 
-- 
The Surrey Floricultural Society’s annual exhi¬ 
bition will be held in the grounds of Casino House, 
Herne Hill, on July 25th and 26th. 
The Ludlow Horticultural Society’s summer show 
will he held in the Castle Green, Ludlow, on August 
16th. 
Bromley District Chrysanthemum Society.—The 
seventh annual exhibition of this society is announced 
to be held in the Drill- Hall, Bromley, on November 
14th and 15th. 
The Dutch Bulb Trade.—Mr. J. J. Van Waveren 
recently told an American interviewer that more than 
500,000 people are engaged in this industry in Holland, 
and that the annual sale is about 2,000,000 dollars, of 
which America uses about one-tenth. 
Chiswick Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement As¬ 
sociation.—On Wednesday evening last the members 
and friends of this association sat down to supper at 
the Bolton Hotel, Chiswick, by way of cementing 
friendships that have been made during the session just 
now closed. Mr. Fraser occupied the chair, and a 
very enjoyable evening was spent. 
The Gardeners’ Orphan Fund. — On Wednesday 
evening next, Mr. Frank Mason-Good will give a 
lecture in the Hound Green School, Heckfield, on the 
subject of “ A Trip Through the Great Desert to Mount 
Sinai and Petra,” illustrated by photographs taken by 
the lecturer during his travels. The proceeds of the 
entertainment will be given to the Gardeners’ Orphan 
Fund, of which Mr. Wildsmith, Heckfield Place, is the 
honorary local secretary. 
Mr. John Hollingwortli, Turkey Court, Maidstone, 
died on Wednesday morning last, aged eighty-three 
years. The deceased, who was a partner in one of the 
oldest paper-making firms in the kingdom, was known 
in the horticultural world as an ardent amateur 
Rosarian, and was a regular exhibitor at the National 
and local Rose societies’ shows. He was one of the 
most kind-hearted of men, and a generous supporter of 
every movement for the good of his fellow-townsmen. 
Paris Universal Exhibition, 1889.—Intending ex¬ 
hibitors in group IX—Horticulture—in the British 
section of the great exhibition, to be held in Paris next 
year from May 31st to October 31st, are reminded that 
the 28th inst. is the last day for receiving applications 
for space, which should he addressed to the Secretary, 
2, Walbrook (Mansion House), E.C. The group in¬ 
cludes six classes, viz., for conservatories and horticul¬ 
tural apparatus, flowers and ornamental plants, vege¬ 
tables, fruits and fruit trees, seeds and saplings of 
forest trees, and plants for conservatories. 
Douglasia laevigata.—Mr. G. F. Wilson alluded to 
this plant at the last meeting of the Scientific Com¬ 
mittee as a charming dwarf Alpine, and proposed that 
it should receive a Botanical Certificate, which was 
agreed to. It is a low-growing plant with tufted leaves 
and lilac flowers, like those of an Androsace, but larger 
and with the tube of the corolla longer than the calyx, 
and with only two seeds to the capsule. The species 
are natives of North-Western America, the first known 
species having been collected by Douglas not far from 
the sources of the Columbia River, and named in his 
honour by Dr. Lindley. 
Rose, Mrs. John Laing, for Early Forcing.—Mr. 
Charles F. Evans, of Philadelphia, says of this Rose 
(one of Mr. H. Bennett’s seedlings) that no other 
hybrid variety extant can be so readily and profitably 
forced for flowers in the early winter. “This statement 
