May 5, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD- 
563 
WEBBS’ 
GDCTI A 1 -- I 
Gold Medal 
SPECIAL 
The Medals 
Liverpool 
PRIZE 
of Paris 
1886. 
1878. 
LAWN SEEDS 
Rapidly produce the best and most enduring 
turf for Tennis Grounds and Ornamental 
Gardening. 
"Webbs’ Best Mixtures ... Is. 3d. per lb. 
Webbs’ Ordinary Mixtures Is. Od. per lb. 
Illustrated Catalogue, Is. Abridged Edition Gratis. 
THE QUEEN’S SEEDSMEN, 
WORDSLEY, STOURBRIDGE. 
UCHSIAS, FUCHSIAS. — Phenomenal, 
Mrs. Short, 'Warrior, Gustave Dore, Monument, Duke of 
Albany, Avalanche, Harriet Lye, Lemanees, Mrs. Lucy Finnis, 
Meteor, Elegance, Champion of the World, British Queen, Lizzie 
Vidler, Marvellous. Will forward, post free, 12 plants, 2s. 6 d .; 
24 varieties, 4s. 6 d .; 36 ditto, 6s.—GEO. WIGLET, Gluman 
Gate, Chesterfield. 
T ILY OF THE YALLEY CROWNS 
-l—J for Early and Late Forcing. Delivery in November next. 
The Advertiser is in a position to compete for the above with 
any respectable House in the Trade, either at home or abroad, 
as to price and quality. Particulars on application. Early 
Orders respectfully solicited. 
T. JANNOCH, by Special Warrant, Lily of the Valley 
Grower to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Dersiugham, King’s 
Lynn. 
SPECIMEN HOLLIES. 
(now is the time to plant.) 
List, containing heights and prices of the finest Green and 
Variegated varieties in cultivation, free. 
N.B.—These trees are perfect and very cheap. 
RICHARD SMITH & So., 
mjssssiraEE'is & see® merchants, 
WORCESTER. 
ORCHID 
EXHIBITION. 
One of the Most Beautiful Sights in Loudon. 
O RCHIDS.—The Orchid Exhibition at Mr. 
WILLIAM BULL’S Establishment for New and Rare 
Plants, 536, King’s Road, Chelsea, London, S.W., is now open 
daily from 10 to 6 o’clock. 
o 
RCHIDS—A vision of loveliness unpa¬ 
ralleled in Europe. 
O RCHIDS.—-“A scene of the greatest 
Orehidic beauty, baffling description and defying ex¬ 
aggeration." 
O RCHIDS.—The Exhibition is worth going 
any distance to see at Mr. WILLIAM BULL’S Establish- 
ment for New and Rare Plants, 536, King’s Road, Chelsea, 
London, S.W. 
NEW PLANTS FOR 1888 . 
MR. WILLIAM BULL'S 
NEW CATALOGUE FOR 1888 
Is now ready. Price, Is. 
Contains names, description and prices of many beau¬ 
tiful New Plants offered for the first time. 
WILLIAM BULL, f.l.s., 
Establishment for New and Rare Plants, 
536, KING’S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. 
GARTERS’ 
INYICTA 
LAWN SEEDS 
Should now be Sown. 
Bushel. lb. 
For VELVET LAWNS - - 25/- 1/3. 
For TENNIS LAWNS - - 20/- I/O. 
For CRICKET GROUNDS - 20/- 1/0. 
For MENDING OLD LAWNS- 25/- 1/3. 
_AU Parcels Carriage Free._ 
Royal Seedsmen by Sealed Warrants. 
237 & 238, HIGH HOLBORM, LONDON. 
S hrewsbury floral lete, 
AUGUST 22nd and 23rd, 1888. 
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 NAUNTON, Shrewsbury. 
Bath and West of England Society and Southern 
Counties Association. 
■VTEWPORT (MON.) MEETING, 1888, 
AM Commencing Jttne 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, 
Lamorran Rectory, Probus, Cornwall. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Monday, May 7th.—Sale of Imported Orchids at Prothcroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
Tuesday, May Sth.—Royal Horticultural Society: Meeting of 
Floral and Fruit Committees, in the Drill Hall, James’ 
Street, Victoria Street.—Sale of Imported and Established 
Orchids at Protheroe & Moiris’s Rooms. 
Wednesday, May 9th.—Edinburgh Auricula Show.—First day’s 
Sale of the late Mr. John Day’s Orchids at Stevens’ Rooms. 
—Sale of Lilies, Greenhouse Plants, &c., at Protheroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
Thursday, May 10th.—Second day’s Sale of the late Mr. John 
Day’s Orchids at Stevens’ Rooms. 
Friday, May 11th.—Sale of Imported and Established Orchids 
at Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Saturday, May 12th.—Great Summer Show at the Crystal 
Palace. 
FOR INDEX TO CONTENTS, SEE P. 574. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1888. 
May-Day.— Has the month of May dared to 
appropriate to itself the old March simile, that 
it should have this year come in so very 
like a lion 1 ? Perhaps it was hut a straw 
lion after all—a noisy, blustering, conceited 
sort of beast, which only needed a vigorous 
shout to make it holt 'and leave its staiu behind. 
Certainly, May-day came in with plenty of 
noise and bluster. It was cold, wild, and 
cheerless; whilst the dust on the highways 
was lifted in vast clouds and driven here 
and there, creating misery to those human 
beings who came in its way, as it was swept 
on by the roaring west winds. How absurd 
the ancient May-day observances seem to he 
in such weather! 
We are tempted to consider whether May- 
queens, May-poles, morris-dancers, and joyous 
festivals on village greens are not myths— 
things conjured up by cynics to make the 
toiling teeming masses of the day sick of 
life, and dissatisfied with both the season so 
cold, wild and cheerless, and the fierce com¬ 
petition of life, which shuts them out from 
all such ancient pastoral enjoyments. Remem¬ 
bering that under the old style of time May- 
day fell twelve days later than it does now, 
we may feel that we have been somewhat 
harshly treated in thus bringing forward the 
proverbial first day of summer into the tail 
end of a long and tiresome winter; but 
then, the season, whatever that phrase may 
mean now-a-days, is, according to our think¬ 
ing, very late this year. Why, on few things, 
even of the hardiest and earliest of trees and 
shrubs, are there any leaves; the Gooseberry 
hushes show the most colour, whilst on the 
Pear, Plum, and Cherry trees barely a bloom 
is open, and the Apple tree will not give us 
its lovely tints of flower till the month has 
nearly closed. 
From whence the rural children have 
obtained their garlands, should such old- 
world fashions and pastimes still prevail, 
it will be hard to say. There are Primroses, 
Wallflowers, and Daffodils, but of the great 
body of garden flowers, so long associated 
in our minds with May-day, few or none seem 
to be open. It is a barren floral time indeed. 
May-day is a fixed festival, if it now merits 
that appellation, but Whitsuntide is not so, 
and it perversely comes earlier to us this 
year now that the season is later. Even the 
proverbial Gooseberry pie at Whitsuntide 
must this year he lacking, unless berries the 
dimensions of peas are held to be good 
enough. The fact is, we seem to be getting 
at sixes and sevens with our weather, for 
pleasanter and softer times more often greet us 
in December or in January than in April or 
May; and yet it is doubtful whether, on the 
whole, we are worse off than our forefathers 
were a hundred years ago, and especially' that 
they had none of those vast ranges of heated 
glass-houses, which now make the wealthy, in 
the matter of garden produce, whether of 
fruits, flowers, or vegetables, almost indepen¬ 
dent of weather and of seasons. 
If we turn to the pages of The Natural 
History of Selhorne , in which that amiable 
and very practical observer of nature, Gilbert 
White, recorded his experience, we find that 
weather and seasons were in his day not 
quite constant, and anything hut traditional 
in character. Some terribly severe winters 
were associated with burning summers, and 
some very wet summers with soft mil d 
winters. We are apt to talk of the seasons 
running in cycles, probably without good 
reason, but it is a remarkable fact that the 
years 1782 and 1792 were the wettest of 
that decade, the intervening ones showing 
only a moderate rainfall. Thus, 1782 gave 
for the whole year a rain measure of 50*26, 
whilst 1792 gave 48*56, the intervening years 
giving an average rainfall of about 32 ins. 
Two of the wettest months of the eleven 
years were July and August, 1782; whilst 
July, August, September, and October of 
1792 gave a total rainfall of over 20 ins. 
Some of the records of the weather, year by 
year, from 1768 to 1792, shows that very 
late and very sharp frosts were not infrequent. 
Generally, did any recorder of nature 
tabulate his observations of the weather now 
as Gilbert White did a hundred years ago, 
it seems probable that the record would read 
very much like what it was then. The most 
serious aspect of a late spring is found in the 
inevitable shortening of our summer season 
which follows. Thus, this year, we shall he 
close upon Midsummer, so called, probably, 
before we shall get really settled warm 
weather ; then all too soon comes the autumn, 
with its chill air and falling leaves, and then 
the charm of the year is gone. Even worse 
than that, however, is the harm clone to crops 
by the shortness of the growing period. We 
may comfort ourselves with the thought that 
with a late spring our fruit blossoms will he 
secure from spring frosts, hut prolonged cold 
means a severe check to the productiveness 
of nature, as the flowers should have fully 
expanded ere now. Whatever may happen, 
all the same, we do wish to see May really 
the beginning of summer. 
