ro 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
October 4, 1890. 
who was at that time in Madrid, and secured a few, 
which he sent heme to Lady Bute, who grew them in 
her greenhouse, so that in the year 1790, the living 
flowers of the Dahlia were actually seen in this country. 
But the nature of the plant being misunderstood, it 
was soon lost to cultivation ; it was, in fact, killed by 
kindness, for the pet idea of that time was that all 
exotic plants required a high temperature and a stifling 
atmosphere. 
The year that followed was the first in the proper 
history of the plant, and then Cavanilles, in his leones 
gave it a name as Dahlia coccinea, the generic name 
being a compliment to Andreas Dahl, author of a 
treatise on the Linmean system of botany. This name 
was subsequently set aside by Professor Willdenow, in 
favour of Georgina, in compliment to Professor Georgi, 
of St. Petersburgh ; but in 1832 the original name was 
restored on the sole ground of priority, and from that 
time has been generally used. 
The formation of the florists’ Dahlia began in the 
year 1813, when Donkelaar, of the Botanical Gardens 
at Louvain, obtained a series of double flowers, which 
were freely distributed, but from about the year 1800, 
the French had been assiduously cultivating it, though 
but little was heard of their operations in this way, 
owing to the influence of politics in every department 
of public intelligence. But the advancement of the 
flower in French gardens was revealed when the Allies 
entered Paris in 1814, for the English amateurs found 
single and double varieties in profusion, and it seems 
that the credit for all this was due to Donkelaar, who 
had first persuaded the plant to display its variability, 
and had freely distributed his improved varieties. 
Thus the Dahlia came in with the French Revolution, 
and it attained to the dignity of a florists’ flower 
concurrently with the downfall of Napoleon, who was 
the “child” of that revolution. 
Turning to the biological history, the figures of 
Dahlia coccinea, Botanical Magazine, t. 762, and of 
Dahlia variabilis, Botanical Magazine, t., 1885, were 
contrasted with the flowers in the exhibition to show 
that although the several forms of Dahlias were known 
eighty years ago, the interval had been one of con¬ 
tinual progression, the earliest doubles being so unlike 
those of the present day, that one might say that 
their relationship was botanical rather than floral. 
The progress of the flower in all the qualities that are 
valued and sought by the florists was continuous until 
about the year 1850, the golden time being from 1830 
onwards, when the prices of the new varieties ranged 
from 20s. to 30s., and the Dahlia supported publications 
of its own, one of its ablest advocates being the 
Dahlia Register. In those golden days the principal 
trade cultivators were Wheeler, of Warminster; 
Brown, of Slough ; Heale, of Caine ; and Glenny, of 
Isle worth. In one of his advertisements in the year 
1836, Mr. Glenny announced that the selection he had 
made, represented the best amongst 3,000 seedlings. 
For some time after this date, Mr. Charles Turner, of 
Slough, and Mr. George Rawlings, of Bethnal Green, 
advertised their new varieties at 15s. each ; but after 
1850 there was a visible decline in the popularity of 
the flower. The years 1860 to 1870 was a dark time 
in the history of the Dahlia, but iu 1870, the National 
Dahlia Society commenced operations, and accom¬ 
plished a genuine revival, and this was the more 
gratifying as it was on the broad basis of recognising 
the Single and the Cactus varieties that were then 
coming into favour, the first Cactus variety, Juarezii of 
recent times being shown by Mr. H. Cannell, in 1872. 
Previous to this, however, the Cactus group had been 
prefigured in Brown’s Glowworm, 1836, a portrait of 
which Mr. Hibberd presented to the meeting. 
The Dahlia was described as the most variable flower 
known, and a detailed account was given of the changes 
that take place in the development of the single to the 
double flower. The dissection of the flower revealed 
the differences between the florets of the ray and the 
florets of the disk, not only as to outward form, but as 
to their relation with the sexual systems, one direct 
tendency of the doubling process being to sterilize the 
flower. Some very interesting particulars were given 
on the seeding of show Dahlias and on the limits of 
variation in this variable flower. Of the extent of its 
variability Mr. Hibberd was enabled to discourse the 
more freely when he announced his belief that all our 
Dahlias, save and except the South American Dahlia 
imperialis, are representatives of one species. Thus he 
fuses frustrahea with superflua,-and even glabrata he 
regards as a miniature form of variabilis, which name, 
for strictly technical purposes he considers should 
represent the one species of which the other reputed 
species are but geographical forms. Reasons for these 
views would occupy more space than we can afford, for 
the full text of the discourse will appear in the society’s 
journal. 
THE EDINBURGH PLUM 
CONGRESS. 
We have been favoured by the Royal Caledonian 
Horticultural Society with a copy of the report of the 
Plum exhibition and congress, held in Edinburgh, 
in September last year, which has been ably drawn 
up by Mr. Malcolm Dunn, of Dalkeith, and recently 
published. In his introductory remarks, Mr. Dunn 
says :— 
Taking into account the short notice given to the 
contributors, and the fugacious nature of Plums in a 
ripe state, the result on the whole was very satisfactory, 
considering especially that it was the first attempt to 
hold a congress on Plums in the United Kingdom. 
As anticipated, Scotland furnished the greater number 
of contributions, while about a score came from 
England, and half-a-dozen from Ireland. The collec¬ 
tions filled a wide table, running along the hall, about 
200 ft. in length, and the samples proved to be 
excellent representatives of the produce of the best 
Plum-growing districts of the country. From the far 
north county of Caithness, as well as from Moray, Banff, 
Aberdeen, Forfar, Fife, Clackmannan, Stirling, Lanark, 
Wigtown, Roxburgh, Berwick, and Peebles, but espe¬ 
cially from Perthshire and the Lothians, came 
numerous collections of fine Plums, comprising samples 
of every good variety cultivated in Scotland. The 
counties of Kent, Middlesex, Sussex, Essex, Herts, Bucks, 
Warwick, Worcester, and Hereford contributed some 
splendid collections of the best types of Plums grown 
in those famous fruit. districts of England. The col¬ 
lections sent from Ireland, although not numerous, 
were fairly representative of the length and breadth of 
the country, being sent from the counties of Antrim, 
Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, and Galway, and contained 
many fine specimens of Irish produce. 
The jurors made a careful inspection of every sample 
of Plums in the numerous collections (over 1,050), 
correcting the nomenclature when wrong or faulty 
(upwards of 200 cases), naming known varieties 
exhibited without names, minutely examining and 
testing all new, rare, and unknown varieties, and 
generally noting the good or bad points of every 
variety exhibited.” 
These notes were subsequently placed in the hands of 
Mr. Dunn, who has reduced them to order, and they 
now appear in one or other of the chapters before 
us. The main portion of the work is devoted to 
details of the contributions from each county represented 
at the exhibition, with selections of the most profitable 
sorts of Plums and Damsons for each, selected by 
experienced local growers, for the most part well-known 
gardeners, with abstracts from the general returns 
applicable to Ireland and the United Kingdom, and 
an analysis of the Plums recommended for cultivation, 
and remarks thereon by the editor. The work also 
contains a descriptive list of Plums and Damsons, and 
a report on some three dozen new 7 seedling varieties 
raised by the late Mr. John Webster, of Gordon Castle. 
The report of the conference, presided over by Mr. 
Dunn, contains many valuable hints as to rocks to be 
avoided in Plum culture, and suggestions for future 
guidance and experiment. For convenience of dis¬ 
cussion the subjects upon which information was 
sought were divided into five sections under the 
following heads :—(1) the raising of new varieties ; (2) 
the selection of the best varieties for various purposes ; 
(3) the best methods of cultivation ; (4) the uses of 
Plums ; and (51 the commercial aspect of Plum grow¬ 
ing in Britain ; and the proceedings were opened by 
the chairman with an address on the History of Plums. 
Upon 
The Raising of New Varieties. 
Mr. Webster said the first of his manipulations 
were begun about the year 1855 by selecting the 
sorts to be operated upon, with the view of raising 
hardy and prolific varieties of a fine quality, 
suitable for supplying the demands of a large 
private establishment, where the choicest varieties 
of fruit were always in demand. Having chosen the 
kinds he desired to cross to get an improved variety, 
he carefully watched the pollen of the male parent, so 
as to catch it at its most potent stage, and immediately 
applied it to the stigma of the female, or seed-bearing 
parent, being careful to select a fresh and vigorous 
flower, and clearing away all others near to it. He 
then attached a label to the shoot operated upon, with 
the name of the male parent and the date of 
the operation written upon it, carefully noting the 
same particulars in his pocket-book, so as to avoid con¬ 
fusion, and to enable him to trace the lineage of any 
variety with the least amount of trouble. An important 
point to study was the perfect maturing of the im¬ 
pregnated fruit, which must be allowed to hang on the 
tree till it was perfectly ripe, even to the verge of 
decay. When gathered, and the stone was extracted 
from the flesh, he placed it in a pot filled with dry 
sand, duly labelled it, and stored it away in a cool, dry 
place till the end of January or beginning of February 
following. He then took it out of the sand, planted 
it in good sound loam in a 3-in. pot, and plunged the 
pot in a little bottom heat to promote quick germina¬ 
tion. When the young plant was fairly above the soil, 
a brisk heat was an advantage to it, in order that it 
might finish its first growth quickly. As soon as he 
saw that it had ceased to grow, he moved it into a 
cooler temperature for a week or ten days, and after¬ 
wards placed it out of doors to ripen the wood, which 
it did in two or three weeks. It was now ready for a 
shift into a 4-in. pot, and then to be replaced in heat 
as before. The roots would soon be active, and force 
up a second growth, and as soon as the young shoots 
were about 2 ins. in length, the buds on the first made 
wood would be in a proper state for removal, and ready 
for insertion in any suitable stock. His practice had 
been to bud on clean, healthy shoots of old-established 
trees, and the kinds he had principally chosen were 
smooth-barked varieties, such as Green Gage, Coe’s 
Golden Drop, and similar kinds. By this system he 
had been able, in most cases, to get the buds to 4 take ’ 
all right the same year as the plant was raised from the 
stone, and the shoots from the buds had generally 
borne fruit in the third or fourth year afterwards. The 
method he had adopted, to distinguish the varieties 
and their origin in after years, was by fastening notched 
wooden tallies to the branches by copper wire at the 
time the buds were inserted. One of these labels, with 
the year the branch was budded and the number of 
buds inserted in it, was a simple index by which he 
could trace easily in his book of dates, numbers, and 
particulars, the percentage of any particular seedling. 
The dates and numbers were always 4 notched, ’ not 
written, on the labels, and the notches corresponded 
with similar marks in his recording-book. To show 
how durable such labels were, he came across one last 
autumn on a branch that had been budded in 1866, 
twenty-three years previously, on which the marks 
were still perfectly legible, showing that six buds 
of a particular variety were inserted in the branch 
in 1866, and thus ensuring accuracy even at the end of 
a long period of years. 
The Best Varieties for Various Purposes. 
In opening this section, Mr. Barron, of Chiswick, said 
that it was of the first importance to select free-bearing 
varieties, whether the Plums were to be grown for home 
consumption, or sold in the market for profit. Shy 
bearers give neither profit nor satisfaction, however fine 
their flavour might be. Such regular and abundant 
croppers as Victoria, Pond’s Seedling, Early Prolific, 
Mitchelson’s, Prince Euglebert, Prince of Wales, 
Poupart’s, Czar, Sultan, Gisborne’s, Grand Duke, 
Pershore, and the like, are the kinds which should be 
planted in greatest numbers in private gardens, and no 
others should be used for market purposes. This is not 
the usual practice in private gardens, where we too 
often find a host of high-flavoured, shy-bearing varie¬ 
ties, upon which a satisfactory crop is never seen, and 
what crop they do bear in a favourable season, and at 
rare intervals, will not pay a tithe of the cost of its 
production. It was a pity, no doubt, that such fine 
flavoured Plums as the Gages were, as a rule, shy 
bearers, and therefore cannot be classed as profitable 
Plums. Only the most prolific of what are termed 
dessert varieties—such as Early Transparent, Jefferson, 
Oullin’s Golden, Angelina Burdett, Kirke’s, and Coe’s 
Golden Drop are fairly worth their room in gardens. 
For orchards and marketing, it is most profitable for 
planters to confine themselves to a few prolific varieties, 
regulating the proportion of each variety by its bearing 
capacity and the demand for its fruit in the market. 
Permit me to remark, iu conclusion, that the question 
of the best stock on which to work Plums is in glorious 
confusion ! Mr. Webster has spoken of budding on the 
Plum stock, but what does that mean ? We have the 
Mussel, Brussels, Broinpton, St. Julien, Damas Noir, 
Myrobalan, and many others, all 4 Plum stocks,’ but 
there is no certainty about which is the best stock 
among them for working particular Plums upon. Not 
one of the nursery trade to whom I have spoken upon 
the matter seems to know anything definite about it, 
farther than, in so far that it affects Peaches and 
