June 6, 1891. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
635 
“Terraces two and three above the Palm house are 
the locations of the houses where we grew the Chrysan¬ 
themums, which you may remember won for us the 
laurels we coveted at Indianapolis in 1889, and Cincin¬ 
nati in 1890 ; those two structures are now filled with 
hybrids in boxes, a forest of buds and iino foliage. 
The fourth terrace is the site of our main house of 
hybrids ; this house is cut in two by a glass partition ; 
we took a crop from the half part of this structure for 
the holidays, and knocked the growers in this section 
silly with our success in this somewhat difficult under¬ 
taking. The other half of the house is now in full 
bloom with Magnas and Brunners, every Rose an ideal 
Rose, and the foliage simply perfection. Boxes have 
been carried in where the Christmas hybrids grew, and 
we so grind them out. 
“On the fifth terrace stands the Odontoglossum 
house, a narrow refrigerator expressly constructed for 
the ‘snow line’ Orchids. 0. Alexandra are in bloom 
on the benches, dripping wet from the spray thrown 
from pipes arranged to supply this necessary moisture, 
and the high back stone wall and the rafters display 
these plants everywhere, some making growth, some 
ripening, others breaking into bud, and others again in 
full flower. Fancy the charm of this corridor in April 
and May, when the long double line of 0. citrosmum, 
now ripening high overhead, shall send down myriads 
of clustering white butterflies, seemingly to sip the 
nectar from the peerless Crispums, poised expectant 
below and waiting for the embrace. 1 If Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like a Lily of the field, 
the angels of heaven have no vesture more ethereal 
than the flower of the Orchid.’ But to take breath, 
and come down from the realms of the angels, to plain 
everyday 1 American beauties.’ The next level, No. 6, 
is the ‘ Beauty ’ house terrace.- This structure was 
built from plans furnished me by Mr. J. N. May, and is 
a model in every way. Our Beauties grown here have 
been the finest ever seen in this corner of the country. 
“ Terrace eight is the site of the propagating house, 
which is partitioned to secure two temperatures, a hot 
and a cold end ; in the tropical half I wish I could 
show you a batch of Adiantum Farleyense, embracing 
about 100 plants, which is the most delightful of the 
tropical exhibits. In the cold half of the house the 
sand is full of Rose cuttings. Later on, those Roses 
and other plebeians and parvenus of the tribe of Flora, 
will make way for her Chrysanthemum majesty, whom 
we shall receive with true devotion* of loyal subjects 
which we are. Terraces nine and ten are the sites of 
two more of Brother May’s model glass houses ; in one 
of them we grow the divine Mermet, whose lustrous 
shell-like coil it would seem had grown, not in earth, 
but ‘ In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, and 
coral reefs lie bare, where the cold sea maids rise to the 
sun their streaming hair.’ The other of these is the 
house of ‘ Brides,’ and I assure you our Brides are as 
‘chaste as ice,’ and lovely beyond the power of words 
to picture their purity and perfections. 
“On terrace eleven, is located a new house, built 
over the vine border ; at this particular date, this 
house is the most gorgeous spectacle of the place. It is 
filled with Cyclamens ; there are 800 plants in the 
structure, with an average of twenty open flowers upon 
each (a great number carrying between forty and fifty 
blooms) perfect in form, immense in size, and dazzling 
beyond description in general effect. The foliage alone 
is a joy for ever, and these 16,000 flowers are a sight one 
does not often see or soon forget. It is my opinion the 
Cyclamen offers for the purposes of room decoration and 
as a window flowering plant the most remarkable and 
lasting qualities possible to obtain. The windows of 
our residence have been full of them nearly all the 
winter ; not a plant has been changed since they were 
first brought in, yet they bloom profusely, the leaves 
retain that deep, rich, lively, green variegation, and 
they seem to grow better rather than worse, the longer 
we keep them amid these unnatural surroundings. I 
take it they will collapse some fine day, all of a heap, 
but the pleasure we have already received from these 
bright banks in our rooms, when all was snow and ice 
outside, has been worth a hundredfold their cost and 
trouble of production. 
“ As you will no doubt want to know how our Grapes 
are doing, I will say we started the one lone vinery we 
have here on the first of the present month ; the wood 
is fine and perfectly ripened, all conditions favourable 
and the house of ample proportions, so we expect 
Hamburghs, Colmars, and Muscats in generous 
quantity, from July on for six months. 
“ Terrace twelve brings us to my hobby of hobbies, 
it is the Cypripedium house, a span structure, which 
holds many noble specimens, and embraces more than 
100 species and hybrids (not to mention varieties) in the 
collection of some 1,200 Slippers. These are only the 
Cypripedes we grow in East India heat, the intermediate 
and cold sorts are in other houses. I feel I could 
write a book about these pets, but to be brief I counted 
this afternoon no less than forty species, hybrids, and 
varieties of these in bloom, and among them a plant of 
albo-purpureum in a 14-in. pot, 2 ft. high, and 3 ft. 
across, with five spikes and thirteen open flowers. On 
this level also, in addition to the Cypripedium house 
is our glass-roofed ‘ show room.’ We try to keep this 
particularly tidy, and cold, and dry, for the temporary 
reception of plants in bloom. 
“ The show house is filled now with Cattleya Trianre, 
Oncidium splendidum, and Dendrobiums. On this 
terrace also is the Cattleya house, a high wide span 
about 85 ft. long ; the centre bench of this house is 
provided with steps built of open rails upon which the 
plants in pots stand, while up next the glass hang the 
baskets as close as they will fit. The capacity of this 
house is about 2,000 plants (many specimens among 
them), and fully 700 or 800 flowers will be doing their 
prettiest in the exhibition line in this house during the 
present month. Across a passage from the Cattleya 
house is an L-shaped lean-to with a south and east 
exposure; there is a high back wall, against which 
open rail steps have been built, extending from the 
walk to the top of the wall. Here we grow our Vandas, 
and here a little earlier in the season V. ccerulea to the 
number of several hundred plants were in bloom and 
worth a pilgrimage to look at. I feel you will agree 
with me that Vanda ccerulea meets a craving of the 
cultured squ], which nothing else satisfies. What is 
finer ? Is it Phalcenopsis amabilis or is it Odonto¬ 
glossum crispum ? The open rail steps permit the 
great aeriel roots to wander at pleasure, and our Vandas 
give evidence of the quarters being congenial to them. 
On the front benches of the lean-to we grow O. vexil- 
larium, O. Phalrenopsis, some of the Cymbidiums, 
Zygopetalums, Miltonias, some of the Oncidiums, and 
suspended from the sash bars of this house, as is the 
case in all the Orchid houses, lines of baskets, baskets 
and foliage, and twisting epiphytal roots and flowers 
everywhere. 
“At the top of the hillside stands the ‘ stove.’ Our 
stove has recently undergone reconstruction, and we 
consider it now a model in point of beauty, in propor¬ 
tions, cleanliness, and the many devices employed for 
high beds, moisture, ventilation, etc. You should see 
in this structure the Phalrenopsis hooks, and the 200 
and more masterpieces in the art of domesticating these 
capricious plants, which hang thereto. Those hooks 
are as sacred to these freakish customers as that on 
which Horace suspended his Lyre. You should see 
the roots that are thrown down over the bed of coke 
and charcoal placed beneath the slats on which the 
plants grow, as one of the things to see before you 
die. You should see those Phalrenopsis flowers and 
you will conclude there is no use in dying and going 
in for a better world than this mundane sphere which 
produces such things. I do not know anything about 
the other, but there is certainly nothing to equal or 
approach these tints, graces, dainty waves, and all 
beauty that the mind can hold in this lower world. 
Here are also in this house our Aerides in some twenty 
species ; Angreecum, a dozen species, Calanthes, Sacco- 
labiums, and the usual stove plants. 
“Our houses here are as a rule ‘three quarter 
spans,’ and built and located as they are, each house 
a few feet lower than that which precedes it, no shade 
is cast ; we get all the light and sun-heat possible to 
supplement the artificial article, and as they stand east 
and west facing the south, they are comfortably situated 
for winter work. Along the east ends runs a range of 
flat built structures, roomy, warm, well lighted and 
ventilated for potting purposes, etc. Here is the office, 
packing room (with cold cellar below for cut flowers); 
here are also the men’s quarters piped for heat in 
winter, and supplied with hot and cold water and every 
convenience. On the west of the ‘glass’ is a wide 
passage-way, also affording covered communication 
with all the houses. This covered way can be 
thrown open in summer, and in winter closed from the 
elements, yet well lighted and dry. The establishment 
is heated with Hitching’s wrought iron boilers, 2-in. 
wrought pipes being used throughout. The heating 
system is hot water under pressure, the pressure at the 
boilers being about forty-five pounds. The area of 
glass is 26,000 ft. Two steam pumps and a wind 
engine supply water to the tanks, pumped from cisterns, 
of which we have a generous supply and from a never 
failing spring. Rain water is exclusively used for our 
orchids.”— F. T. McFadden , Roselank, Cincinnati. 
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-- 
The Double Cuckoo Flower.— The vagaries of 
Cardamine pratensis in a state of nature are numerous, 
and one of them is the production of the double variety 
as seen in gardens, and which is highly ornamental 
from a horticultural stand-point. The doubling does 
not always take place, however, in the same way, and 
is not always of the same decorative value. For 
instance, I have found in two different localities, 
about sixty miles apart, numerous specimens in damp 
spots showing double flowers of a remarkable character. 
The flowers expand, appearing perfectly normal both 
as to colour and structure, and the petals fall after a 
time ; the ovary elongates and commences to become 
inflated at or below the middle, and finally bursts open, 
disclosing, not seeds, but a number of dense bundles of 
small processes coloured like the petals. They never 
attain the size of the true petals, nor become so con¬ 
spicuous, but there they are, constituting a remarkable 
instance of the petalody of the ovules. Plants that 
behave in this erratic manner must either arise from 
others that develop perfect seeds or by proliferation 
from the leavesfwhich frequently happens. The latter 
process might be a result to compensate for the want of 
perfect seeds.— J. F. 
The Walnut and Pterocarya. —To the ordinary 
observer the fruits of both these trees differ greatly in 
size and general appearance ; and few would take it for 
granted that the general construction of the two is 
identical, so disguised are the different parts both 
externally and internally. That both have originated 
from one common progenitor, unlike either as we now 
see them, there can be little doubt, and each has 
become greatly modified along different lines. The 
development of the embryo in both cases and the modi¬ 
fication of the fiuit from its early stages in spring till 
maturity in autumn is discussed by the Right Hon. 
Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., in the Journal of the 
Linncean Society, Yol. 28, No. 193, with illustrations 
of the fruit of Pterocarya. Although the fruit in each 
case contains only a single seed, yet the ovary cavity 
alone is insufficient to contain it, and the base of the 
originally solid fruit becomes excavated by a process of 
absorption during the course of development, in order 
to accommodate the embryo as it becomes larger and 
more complicated. Four cylindrical cavities become 
excavated in the base of the fruit of Pterocarya, and 
into each of these a portion of the young seed grows, to 
be followed in due course by divisions of the four-lobed 
cotyledons in pairs. The surrounding tissue becomes 
hard and solidified like that of the stone of a Cherry. 
In the Walnut the four cavities are much larger, 
become confluent with the ovary cavity and irregularly 
corrugated, the seed and embryo closely adapting 
themselves to the corrugations as we see in the ripe 
fruit. The cotyledons of Pterocarya emerge from 
the seed during germination, while those of the 
Walnut, being much larger and more fleshy, are unable 
to do so. 
Effect of American Blight on Apple Trees.— 
What happens to Apple trees when attacked by the 
Woolly Aphis (Schizoneura lanigera) is as follows :— 
Let us say that an Aphis settles upon a young and 
growing twig of Apple, probes it and commences to 
suck up the juices, at the same time founding a colony. 
This act has an irritating effect upon the young tissues, 
preventing the fibro-vascular tissue from becoming 
lignified or woody. In other 'words the cell walls 
remain thin and in a condition closely resembling the 
cambium layer ; and instead of thickening they increase 
vastly in size. This causes the twig to split along the 
side which is attacked, making cavities in which the 
aphides can lodge even more securely. This morbid 
tissue continues to swell year after year till the stems 
assume qirite a gouty appearance, often described' as 
canker. The aphides are very partial to these cavities, 
for the simple reason that they receive protection in 
them as well as a continuous supply of easily obtainable 
food. Hence the gardener’s idea that the aphides 
affect some trees in preference to others is partly 
explained, because the trees, once becoming affected, 
continue to get worse for reasons above stated. Hence 
let the gardener’s motto be, “Attack the enemy as 
soon as it settles and before it has time to become 
entrenched.”— J. F. 
