522 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 18, 1891. 
ANNUALS FOR OUT FLOWERS 
AND DECORATIVE PURPOSES. 
There are some gardeners who are fully alive to the 
value of these for the above purposes, though it is 
generally held that the flowering period of annuals is 
very short. This is probably very much a matter of 
cultivation to a great extent, but there are some 
annuals that will remain in bloom for a considerable 
time, and furnish a rare lot of cut blooms ; and if these 
are grown in good soil, and not placed too close together, 
and if a little liquid manure be occasionally given, 
their powers of production are greatly increased, and 
their beauty enhanced. Reid’s Quilled Aster is a good 
subject for the purpose if sown in pots late in the 
spring, thinned out to three or four plants, plunged in 
a bed of coco-fibre in the open, and then taken into 
a cold house to expand their blossoms. Any good 
strain of quilled Asters will do just as well. The 
plants are greatly improved in appearance for house 
decoration if a neat stake be placed to the central 
shoot of each. Then there is the beautiful blue 
Browallia elata grandiflora, a charming plant, which 
by successive sowings can be had in flower almost all 
the year round. The seeds should be sown in a gentle 
heat, and the plants grown on in pots and flowered 
in them. The beautiful blue of the Browallia is very 
appreciable. The Candytufts are all very useful as 
autumn bloomers, but when grown in pots require 
liberal drainage, or they are liable to die off in the 
dark, damp days of autumn. The fine white, known 
as Iberis Empress, and the new Giant Flesh-coloured or 
Carmine, are remarkably good. The blue Cornflower 
is another most desirable subject, and with proper 
treatment does well in pots, and the blossoms are of a 
pretty shade of blue. The plants should be in very 
rich light soil in 32-sized pots, four or five plants in 
a pot. Sowings to provide a succession should be 
made in May, and again in July. They need a warmer 
atmosphere than the Candytufts. 
Linum grandiflorum rubrum ; Lupins, such as L. 
nanus and the dwarf L. albus ; Martynia fragrans, one 
of the finest annuals grown, good in colour, very sweet 
scented, and it should be treated as a half-hardy 
annual in raising the seeds and have rich soil when 
grown in pots ; Nigella Damascena and N. hispanica, 
both charming blue hardy annuals which do well with 
the same treatment as Candytuft; and the compact¬ 
growing forms of Phlox Drummondi grandiflora. Both 
Aeroclinium and Rhodanthe could be sown with advan¬ 
tage every month in the year, and grown with about six 
plants in a 48-sized pot. Tire seed of the dwarf varieties 
of German Scabious, strong-growing and very free- 
blooming subjects, should be sown about the end of 
April, and the plants grown on in 24-sized pots. 
Schizanthus retusus and S. pinnatus, Nemophila 
insignis, Yenidium calendulaceum (a fine annual too 
much neglected), the white, yellow, and crimson 
Mignonettes, and Convolvulus major. 
This list might be largely extended, but I have con¬ 
tented myself with mentioning a few types that the 
gardener can grow to great advantage for cutting in late 
summer and autumn, when some things are becoming 
scarce.— R. D. 
--- 
PARIS GREEN AS AN 
INSECTICIDE. 
Miss Ormerod, the official Entomologist of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, contributes the following instruc¬ 
tive remarks on this subject to the columns of Land and > 
Water :— 
“ In the widespread interest which is now 
taken in the subject of the introduction of Paris green 
as an insecticide, I should be greatly obliged if you 
could spare me space in your columns for a few words 
as to the kind of fruit crop attacks for which it is a 
remedy, and those for which it is no remedy at all. 
“ This application, known as Paris, or Emerald, or 
Sehweinfurth green was first tried in the United States 
of America about the year 1872 as a remedy for moth 
caterpillar attack on the cotton crops. It was found 
to answer excellently for this, and when the great 
attack of the Colorado potato beetle swept across 
America in 1876 (causing no small anxiety as to its 
onward progress, possibly establishing it here), Paris 
green was found to be, as it still continues, the only 
thing to keep down the ravage. Later on its need arose 
to keep down moth caterpillars, which in Canada and 
in the United States of America devastated the fruit 
orchards (as they have been doing for some years back 
here). Trial was made of an excessively weak fluid 
application of the Paris green, finely sprayed on the 
leafage, and it was found successful. These various 
points are recorded in careful scientific and practical 
detail in the Government reports, both of Canada and 
the United States of America, which are at hand for 
reference. But what 1 am very desirous to draw the 
attention of your readers to (or rather the attention of 
the general public who may be reached through your 
readers, but who are not themselves versed in these 
matters) is, that in all the above-mentioned widespread 
use over the vast area of the American Continent, and 
in what we are now beginning to do here, Paris green 
is only brought forward as a remedy for attacks of 
insects which can bite with their jaios and swallow the 
(to them) slightly poisoned leafage. 
“ It does not kill by contact, therefore it is of little 
or no good against all the kinds of insects which (like 
aphides or green-fly, to give a single example) feed by 
driving their suckers down into the tissues, and 
drawing up the juices free from what is on the surface. 
“For these there are other remedies, especially soft- 
soap washes, such as we all know of who attend in the 
least to these matters, such as in the case of hop-washing. 
These adhere to the insect (and adhere to the plant, 
and may penetrate a little), and are definitely useful 
for very many attacks, but do not serve the purpose of 
getting rid of orchard moth caterpillars on the great 
scale to which orchard growing, and consequently 
orchard insect pests, have increased, and are constantly 
increasing still. 
“For these ‘sticky banding,’ as it is termed—that 
is, putting bands of sticky material to prevent the 
ascent of the wingless moths in autumn, is a very 
important preventive. 
“ But wingless moths of the destructive kinds (i.e., 
that lay eggs out of which come destructive cater¬ 
pillars) may be found going up the trees in the middle 
of winter, and also as late as the end of March ; and 
also there are many highly injurious kinds which come 
on the wing, and which no amount of ‘sticky banding ’ 
will capture. 
“The consequence of this is the hordes of cater¬ 
pillars which for years back have ravaged the orchards 
at their will. There may be some who do not fully 
appreciate the severe loss, but if they will reflect on 
what the deficit in crop involves to single owners or to 
companies, where tons of fruit, and much of the growth 
for the following year, are ruined by the moth cater¬ 
pillars alone, they will see the need of some remedy 
being brought forward which will sweep off the pests 
as they appear. 
“ To follow this up was the object of the Experimental 
Committee of the Evesham Fruit Conference, in their 
experiments carefully and publicly made, and recorded 
last year, from spring to autumn ; and amongst the 
many applications which we tried, with the very 
important aid in difficulties of advice kindly sent over 
by the Dominion Entomologist of Canada, Paris green 
proved when used according to direction highly 
successful. 
“Doubtless if we could have an application which 
had nothing of a poisonous nature it would be better, 
but at present on careful trial, with results examined 
and recorded by the Fruit-growers’ Committee, all very 
well able to judge of the state of their trees, and in¬ 
cluding among them the late and present managers of 
the great Toddington fruit grounds, nothing was found 
to answer so well as the applications of Paris green, 
though probably when fully tried, the allied arsenical 
insecticide known as London purple may prove as 
useful. 
“Of the Paris green experiments I have given 
details in my fourteenth report on ‘ Injurious Insects ’ ; 
but in my little pamphlet on Paris (or Emerald) green, 
and its application for destruction of moth caterpillars, 
I give the precise quantities in which the application was 
found useful, and all necessary directions. 
“This pamphlet I am most happy to send gratuitously 
to applicants who are personally interested in the sub¬ 
ject of orchard troubles, and I would with pleasure give 
every information in my power (with full reference to 
authorities—British, Canadian, or U.S.A.—on the sub¬ 
ject), but I would earnestly request those who only 
write from curiosity, or have nothing to do with pre¬ 
servation of orchard fruit trees from, moth caterpillar, 
kindly to favour me with abstaining from application, 
as to them the information is useless, and to me the 
mere reading of the masses of these letters is almost 
beyond what I can meet without neglect of my official 
duties. To all who desire the pamphlet or information 
for use, it would be an honour as well as a pleasure to 
render every attention as thoroughly as possible. 
“ Torrington House, St. Alban’s, 
“April 2nd, 1891.” 
POTATO CULTURE FOR THE 
MILLION.* 
This is rather an ambitious title for a comparatively 
small pamphlet, the author of which is a well-known 
and very estimable gardener, Mr. H. AY. AVard. None 
the less, for the credit of the Potato, we could have 
wished the subject ^treated on in this way by abler 
hands, as it is evident from the text that the writer’s 
knowledge of Potatos and their culture for the million 
is limited. AVe take exception at the outset to the 
illustrations of some fourteen varieties of Potatos, either 
of which, so far as anyone could identify them, would 
have served for half-a-dozen similar sorts. Still further, 
limited as is the text area, these illustrations absorb 
one half of it, and they are of sorts not heard of beyond 
certain seed lists, whilst many of the finest varieties in 
commerce hardly find notice at alL 
Starting with a short reference to the introduction of 
the Potato, the author speedily comes to cultivation, 
and sets forth the dictum, “that some varieties are less 
liable to be attacked by disease goes without saying.” 
AYliy so ? AYe should very much like to be enlightened 
on this point, not that such may not be the case, but all 
the same we want to know why ? Then, again, the 
liberal use of farm-yard manure is deprecated. That, 
of course, is very elementary knowledge, but greater 
empiricism could hardly be found anywhere than in the 
assertion that when the haulm is gross, in wet weather 
it ferments, the production of superfluous gaseous 
matter follows, and disease is generated. It is incorrect 
to say that the haulm under any such conditions 
becomes a sappy mass and ferments. It does nothing 
of the sort, and the notion is wildly imaginary. 
The author thinks that if Potatos were planted in rows 
wide apart, other short root crops being grown between, 
“the Potato Murrain would be unheard of amongst 
Potatos thus grown.” Apart from the difficulties 
attending this method of mixed cropping, the latter 
assertion is nonsense. The effects of the Potato fungus 
may be somewhat minimised if the rows be wider apart, 
but as to annihilating the disease that is out of the 
question. As to the distance between the rows at 
which to plant, we are told that for main crop varieties 
from 20 ins. to 24 ins. is a fitting width. That is un¬ 
doubtedly very thick planting, and it would have been 
wiser at once to have advised 24 ins. for short-topped 
varieties, and from 30 ins. to 36 ins. for stronger 
growers. Even then on good ground the tops fairly fill 
the space allotted. 
AYriting from a warm part of England the author 
advises very early planting. He should have made 
some allowance for situation, as in the home counties, 
particularly in Middlesex and Essex for instance, from 
the middle of March to the end of April is the favoured 
planting time, and farther north still later, and yet 
the author advises that all planting should be done by 
the 25th of March. This advice shows how indifferently 
men whose lives are spent in walled-in gardens and on 
light warm soils are fitted to deal with subjects of 
national interest. 
AVhilst generally there is little to find fauft with in 
the author’s outlines of methods of cultivation to be 
followed, we take exception to the advice that Potatos 
should be disbudded. It should have been the earnest 
effort of the writer, if he would benefit the million, to 
check the plan of keeping seed Potatos in pits at all, 
as tending to produce precocious growth, which being, 
as thus advised, rubbed off, tends considerably to the 
weakening of the seed tubers. AA r ith reference to actual 
seed, and not seed tubers, we are informed that “ the 
seed apples should be gathered as soon as ripe, the 
seeds washed out, dried, &c.” But surely no one would 
advise the saving of naturally fertilized seed apples, 
therefore, there should have been in relation to this some 
hints as to the cross-fertilising of different sorts so as 
to produce new and improved varieties. Oddty enough, 
with the few lines concerning seed saving comes the 
remark, “ about twenty-four bushels of Potato sets are 
needful to plant an acre of ground,” an amusing 
conjunction just there, certainly. 
The author’s opinions respecting the Potato disease 
are as amusing as they are incorrect. The “savants,” 
to whom he somewhat contemptuously refers, may 
smile at the practical knowledge of the disease which 
the author exhibits. But why does he in one paragraph 
refer to the fungus as a disease, and immediately in 
another as the blight ? The terms may mean any¬ 
thing, but they are far from being synonymous. 
Clearly Mr. AVard is considerably out of his depth in 
dealing with Potato physiology. 
-Potato Culture for the Million. —By H. W. Ward, Long¬ 
ford Castle Gardens. London : Eyre & Spottiswoode. 
