September 5, 1391. THE GARDENING WORLD. 
3 
WEBBS’ 
EARLY FORCING 
BULBS. 
WEBB & SONS only offer the very 
finest selected Roots. 
For full particulars see 
Webbs’ Bulb Catalogue 
Beautifully Illustrated. Gratis and Post Free. 
The Royal Seed Establishment, 
WORDS LEY,: STOURBRIDGE. 
TO ANTHRACITE CONSUMERS. 
Further reduction in price of Best Anthracite is improbable, 
whatever inferior quality may be offered at. For guidance I 
beg to notify that my Anthracite can be guaranteed to do 
20 per cent, more work by Durability, Heat, and less Ash 
than cheaper kinds, and this means quite 4/- per ton. It is 
also weighed by Railway Company. 
Bona fide References and Testimonials. 
WILLIAM H. ESSERYj 
Anthracite Colliery Office, SWANSEA. 
AT 
LOWEST 
RATES. 
LARGE & VARIED COLLECTIONS OF 
HYACINTHS, TULIPS, 
CROCUSES, SNOWDROPS, 
NARCISSI, 1EILLIES, &c. 
All thoroughly ripened and in excellent 
condition for planting. 
Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue, No. 397. 
POST FBEE ON APPLICATION. 
Seed & e=*. 
Dicksons Chester 
=3 
S. SHEPPERSON’S 
Speciality for the last twenty-seven years. 
PRIMULAS—PRIMULAS 
And Cinerarias, finest possible strains, the latest new colours 
and improved forms, as sold in Covent Garden, good plants 
for next autumn and winter blooming, is. 6d. per doz., 9s. 
per 100, carriage free. 
CYCLAMENS—0YOLAMS. 
Lamb’s celebrated giganteum strain, fine, one-year-old 
plants, 2s. per doz.; two-year-old plants, 2s. 6d. per doz., all 
carriage free. 
S. SHEPPERSON, 
FLORIST, 
PROSPECT HOUSE, BELPER. 
world remwned 
Consignments are now arriving, the Bulbs 
being well ripened and in splendid condition 
for forcing, &c. 
COLLECTIONS FROM 6s. to 100 s. 
For particulars and prices see Illustrated Catalogue, 
forwarded gratis and post free to all applicants. 
B. S. WILLIAMS k SON, 
Victoria and Paradise Nurseries, 
UPPER HOLLOWAY, LOHDON, N. 
CARTERS’ 
FORGING BULBS 
For Planting curing this and next Month to 
produce beautiful White and Coloured Flowers 
for Christmas and Easter Decoration. 
WHITE ROMAN HYACINTHS. 
Very large bulbs price 21s. per ioo 3$,per dozen. 
Large bulbs . price 15s. per 100 2s. per dozen. 
DOUBLE ROMAN NARCISSUS. 
Price —6s. per ioo, is. per dozen. 
PAPER WHITE NARCISSUS. 
Price —6s. per ioo, is. per dozen. 
VAN THOL TULIPS. Scarlet and Yellow. 
Price — js. 6 d, per 100, is. per dozen. 
WHITE EASTER LILY. 
Fine Bulbs from the largest cultivator. 
Price —is. and is. 6 d. each, ios. 6 d. and 21 s. per dozen. 
ALL PARCELS CARRIAGE FREE. 
CARTERS’ ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE, containing a 
beautiful Coloured Plate of the White Easter Lily, 
GRATIS and POST FREE to customers. 
Royal Seedsmen by Sealed Warrants, 
237 & 238, HIGH HOLBORN, LOUDON. 
THE GREAT 
International Fruit and Flower Show 
AT 
EDINBURGH, 
SeptemU©? 9tb, iotfi? aadi jistto, tSps. 
NOTICE. 
With The Gardening World for September 12th 
will be issued, gratis, a supplementary sheet, con¬ 
taining eight portraits of leading officials of the Royal 
Caledonian Horticultural Society ; and with the 
number for September 19th will be published a 
detailed report of the Great International Exhibition. 
Can be obtained through all Newsagents. 
For Index to Contents see page 11. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
NEXT WEEK’S ENGAGEMENTS. 
Monday, Sept. 7th.—Trade Sale of Bulbs at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms. 
Tuesday, Sept. 8th.—Royal Horticultural Society: Meeting 
ot Committees at 12 o’clock. Sale of Nursery Stock at West 
Croydon, by Protheroe & Morris. Trade Sale of Bulbs at 
Proiheroe & Morris' Rooms. 
Wednesday, Sept. 9th.—Great International Fruit and 
Flower Show at Edinburgh (3 days). Early Autumn Show at 
the Royal Aquarium, Westminster. Brighton Autumn Show 
(2 days). Trade Sale of Bulbs at Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Thursday, Sept. 10th.—Trade Sale of Bulbs at Protheroe 
& Morris’ Rooms. 
Friday, Sept. nth.—Trade Sale at Messrs. Roberts Bros., 
East Grinstead, by Protheroe & Morris. Sale of Orchids at 
Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Saturday, Sept. 12th.—Galashiels Flower Show. Trade 
Sale of Bulbs at Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Edited by BRIAN WYNNE, F.R.H.S. 
SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER 5 th, 1891. 
Flower Show Vicissitudes. —Last week 
— we referred to Flower Show attrac¬ 
tions. This week we have to refer very 
sympathetically to the serious troubles 
which befel Flower Shows at Newcastle- 
on-Tyne, Dublin, and some other places in 
the same week, arising from the terribly 
stormy weather. Generally, Flower Show 
committees have found the season a very 
unpropitious one for out-door displays, and 
no one cares for an in-door exhibition in 
the summer. How much reason have our 
Chrysanthemum Societies to rejoice that 
the period of the year at which their 
favourite flower is in its best form forbids 
out-door Shows, and that the exhibitions 
must perforce be held in buildings, where 
at least no such misfortunes as befel the 
Shows mentioned are possible. 
There are few places, perhaps, where 
more Flail or room space would not be 
heartily welcomed by the Chrysanthemum 
people, but where it is limited it is best to 
cut the coat of the Schedule according to 
the cloth of the Hall available, and things 
work smoothly. It is difficult for us to 
imagine a sadder spectacle on the morning 
of a summer Flower Show than is seen in 
tents blown to rags, and levelled to the 
ground, staging a ruin, and early staged 
plants destroyed. That sort of spectacle 
is enough to drive committees and exhibi¬ 
tors mad. It is a catastrophe from which 
all in-door Shows are happily free. 
Even a wet day, devoid of all other 
terrors, is bad enough, but in a well-lighted 
Hall, once the fairly hardy plants and 
flowers of the Chrysanthemum are staged, 
little concern is manifested for the character 
of the weather outside. Sometimes, indeed, 
November Shows as it is are held in a 
hurricane, or in a snow storm, or with 
sharp frost prevalent, but these are minor 
evils compared with what some Societies 
have recently had to encounter. 
Ij^HE Weather. —This subject probably 
intrudes itself upon the public mind 
more in Great Britain than anywhere else. 
We find more and more how almost every¬ 
thing in which we are as a nation concerned, 
is bound up with the weather. Really our 
national prosperity seems to be absolutely 
dependent upon good weather, for trade 
stagnates when it is bad, and flows freely 
when it is good. How our pleasures are 
dependent upon good weather, how bad 
weather produces mental deadness and 
gloom, all too well know. It is of no use 
writing nonsense of we might declare a 
grudge against the weather for having not 
only robbed us of so much of the summer 
which was our due, but of so much pros¬ 
perity that might have been ours, so much 
of natural beauty, so much of external 
pleasure, and not least so much of what con¬ 
duces to bodily sustenance. 
Our greatest trouble is that over which 
we have no control. Man maybe said now 
to be able to command the most subtle 
forces of nature, and control them by his 
will for his own purposes, but still he cannot 
command or change the weather one iota. 
Worst of all it seems almost just as though 
the more man’s command over nature’s 
forces increase, the weather becomes all the 
more troublesome and erratic. It literally 
laughs at our helplessness, it rages at our 
presumption, and sheds tears all too copi¬ 
ously over our increasing powers. Yet there 
is not the least prospect that we shall ever 
command or control the weather in any 
degree. 
The recent miserable weather has harmed 
everybody. We may say that could we 
control the weather, everybody would want 
something different, but at least there must 
have been entire unanimity as to the objec¬ 
tionable nature of our meteorogical sur¬ 
roundings for the past summer, and equally 
so a desire that from now till the end of 
September at least we may have fine warm 
weather. Perhaps those unfortunate per¬ 
sons whose annual holiday has been one of 
persistent rain would grumble a bit because 
others would be favoured. Still, few would 
they be, whilst all others would rejoice. 
he Gladiolus. —When the Rev. H. H. 
D’Ombrain gave a very interesting 
address the other day at the James’ Street 
Drill Hall, respecting Gladioli culture, so 
far as his experience of that popular flower 
