48 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
September 26, 1891. 
sorts, for verification of nomenclature, and 
for the exhibition of all the best varieties of 
these fruits, new and old, should have been 
lost. There can be no doubt whatever 
that we shall have presently as fully 
finished and as highly coloured fruits as we 
have ever at any time seen. A taste of 
what is to come was shown at Edinburgh, 
but a show in October would, with Apples 
and Pears, a long way excel all that the 
present month can produce. The fine 
weather has helped both to swell and 
colour up the fruits. 
A show would not this year be all the 
nurserymen's, but would have far more of 
general interest. It is now too late to 
organise a great exhibition specially, but 
we hope that shows of Apples and Pears 
of unusual extent ar.d excellence will be 
seen at Manchester and at the Costal 
Palace in October. 
he Harvest Moon. —We have so often 
enjoyed the delightful weather during 
the short reign of the harvest moon that it 
has been a peculiar disappointment to find 
that whilst very often the orb has looked 
down upon us at night through a clear or 
softened sky, the days have been cloudy, 
gloomy, or rainy. A very short spell of 
really summerdike weather did all too 
briefly lead us to hope that a beautiful 
autumn season had set in, and that the 
summer of our discontent was passed. 
Alas ! the promise was as fleeting as was 
the realisation. A ftw days of sunshine, 
then a return to cloud and gloom, and now 
to look for a fine autumn is folly, unless 
indeed it be a late autumn. 
All the joy of the summer now has 
departed. To revivify it is out of the 
question, and so far as the present year is 
concerned we shall have to write it down 
in meteorological history as one of the 
saddest and dampest we have known for a 
generation. Bad as it is for those who 
have to encounter all the misfortunes which 
a wet season brings, ft is hardly less 
depressing to sit at one’s table and gaze 
through the window at the persistent and 
saddening rain. How much of harm it is 
doing to the yet unharvested corn, how 
much to the Hops, to the Fruits, to the 
Potatos, to trade, to recreation, to every¬ 
thing. The season has been a veritable mil¬ 
lennium for weeds, which the few fine days 
we recently had led to the hope would 
be broken up. The hope has soon perished, 
for weeds are rampant as ever, and their 
destruction presents a problem which no 
gardener or farmer can solve. 
There is a strong sense of wrong some¬ 
where pervading humanity—a belief that 
the times are sadly out of joint. We 
cannot help or cure, we can only endure. 
May our powers of endurance be not much 
longer tested, for the sake of gardening and 
agriculture. 
Presentation to the Queen’s Gardener. —The Queen 
has presented a handsome silver tea set to Mr. T. 
Jones, on his retirement from the Royal Service as 
Gardener at Windsor. Her Majesty’s gift is in the 
Queen Anne style. Mr. Jones, who has had the 
management of the Royal gardens for over twenty 
years, was formerly in the employment of Lord 
Leconfield at Petworth Park, Sussex. He will be 
succeeded next week, as we have already announced, 
by Mr. Owen Thomas, of Chatsworth. 
The United Horticultural Provident and Benefit 
Society. —It has been arranged for the annual dinner 
of this society to take place at the Cannon Street 
Hotel, on Thursday, October 15th, when Mr. George 
A. Dickson, of Chester, will preside. 
Mr. William Brown, for fifty-seven years gardener 
at Merevale Hall, near Atherstone, died on the 5th 
inst , aged seventy-nine years. He had served four 
generations of the Dugdale family, and was greatly 
respected. 
Mr. A. Hatwell, foreman at Wootton Gardens, 
Aylesbury, has been engaged as gardener to Captain 
Dymond, Brookland, Charminster. 
Mr. A. Will is, late foreman at Davenham Bank, 
Great Malvern, has been engaged as gardener to Sir 
S. Baker, Sandford Orleigh, Devonshire. 
Mr. George Reason has been engaged by Viscount 
Boyne as gardener at Brancepeth Castle, Durham. 
Mr. G G Hartland, the esteemed Honorary Secre¬ 
tary of the Chiswick Horticultural Society, we regret 
to hear died at Worthing, on Saturday last, after a 
short illness. Mr. Hartland gave much attention to 
the Society's affairs, and to his assiduous labours its 
present prosperous position is largely due. 
M. Jean Van Volxem, the famous Belgian horti¬ 
culturist and traveller, died at Brussels on the 14th 
inst., aged sixty-two years. He was the discoverer 
and introducer of the beautiful Tacsonia Van Volx- 
emii, and the noble Caucasian Maple. In his 
arboretum, near Velvorde, he had collected together 
a most interesting collection of choice trees and 
shrubs. 
L’Orchideenne. —The annual general meeting of 
this Belgian • Orchid Society will take place at 
79, Rue Wiertz, Brussels, to-morrow (Sunday), at 
10 a.m. In addition to the usual business a pro¬ 
position will be brought forward to divide new 
orchids into two sections, giving diplomas of honour 
to those of really horticultural interest, and 
botanical certificates to the others. 
Bournemouth Gardeners at Longford Castle. — The 
third annual outing in connection with the Bourne¬ 
mouth and District Gardeners Mutual Improvement 
Society took place on the gth inst., when a party of 
about fifty paid a visit to Longford Castle, Salisbury, 
the seat of Lord Radnor. The party inspected the 
gardens and park, with which they were much 
pleased, and after partaking of luncheon in a mar¬ 
quee erected in the park played a game of cricket 
before leaving for home at 6.30 p.m. 
Dielytra cucularia is the beautiful flower known to 
American children by the unpoetic title of Dutch¬ 
man’s Breeches. At first the name seems fanciful 
and utterly inappropriate ; but turn the corolla upside 
down and what does it look like ? Exactly like 
those funny pantaloons that the old pipe-loving nine- 
pin playing Dutchmen wore as we see them exhibited 
on the canvas of the Dutch painters. When New 
Jersey was settled by the pioneers under the governor¬ 
ship of old Peter Stuyvesant, these curious nether 
garments were worn ; and when the children of 
succeeding generations wanted a name for this exqui¬ 
site flower, they found out the resemblance between 
it and the pantaloons of their ancestors and christ¬ 
ened accordingly, so that Dielytra cucularia becomes 
plain Dutdhman’s breeches. 
The East Anglian Horticultural Club had a very 
successful Dahlia show at Norwich on the iothinst., 
in aid of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Fund which has 
been established in connection with the club. The 
exhibition was formally opened by Mr. Sheriff 
Buxton, and Mr. J. J. Coleman, M.P., in proposing a 
vote of thanks to the Sheriff, said ” that it was long 
since he dressed a Dahlia. There was a time when 
he knew what was considered to be a good Dahlia, 
and when judges gave him silver cups for varieties 
he exhibited. But fashion had changed, and some 
varieties had been awarded prizes at this show which 
he should have been afraid to exhibit thirty or forty 
years ago. He was glad, however, to see that the 
show was one that would satisfy all tastes. Those 
who liked the miniatures or singles could take delight 
in them, though he regarded as the best those which 
had been produced during the past ten or twenty 
years.” 
A Hard Cement. — Under this heading an American 
paper recommends for covering terrace, lining basins, 
soldering stones, etc., a preparation which they say 
everywhere resists the filtration of water. It is said 
to be so hard that it scratched iron. It is formed of 
ninety-three parts of well-burned brick, and seven 
parts of litharge — the latter being a semi-virtreous 
oxide of lead, extensively employed in pottery, glass¬ 
making, etc.—these two made plastic with linseed 
oil. The brick and litharge are pulverised — the 
latter must always be reduced to a fine powder—the 
materials are then mixed together, and enough of 
linseed oil added. It is then applied in the manner 
of plaster, the body that is to be covered being 
always previously made wet with a sponge. This 
precaution is indispensable, otherwise the oil would 
filter through the bedy, and prevent the mastic from 
acquiring the desired degree of hardness. When it 
is extended over a large surface, it sometimes 
happens to have flaws in it, which must be filled up 
with a fresh quantity of the cement. In three or four 
days it becomes firm. 
The late Mr. William Holmes. —Scon after the 
death of Mr. Holmes, a committee was formed in 
Hackney to raise a fund for providing a local me¬ 
morial of his worth, and the esteem in which he was 
so generally held. With the concurrence of the 
widow, this took the form of a handsome headstone 
in white marble, continued round the grave to a 
suitable height, so as to admit of the surface being 
planted with flowers. The upper portion of the 
headstone is fully sculptured, showing clasped hands 
with the sentence “We shall meet again,” with 
Chrysanthemums above and at the sides in bas- 
relief, and at the top of the two dark granite columns 
which support the upper sculptured portion, a 
bunch of Primroses. The inscription between the 
two columns sets forth the date of Mr. Holmes' 
death, September 18, 1890, and goes on to state that 
" This memorial was erected by a number of friends 
of the late William Holmes, as a token of their affec¬ 
tionate regard for his manly Christian character, 
and to mark their sense of his valuable services to 
the people of Hackney, as one of their most trusted 
and zealous representatives upon the various Local 
Boards; also in grateful remembrance of his unceas¬ 
ing labours in the world of horticulture, especially 
in connection with the culture of the Chrysanthe¬ 
mum.” In spite of the wet weather a considerable 
number of friends were present at the Abney Park 
Cemetery, and after a short service, conducted by the 
Rev. Mr. Langhorne, the Chairman of the Committee, 
the erection was formerly handed over to the widow, 
Mrs. Elizabeth Holmes. Several members of the 
National Chrysanthemum Society were present, 
which was officially represented by Mr. Robert 
Ballantine, the Chairman, and Mr. R. Dean, the 
Secretary. 
Lespedeza bicclor.—The habit of this shrub is 
closely similar to that of a Desmodium, but the 
leaflets are narrower than in that genus as a rule. 
The genus Lespedeza contains about twenty-five 
species, of which a number of them are herbs. That 
under notice is a slender shrub of bushy, upright 
habit, well furnished with leaves, consisting of three 
elliptic, light glaucous, green leaflets. The flowers 
are deep rosy-purple, and produced in racemes from 
the axils of the leaves all along the upper part of the 
stems. The latter are freely branched in the upper 
portion, with the short side shoots as freely flowered 
as the main ones. A considerable amount of growth 
is produced during the summer months, hence the 
shrub appears much of the same habit as a 
herbaceous plant. This accounts for the great length 
of the shoots which is furnished with leaves. 
Cytisus nigricans longispicatus. —This shrub varies 
from 3 ft. to 6 ft. in height, but in this country is 
more near the former than the latter stature when 
planted in the open ground, either amongst other 
plants of shrubby nature or in beds by itself. The 
length of time it continues in bloom by throwing up 
fresh or late shoots is much in its favour, and planters 
would do well to find it a place in their collections. 
The flowers are bright yellow, and produced in 
long racemes terminating upright shoots. Their 
peculiar form may have had some weight with the 
author who made a separate genus of it under the 
name of Lembotropsis nigricans. The wings are 
closely applied to the keel, while the standard is 
strongly rolled back and away from the other parts of 
the flower. The variety under notice differs from the 
type merely in the racemes of bloom being consider¬ 
ably longer. 
IXORAS. 
The varieties of garden Ixoras are now pretty nu¬ 
merous, but, as a rule, gardeners are content with 
comparatively few kinds, it may be only one or two. 
They are amongst the most constant blooming of 
stove plants when properly treated. To keep them 
growing they like plenty of heat and moisture, and 
when started in spring after having been cut down,they 
come away all the more freely if the pots are plunged 
in cocoa-nut fibre with bottom heat. If cut flowers 
are the desideratum, then the mere fact of removing 
