June 4, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
625 
een made more attractive than usual, and includes 
competitions for six Jubilee Cups, Timepieces, 
Barometers, Silver Medals, etc., which the executive 
hope will bring forth a display worthy of the event. 
Copies of the schedule can be obtained from the 
secretary, Mr. A. Cowes, The Square, Penicuick. 
Royal Horticultural Society. —The next meeting of 
the society will be held in the Drill Hall, James 
Street, Victoria Street, Westminster, on Tuesday, 
June 7th, when the Fruit, Floral, and Orchid 
Committees will assemble at 12 o'clock. In the 
afternoon, at 3, a paper on “ Summer Pruning and 
Training of Fruit Trees " will be contributed by Mr. 
A. Young, of Abberley Hall Gardens, Stourport- 
Amateurs who grow hardy Rhododendrons and 
Orchids will on this occasion have an opportunity of 
competing for the prizes offered in the society's 
schedule, and a Silver Gilt Flora Medal is also to be 
awarded to the raiser (amateur or professional) of 
the best new seedling Orchid. 
-—*•- 
THE APPLE CROP. 
Suggestion for an Apple Show. 
If what everyone says is truth then should we have 
this year a really grand crop of Apples, for everyone 
tells me that there will be such. The bloom largely 
has escaped frost, the fine warm weather has set it 
well, and the recent heavy rains have cleansed the 
trees and given to growth a splendid 
fillip. Altogether there seems to be 
every prospect of a fine Apple season. 
That fact does of course largely help 
to the regret yet felt that the proposed 
International Fruit Show does not 
take place this year; still we may 
next year be all the better pleased 
that it was deferred. 
In the meantime I should like to 
see some special effort made to utilise 
the season, so far as Apples are con¬ 
cerned, by the holding of a great dis¬ 
play of those fruits in London at 
least. I therefore make a suggestion 
which will perhaps stagger some of 
my friends. It is that the Royal 
Horticultural Society should for once 
join forces with Mr. Milner and the 
Earl’s Court management and arrange 
for the holding at Earl’s Court in 
conjunction with the hardy Fruit 
Show of October 5th, and following 
days, a special Apple Show and con¬ 
ference. There is ample room and 
the Society would incur little expense 
beyond giving medals. 
No doubt the Earl's Court people 
would admit fellows of the society 
on the presentation of their tickets. 
The society could arrange and con¬ 
duct its conferences and thus obtain 
all the eclat with a minimum of trouble and of 
expense. It need hardly be said that such an Apple 
Show and conference would attract to Earl’s Court 
at least fifty times as many people as would go to 
the Drill Hall or Chiswick. 
It would bring growers from all parts of the king¬ 
dom. It would give to the Apple a status not yet 
enjoyed in public estimation. It would immensely 
help to popularize the society, and it would show to 
the world that the society was actuated by no selfish 
or dog-in-the-manger policy, but was earnestly 
anxious to assist in the promotion of horticulture 
everywhere. So popular, I feel assured, would be 
this move—so much of eclat would it bring to the 
society—that it would be a thousand pities were so 
splendid an opportunity to evidence the cosmopolitan 
objects of the socieiy not be availed of.— A. Fellow. 
-- 5 -- 
MOOREA IRRORATA. 
Last March a plant of this appeared at a meeting of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, when it was 
certificated by the Orchid Committee. The ex¬ 
hibitor was Mr. F. W. Moore, curator of the Royal 
Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, who had just 
flowered it for the second time. The plant was 
originally bought at a sale amongst other plants, and 
nothing further is known as to its native country ex¬ 
cept that its affinities show it to be from Tropical 
America. When it first flowered in 1890, its nearest 
affinity was seen to be with Houlletia, but the 
differences from that and every other genus were so 
well marked that a new genus was made for its 
reception, and the name Moorea was given 
in compliment to the able curator at Glasnevin. 
When it flowered for the second time in March 
last, it bore two racemes of bloom, and had 
gained somewhat in size compared with that of 
1890. The pseudo-bulbs are ovoid-oblong, and 
about 4! in. in length, while the basal scape rises to 
a height of 18 in. to 2 ft., bearing a raceme of ten to 
thirteen flowers. The spreading sepals and petals 
are elliptic, nearly equal in size and similar in colour, 
namely, reddish-brown fading almost to white at the 
base, so that the five white portions, together form 
an almost circular space in the centre, as may be seen 
by referance to our illustration, which was prepared 
from the specimens exhibited last March. In 
several respects this is a remarkable Orchid, being 
pretty, novel, and interesting. 
VIOLETS. 
A grower of Violets who has made a special study 
of the plant, and who annually sends large quantities 
to market, informs us there is no other plant scarcely 
that so much requires warmth in the atmosphere 
and the soil, as well as ample food, light, and water, 
as does the Violet, which he considers the sweetest 
of lovely flowers, and he recommends that during 
Moorea irrorata. 
the summer they be grown on a northern aspect, open, 
and therefore not under trees ; where they can have 
as much coolness and shade at midday as they can 
receive; in the autumn there should be a change of 
quarters by removing the plants to the full sunlight, 
s^ securing for them during their natural period of 
growth, a free outlook into such blue sky as they 
can perceive at that season of the year. In fact, to 
use his own words, " the violets of winter and spring 
are but the condensed rays of summer sunshine let 
loose again during days that are cold and dreary. 
The p'ants make no Violets then ; they simply 
unfold what they have already made and bound up 
within. The Violet has thus to do double work in 
the summer. It grows and at the same time it forms 
within its heart next year’s flowers.”— R. D. 
-- 
THE FLORISTS’ TULIP. 
At a meeting of the Brighton and Sussex New Hor¬ 
ticultural and Mutual Improvement Society, held at 
the Imperial Hotel, Brighton, on Thursday, May 
12th, under the presidency of Mr. W. Balchin, jun , 
the members were much interested by a lecture on 
■■ The Life History of the Florist Tulip,” by Mr. 
Richard Dean, of Ealing. 
The Tulip, said Mr. Dean, was introduced to 
Western Europe about the sixteenth century, being 
brought from Constantinople, where it was held in 
the highest estimation. The Feast of the Tulip 
used to be celebrated annually in the Sultan’s 
seraglio, and was taken part in by the Sultan and 
his harem. It was first introduced to England in 
1600, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and up 
to 1634 Tulips continued to increase in reputation 
until it was considered to be bad taste for any man 
of fortune to be without a collection of them, 
rage in due course spread to other classes, until it 
developed into the famous Tulipo-mania, when 
fortunes were invested in Tulips and the most pre¬ 
posterous prices were paid for a single bulb. Having 
enlarged somewhat in detail on the history of the 
Tulip, Mr. Dean turned to the life history of the 
flower. Commencing with the fertilisation, he said 
that no florist would attempt to fertilise a self- 
coloured Tulip The process of fertilisation was 
effected by pollen being placed upon the stigma; and, 
to prevent insects from getting inside and undoing 
the work that was being attempted, the florist put 
a little light cotton wool over the pollen. Tulips 
were divided into three main classes—the bizarre, 
which always had a yellow ground ; and the rose 
and the bybloemen, which both had a base of pure 
white. The main object sought by fertilisation was 
to get the class grounds as pure and intense as 
possible. Thus a white ground was never crossed 
with a yellow. Fertilisation having been accom¬ 
plished, the seed ripened in the month of August. 
The seeds should be sown about the end of October 
or the beginning of November, when the bulbs are 
planted; the traditional day for 
planting being November 9th, Lord 
Mayor’s Day. The most suitable 
thing for their reception was a 
shallow box of well-drained light 
compost. A curious feature about 
the Tulip was that it would not flower 
under from five to seven years. It 
never flowered so long as it threw up 
only a single leaf; the single-leaf 
Tulips were styled 11 widows.” 
Another singular characteristic of the 
Tulip was the development by the 
seedling of “droppers,” or bulbs of 
varying size thrown off from the seed¬ 
ling. The Tulip seemed to waste its 
time in the development of these 
droppers, instead of forming a flower¬ 
ing bulb; and all that the florist 
could do was to select the largest of 
these droppers, the others being of no 
use. When a Tulip flowered it pro¬ 
duced no more droppers, but formed 
a new flowering bulb for use next 
year. One other peculiarity about the 
Tulip was that at some stage of its 
existence, from the third up to the 
twelfth year, the self-coloured flower 
would rectify, or break away into the 
feathered or flamed varieties, so 
named according to the manner 
in which the colouring was 
distributed. If it had a circle of yellow at the 
base the broken flower would be bizarre, if it 
was white at the base, then the flowers would be 
either rose or a bybloemen. It was not an uncom¬ 
mon thing for a flower to be feathered one year and 
the next year flamed, and then another year to 
return to the feathered form ; but a flamed did not 
so often turn into a feathered. How it was that 
these changes took place no florist could explain. 
There was an old Persian legend to the effect that 
“ Flowers tell their secrets to the stars.” One would 
be pleased if they would make it clear to us why 
they underwent these changes. It was a secret 
hidden in the silent mystery of the flower's nature ; 
and the flower had never yet succeeded in making it 
known to the children of man. After explaining 
that the quality of a Tulip depended upon the per¬ 
fection of its markings and shadings, Mr. Dean said 
the Tulip would grow in any good garden ground. 
They loved a soil that was stiff and sharp; and it 
was absolutely necessary that it should be well- 
drained. It could not be too strongly asserted that 
water that could not get away was the very death of 
a Tulip. Water was almost their only foe ; hence 
it was necessary that the bed in which they were 
planted should be raised a foot or eighteen inches 
above the ground level, and should have sides of 
turf, wood, or brick. The bulbs should be planted 
about four inches deep, and, once planted, they 
could be left to all weathers, although when the 
plants were above ground they were verj' liable to 
