690 
July 2, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
and of the Hollyhock type. Lady Dunsany has 
large and full, soft pink flowers, while those of 
Princess Christian are creamy-white, and arranged 
round one centre when in their best form. The 
Duke of Fife has large and bold salmon-coloured 
flowers with the wavy inner petals compressed in 
the young state. Sir John Lennard has bold and 
conspicuous flowers of a superb rose. All of the 
above double varieties are new for this year, but 
they only represent a selection of the finest and most 
distinct, for a large number of unnamed seedlings 
would take a lot to beat them. 
A seedling of the Hollyhock type has wavy, 
crimson sepals all arranged round a common centre ; 
another very choice one has flesh coloured flowers 
with a pink edge. When grown in the open air the 
flowers are erect, but indoors they are pendulous. 
Another has large pendulous flowers, rose coloured 
and wavy, sometimes having several centres like 
tiny rose buds. A soft rose variety is not unlike 
Rose Bud. Others have delicate salmon flowers, 
rose shaded with magenta, white of the Hollyhock 
type, warm rose, salmon-rose, and Apple blossom. 
The latter has the inner face of the sepals white, 
tinted with pink, and rosy red externally. A few 
years ago these would have been considered very 
choice. 
Of the older doubles one of the boldest and most 
conspicuous is Henshaw Russell with bright scarlet 
flowers of the Hollyhock type. On the contrary 
those of Lady Gertrude are rose with a white centre 
and in the form of a Rose. Miss French has bold 
sulphur yellow flowers, the outer sepals being more 
nearly white. The rosy-pink flowers of Elfride are 
pendulous and have several centres ; the latter state¬ 
ment applies to Lady Theodora Guest with Apricot 
yellow and very showy flowers. La France is very 
flonferous and choice in its way with pink flowers, 
having darker edges ; the inner sepals are flat and 
closely imbricated but remarkably short. The 
warm rosy-pink flowers of Lady Goldsmith have 
darker edges and are very full and compact. A 
crimson-scarlet and floriferous variety is the Marquis 
of Stafford ; the leaves are narrow and the stems 
very short-jointed. The narrow-leaved varieties, 
the descendants of Begonia boliviensis, are fast 
disappearing, and their place taken by broad-leaved 
sorts. Gertrude is a delicate pink variety like a 
Rose-bud in its earlier stages, and the neatness of a 
fully expanded Camellia later on : it is bushy, 
branching and floriferous. The flower stalks of 
Mammoth are short and erect, the flowers them¬ 
selves scarlet, and the habit of the plant branching. 
In contrast to the above we may mention Lafa¬ 
yette, a pretty little thing with Brilliant scarlet, 
small, and neat flowers. The Golden Dwarf is 
another miniature kind with drooping, clear yellow 
flowers, of small size but very numerous. The 
Marchioness of Headfoot is quite another type with 
salmon-pink flowers and a white centre. Mrs. 
Coomber is flesh coloured with rosy-red edges, being 
of the Picotee type. Joan of Arc has huge white 
flowers and a wavy centre. There are yet two of 
the choicest types to be mentioned, but as there is 
no stock of them we forbear to mention them by 
name. One has magnificent salmon flowers, shaded 
with rose, and two or three centres like little Rose¬ 
buds. It is of branching habit. The other is very 
dwarf with creamy white flowers of great depth and 
neatly arranged sepals, with a little space between 
each and comparable to we know not what. 
Many of the varieties are specially adapted for 
basket work owing to the pendulous habit of the 
flower stalks ; some of them are named and others 
not. Alba Rosea has rose flowers with a white 
centre, and freely' produced. Laing's Perfection has 
salmon-red flowers with a darker centre and as neat 
as a Camellia. Richardson's Favourite has light 
crimson-scarlet flowers, freely produced, and by 
no means lumpy, the petals being loosely arranged. 
Others in baskets have crimson and pink flowers. 
--j—- 
VINES AND VINE 
CULTURE 
That there should be a steady demand for such 
standard works on the Vine and its cultivation as 
Mr. Barron's “ Vines and Vine Culture” and Mr. 
William Thomson's "The GrapeVine,” one cannot 
be surprised considering the immense interest 
which gardeners take in all that relates to the 
production of this most valuable fruit ; the continu¬ 
ally increasing number of small vineries in the 
gardens of amateurs; and the extraordinary increase 
that is going on in the extension of Vine culture by' 
market growers. 
Of "Vines and Vine Culture” Mr. Barron has 
just issued the third edition, and when a’work of this 
character meets with such favour among practical 
men it requires no praise from a reviewer to 
recommend it. In the new edition Mr. Barron has 
endeavoured to bring his subject up to date, and has 
added some new illustrations, and some new matter 
of a highly interesting character, especially with 
regard to commercial Grape culture. With reference 
to the magnitude of the trade in what for convenience 
are called “ English Grapes," which has arisen 
within the last few years, Mr. Barron gives some 
startling figures. 
The approximate supply in 1886 it appears w'as 
about 400 tons, about 250 tons of which passed 
through the hands of one commission agent in 
Covent Garden, Mr. George Munroe. During last 
year this quantity is said to have been greatly ex¬ 
ceeded, and the record for a single day’s sale was 
made in October last, when the quantity disposed of 
w'as 750 baskets—four tons. The principal com¬ 
mercial Grape-growing establishment, within driving 
distance of London are referred to as well as those 
in the provinces, the Channel Islands, and on the 
Continent. 
“At the present time," says Mr. Barron, “the 
largest growers are probably the Messrs. Rochford, 
who in their several establishments at Cheshunt, 
Broxbourne, &c., have over fifty acres covered with 
glass, about one half of w'hich is planted with Grapes, 
which they calculate will produce about 300 tons a 
year, when the Vines come into full bearing—an 
acre of ground covered with glass being estimated to 
produce fifteen tons of Grapes annually. Reckoning 
the value of the crop at 2s. per lb., the gross return 
per acre thus amounts to £3,360." 
The system of bottling late Grapes and keeping 
them in special Grape rooms appears to be giving 
way to the system preferred by Mr. Peter Kay, of 
Finchley, and the Messrs. Rochford, of keeping them 
on the vines, shading the houses with thick canvass, 
and keeping a cool, still, dry atmosphere, if possible 
without fire heat. On the all-important subject of 
prices, Mr. Barron shows that the tendency' is still 
downwards, one firm’s books showing a difference 
last year, in every month except October, of a drop 
of 25 per cent, as compared with the prices obtained 
in 1886. 
These facts, however, do not seem to trouble the 
growers very much. “ They base tneir calculations 
on the actual cost of production and gross returns, 
and argue thus—that to sell a ton of Grapes at 2s. or 
3s. per lb. is better than, as formerly, to sell a few 
hundred pounds at 10s. or 20s. per lb., prices which 
were practically beyond the reach of the consumers. 
Cheap prices now enable retail fruiterers to main¬ 
tain a supply on sale at all times, thus increasing 
the consumption.” 
-—- 
GARDENING REQUISITES 
It is always pleasant news to hear of the steadily 
growing prosperity of old-established business firms 
conducted on honourable and fair dealing principles. 
One likes the old familiar names, and it gives one a 
sense of real pleasure to know in regard to long- 
established business concerns that though masters 
and men may come and go the old order obtains, the 
same high standard of commercial rectitude, the 
same combination of energy and sagacity is main¬ 
tained to cope with the ever-changing conditions of 
trade. And what a change has taken place in all 
that relates to commercial horticulture and the indus¬ 
tries incidental thereto,even during the last quarter of 
a century ; what a difference alone in the demand for 
the hundred and one things now considered indis¬ 
pensable in a garden, but which our fathers and 
grandfathers used to manage to do without. It is 
so great in reality that one fails to realise its true 
magnitude, or to grasp its fullest significance in re¬ 
lation to the enhancement of horticulture. 
We had recently an opportunity afforded us of 
paying a visit to a firm whose name is familiar to every' 
nurseryman and seedsman in the country as whole¬ 
sale manufacturers of and dealers in garden re¬ 
quisites, and looking through their warehouses we 
must coufess to being completely amazed at the end¬ 
less variety of things which such a firm has to keep 
in stock, and the vast numbers of some of them that 
there is a demand for. The firm in question, 
Messrs. Corry & Co., Limited (late Corry, Soper, 
Fowler & Co.), Finsbury Street, E.C., do not cer¬ 
tainly catalogue plant houses, heating apparatuses, 
seeds, or plants, but it is no exaggeration to say that 
there is scarcely another article that a nurseryman 
or seedsman is likely to be asked for that they can¬ 
not supply', and we should say here that they do 
business with the trade only, and are not retailers. 
'1 he specialities of the firm are of course those 
articles which they manufacture themselves, and 
their various preparations of Tobacco, such as 
Tobacco juice, Tobacco powder, Tobacco paper, 
nicotine soap, and Lethorion vapour cones, made in 
bond at their manufactory at Shad Thames. Every' 
gardener knows their value as insecticides, and some 
idea of their use may be gleaned from the fact that 
last year the firm sold 17,000 gallons of Tobacco 
juice, and 40,000 pcunds weight of Tobacco powder. 
The vapour cones, so effective, so safe to plants and 
flowers, and so convenient to use as compared with 
the old plan of fumigating with Tobacco paper, are 
also becoming yearly more extensively in demand. 
Another special article made by the firm is 
Standen’s Manure, which after being in the market 
for thirty years still very largely enjoys the confi¬ 
dence of plant growers, because good as are a 
number of other fertilisers now obtainable, for pot 
plants, and particularly hard-wooded plants and 
Palms, there are none to beat it. For many indeed 
it is too good, because they are too heavy handed 
with it, and do not observe the golden rule of apply¬ 
ing little and often. Yet another article for which 
there is a large demand is Fowler’s Lawn Sand, an 
article which, while thoroughly effective in killing 
Daisies and other broad-leaved weeds, makes the 
grass grow at the same time, and so improves the 
lawn, and puzzles as well many a user of it to know 
how such opposite results are brought about. The 
Messrs. Corry are also large makers of zinc plant 
and tree labels, worm and wasp destroying com¬ 
pounds, mildew composition, a special preparation 
for killing mealy-bug, a ditto for ants, and a floral 
cement for fixing petals without injuringthe flowers, 
an invaluable preparation to all who send cut flowers 
to market, or who have to make them up into 
wreaths or bouquets. 
The firm has long worked at a disadvantage for 
the want of elbow room, if we may' be pardoned a 
homely expression, in their old warehouse, and have 
lately been so fortunate as to secure increased 
accommodation in a substantial and convenient 
building opposite. Here are now the show rooms of 
the firm, in which are displayed samples of the 
articles kept in bulk over the way, and which will be 
of the greatest convenience to buyers as well as to 
the sellers. We cannot pretend to enumerate a 
tithe of the things here to be seen, but may note 
en passant that wreaths of dried and artificial flowers, 
bouquets of dried flowers, and bouquet papers are a 
conspicuous feature. Then follow various forms of 
boxes for packing flowers in, ornamental pottery 
for growing plants in, ornamental vases for placing 
them in in rooms, Hyacinth glasses of various 
degrees of quality, propagating glasses, baskets, 
sticks, mats, labels, tools, cutlery, gloves, aprons, 
syringes, thermometers, netting, canes, Mushroom 
spawn, pot washers, water pots, shadings, window 
boxes, and a whole host of contrivances patented 
and otherwise for doing all sorts of things from 
pruning trees to trapping slugs, almost everything in 
fact but manual labour. The p'ace is indeed a 
veritable horticultural museum, and we thank the 
Messrs. Corry for allowing us to inspect it, and thus 
acquire information on a variety of subjects that we 
knew nothing of before. 
THE COCOA-NUT IN 
FLORIDA. 
(Concluded from page 679.J 
On paper, the prospective profits could be figured 
easily enough. The Cocoa-nut-tree comes into bear¬ 
ing at from five to eight years of age. When it has 
reached full maturity it will produce from 300 to 400 
nuts per annum. Some authorities place the average 
at one nut per day, for each day of the y'ear. Thus 
the annual crop of nuts from this grove would 
amount to the extraordinary number of 120,450,000 ; 
or, on the basis of 108 trees to the acre, as planted, 
each acre would y'ield 39,420 nuts. 
