August 20, 1B92. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
805 
even more beautiful waiting to be revealed by the 
skill and enterprise of man. 
The position of the nursery is excellent, it always 
seems bright and sunny, and all the light and sun¬ 
shine that it appears possible to fall upon such a 
space visits it abundantly. Did anyone ever see 
houses better adapted to ends ? There is a con¬ 
siderable number of them, generally span-roofed, of 
moderate dimensions, with side stages. In one or two 
of these are the old-fashioned sloping side stages, 
well adapted for the display of specimen Calceolarias, 
Cineraries, etc., in their season. One of these 
houses is now filled with plants of Achimenes in 
great variety, affording an excellent opportunity for 
selection. 
The Begonias, representing strains of double and 
single of the highest quality, are now superb It is 
a vain attempt to describe them, they should be 
seen. One is able to understand what can be done 
with the tuberous Begonia six months from a seed, 
when they see plants 15 
in. to 18 in. in diameter 
carrying heads of fine 
bloom. What a stride has 
been made with the yel¬ 
lows, both in form and 
colour, and the whites too 
are exquisite in form and 
purity ; some are particu- 
farly large, stout and sym¬ 
metrical. There is one 
called Prince of Orange.of 
a mulberryscarlet tint,and 
indeed all shades, from 
white to the deepest blood 
crimson. I like the bi¬ 
colour section, those hav¬ 
ing white grounds mar¬ 
gined with shades of pink, 
rose, and scarlet. Many 
seedlings from these run 
to self colours, so anyone 
desirous of obtaining these 
margined varieties would 
do well to order them as 
dry bulbs. Messrs. Sutton 
& Sons send out seeds of 
Begonias in colours for 
bedding purposes, and it 
is satisfactory to note how 
true they come from seed. 
What delightful basket 
plants the doubles make, 
or for standing on any 
elevated places where the 
branches can take a pen¬ 
dant form, and what a 
variety of colours there is 
among them ! 
The winter flowering and 
bedding types are par¬ 
ticularly interesting ; the 
former belong to the sem¬ 
per florens section. They 
consist of semperflorens, 
white ; semperflorens 
rosea,white margined with 
carmine-rose; Duke of 
Edinburgh, flower larger 
and deeper in colour than the preceding, and superior 
in all respects; and Crimson Gem, crimson with yel¬ 
low anthers, a capital combination. All the fore¬ 
going can be raised from seeds sown in January and 
February, to flower at midsummmer; and at mid¬ 
summer to bloom during the winter, when they should 
have a temperature of about 6o°. The bedding 
varieties are Princess Beatrice, After Glow, and Fairy 
Queen, three charming varieties, dwarf in growth, 
very free and continuous in bloom, and which make 
delightful bedding plants in summer, from their 
dwarf, close growth being well adapted for bedding ; 
the two former are also winter bloomers, and they 
are propagated by means of division in spring. 
And then the Gloxinias. When I compare what I 
can see here with the small, dull coloured, drooping 
varieties I remember in cultivation thirty years ago 
the contrast is wonderful. There are something life 
3,000 plants of Gloxinias, the large majority of them 
from seed sown in January last. Time was when it 
was thought to be necessary to sow seeds of Gloxin¬ 
ias in June and J uly to have them in bloom the spring 
and early summer following; now growers make 
greenhouse annuals of them with remarkable success, 
as can especially be seen at Reading. Not long since 
Messrs. Sutton & Sons sent a large quantity of plants 
all the way to Wolverhampton, and though it is said 
the Gloxinia is a bad plant to travel, it was remark¬ 
able how well the plants had travelled on this occa¬ 
sion. They had at Wolverhampton a large batch of 
splendid erect flowering white which was awarded 
a Certificate of Merit; and a later batch of this 
variety, which comes quite true from seeds, can now 
be seen in bloom at the Portland Nursery. Then 
there is the Duke of York, also certificated at Wol- 
hampton, rich carmine-crimson with a broad margin 
of white, a superb variety ; Empress of India, rich 
deep purple paling to mauve on the petal edges ; and 
Prince of Wales, white, with a small light rose 
beauty spot on each segment near the base. Time 
was when five segments made a flower, with six oc¬ 
casionally ; now six appears to be the normal number, 
and as manyjas [seven or eightjare found income of 
There was a batch of Streptocarpus seedlings also, 
of various colours, and very pleasing, and one can 
quite understand that these will be subject to 
great improvement at Reading, as at Chelsea and 
elsewhere. 
Then there are Cyclamen represented by hundreds 
of plants in 48 and smaller pots, raised from seeds 
sown in September last, which will bloom gloriously 
in the autumn of this and the spring of next year 
Those who have made a point of visiting Reading at 
the time the Cyclamens are in flower, know well what 
a splendid strain is grown here, and how well they 
are cultivated. It is found they come true from 
seed ; that is to say, colours are selected, and names 
given to them, and the seedlings come very true to 
their parents, and so Messrs. Sutton & Sons are 
justified in sending them out in this way. Butin 
this hasty sketch we have had to pass over some of 
the floral treasures found in the glass houses at 
the Portland Nursery. There are many things out 
of doors of a highly in¬ 
teresting character. With 
■ the Editor's permission 
they shall be deferred un¬ 
til next week's issue, 
when I will return to the 
subject. — R. D. 
TUBEROSES. 
Cypripedium hybridum Vifani. 
the large-flowered varieties of the present day. The 
improvement seen of late in the Gloxinia is one of 
floral sensations of the day. 
One feature of great interest in one of the houses 
is a batch of seedlings of Freesia Leichtlini and 
t refracta alba in full bloom, and in reference to 
them one could fitly recall Milton’s fine lines : — 
“-Odoriferous wings dispense 
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole 
Those balmy spoils.” 
The atmosphere of the house was laden with the 
fragrance given forth through the fine pores of the 
scented flowers. These plants which were strong, 
vigorous, and blooming with remarkable freedom, 
were raised from seeds sown in February, in a 
temperature of from 6o° to 70°. As soon as the 
plants were large eneugh to handle they were 
pricked off into 48-sized pots, about six plants in a 
pot, suitable soil being employed, and in these they 
were flowering. The seedlings were kept close until 
June, when they were placed in a cold frame and 
brought on into bloom. Why should not Freesias 
be thus raised from seeds ? 
I have been for two 
seasons past a close and 
interested observer of the 
Tuberose. Growing the 
bulbs as a field-crop for 
wholesale trade.it behoves 
me to note closely, and to 
remember facts pertaining 
hereto. Two years ago I 
failed to get my bulbs 
grown to the size deman¬ 
ded by trade (from four to 
seven inches in circumfer¬ 
ence),losing thus my entire 
profit on the crop. I wrote 
to several kind friends 
asking about them. One 
friend wrote me that the 
size of bulbs was of no 
great consequence if we 
could ’only get buyers to 
credit the fact; and that 
in his experience, “ small, 
well-cured bulbs bloomed 
just as well as the large 
ones.” This was corro¬ 
borated by my last year's 
experience. I had thou¬ 
sands of small bulbs, too 
small to sell, but in my 
eyes too valuable to throw 
away. One kind adviser 
said, ” plant your small 
bulbs deep, and get grand 
ones for next season's 
sales.’’ I tried the experi¬ 
ment though sparingly, 
only planting about 
two thousand. Nearly 
the entire planting has flowered abundantly, 
but strange to say, the original bulbs planted have 
increased very little in size. This convinces me 
that, with our long seasons south, it is needless to 
cultivate the bulbs for more than one season. I 
feared to trust these small bulbs for my own pleasure 
grounds, therefore bought three hundred of a more 
successful grower, with the result that since June 
15th I have had an abundance of Tuberose-flowers, 
first from the purchased bulbs, and since from the 
small bulbs planted. Some of these were fully 
equal in grade to those of the extra-sized bulbs 
purchased. These same small bulbs had been 
housed in a cold basement (brick walls), where the)' 
froze hard. That Tuberose-bulbs are not always 
injured by freezing is also proved by the fact that a 
relative of mine left some bulbs undug the entire 
w'inter, unprotected in any manner. To our intense 
astonishment many of these bulbs developed just as 
fine heads, and as large individual flowers as those 
kept in frostproof places. The bulb-buyers invari¬ 
ably ask for bulbs averaging from 4 to 7 in. in cir¬ 
cumference, with long necks, &c. You rarely find 
