December 14, 1889. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
233 
him ; but in the case of my namesake I decline, because 
he can do better. But where I am bound to have a 
flower out of best character, I would rather have it now 
than in the spring. Lesser lights can rule the night of 
winter that would look pale indeed in the broad day of 
the full season. 
My friend, Mr. Henwood, gives a useful warning on 
the danger of removing autumn trusses hastily. There 
is imminent risk in “gouging out” the buds as soon 
as they are visible. The wounded part bleeds, and the 
incipient stem is far too succulent to die back dry, and 
too short to lay hold of for removal. It only rots down 
into the heart, and then all is soon over. 
Very often, too, these “ nests of pips ” would, if left 
alone, send up only two or three leading pips, which 
can easily be cut away as they develop. The remainder 
may rest quiet until the spring, and in the case of self 
varieties, will probably come slowly and solidly forward, 
and be of fine substance. Thus the buds of the dark 
self Melaine, at the last Southern show, were bare in 
October, but not in bloom until April. 
Even if a whole truss were to rise in autumn, I would 
not decapitate the whole at 
a stroke. It is better to 
allow the stem to rise an 
inch or two, and remove the 
pips as they begin to 
swell. The growth is then 
gradually checked, patience 
being rewarded by an 
empty stalk of substance 
enough to save it from rot¬ 
ting down into the plant, 
and length enough by which 
to draw it wholly out. 
From Mr. Hen wood’s 
notes, it is curious to see 
how varieties that bloom 
autumnally in some localities 
are models of propriety in 
others. Heroine, I know, 
has no respect for our feel¬ 
ings, and I have seldom 
known her so completely 
quiet with me as she has 
been in this very open and 
tempting season ; but I never 
have had the dark Black 
Bess or the blue Mrs. Potts 
flowering here in autumn. 
Prince of Greens will form 
quiescent autumn trusses, 
and by the traditions of its 
class, should bloom finely in 
spring from these old side 
trusses, but I have never 
seen it do so. The buds 
get checked, the petals 
come pointed, and the paste 
execrable. 
Geo. Lightbody occasion¬ 
ally has buds bare in 
autumn, but they are apt 
to make large and sleepy 
pips with too much edge, 
which is either a dull and 
heavy green, or an undecided 
grey, accompanied with in¬ 
sufficient breadth and boldness of body colour. 
On the other hand, there occur to me instances where 
some few varieties can flower more richly in the 
autumn than in the spring. Of these, the white edge 
Reliance is an example, a flower that in spring is so 
terribly slow in opening that it seldom gets kindly 
expanded, and the gold in the tube never lights up till 
all else is on the wane, like part of a set-piece in fire¬ 
works that hangs fire, and outlives the rest. 
Mr. Henwood adverts to very large plants losing too 
many leaves in the summer rest; and this is a time at 
which over-grown plants are due to go wrong, 
either by breaking up or breaking down. Instead of 
one strong young heart coming gradually by the side 
of the old flower stem, there may be several smaller 
ones, which is not desirable in a specimen plant of the 
Auricula. When there is no undue loss of foliage, this 
is how a gigantic plant breaks up. A breakdown 
occurs when the exuberant foliage is cast aside in 
unnatural weariness after excitement. The plant has 
been made to live too fast, and the merry life is a short 
one, ending, perhaps, in a collapse about re-potting 
time, or going gradually out, like a lamp when the oil 
is spent. 
I think, myself, that a very real kind of breakdown 
has come before all this, to wit—in the unmanageably 
large and ruffled flowers of an overgrown Auricula. 
What should be the best and strongest pips have to be 
cut off for very coarseness, and although inner pip3 
may be in plenteous store, yet these are pretty sure to 
partake of the innate weakness of all inner pips ; in 
edged ones an overweight of body colour and inferior 
petal form, and in the case of seifs, flowers with a petal 
short of what suffices to make up a full and rounded 
outline.— F. D. Horner, Burton-in-Lonsdale. 
-—> X - < -- 
VINE BORDERS. 
Outside and inside borders will always find advocates, 
and we cannot deny that equally good results have 
been secured from each system. I question if it is wise 
to condemn either, as each has its advantages and 
disadvantages—we have had the experience of two of 
your correspondents supporting opposite views. I am 
disposed to take up an intermediate position, and if I 
were called upon to make a series of Vine borders, from 
which fruit could be taken all the year round, I 
should adopt both systems. Early and late Grapes ai'3 
better, I believe, if the borders are inside, as they are 
more under the control of the cultivator ; watering and 
renewing the soil from time to time may cause more 
labour, still, generally speaking, I think the results are 
better where early Grapes are required. If the border 
is inside, the temperature of the borders can be kept 
far more even, for although we may cover up our 
outside borders with leaves, or some other heating 
material, to give the necessary warmth to the border, 
that heat often fluctuates to a greater or less extent. 
So it is with late Grapes, a wet autumn often seriously 
affects the keeping properties of the fruit, and a wet 
cold border has much to answer for, when the ripening 
of both wood and fruit is retarded. In this case, 
inside borders are the best; the cultivator to a certain 
extent is master of the situation, as he can have his 
borders in what condition he chooses. 
With mid-season Grapes, I think we may very well 
adopt the system of having the front of the vineries 
built upon arches, and have both inside and outside 
borders ; the Vines would be planted inside, and the 
roots allowed free access to the outside border. As to 
the roots rambling so far away, as described by 
Mr. Gaut, when allowed to get into outside borders, 
that is easily prevented by restricting the space 
allowed for them. In many cases where the borders 
are in and out as I have described, the outer border in 
particular is made up as the roots advance, until the 
allotted space is filled, after which it is necessary to 
adopt a system of feeding, either by watering or 
top-dressing.—W. 
-- 
SERMONS IN STONES. 
( Continued from p. 213,1. 
Geological Formations. 
It has long been an accepted idea that our solar system 
once consisted of an intensely heated, nebulous mass 
of vapours, and that various bodies of that system, 
including our earth, have been evolved from that mass 
by the loss of heat and solidification, by which various 
chemical combinations were brought about, of the sub¬ 
stances of which the earth’s crust is now known to 
consist. Rocks are divide 1 by geologists into four 
great classes, namely, sedimentary, terrestrial, igneous, 
and metamorphic. The first named have been 
deposited under water, the 
second are those that have 
been accumulated on land ; 
igneous rocks are such as 
have been formed through 
the agency of fire, or have 
at one time been in a mol¬ 
ten condition ; while meta¬ 
morphic rocks partake more 
or less of a character 
intermediate between the 
stratified sedimentary or 
terrestrial and the igneous 
ones. All of the four may be 
groupedunder two heads, i.e., 
stratified and unstratified. 
The greater part of the 
earth’s surface is now covered 
by stratified rocks, although 
the unstratified ones only 
must primarily have existed. 
This, coupled with the 
fact that the stratified 
rocks in England and Wales 
are calculated to vary in 
thickness from 80,000 to 
100,000 ft., or in round 
figures from fifteen to nine¬ 
teen miles, will give a rough 
estimate of the changes that 
have taken place on the 
earth’s surface since it origi¬ 
nally cooled down. All 
this pile of sedimentary 
material has been derived 
from the destruction of older 
and pre-existing rocks, and 
has been mostly deposited 
under water at the bottom 
of lakes, estuaries of rivers, 
and seas. The various strata 
having been laid down at 
dilferent times, necessarily 
vary vastly in their relative 
ages ; but as little idea can 
be formed as to what those 
ages might be, they are simply reckoned in geological 
periods. A regular order is observed by the different 
strata, an order which is never inverted, although a 
whole series of strata may sometimes be absent. The 
relative ages of strata are ascertained by the number 
and nature of the fossils they contain—a fact which 
applies not only to this but to any country. The 
presence or absence of fossils in any rock, influences 
considerably the fertility of the soil derived from it. 
All stratified rocks, when originally deposited, must 
have been laid in horizontal layers, or approximately 
so, and had they remained in that position, we should 
never probably have been able to reach them, far less 
to determine their composition, or profit from their 
contents. By upheaval, tilting, or disturbance, the 
rocks of different ages have been brought to the surface 
or within easy reach of it, while denudation has also 
been a means of exposing many kinds to view. All 
stratified rocks have been classified according to their 
geological ages into Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and 
Quaternary ; but the limits of each division are often 
arbitrary, because nature has never laid down any hard 
and fast rules as to the exact line of demarcation 
between one division and another. The whole forms a 
continuous history, as it were, of the earth in ancient 
times, and the fossil remains of plants and animals 
form a record, though extremely incomplete, of the 
flora and fauna successively inhabiting the earth’s 
surface. 
Cvpripedium Spicerianum magnificum. (See p. 238). 
