December 28 , 1889 . 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
259 
VEITGH’S GENUINE SEEDS 
J. VEITCH & SON'S 
FOR 1890, 
CONTAINING THE 
BEST FLORAL 
NOVELTIES 
AND THE 
BEST VEGETABLE 
NOVELTIES 
OF THE SEASON, 
Has now been Posted to all their Customers. Anyone 
not having received the same, a Duplicate Copy will 
immediately be forwarded Post Free on application. 
Royal Exotic Nursery, 
CHELSEA, LONDON, S.W. 
onn nnn rhododendrons.— 
/O V.7 VA «) \J vl Fine, healthy, bushy stuff, splendidly 
budded :—SEEDLINGS, 12 ins., 4s. per doz.; do., IS ins., 6s. per 
doz.; do., 24 ins , 9s. per doz. 
Finest named HYBRIDS, IS ins., ISs. per doz.; do., do., 21 ins., 
24s. per doz. 
AZALEA PONTICA, loins., 6s.; IS ins., Ss.per doz. Splendidly- 
set with buds. 
LAUREL ROTUNDIFOLIA, 21 ft., 6s. per doz.; 3 ft., 9s. per 
doz. 
IRISH IVIES, from ground, 3 to 4 ft., 25s. and 30s. per 100. 
,, ,, staked, in pots, 4 ft., 6s. per doz.; 5 ft., 9s. per doz.; 
6 ft , 12s. per doz. All sizes up to 12 ft. 
Packing free for cash with order, or delivered within 10 miles. 
Special Culture of Trees, Shrubs, and Climbers, suitable for 
Town Planting. Special quotations for Parks, Squares, Ac. 
W. FROMOW & SONS, Sutton Court Nursery and Seed 
Establishment, Chiswick, Iondon, W. 
Catalogues of Plants, Bulbs, or Seeds on application. 
FERNS A SPECIALITY. 
The finest, most varied, choice and interesting 
collection in the Trade. 
1,400 species and varieties of Stove, Greenhouse, 
and Hardy Ferns. 
Partially Descriptive Catalogue free on application. 
W. & J. BIRKENHEAD, 
PERN NURSERY, 
SALE, MANCHESTER. 
limbing 
NIPHETOS 
ROSE, 
Price, 10s. 6d. each. 
To be distributed in May, 1890. 
Send for full particulars to 
KEYNES, WILLIAMS & GO., 
SALISBURY. 
Three Splendid HEW PEAS for 1890. 
SUTTON’S 
EARLY MARROWFAT PEA. 
“A first-rate cropper; pods very broad; haulm 
thick and heavily laden with large handsome pods, 
each containing from 9 to 12 peas of extraordinary 
size, which, when cooked, are of a most beautiful 
green colour and excellent in flavour. It withstands 
mildew well, and should find a place in every garden. ” 
—Mr. S. Colbert, The Lodge Cardens, Farnborough. 
Stock limited. Price, Is. 6d. per packet. 
SUTTON’S 
Windsor Gastle Marrowfat 
Jr* 23 J0L a 
A seedling Pea raised by Mr. Culverwell. Certain 
to give satisfaction to all who grow it. Possesses a 
robust constitution, and produces straight, handsome, 
pale green pods in great profusion. The flavour of 
the peas is delicious. 
Stock limited. Price, Is. 6d. per packet. 
SUTTON’S 
Perfection Marrowfat Pea. 
“ The finest dwarf Marrow Pea I have ever grown. 
Strong habit, 9 and 10 peas in a pod, of large size and 
excellent flavour.”—Mr. J. Tegg, The Gardens, 
Bearwood. 
Stock limited. Price, Is. 6d. per packet. 
Next Weeks Engagements. 
Wednesday, January 1st. — Sale of Lilies at Protheroe & 
Morris's Rooms. _ 
Friday, January 3rd. — Sale of Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
For Indexto Contents & Advertisements, see p, 270. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1889. 
CURRENT TOPICS. 
Or Seasonable Greeting to All. —There can 
JE~ be no doubt but that the Christmas 
festive season derives very much of the par¬ 
ticular interest which attaches to it, to the fact 
that it comes with the close of the year. We 
are hardly done with the festivities and inter¬ 
changes of kindly intercourse which still largely 
mark Christmas, than, hey, presto ! as it were, 
we are into a new year, and the old one has 
disappeared, except from remembrance for 
ever. Reminiscences of the year just closing 
may he left for a few days, as just now, we 
are chiefly concerned in the wishing of all our 
friends the heartiest enjoyment and satisfaction 
in the many ways the season affords. 
Gardening just now is in a condition of rest¬ 
fulness. There is little that is of a pressing 
nature to he performed outside of forcing 
houses, and some little leisure is offered to the 
usually hard-worked follower of the occupation 
of old Father Adam. May that leisure he 
utilised iu pleasant social intercourse and in 
honest .enjoyment ! The cloud of gloom which 
just now seems to envelop the physical world 
—the gloom of a season of mid-winter—will 
presently roll away, and with its passing work 
will follow in abundance. Let us therefore 
he at once taking a little well-earned rest 
whilst Nature, too, is resting. Gardeners are 
not usually looking for the coming of the 
night when no man can work, hut for the ex¬ 
panding day when work shall he arduous and 
imperative. That day will come soon ! 
In the meantime w r e may find, as Solomon 
says, a time to dance, and to laugh, and to 
sing, and what better time than the Christmas 
festive season 1 Therefore, again we heartily 
wish all a merry and joyous time, one so well 
spent in pleasure that no trace of regret 
shall he left behind. 
Christmas Greenery. —Although the poet 
^ has it that “One touch of nature makes 
the whole world kin,” there is considerable 
margin left as to the nature of the particular 
form this touch assumes, hut it happens that 
there seems to he almost universal identity 
of sentiment in humanity, in relation to 
having greenery at Christmas time, for who 
does not sigh, or seek for a piece of Holly 
or of Mistleto, or failing those traditional 
Christmas shrub?, a piece of evergreen of any 
kind 1 Possibly, the fact that the festival 
falls just at a time when trees are bare of 
leafage, excepting, of course, evergreens, causes 
people to desire to he reminded of the summer, 
and to have, some element of that pleasant 
season in a portion of nature’s foliage, on 
which to rest the eyes occasionally. 
Tims it is we see vast quantities of even 
the commonest of evergreens taken into 
London, and probably to other large towns 
as well, in the shape of common Laurel, 
Spruce Fir, Yew, and similar material—brought 
in huge wagon loads, some twenty or thirty 
miles distant, to decorate churches, hospitals, 
shops, markets, indeed all sorts of places where 
town dwellers do gather at Christmas time 
for business or for pleasure. All sorts 
of artificial decorative material is furnished 
also, still, the love for Nature’s greenery never 
dies, and we may he sure it never will. 
Holly is in berry so beautiful that none can 
wonder that it remains as popular now as it 
was a century since ; but Laurel, Yew and 
Fir greenery have nothing to recommend to 
notice beyond the leafage, and yet is so 
popular that enough of it never seems avail¬ 
able to satisfy the demand for this “one 
touch of nature ” at Christmas. 
C 7T Green Yule tide. -—The exigencies of the 
JA~ publishing department consequent upon 
Christmas, compel us to offer our Christinas 
compliment to all our kind friends and readers 
somewhat early, and therefore we judge of the 
weather aspects of the season as they are pre¬ 
sented a few days beforehand. These aspects, 
however, so strongly indicate a soft green Yule- 
tide that it seems impossible any sudden change 
can interpose to bring about that condition of 
weather which forms the traditional Christmas 
season. Exhilirating to youth as is hard 
frosty weather, it does not come as an absolute 
blessing to all, or hitter cold only serves to make 
bitter poverty the more burdensome and painful. 
Somehow, much as we may feel that in regard 
to weather things are in our time very much 
out of joint, yet a mild season is welcome, for 
it brings in its train, work, and work means 
wages and wealth, and wealth means general 
prosperity. We may not venture to announce 
that because the Christmas-tide literally—so 
far as the months go, our mid-winter season—is 
mild and green, that the winter will assume 
that aspect all through. All old folks join in 
the declaration that the winters now are not 
as they were in earlier times, and we would not 
fain regard the winters any the more as de¬ 
generate—rather they are otherwise—hut still 
there are some Avho have ardent longings for 
the old severity and its concomitants. On the 
whole, there can he no doubt that both green 
