May 24, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
595 
POLYANTHUS PRIMROSES. 
awarded a certificate of merit, 
MANCHESTER SPRING SHOW, 1888. 
Twelve fine roots in different shades of colour free by parcel 
post on receipt of Two Shillings Postal Order. Seed of the 
same, Is. per packet. 
I, H. FRETTINGHAM, Beeston Nurseries, NOTTS. 
CHEAL’S DAHLIAS. 
WINNERS of the GREAT CENTENNIAL PRIZE. 
KELWAY’S 
of which we grow 20 acres. 
PYRETHRUMS, 5 acres. 
C3~ -K.S, 5 acres. 
IQ-S.BLILdl.S.SSs, 5 acres. 
HERBACEOUS I»IL.J5.BS'TS,oacr. 
and XJEIaJSSIINAXJIWIS, 5 acres. 
HOW is the TIMEto PLANT. 
Celebrated strain of Singles, Cactus, Pompon, 
Show, and Fancy varieties. 
New Descriptive CATALOGUE now ready, post free. 
jr s CHEAL SONS, 
The Nurseries, CRAWLEY. 
STERLING 
Hartland's “APRIL QUEEN” BROCCOLI, sealed packets, 
Is 6d For purity, weight and quality not to be equalled. 
Tear Book of “ RARE SEEDS ” for 1890. A few partly 
reserved copies are now disposable, post free. Everyone seems 
to want this, in conjunction with my “ILLUSTRATED BOOK 
OF DAFFODILS." I shall be lifting the Daffodil crop about 
the end May, particularly “ ARD-RIGH,” to fill Colonial orders, 
and shall he happy to give market growers special offers for 
large quantities. 
Hartland’s New Double Quilled Perennial SUNFLOWER 
“SOLEIL D'OR,” plants, each, Is. 3d., post free. 
WM. BAYLOR HARTLAND, Old Established Garden Seed 
Warehouse, 24, Patrick Street, Cork. 
ROSES IN POTS ON OWN ROOTS 
Wonderfully cheap, best kinds, true to name, 12, Ss. ; 6, 4s. 3d. 
Catalogue free. 
BATEMAN & Co., Rose Growers, Clevedon. 
6 Hardy Climbers, Clematis, Jasmine, Sc., Is. 6 d. Pyrethrums, 
Phloxes, Fuchsias, Chrysanthemums, Pansies, double scarlet 
Geums, Tomatos, &c., all Is. 6 d. per dozen, post free. Catalogue 
free. BATEMAN & Co., Weston Nursery, Clevedon. 
When ordering please name this paper. 
/the best mushroom SPAWNS 
“£>aCIAS«IVS S .IS B* K <> V E EJ.” 
[.5 - per bus. Circular, with testimonials, Post Free. 
L DICKSONS Ito^mCHESTER. ; 
PANSIES purple, white and yellow, 
PANSIES large and soft and mellow, 
P*flLNTSIES streaked by fairy fingers, 
PANSIES where all beauty lingers ; 
PJAN - SIE2 S full of fair suggestions, 
Who would not delight to show them ? 
SYDENHAM, if you ask me questions, 
In perfection seems to grow them. 
The. very finest lot of Pansies ever offered. Price only 
3s. per doz., carriage paid. Carefully named. List free. 
Mr. SYDENHAM, 
WATER ORTON, near BIRMINGHAM. 
FORBES’ CATALOGUE 
OF 
FLORISTS’ FLOWERS 
FOR 1890 (116 pages), 
Is the LARGEST, BEST, MOST RELIABLE and COMPLETE 
ever issued on Florists’ Flowers It gives accurate des¬ 
criptions of THOUSANDS of VARIETIES of Florists' Flowers 
that cannot be had elsewhere, besides a very full List, giving 
colour, HEIGHT, MONTH of FLOWERING, and price of nearly 
ONE THOUSAND varieties of PERENNIAL and HARDY 
BORDER PLANTS, with a mass of other USEFUL INFOR¬ 
MATION indispensable to all who would excel in the eulti- 
vation of Flowers. 
This Catalogue is a most useful and convenient reference 
Book on all Sections of Florists’ Flowers, and should be in the 
hands of all who love a Garden. 
FREE ON APPLICATION. 
JOHN FORBES, 
NURSERYMAN, 
HAWICK, SCOTLAND. 
LAING’S BEGONIAS 
SHOULD BE TRIED BY ALL. 
JOHN LAING & SONS beg to 
t) offer Seed saved from Prize Plants. 
In illustrated packets. Choice Mixed 
Single or Double varieties, Is., 2s. 6cl., and 
5 s . per packet. Collections, 12 named 
Single varieties, separate, 5s. 6 d .; 6 do., 3s. 
Tubers, named SiDgles, from 12s. to 42s. 
per doz.; unnamed Seedlings, 12s., 18s., 
and 21s. per doz; Bedding, choicest, 6s. 
and 9s. per doz.; choicest named Doubles, 
from 42s. per doz.; unnamed, very choice, 
24s. and 30s. per doz.; choicest Mixed, 
ISs. per doz. The best procurable. 
CATALOGUES gratis. 
THE NURSERIES, 
FOREST HILL, LONDON, S.E. 
Catalogues Gratis. 
KELWAY & SON, LAMPORT, SOMERSET. 
GOLD MEDAL, PARIS, 18S9. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Monday, May 26th.—Southampton Horticultural Society's 
Show. 
Wednesday, May 28th,—Royal Horticultural Society s Show in 
the Temple Gardens (2 clays) —Royal National Tulip Show 
at Manchester.—Annual Meeting of the Nursery and Seed 
Trade Association at 6 p.m.—Sale of Greenhouse Plants,&e., 
at Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Friday, May 30th.—Sale of Orchids at Protheroe & Morris’s 
Rooms. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man."— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, MAY 2Jp, 1890. 
CURRENT TOPICS. 
‘Thudding Out. —In thousands of gardens may 
Gr just now be seen in active operation the 
annual process of bedding out. It is a 
practice which first came into fashion some 
forty or fifty years since, with very crude 
materials', and since then it has developed 
into a sort of fine art, giving those who 
embark in it an immense amount of trouble, 
but at tlie same time, is to them probably pro¬ 
ductive of some compensatory reward. 
In the earlier days of the practice, beds 
were filled with Tom Thumb or Cape Pelar¬ 
goniums, common Heliotrope, coarse Petunias, 
Verbenas, Calceolarias of diverse colours, 
Gazania splendens, Fuchsias, and similar tender 
plants, with the result that in rich soil or in 
moist seasons very little of flower was found, 
the growth being coarse and leafy. 
When, later on, plants of more distinctive 
character, or of finer growth and more 
amenable habits came into vogue, the style 
of bedding out was greatly changed, and 
begun perhaps with most judgment by Mr. 
Gibson, then of Battersea Park, the style de¬ 
veloped into almost an art, until it ultimately 
led to designs and combinations which -were 
singularly involved or complex, worked out with 
effectiveness, and proved generally remarkably 
attractive. But even the most beautiful or 
artistic of bedding designs will pall on the 
taste presently, when repeated from year to 
year. They can only be created by using- 
astonishing quantities of plants, and at the 
expenditure of much money and labour. 
Just about the time when the general effect 
is at its best conies a few sharp white frosts, 
and the beauty of the tenderer plants is gone, 
the design and effect are spoiled, and the 
charm has passed away. It has taken an 
immense amount of labour to create this 
design for hut a few months’ use, and now 
all is bare. It is not to be wondered at if 
there lias set in something of a reaction 
against this tortuous method of bedding out and 
that simpler methods with hardier plants are 
being adopted. After all, the gardener’s aim 
must be to produce beauty and variety in 
the garden, and in doing that the problem 
of how best to be done is solved. 
TI-ilies of the Yalley. —Only evident to 
those familiar with the finer forms of 
to-day is the great stiide made in the pro¬ 
duction of fine Lilies of the A r alley from 
home-grown open-air plants. But the other 
day a famous west Middlesex grower, Mr. 
W. Poupart, of Twickenham, set up some 
large bunches of the Victoria variety at the 
Drill Hall, Westminster, which, because of 
the wonderful size of the spikes and bells, 
provoked warm admiration. Mr. Poupart not 
only lias fine form, hut grows liberally, a 
method of treatment to which the Convallaria 
■was a stranger in earlier years, when the roots 
had to shift for themselves as best they could, 
and received little culture of any sort. 
The Victoria Lily of the Valley is a product 
of the enterprise of Mr. Poupart’s neighbours, 
Messrs. Hawkins & Bennett, who have a very 
large stock, grow it wonderfully well—second 
indeed to none others—and gather enormous 
quantities of flowers during the season. That 
they produce it so finely in a limited area of 
ground, is evidence that the Lily of the Valley 
can he as efficiently grown in this country 
as elsewhere, if we will hut set about the 
production of roots for forcing in a business¬ 
like way. The firm mentioned have even 
gone beyond their Victoria form in another 
and distinct variety, which lias larger ancl 
more pointed leaves of a silvery, glaucous hue, 
and produces spikes of some eighteen to 
twenty hells—an advance upon any other 
variety in cultivation. 
Thus it is seen that we are progressing 
rapidly in Lily of the Valley culture, and 
may do far more if we do but try. The 
Lily of the Valley is one of those deliciously- 
perfumed, pure white, and elegantly-fashioned 
flowers which can never he other than 
popular. It has not a very long season 
naturally, and therefore does not exist long 
enough to tire public esteem. It is always 
unfortunate when flowers do that. Probably 
the Rose enjoys popularity beyond, all other 
flowers in respect of long duration of season 
and savour. 
?£he Pear Crop Prospect. —A season 
^ without Pears is, unhappily, in our fruit 
experience not a novelty, hut it is one 
to he reo-arded with considerable sadness. 
O 
It is not merely that we are for the year 
deprived of a favourite and delightful fruit, 
hut in the world of market horticulture the 
absence of the Pear crop comes as a heavy 
pecuniary loss ; one that only very exceptional 
plenty in other directions can well replace. 
AVe are not exactly speculating upon a 
possible contingency, if reports to hand are 
reliable, for the reports so far are to the effect 
that there are no Pears : a distressing announce¬ 
ment after a really heavy bloom generally, 
hut one seen under very adverse conditions 
of weather, such as could hut produce serious 
misgivings. 
It is not enough that we have myriads of 
trees, fine growths, and stout fruit spurs, 
succeeded later by a glorious sheet of bloom. 
These are essentials to crop production of 
course, and if it ended there we should far 
more frequently than at present get ample 
Pear crops. But Pears open their snowy 
flowers, seemingly almost with climatic 
defiance, just when our spring weather is of 
the coldest, when late frosts are sharp and 
frequent, or when long, cold, heavy atmosphere 
sits like black care over the wealth of beauty 
the trees have emitted. It is when such 
conditions prevail, and, alas! how often in 
April is such the case, that the promise for 
the year is blasted, ancl the product is nothing. 
