July 5 , 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
69 B 
TUBEROSE, THE PEARL. 
Few sweet-scented white flowers more deserve cultiva¬ 
tion than the Tuberose, if all its points of merit be 
taken into consideration. It may be said by some that 
the plants are at no time ornamental, and this I readily 
admit ; still this is a small matter as compared with 
the value of the delightfully scented blossoms. Think 
again of their value for the buttonhole or a spray, 
or indeed any purpose for which cut flowers are in 
request. Consider, too, that they are not expensive to 
buy, and the number of months over which their flowers 
can be obtained without growing any great number of 
bulbs. During last year we had them in bloom con¬ 
tinually from the middle of June until within a few 
days of Christmas. 
They were all potted at the same time—early in 
March—there bulbs being put into 32-sized pots. They 
were put into a vinery just being started, and where 
they commenced to grow very slowly, as but little fire- 
heat was used. When they had made a good growth, 
a few began to throw up their flower stems, and these 
were allowed to remain in the vinery. The remainder 
were hardened off and placed on the north side of a wall 
without any protection. Here they remained, coming 
into bloom a few at a time all through the summer, 
but before the blooms opened they were put under 
glass. 
Early in September white flowers were urgently re¬ 
quired, and all the plants that were forward enough were 
put into a stove, the pots being stood on the hot-water 
pipes for five days, so that every bloom possible could be 
developed. They were subsequently removed from the 
stove into a cold greenhouse, and then into a cold 
Peach house. Those that had been left outside were 
transferred to the Peach house at the same time, and 
here they remained until the middle of October, giving 
us a few flowers every day. After that those which 
had not bloomed out were removed to a late vinery, 
and the last of all to bloom were finished in the stove. 
Some may say that this was rough usage, but certain 
it is that we never had a more serviceable or better lot 
of blooms. Our experience goes far to prove that when 
well rooted in the pots they will stand much rough 
usage. By planting three in a pot, they flower very 
irregularly, but this cannot be avoided. The great 
thing is never to over-water them, but to give plenty of 
liquid manure when the pots are full of roots.— Con. 
-- 
SOME GOOD HARDY BORDER 
PLANTS. 
Herbaceous plants are becoming very popular again, 
and very rightly so, if we consider their beauty, and 
the simple treatment they require. Looking over a 
long border to-day I could not but admire some large 
clumps of the deep purple Campanula glomerata da- 
hurica, whose large heads of the richest purple blossoms 
attracted attention a long way off. Equally striking 
and beautiful was the white Lupin, Lupinus poly- 
phyllus albus, with its long, bold spikes of Pea-like 
flowers. What a good thing it is for cutting too ! 
Chrysanthemum leucanthemum speciosum, with its 
bold white flowers and yellow disc, is a charming 
plant, and most effective either in the border or cut 
and placed in vases. The orange-red Delphinium is a 
gem, and deserves to be better known. It is not so 
tall or stately in growth as the blue-flowered varieties, 
growing only about 18 ins. high, but it is wonderfully 
showy in a mass. Coreopsis lanceolata deserves a place 
in every garden, however small, its yellow flowers 
being most useful foo cutting also. Nor should Inula 
grandulosa be forgotten, for it is a useful and showy 
plant—a very prince among border flowers. The 
flowers are golden yellow, and measure 4 ins. in 
diameter. Amongst the many beautiful Meadow 
Sweets, Spirsea filipendula flore pleno claims a foremost 
place ; its large corymbs of white blossoms being very 
beautiful.— Con. 
-—>r<-- 
ffOTES ON jgRUITS. 
-- 
Hale’s Early Peacii. 
Will some of the readers of the Gardening World 
give me their experience with Hale’s Early Peach as 
to its flavour! I have a large tree which has borne a good 
crop this year of very fine-looking fruits, but the flavour 
of most of them has been very inferior—soft and mealy. 
Is this the general character of the Peach, or is it owing 
to too much moisture in the house? There are two 
other trees in the house which have been syringed every 
day, with front and top air on night and day. The 
house has not been closed since the trees were in flower. 
What is the Alexandre Noblesse like for early 
work ?— JV. K. 
PROTECTING SEEDLINGS FROM 
SLUG-S. 
When looking round the garden of our village clergy¬ 
man a few evenings ago, I noticed in one corner of the 
ground a tray a yard wide and 6 ins. deep, elevated on 
brick pillars about 18 ins. high. In this, after being 
filled with suitable soil, choice seedlings are raised that 
cannot be trusted in the open border on account of the 
slugs. Not ouly is it used to sow them in, but those 
needing it are pricked out, and are easily shaded if 
a skeleton frame is made to support the mats or other 
material to screen the plants from the rays of the sun, 
or protect them from the cold. Glass lights may also 
be laid on to hasten germination if necessary. The 
arrangement was so novel to me that I thought it 
worth recording. 
The slug has recently been a subject of correspondence 
in your columns, and the various modes of destroying 
it have, I think, been well described. This year has 
been so prolific of slugs that I fear others, like myself, 
in spite of the numerous devices for destroying them, 
have been sufferers from their voracity. Our two 
principal methods of keeping them down are to lay 
heaps of vegetable trimmings early in the spring, or 
some time before we begin to sow our earliest crops, and 
every two or three days the heaps are examined, and if 
much covered on the under side with slugs, are taken 
bodily away and dusted with lime, as is also the ground 
they covered. Fresh heaps are made elsewhere, and in 
this way we cleared our Pea, Beet and Carrot ground. 
The rest of the vegetable ground was left to a couple of 
ducklings to keep'clear, but at one time there was enough 
food for a dozen, and the first planting of winter vege¬ 
tables fell victims to the slugs—mostly little tough 
black ones, which I have been frequently told ducklings 
will not eat. I have found that at first they pass them 
by, and if thrown to them they pick them up but 
reject them. Having strong horny integuments, I 
partially sever a few and throw them to them, when 
they are immediately gobbled up, and in a day or two 
they will eat them without any assistance from me. 
It is some time since we have been twenty-four hours 
without rain, more or less; consequently the slugs have 
given a good deal of trouble. — TV. P. P., Preston. 
-- 
A BLACK FOREST. 
Imagine the whole of France and the Iberian peninsula 
closely packed with trees varying from 20 ft. to 180 ft. 
high, whose crowns of foliage interlace and prevent any 
view of sky and sun, and each tree from a few inches to 
4 ft. in diameter. Then from tree to tree run cables 
from 2 ins. to 15 ins. in diameter, up and down in loops 
and festoons and W’s and badly-formed M’s ; fold them 
round the trees in great tight coils, until they have run 
up the entire height, like endless anacondas ; let them 
flower and leaf luxuriantly, and mix up above with the 
foliage of the trees to hide the sun; then from the 
highest branches let fall the end of the cables reaching 
near to the ground by hundreds with frayed extremities, 
for these represent the air roots of the Epiphytes ; let 
slender cords hang down also in tassels with open 
thread-work at the ends. Work others through and 
through these as confusedly as possible, and pendent 
from branch to branch—with absolute disregard of 
material, and at every fork and on every horizontal 
branch, plant cabbage-like lichens of the largest kind, 
and broad spear-leaved plants—these would represent 
the elephant-eared plant—and Orchids and clusters of 
vegetable marvels, and a drapery of delicate Ferns 
which abound. Now cover tree, branch, twig, and 
creeper with a thick moss like a green fur. Where the 
forest is compact as described above we may not do 
more than cover the ground closely with a thick crop 
of Phrynia, and Amoma, and dwarf bush ; but if the 
lightning, as frequently happens, has severed the 
crown of a proud tree, and let in the sunlight, or split 
a giant down to its roots, or scorched it dead, or a 
tornado has been uprooting a few trees, then the race 
for air and light has caused a multitude of baby trees to 
rush upward—crowded, crushing, and treading upon 
and strangling one another, until the whole is one 
impervious bush. 
But the average forest is a mixture of these scenes. 
There will probably be groups of fifty trees standing 
like columns of a cathedral, grey and solemn in the 
twilight, and in the midst there will be a naked and 
giant patriarch, bleached white, and around it will have 
grown a young community, each young tree clambering 
upward to become heir to the area of light and sunshine 
once occupied by the sire. The law of primogeniture 
reigns here also. 
There is also death from wounds, sickness, decay, 
hereditary disease and old age, and various accidents 
thinning the forest, removing the unfit, the weakly, 
the unadaptable, as among humanity. Let us suppose 
a tall chief among the giants, like an insolent son of 
Anak. By a head he lifts himself above his fellows— 
the monarch of all he surveys ; but his pride attracts 
the lightning, and he becomes shivered to the roots, he 
topples, declines, and wounds half-a-dozen other trees 
in his fall. This is why we see so many tumorous ex¬ 
crescences, great goitrous swellings, and deformed 
trunks. The parasites again have frequently been 
outlived by the trees they had half strangled, and the 
deep marks of their forceful pressure may be traced up 
to the forks. Some have sickened by intense rivalry of 
other kinds, and have perished at an immature age ; 
some have grown with a deep crook in their stems, by 
a prostrate log which had fallen and pressed them 
obliquely. Some have been injured by branches, 
fallen during a storm, and dwarfed untimely. Some 
have been gnawed by rodents, or have been sprained 
by elephants leaning on them to rub their prurient 
hides, and ants of all kinds have done infinite mischief. 
Some have been pecked at by birds until we see 
ulcerous sores exuding great globules of gum, and 
frequently tall and short nomads have tried their axes, 
spears, and knives on the trees, and hence we see that 
decay and death are busy here as with us. 
To complete the mental picture of this ruthless 
forest, the ground should be strewn thickly with half- 
formed humus of rotting twigs, leaves and branches ; 
every few yards there should be a prostrate giant, a 
reeking compost of rotten fibres, and departed gene¬ 
rations of insects, and colonies of ants, half veiled with 
masses of Vines, and shrouded with the leafage of a 
multitude of baby saplings, lengthy briars, and Calamus 
in many fathom lengths, and every mile or so there 
should be muddy streams, stagnant creeks, and shallow 
pools, green with duckweed, leaves of Lotus and Lilies, 
and a greasy, green scum composed of millions of finite 
growths. Then people this vast region of woods with 
numberless fragments of tribes, who are at war with 
each other, and who live apart from ten to fifty miles 
in the midst of a prostrate forest, amongst whose ruins 
they have planted the Plantain, Banana, Manioc, 
Beans, Tobacco, Colocasia, Gourds, Melons, &c., and 
who, in order to make their villages inaccessible, have 
resorted to every means of defence suggested to wild 
men by the natuie of their lives. They have planted 
skewers along their paths, and have cunningly hidden 
them under an apparently stray leaf, or on the lee side 
of a log, by striding over which the naked foot is 
pierced, and the intruder is either killed from the 
poison smeared on the tops of the skewers or lamed for 
months. They have piled up branches and have 
formed abattis of great trees, and they lie in wait 
behind with sheaves of poisoned arrows, wooden spears 
hardened in fire and smeared with poison .—From 
Stanley's “In Darkest Africa.” 
-r—-sic 
ZONAL PELARGONIUMS AT 
CHISWICK. 
Even with the wealth of flowers at command during 
the flowery months of June, July and August there 
will still be a place for zonal Pelargoniums for indoor 
decoration, especially in the greenhouse of the amateur. 
Grown by themselves the brilliancy of the scarlet, 
crimson, and dark purple or violet shades can be toned 
down by the pink, salmon, pale red and rosy hues, not 
to mention the white varieties, of which there are now 
some choice kinds in cultivation with large, orbicular 
flowers, and of good habit. Furthermore, since the 
rage for bedding-out Pelargoniums has died away to a 
considerable extent, a more rational view of the matter 
is taken, and the improvement of the plant, both with 
regard to habit and flowers, for pot culture is still being 
continued. 
A great number of varieties are now being grown in 
the Paxton house, a span-roofed structure in the 
gardens of the Eoyal Horticultural Society at Chiswick, 
and as all are under the same treatment and conditions 
a fair estimate of their value for pot work can be made 
on a cursory inspection. The same kinds, when 
expressly grownfor the purpose, can be flowered in winter 
as freely as in summer or nearly so, by any cultivator 
of average experience, provided he has a low span- 
roofed house and a sufficient amount of artificial heat 
at command. 
Single Varieties. 
Amongst the parti-coloured varieties John Fellowes is 
one of the best, taking into view the great size of the 
truss and that of the flowers, which are perfectly 
orbicular, and of a soft red, tinted with pink. The 
