October 28, 1893. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
129 
of various varieties have given me a bountiful crop 
this season. The five and six-year-old trees have 
produced several pounds each, while those only 
planted two years gave several fine clusters. As it 
is an English fad or fashion to serve Filberts at 
table in the husk, and as everything English goes 
with the 400 in New York, there is considerable 
demand for the fresh nuts, the price ranging from 
twenty-five*cents per pound up to a dollar or more, 
according to the size and quality. This demand for 
Filberts in the husk is a good thing for the grower, 
for the husks weigh fully as much as the nuts would 
when dried, so to be in this fashionable swim means 
doubling the value of the products of one’s nut 
orchard.” 
The Central Park, New York.— In her new book 
entitled ■■ Art Out-of-doors,” recently published by 
Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, Mrs. Schuyler Van 
Rensselaer remarks concerning this park :—” I dare¬ 
say there are many persons who do not know that a 
large portion of Central Park was created by 
Mr. Olmsted and his associates in almost as literal 
a sense as any painter ever created a pictured 
landscape; who does not remember the dismal, 
barren, treeless, half rocky, and half swampy waste 
which less than forty years ago occupied all the 
tracts below the reservoir, who fancy that Nature 
made them beautiful with meadows, ponds, trees, 
and shrubs, with woodland passages, and verderous 
cliffs and hollows, who think that all man has done 
has been to lay out the roads and paths and build 
the terraces, bridges, and shelters. If they will read 
any contemporary description of the quondam aspect 
of those tracts, now so natural-looking in their 
beauty, and will then study the park of to-day and 
consider what difficulties must have attended the 
process which made it lovely to the eyes and con¬ 
venient for the feet and wheels of crowding thou¬ 
sands, they may gain some idea of what landscape 
gardening means; they may understand why we, 
who have studied it even from the outside, rank it 
quite as high as any other out.” 
- ^ - 
LATE FLOWERING 
VIOLAS. 
Even after such a trying season of heat, drought, 
and mildew, it is satisfactory to note that many of the 
Violas not only survive the ordeal, even in the South, 
but give a very fair account of themselves, not only 
through September, but fairly well into October, 
under ordinary treatment. There are some that 
flower best in spring, and others that flower well in 
autumn, even although they have been fairly satis¬ 
factory all the summer. Of course we cannot ex¬ 
pect the same profusion late in the season when cold 
weather is checking growth to some extent, but there 
are some varieties which are gay even now, as may 
be seen in the gardens of the Royal Horticultural 
Society at Chiswick. 
The finest of all at present is undoubtedly Ariel, a 
very variable variety, of a bright blue when in 
character, with a white eye. In dry, warm weather 
the flowers often come nearly white, but at present the 
flowers are of a rich bright blue, not to be seen in 
any other kind, and the white eye is reduced to 
small limits. Occasionally the flowers are splashed 
with white. A line of it across a bed forms a 
spreading mass 2 ft. to 2§ft. wide, and the flowers 
are both abundant and conspicuous. The Mearns 
might also be singled out as a good late bloomer, 
with rich dark purple flowers, and the upper petals 
fading to lavender and white. Picotee also flowers 
freely. It is evidently a seedling from Ariel or 
having some affinity with it, and is white with a blue 
edge, but the amount of blue varies as in the variety 
just named. 
A fair sprinkling of bloom is still being produced 
by a large number of the varieties grown, including 
Bullion, which is considered one of the best and 
darkest yellow kinds. Equally free is Duchess of 
Sutherland, Evelyn, Lillias, Ravenswood, Rosine, 
Hugh Ainslie, and Skylark. The latter does best in 
spring and early summer. The amount of sporting 
that has taken place amongst Violas this year has 
been great, many of them becoming striped in such 
a way as to put York and Lancaster, with one or two 
others, at a discount. Amongst others that may be 
mentioned in this respect is Ida’s Choice, which has 
sported to maroon-purple striped with rose and 
white. It still continues in that condition notwith¬ 
standing the cold weather. 
Of the rayless Violas a few of them also continue 
in bloom, including Marginata and Springville that 
seem identical, being white with a large yellow 
blotch on the lip and a blue edge that is not 
constant, however. A beautiful variety is Summer 
Cloud, white, clouded with pale sky blue. The 
primrose flowers of Golden Gage are not so plenti¬ 
ful as those of Old Gold with beautifully formed and 
golden-yellow flowers. It is still one of the best 
yellow varieties in the miniature section. 
Elsewhere we have noted several of the same 
varieties as the above doing well; and in addition 
Violetta, Vernon Lee, Columbine, True Blue, and 
Marchioness of Tweeddale may be mentioned as 
late flowering varieties of well-known merit. 
-- 
THE SHAMROCK. 
I HAVE been appealed to to express an authorative 
opinion as to which is the true Shamrock, and I 
have declined (wisely, I think) to do so. Which of the 
Trefoils it was, which it is traditionally reported St. 
Patrick, when on his apostolic mission from Pope 
Clementine, in the year a d. 431, plucked from 
the hillside and is said to have held up to his 
half Christianised followers with a view to illustrate 
the doctrine of the Trinity must always be a matter 
for conjecture. It is on this account the Shamrock is 
sought after on the festival of the Saint, and is worn 
by both peer and peasants. Whithersoever the Celtic 
propensity for emigration may have drawn him, the 
Irishman never forgets the renown of his patron 
Saint or the immortal Shamrock emblem of the 
Emerald Isle. On March 17th the Saint’s health is 
drank in the morning from a brimming bowl called 
*' Paddy’s Pot,” and when the evening sets in Irish 
pipers, with fiddles and fifes, enliven the scene with 
the merry notes of the air ” Patrick’s Day in the 
Morning.” 
Some time since a few Lancashire working men 
discussed the matter of the true Shamrock, one of 
them declaring he had a plant of the true form of it, 
and others declaring it was not the Shamrock of the 
Irish. Hence, I was appealed to in order to state 
which is the true form of it. I could only reply that 
of the plants sold in Dublin and London on St. 
Patrick’s Day as the Shamrock, there are the Lucerne 
or Nonsuch Clover (Medicago lupulina), named 
■' Nonsuch ” because of its superiority as a fodder 
plant, the White Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens), 
also the Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), and it is 
supposed that Spenser, in his view of the state of 
Ireland, refers to this plant when he states that the 
Irish '■ if they found a plot of Watercresses or 
Shamrocks there they flocked as to a feast for a 
time,” referring no doubt to the Wood Sorrel as 
representing the Shamrock. What is generally 
worn in county Cork and in other southern districts 
of Ireland is the yellow Suckling Clover (Trifolium 
filiforme), where it grows in thick clusters on the 
tops of walls and ditches, and is found in abundance 
in old limestone quarries in the south and west of 
Ireland. 
As to which is the true Shamrock, most Irishmen 
are probably of opinion that they can answer the 
question correctly, but unfortunately they do not all 
give the same reply. Mr. Nathaniel Colgan, who 
has been investigating the subject, collected thirteen 
different specimens from the following eleven coun¬ 
ties :—Derry, Antrim, Armagh, Mayo, Clare, Cork, 
Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Queen’s County, and Ros¬ 
common . Examples of theShamrock were thus secured 
from northern, southern, eastern, western, and central 
Ireland, Mr. Colgan’s correspondents in the various 
counties taking pains to have each sample selected by 
a native of experience who professed to know the 
genuine plants. All the specimens were planted and 
carefully labelled with their places of origin, and 
flowering in some two months later gave the follow- 
results :—Eight of the specimens turned out 
to be Trifolium minus, and the remaining five 
Trifolium repens of Linnaeus. Cork, Derry, 
Wicklow, Queen’s County, Clare, and Wexford de¬ 
clared for Trifolium repens; Mayo, Antrim and 
Roscommon for Trifolium minus; and Armagh and 
Carlow (each of which had sent Two specimens) 
were divided on the question, one district in each 
county giving T. repens, while the other gave T. 
minus. These results are set forth by Mr. Colgan, 
in an interesting paper in the first volume of the Irish 
naturalist recently published. Elsewhere, in the 
same volume, Mr. R. L. Praeger suggests that 
authentic specimens of Shamrock should be 
obtained from every county in Ireland, and he adds 
that he has no doubt Mr. F. W. Moore would gladly 
grow them at Glasnevin Gardens if Mr. Colgan did 
not care to undertake so large an order. Mr. 
Praeger notes that in his own district. North Down, 
Trifolium minus is always regarded as the true 
Shamrock, but that a luxuriant specimen of one in 
flower is generally discarded as an impostor. It will 
be observed that no district sent the Wood Sorrel, 
which is called by the old herbalists Shamrog, and 
is proved in olden times to have been eaten by the 
Irish, one old writer, who visited their country in 
the sixteenth century, stating that it was eaten, and 
that it was a sour plant. Wood Sorrel is a sour 
tasting plant, is indigenous to Ireland, and is 
trifoliated. It grows in woods, where the people 
used to assemble, and where the priests taught and 
perform their mystic rites, and therefore it may have 
been the plant plucked by St. Patrick. It has also 
been contended that the Watercress was the plant 
gathered by the Saint, but as the leaf is not trifoliate 
this claim has not found much favour. The plant 
which is figured upon our coins, both English and 
Irish, is an ordinary Trefoil. Queen Victoria placed 
the Trefoil in her royal diadem in lieu of the French 
Fleur de lis.— R. D. 
-•*-- 
LEEK SHOWS IN THE 
NORTH. 
It would be difficult to say when or where Leek 
shows originated, remarks a writer in the Newcastle 
Daily Chronicle. Though a well-known adage 
suggests the thought, it would not be safe to affirm 
that they were first known in Wales at some remote 
period in the history of the Principality. The date 
and place of their birth are immaterial; they are a 
notable factor, not only in rural, but even in urban 
life, wherever allotment gardens are obtainable. 
They come, like the harvest festivals, with the decay 
of the year and the fall of the leaf. Indeed, the two 
synchronise ; on Saturday it may be the Leek show 
and on Sunday the harvest thanksgiving. From 
Whitsuntide till Christmas there is a long space of 
more than half a year in which the Church has not 
in her calendar any great feast day that appeals to 
the whole body of the people. The harvest thanks¬ 
giving, without any ecumenical sanction, comes as 
an agreeable break in the regular services. From 
the dates of summer flower shows till Chrysanthe¬ 
mums and other winter blooms are ready for display 
is also a long stretch for the ardent horticulturist. 
He, too, has been equal to the occasion, and with a 
Leek show he relieves the monotony of the dying 
year. 
Leek shows are of two kinds; the one, those at 
w'hich Leeks only are exhibited ; the other, those at 
which the display of Leeks is supplemented by other 
garden produce. The Leek needs a long summer in 
which to attain its full growth ; and for purposes of 
exhibition it requires during all that time constant 
care and attention. A visit to a Leek show speaks 
eloquently of the thought and watchfulness, com¬ 
bined with practical skill, that the growers had 
bestowed on their plants before such a length and 
thickness of blanched stem and breadth of flag could 
be produced. These shows are taking place just 
now in almost every village and town of the northern 
counties, and a visit to one of them wilt convince 
the casual and uninitiated observer that the exhibi¬ 
tors must have spent many healthful hours in their 
gardens ere such splendid results could be attained. 
Leek growing keeps up the interest in vegetable 
cultivation till the very verge of winter. Besides 
Leeks such as have been described, other vegetables 
are often e.xhibited as well; Cabbages and Savoys 
of immense rotundity. Parsnips of extraordinary 
elongation. Beet bulky and full of saccharine juice, 
and occasionally trays of hardy fruit. Humour and 
fun even creep into Leek shows, for sometimes a 
prize is given for the best collection of the smallest 
vegetables. To find Turnips, Potatos, Parsnips, 
Beet, and Leek almost microscopically small, and 
yet perfectly formed, must take some patience in the 
search. Such displays always promote mirth and 
merriment among e.xhibitors and visitors. No one 
can leave a Leek show without thinking of a Leek 
supper. 
The National Chrysanthemum Society’s Catalogue.— 
Centenary Edition. Containing i.ooo new varieties. All the 
novelties. A history and complete bibliography of the Chrysan¬ 
themum, by Mr. C. Harman Payne. Price, is.; post free, 
IS. ijd. Publisher, Gardening World, i, Clement’s Inn 
Strand, London, W.C. 
