164 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
November 11, 1893. 
EARLY VINERIES. 
Where these have been started great care and 
caution is required to maintain a sufficiently regular 
temperature to enable the vines to break freely. 
Where it is convenient to do so, nothing is better 
than a body of fermenting material inside the house 
which should be turned over every morning. This 
will require the addition of fresh material occasion¬ 
ally to keep it in a fermenting condition, or sufficient 
steam will not be generated to keep the atmos¬ 
phere in a genial state. If circumstances do not 
admit of this plan being followed, the troughs over 
the pipes should be kept full and the house be 
frequently syringed to keep up a moist atmosphere. 
The night temperature ought not to go beyond 
50° at present or till every bud is well swelled. When 
this takes place, gradually raise the night tempera¬ 
ture to '■,5°, when the day temperature by fire heat 
may be from ten to fifteen degrees above that at 
night, and with sun heat the thermometer may be 
allowed to run up another twenty-five degrees. Be 
particular in giving air to admit it gradually and not 
to such an extent as to cool the atmosphere too 
rapidly. Rather begin early, so as to keep the 
desired temperature without letting the lights down 
so far that by so doing the temperature is lowered. 
Keep the outside borders moderately warm, and 
some covering ought to be put over the outside 
protecting materials. Sheets of galvanised iron are 
the best things to use and give the least trouble, 
where they can be had.— W.B.G. 
-- 
A VISIT TO NEW 
ROCHELLE, N.Y. 
I HAD often promised Mr. Siebreght, of the firm of 
Siebreght & Wadley, and one of your oldest sub¬ 
scribers in this country, that I would pay him a 
visit at New Rochelle, and was reminded of my 
engagement when I met this gentleman at the 
World’s Fair. As soon as possible after I returned 
East I kept the tryst, and received from my friend a 
most cordial reception. Messrs. Siebreght & 
Wadley, apart from their general plant trade, have 
an immense store in New York City, which ranks 
among the very best, and this fact explains the why 
and wherefore of the enormous stock of plants grown 
in their houses at New Rochelle, which are sixty- 
two in number, and all filled to repletion ; indeed I 
may say that never in the course of my experience 
have I seen houses filled like these, and all their 
inmates in such good health. The firm have also a 
large collection of plants at the World’s Fair 
decorating the New York State building. 
Palms are grown by hundreds of thousands and 
may be seen in all sizes, ranging from seedlings 
in thumbs to noble specimens 20 ft. and more in 
height. Almost every kind of useful stove and 
greenhouse plant, old and new, finds a home in these 
houses. One wonders what will become of them all, 
but are told that the store will require them, and 
many more, for furnishing during the season. Time 
and space precludes the possibility of my going into 
minute details, so I shall content myself by noting 
some of the more notable features of the establish¬ 
ment. And first let me refer to the Orchids, which 
are to be seen by the thousand, growing in the 
greatest luxuriance and promising to yield grand 
crops of flowers. There is no pretext whatever at 
coddling the plants as is done by so many, indeed, 
the way they Have to rough it, so to speak, taking 
their chance with other inmates, is very remarkable. 
Yet it is a well-known fact that in the flowering 
season Mr. Siebreght " is in it.” 
First to take my attention was a large frame full of 
Cypripedium insigne, bristling with flower buds. Next 
I became interested in a house of Odontoglossum 
crispum, planted out on sloping benches, a system 
that many others might adopt with advantage. 
The Cattleya houses are in grand trim, such pieces 
of C. gigas as are seldom seen, and the varieties all 
Ai, as I know from what I saw in New York last 
spring. While I am writing of Orchids I wonder 
what British gardeners would think if they could see 
the place in which many of the Cattleyas, Laelias, 
and Dendrobes are ripened off here. It is simply a 
huge wooden construction, with the sides built up of 
narrow ribs about 3 in. wide fixed about the same 
distance apart, so that sun and air readily find their 
way through. When I looked inside my astonish¬ 
ment was great to see the thrifty workman-like con¬ 
dition of the plants. Under the roof were hanging 
rows upon rows of Laelia anceps and L. autumnalis 
showing spikes in great profusion. Underneath 
them on the floor was a fine stock of Cycads, and in 
one of the houses I noticed a remarkable specimen 
of Cycas Rumphii, with some forty or more leaves, 
having a spread of'about 18 ft. Dracaenas, Crotons, 
and Allocasias fill other houses, and in one small 
structure I was pleased to find a good batch of 
Streptocarpus. Another big structure contained 
Chrysanthemums, and yet another contained 
nothing but Asparagus planted out. The Phalae- 
nopsis house is one of the finest in this country, the 
growths being .splendid, many of the leaves measur¬ 
ing from 5 in. to 15 in. in length, and from 2 in. to 
5 in. in width. 
The Rose houses gave great promise of future 
abundance of bloom, and three of them, each 100 ft. 
long, were filled with a new hybrid Tea variety that 
is not yet in the market, but which it is expected 
will shortly be put into commerce. It is in the style 
of Duchess of Albany, and a good grower, and of a 
very desirable colour for a winter bloomer. It is 
also a remarkably fine bloomer, the plants seeming 
to want to flower from every joint, strong or weak, 
even the cuttings on the benches having buds on 
them. Mr. Siebreght purchased the stock from 
Messrs. Alexander Dickson & Sons, of Belfast, who 
have exhibited it in the old country, and I under¬ 
stand have won several medals with it. The Lily 
tanks and herbaceous grounds are very interesting, 
but I cannot further refer to them now.— Am. Cor. 
-•*—- 
HORTICULTURAL LECTURING. 
Mr. Prinsep seems to hav^e deliberately set out on 
the war-path of antagonism so far as relates to 
horticultural lecturing. As a Sussex man I am 
rather surprised at his onslaught, as in that county 
there are three very practical men engaged, and I 
should be surprised to learn that either one of them 
was not able to give sound and useful information 
to any Sussex audience, in relation to horticulture. 
That one of these Sussex instructors is a present 
gardener may be regarded as evidence of the com¬ 
plete capacity of gardeners to undertake work of 
this description. On the other hand, it is not 
difficult to find several who have distinctly failed 
to make capable lecturers, or who have been com¬ 
pelled to give it up because of the great drain made 
upon time which is their employer’s ; upon physical 
capacity, owing also to very late hours, and to mental 
ability—because this lecturing is after all mentally 
very exacting, if well and conscientiously done. 
Although Mr. Prinsep sneers at the ” spouters,” 
permit me to say that unless a man can ” spout,” to 
use the expressive term of the day, he is of very 
little use as a lecturer. A mere dry essay read in 
worse than schoolboy fashion interests no one and 
is very wearisome. Full and well arranged notes, 
SO as to keep a subject within bounds and in a 
connected form, are indispensable. These enable 
the lecturer to draw upon facts and illustrations 
that may crop up in his mind as he goes along, and 
in that way help to render his subject attractive as 
well as interesting. It is very little use in horti¬ 
cultural lecturing to touch upon matters in a merely 
cursory way. The great thing is to show how good 
results are accomplished, and I very often in talking 
about diverse aspects, whether relating to fruits, 
vegetables, or flowers, introduce reference to diverse 
methods, all tending to the same end, in diverse 
places. Where two or three courses lead to the 
same results, each one should be shown, because 
there cannot be, indeed, must not be, any rule-of- 
thumb practice in horticulture. 
True garden practice is singularly elastic, and rather 
than set up any specific dictum I prefer to point out 
the various ways or methods in which good results 
are obtained in private gardens, in nurseries, and in 
market establishments, as all have their moral and 
their use. It is in this direction especially, I hold, 
that the man who has many opportunities to see 
diverse practice in all sorts of ways and places has 
undoubted advantages in both disseminating know¬ 
ledge and illustrating it, than ordinary gardeners, 
however bright, can well possess. Again, I am far 
from being sure that high-class private gardens pre¬ 
sent just the best schools in which elementary horti¬ 
cultural instructors can be trained. Let it be 
admitted that the highest form of horticultural 
practice may be found in such gardens, or shall I 
say with due reserve, should be ; but it is obvious that 
with rural audiences, composed of persons largely who 
have only the slightest possible knowledge of high- 
class gardening, to talk to them of these enhanced 
methods is to discourse of matters fully above their 
heads. 
An instructor cannot know too much of ev'ery 
branch of gardening, but all his knowledge is as a high 
wind that blows clean over the heads of his auditors 
unless he brings himself and his theme down to the 
low level of their understanding. I was amused at 
Mr. Prinsep’s reference to the Cabbage moth. I take 
it for granted that it does not interest audiences 
much to learn whether the perfect insect be brown, 
white, or yellow, a moth or a butterfly. Whilst it is 
gravely told us by one authority that the moths 
should be destroyed when seen, I don’t think any 
instructor would like to tell those whose Cabbage 
plots were suffering from catterpillars, that they 
should arm themselves with butterfly nets and chase 
them about the gardens as they presented them¬ 
selves. If we could make our Cabbage plants so 
obnoxious that the moths would not infest them all 
very well, but as the Cabbages are grown to be 
eaten we cannot do that. The best remedy is to de¬ 
stroy the caterpillars as they present themselves on 
any of our Brassica tribes, and nothing is more 
simple and more efficacious than is dressings of 
very fine dry salt strewed in and about the leaf¬ 
age in the evening and then washing it off in the 
morning. That plan has been found to work won¬ 
ders during the past season, and the knowledge of it 
is worth ten thousand entomological dissertations on 
Cabbage-feeding insects, all of which is mere froth 
and dried bones to the general. However, I daresay 
there would not be, in comparing notes, so very 
great disparity of view or opinion between Mr 
Prinsep and myself. Still vague charges and de¬ 
clamation don’t go for much. Still farther, the ideal 
instructor has to be trained, but no doubt we shall 
have such after a few of us old grey beards have 
played our little parts on village platforms. 
■ I cannot conclude without referring to a case that 
has just come under my notice in a metropolitan, 
and indeed a wealthy county, where a young fellow, 
whose entire life up to some three years since had 
been spent in school and in a publishing house, has 
been put on as a lecturer. What he knows about 
gardening has been picked up in a little florist’s 
place which he now has charge of ; but he knows no 
more about practical gardening than a child. Yet 
this comparatively ignorant person has been selected 
by a district Technical Education Committee to give 
several courses of horticultural lectures; but then 
perhaps the miserable pay of los. per lecture is the 
real reason for playing so low down. I don't blame 
the young fellow for getting bread and cheese where 
he can ; but I do seriously blame the County Council 
and its district committee for thrusting such in¬ 
capacity on the public, because it is making horti¬ 
cultural instruction literally to stink in the nostrils. 
RASPBERRIES. 
If not already done these may now be looked over 
and have all superfluous canes removed. The most 
general plan of training them is to stakes, the plants 
being at 4 ft. apart each way. For ourselves we 
prefer training them to wires or light trellis work, as 
they can be spread farther apart, and the canes will 
get better ripened, and so be more productive. The 
fruit also, being more subjected to light and air, keeps 
better during a spell of damp weather than where 
the canes are tied close round a stake. Where 
stakes are used the canes should be reduced to five 
to a stool, and in going over them all rods coming 
up between the row's should be removed. On no 
account should the soil be dug unless, unfortunately, 
perennial weeds get a footing among them. Then 
it must be done with as little disturbance of the 
Raspberry roots as possible. See that all stakes, 
etc., are likely to last through the season, and if not 
replace them, and having made all secure put on a 
good coating of short manure. This will enrich the 
soil and act a&a mulching to keep the roots cool and 
moist during summer droughts. These remarks 
refer to summer-bearing varieties, the autumn-bear¬ 
ing kinds, as they fruit on the current year’s w'ood, 
should be cut clean down annually.— W. B. G. 
