April 7, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
501 
The market men grow them in the open fields, 
sowing them where they are to remain, and they 
often gather them in quantity quite as early as those 
ho have raised the plants early, and been to all 
the labour of potting and hardening off. The reason 
for this is that the plants raised under glass often 
get a check from adverse circumstances, by which 
they are crippled for some time, whilst those which 
germinate in the open and escape the check given by 
removals, grow away healthfully and overtake those 
which, from the way they have been nurtured, are 
more tender. I have also known market growers to 
sprout the seed in a gentle heat before planting 
them, and by so doing have been enabled to com¬ 
mence cutting a week in advance of those who have 
sown dormant seed. This made a considerable 
difference in the returns, a matter of vital impor¬ 
tance, for to place your produce on the market even 
a day before your competitors often means many 
pounds difference. 
making a distinct looking dish, they are not one bit 
better than the others, among which there is not at 
present a better one than Moore’s Cream. The 
Long White Ribbed is a favourite with market men, 
but as the taste for a more refined article is surely 
spreading, it will have to give place to smaller and 
more even growing types.— W. B. G. 
■ -- 
ALLAMANDAS. 
These fine free flowering plants are seldom seen 
at their best unless growing on the roof of a stove 
where their shoots can be trained close to the glass. 
It was at one time considered necessary to restrict 
their roots to induce them to bloom freely, but 
experience teaches us that the reverse is the case, as 
shown by a plant growing on the roof of one of the 
houses here. Its roots have the run of a border 
thirty feet long by four feet wide, made of old hot¬ 
bed material, and this is one mass of fibres from 
is Henderson!. Any one having a quantity of 
decorating to do where flowers have to be largely 
used cannot do better than grow this ; the blooms 
will usually last quite fresh for the evening if taken 
oft with the calix attached and dibbed in banks of 
moss, or if required for festoons, a bit of damp moss 
should be tied round their stems. When stood in 
water the tube should be half filled in this way. We 
have kept them quite fresh in a room for several 
days.— H. C. Princep. 
-- 
LAELIA CALLISTOGLOSSA. 
Comparatively few cultivators have ever seen this 
Orchid, and fewer still possess it, for it is a very 
rare and valuable plant. It was first described by 
the late Professor Reichenbach in 1882, so that 
twfelve years have el ape 1 sinceit first flowered. The 
specific name means very beautiful or most beautiful 
lip, a character which it well bears out when in 
bloom. The seed parent was Laelia purpurata, and 
L-tELIA CALLISTOGLOSS.a. 
In addition to forcing them, there is another good 
plan which will often be of great service where a 
large supply of vegetables is expected. This is to 
make up a one or two light hotbed early in April, 
with a gentle heat; form a hillock of soil under each 
light, on which sow several seeds, thin out to three 
plants before they get crowded, give an abundance 
of air on all favourable occasions, attend to stopping 
and training, and by the end of May the lights may 
be entirely removed. By this simple plan Marrows 
may be had from three to four weeks in advance of 
those grown in the ordinary way. Where there is 
plenty of space for them to ramble there will not be 
much thinning out needed after they have been 
stopped back, so that each plant has from six to 
eight shoots and the produce is all gathered young, 
as it should be, for if many are allowed to get large, 
the plants soon cease to bear as freely as they other¬ 
wise would. 
Where space is limited, more frequent stopping 
and thinning out will be requisite. As regards 
flavour, some have a very exalted idea of the 
Custard Marrow, but to my thinking, although 
one end to the other. The plant is cut back each 
winter, usually about the end of December, but 
water is never withheld from the roots, for the border 
at all times is like unto mud. The plant soon 
pushes new growth after being cut back, and com¬ 
mences to bloom about March. A top dressing is 
then given about four inches thick, consisting of 
thoroughly decayed manure ; the roots soon take 
hold of this and in a short time it is a mass of 
white fibres. 
From March to Christmas it is one sheet of bloom, 
thousands of flowers being taken from it during that 
time, sometimes as many as five hundred in one 
day, yet the supply seems inexhaustible so long as 
there is sufficient heat to keep the plant growing. 
By the time the sprays have finished blooming, some 
of them are near two feet long. The flowers during 
the hot weather are very fine, plenty of them being 
six inches across, but as the weather gets cooler 
they diminish in size till in the early winter they 
are not more than three inches in diameter. No 
shade is ever given, and the plant as before remarked, 
is as though it were growing in mud. The species 
the pollen bearer Cattleya labiata Warscewiczii, 
better known as C. gigas. The great size of the lip 
is due to the latter, but the effect of I-aelia purpurata 
is seen in the beautiful lining of the throat. The 
sepals are of a soft rosy-mauve suffused with white; 
but the petals are some shades darker, much broader, 
elliptic, reflexed at the sides in the lower half, and 
wavy. The lamina of the lip is of great size, 
undulate at the margin, and of the richest daik 
purple shaded with maroon ; the side lobes are paler, 
but still very rich and beautiful. According to the 
parentage the plant is a bigeneric hybrid, but 
Cattleyas and Laelias are admitted on all hands to 
be very closely allied, and the distinction between 
them is more a technical than a natural one. In 
any case the progeny is one of the most handsome 
with which horticulture has been enriched. It was 
raised in the nursery of Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, 
Chelsea, to whom we are indebted for the present 
opportunity to illustrate it. 
The Carnation: its History, Properties and Management; 
with a descriptive list of t.ie best varieties in cultivation. By 
E. S. Dodwell. Third edition, with supplementary chapter on 
the Yellow Ground. London. Gardening World Office, i, 
Clement's Inn, Strand, W.C. is. 6d., post free, is. yd.—Advt. 
