Nov. 1st, 1884. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
139 
•It is remarkable for having a stem only 3 ins. to 6 ins. 
high. The leaves are oblong, softly hairy, obscurely 
cremate, and 3 ins. to 4J ins. long by 18 to 21 lines 
broad. The umbels are 2 ins. long, each with 12 to 
15 nodding flowers; the corolla is 5 lines in diameter, 
and white with red spots; and the stamens pale 
straw colour. 
-- 
Sternbergia lutea. —This handsome autumn¬ 
flowering bulb may now be seen in many gardens. It 
is one of the few really handsome hardy bulbs to be 
met with at this dull season. The leaves are narrow 
and very dark green, the plant forming a dwarf, 
compact, little tuft. The flowers, which much 
resemble a Colchicum, are of a clear bright yellow. It 
was introduced from the South of Europe in 1596. 
Hoses for Spring Forcing. —The present is a 
good time to make a selection of Hybrid Perpetual 
Eoses for potting. It is by no means an easy matter 
in making a selection to secure such sorts as are sure 
to prove satisfactory, and I think that many of the 
older varieties are still preferable to the newer sorts. 
Although the following list may not include all the 
best sorts, yet I believe it will be found to include none 
but useful varieties for forcing:—Anna Alexieff, Annie 
Wood, Abel Grand, Alfred Colomb, Baroness de Boths- 
child, Baronne Prevost, Beauty of Waltham, Boule de 
Neige, Countess of Oxford, Dr. Andry, Duke of Edin¬ 
burgh, Dupuy Jamain, General Jacquiminot, John 
Hopper, Jules Margottin, La France, Magna Charta, 
Madame Lacharme, Madame Victor Verdier, Madlle. 
E. Verdier, Marie Baumann, Prince Camille de Bohan, 
Pierre Notting, Paul Eicaut (H. B.), and Beynolds 
Hole. For potting, good, rich, rather heavy loam should 
be selected, to which should be added about one-third 
of well-rotted stable-manure and a good sprinkling of 
horn or bone-manure, and the plants be potted as 
firmly as possible. After potting the plants may be 
placed in any sheltered position out-of-doors, and the 
pots be covered with ashes or any other material that 
may be at hand. About January is a good time to prune 
them, and after this it will be better to have them in 
a position where they can be protected from frost. 
Although plants that have been established in pots are 
best for early forcing, yet those potted in the autumn 
will be very useful for a second-early crop the following 
spring, especially if they can be started where there is 
a moderate bottom heat, and where plenty of air can 
be given, so that the roots make a good start before 
the plants make much growth.— H. 
->-+-*•- 
Piper porphyrophylla. —This fine-fohaged plant 
has long been known as Cissus porphrophylla, the 
fact of it belonging to the Pepper family does not 
appear to have been suspected when the plant was 
described. It is a climber, and well suited for covering 
a wall or tall pillar in the stove. The leaves are 
cordate-elliptical with acute points, dark green, with 
whitish-green blotches, -which are most numerous 
along the veins. In the young leaves these blotches 
have a rosy tinge. We saw the plant a few days ago 
in the stove at Eew. 
Seasonable work in the Plant-houses. —By 
this time all plants should be in their winter quarters, 
so that there is not much work of importance going 
on in the plant-houses just now. Chrysanthemums 
should be looked after as they flower, to ascertain if 
■they are properly labelled, and a note should be taken 
of the best sorts. Much useful work may be done in 
the way of exterminating insect life. If plants that 
are subject to mealy-bug, scale, &c., are thoroughly 
cleansed during the -winter months, they will give far 
less trouble in the spring when they begin to make 
young growths. Although I do not hold with the use 
of paraffin as an insecticide generally, yet it may 
sometimes be used with advantage especially for 
Stephanotis, Gardenias, or other thick-leaved plants, 
and where mealy-bug abounds, the walls and sashes 
may be thoroughly washed with it. In using any kind 
of insecticide, care should be taken that it is properly 
dissolved in the water, and it will be found in all cases 
to be far more efficient if used while w T arm. I have 
tried experiments-with all the popular kinds of insecti¬ 
cide, and have generally found them to be of equal 
merit if used carefully, and at the proper strength and 
temperature.— H. 
Parsley. —Other herbs might perhaps be done 
without, but Parsley is indispensable as an agent for 
flavouring, and is used more or less in most dishes, 
which being the case, the beds should at once be 
looked over to see what can be spared, and all that is 
fit picked for the purpose of being taken to the kitchen 
and dried that it may be stored and ready to hand 
when there is little or none in the open. The way to 
dry and preserve it is to subject it to heat in an oven, 
rvhen it will break up, and may then be bottled and 
corked tight, after which it will keep for a length of 
time in any dry place. Those -who wish to have it 
fresh and green during the winter will do well to take 
a portion of the roots up, and replant them in some 
warm sunny spot where they can be covered with a 
frame or handlight, according to the quantity likely to 
be wanted. By managing this the plants will be able 
to grow during frosty weather, and emit young leaves, 
which will be fresh and nice-looking for garnishing. 
—--Mh- 
Lettuces and Endives. —It is an easy matter to 
keep up a supjriy of salads during the summer, as 
then Lettuces are abundant and good, but not so now, 
and most of us are glad to fall back on the Endives. 
This varies much in quality, according to the way it 
is treated, the best flavoured and most crisp and 
tender being that subjected to a little heat, which 
starts it growing and improves the texture and fibre. 
A Mushroom-house, or any dark place where there is 
a little warmth, answers well for putting it in, as there 
it blanches, and after being in for a week or ten days 
is ready for use. In taking it up, the plants should be 
lifted with good balls and then put into moist soil, but 
not watered, as wetting the leaves would cause them 
to damp. Those who have not a Mushroom-house 
may make a frame answer the same purpose by 
standing it on a bed of fermenting material, and 
filling the frame with soil and then planting the 
Endive. This is also a good way of treating Lettuces 
that have turned in, as it keeps their roots moving, 
and prevents flagging, which brings on toughness of 
leaf. Young plants intended to stand the winter are 
best without the warmth, and should be kept with 
plenty of air to make them sturdy and strong. Any 
that are planted out ought to have a warm sunny 
border, or be placed close along the foot of a south 
wall, where they will be safe from hard frosts, and 
will turn in very early in spring. The hardiest and 
best for this season is the old Bath Cos, which is a 
compact-hearting sweet-flavoured Lettuce. Hick’s 
Hardy Green is also a good one, but does not stand so 
well as the one just referred to. 
Perennial or Spinach Beet. —I do not think 
this vegetable is known, or grown so much as it ought 
to be, considering its usefulness, especially on light 
and gravelly soils, where the ordinary summer 
Spinach so quickly runs to seed. It is some y r ears 
ago since I became acquainted with its merits, and 
since then I have completely given up grow-ing the 
common sort. A sort which I found did much better 
was the monstrous Viroflay, which has much larger 
and thicker leaves, and stands longer, but it also was 
given up in favour of the Spinach Beet. Its cultiva¬ 
tion is identical with that of other Beet, only that in 
mild winters or with protection it will go on yielding 
quantities of leaves all through the season; and the 
amount of produce to be had from it when liberally 
cultivated is something enormous. When cooked it is 
quite as succulent and not to be detected from other 
Spinach. To guard aga'inst accidents during winter, 
however, I always sow a iiiece of the prickly winter 
Spinach, and between one and the other we can 
supply a dish all the year round. Unless sown too 
early, the Spinach Beet is not apt to go to seed. 
Ours is generally sown about the middle of March.— 
J?. Stevens, Paston. 
Celery, Henderson’s White Plume.— This is 
an American novelty introduced last season, and it is 
so named because of its natural peculiarity, namely, 
that the stalks and portions of its inner leaves and 
heart are white, so that by closing the stalks, either 
by tying them up with matting, or by simply drawing 
the soil up against the plant, and pressing it together 
with the hands, and again drawing up the soil with 
the hoe, so as to keep that which has been squeezed 
against the Celery in its place, the work of blanching 
is completed. Thus it is we get a Celery blanched in 
proper condition for the table, just as easily as a 
Cabbage, or a Lettuce, and so avoiding the slow and 
troublesome process of earthing-up. The introducers 
say “ The great bugbear in the cultivation of Celery, 
by those engaged in grow-ing it for market, has been 
the labour entailed in the 1 earthing-up ’ to whiten or 
blanch it : and with the unskilled amateur growing a 
few hundreds for private use, the troublesome process 
of ‘ earthing-up ’ has usually been a detriment 
sufficient to prevent him from trying. Now he can 
grow this new sort just as simply as Endive or Lettuce. 
All that is necessary to complete blanching being to 
tie it up as we do Endive or Cos Lettuce.” Now our 
readers are as fully acquainted with the merits of this 
new type of Celery as we are ourselves. If any 
enthusiastic amateur is desirous of realizing a fortune 
in a short time, now is his opportunity.— Quo. 
Brussels Sprouts.— I am tempted to ask whether 
the passion for big things so rife even yet amongst 
gardeners is not carried a bit too far in the case 
of Brussels Sprouts. The present methods of 
culture all tend to produce Sprouts as big as 
hens’ eggs, rather than those hard compact little 
knobs about as big as walnuts with which we 
were once so familiar. In the anxiety thus shown 
to obtain huge examples, the chief recommenda¬ 
tion of these Sprouts, viz., that they are small and 
solid really tiny or miniature heads, seems to have 
been overlooked. For consumption at table the 
Brussels Sprout is assumed to be of the most useful 
and perfect form when whole, it is just a convenient 
mouthful for a lady. Now we see them so big that 
they form mouthfuls for giants. It is as absurd to 
have to carve a Brussels Sprout in one’s plate as to 
carve a Green Pea, for both are meant to be eaten 
whole. But there is more than this to be said, for 
with size in this member of the Brasseca family we 
also get strong flavour and a decided loss of that 
singularly tender and refined succulence found in the 
old-fashioned Sprouts. It is true that big as any kind 
may under good cultivation become, we have but to 
grow them in poorer soil to have them smaller and 
more acceptable. But even then we lose something, 
as the Sprouts would lack that hardness or solidity 
which is so essential a feature in them. Anyone who 
will turn aside from the coarse giant forms of the day 
and select for us a strain that from bottom to top of 
the plant stems sets a solid coating of small, good- 
coloured, and firm Sprouts, and does that throughout 
will render good service, not only to lovers of Brussels 
Sprouts, but also to the reputation of one of our best 
vegetables.— D. 
- >%< - 
The Stamfordian Tomato. —Having in past 
seasons grown heavy crops of handsome Stamfordian 
Tomatos, and been in every way well satisfied with 
the result, but we have this season experienced a 
difficulty in getting it to set a crop of fruit, and the 
difference is so great that I think of abandoning it 
and growing some other variety. Perhaps some of 
your readers will kindly give the result of then- 
experience with it. We have done so well up to now 
that I feel loath to give it up.— W. B. G. 
New American Peas.— One of these is Bliss’ 
Abundance, a very dwarf, free-branching, early variety 
that bears a large number of fine pods, and was during 
last summer awarded a first-class certificate of merit 
by the lloyal Horticultural Society. It seems to be 
just the very thing for small gardens. This is the 
latest novelty among American Peas, and we place it 
first on the list. Another raised by Bliss also is 
named Everbearing; it grows about 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft., 
is very free, and produces a remarkable succession of 
large pods. Then there is Henderson’s First-of-all, 
which is illustrated by a very elaborate woodcut 
in the list before us. We are not quite certain if the 
artist desired to make the plant the bearer of the pods, 
or the pods the bearer of the plant; most probably the 
former. It is a very dwarf, and very early variety, 
bearing large clusters of fine pods. We really have 
had some valuable acquisitions from across the Atlan¬ 
tic.— Quo. 
