Nov. 1st, 1884. 
141 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Derry, in having a salmon or amaranth colour and 
tall spikes. These were my only new ones, but I am 
bound to say they were far outdistanced by earlier 
introductions in several cases both as to the size of 
the individual blooms, length of spike, and the 
number of spikes to a single conn. One, and one 
only, had four perfect spikes from a single corm—• 
Lamarck. This is an old variety; I cannot tell who 
is the raiser, but I received it from a London seeds¬ 
man a few years since. The colours are a pleasing 
combination of light rose striped with salmon. 
Llectra, Bertha Itabourdin, a good old variety and 
certain bloomer ; Orphee, Mr. Thornton, La Fiancee, 
and a few more that I did not make a note of 
produced three spikes. 
The number producing two spikes lit for show 
purposes—that is from the base—was considerable ; 
among the rest, Bemocedes and Flora, both very 
similar; another, differing from the last two in 
the shading of purple with the salmon, was 
Herald. I like to mention these old-established kinds 
when they deserve it, as usually they can be had 
cheap and are most certain flowers, a fact likely to 
encourage young beginners. One of the finest I had 
last year, and that gave me two fine spikes also this 
year, was Brennus, many years in commerce, the 
colouring of which is unique. The upper petals are 
crimson shading to brown, splashed with blue, which 
becomes violet on the lower divisions. For the first 
time for years there has been no failure among the 
whites, though they are probably more tender and 
delicate; old Mdme. Desportes nodded graciously to 
the still more venerable Shakespeare, and both had 
to yield precedence to Beine Victoria, which is still 
an object of admiration with two 18-inch spikes. 
One of the shyest bearers I have, and from which I 
never got a good spike since its introduction, is most 
inappropriately named after the famous rosarian, 
Canon Reynolds Hole. One of the reasons why I 
make these notes of individual flowers is that some 
of your Gladioli-loving correspondents might kindly 
say if their experience is anything like mine. Canon 
Hole has but two companions in retirement out of at 
least 200 named varieties—Helenor and Citrinus. I 
may have lost others, but I did not notice any blanks, 
while those I am rearing from spawn and seed are very 
vigorous and promising. If you plant early you have 
blooms early. To this rule there are many excep¬ 
tions ; three notable ones with me this year will be 
Duchess of Edinburgh, James McIntosh, and Mdme. 
Vilmorin, great beauties that will not bloom for a 
month to come. It only remains to say the earliest, 
and I am inclined to say the finest, spike I had this 
year was from Callipon, a prince of rose colours. 
On the subject of storing the conns, Mr. Murphy 
remarks that those which flowered in July and August 
may now be lifted if the foliage and stem are withered, 
not otherwise. His 'plan is to place them standing 
upright, stem and all, in a cool back room where frost 
may not enter, and cover the conns around with a 
layer of moist river sand. Here stems and corms 
gradually ripen and dry, and need not be disturbed, 
except for labelling or examination, until the time for 
planting comes round again. 
CROP-DESTROYING INSECTS. 
In a lecture delivered before the British Association 
at Montreal, Professor Fream, of the Agricultural 
College, Downton, said :—“ A hopeful sign for the 
future is to be found in the well organized and 
intelligent efforts which have in recent years been 
directed to combating the insect pests which create 
such havoc amongst our crops, and from time to time 
give rise to losses which are simply ruinous. The last 
serious attack of Turnip fly occurred in the summer of 
1S81, and from returns collected from twenty-two 
English and eleven Scotch counties it was estimated 
that over the area indicated the direct loss on Turnip 
and Swede cultivation due to the ravages of this beetle 
was £671,936—considerably more than half a million 
sterling spent in the purchase of new seed and in 
defraying the cost of cultivating and re-sowing a second 
and even a third time. 
“ Of the Hop crop, the most fickle and uncertain of 
all English crops, we grow an average of about 70,000 
acres per annum, the cultivation being confined to a 
few of the southern and western counties. An average 
crop is about 7 cwts. per acre, and the average value 
£7 7s. per cwt. In 1882 so very severe was the attack 
of Hop aphis that in many parishes not a Hop was 
picked, and on very many Hop farms in all parts of 
the Hop country not a single Hop could be seen. On 
a moderate estimate the loss to the country that year 
was £1,300,000, and of this no less than £200,000 was 
lost to the Hop-pickers. One result of these attacks 
has been the patenting of several ingenious machines 
for washing the Hop vines.” 
VEGETABLES AT THE HEALTH 
EXHIBITION. 
The display of these garden products at the Health 
Exhibition on Tuesday and two following days was 
well worthy of the remarkable and most successful 
series of shows that have been held there during the 
summer, and which we take leave of with so much 
regret. Only in a few instances were there classes 
for collections, the others being for some one kind of 
vegetable, such as for Gourds, Onions, Endive, &c. 
Throughout the competition was good and quality 
excellent. 
Did any one aspiring scribe to some local paper 
desire to astonish his readers with a reference to some 
mammoth product of the garden, he might have 
revelled in a contemplation of the gigantic Gourds 
staged in competition in the class for the biggest 
samples. All members of the Gourd family are, of 
course, Cucurbita, and these monsters, differing as they 
do from the small and tajjering Cucumber, are yet its 
brothers. The biggest, of oval form, weighed 156 lbs., 
and the second biggest, of round form, would hardly 
have been 10 lbs. less in weight. There were in the 
collections a wondrous variety of Gourds, great and 
small, long and short, rough and smooth, self and 
parti-coloured. Not a few singularly pretty and orna¬ 
mental, but beyond that we fear not otherwise useful. 
Of course the Vegetable Marrow was well represented, 
but that is about the only kind that ranks as an useful 
edible variety. 
Of the numerous bundles of Celery shown the best 
was of market-garden culture and setting up. Our 
private gardeners would do well, in- exhibiting this 
vegetable, to take a note out of the market people's 
book, for they tie their sticks together with willows 
and flatwise, so that the whole of the Celery is seen at 
a glance. Other good kinds, though not grown so well 
as they might have been, were Leicester Red, and 
Dwarf White Incomparable, the only white kind staged. 
Salsify and Scorzonera are long tapering roots that 
rank half as salads, half as vegetables, and are not 
in popular use. These rather form, as also did the 
one lot of huge blanched Cardoons shown, vegetable 
curiosities than common garden products. Our more 
modern methods of cookery, allied to the wide intro¬ 
duction of newer and better vegetables, have served 
to put many an old-fashioned and once popular 
vegetable out of joint. Parsnips were exceptionally 
good and clean, and showed the presence of tine moist 
soils in some gardens. Mr. Haycock had the best, 
superb samples of Hollow Crown, and others stood in 
well with the Student. 
It is noticeable that in an open class for Carrots, 
James’s Scarlet Intermediate always takes the highest 
place, so that unless there are prizes specially offered 
for the Long Surrey or Altrincham kinds, these are 
seldom shown. In this case, of some fifteen lots of 
Carrots all were Intermediate; the prettiest lots, 
however, were stale, and had done hard duty at 
previous shows; whilst one other lot had been rather 
hard sliced to remove excresences. Still the samples 
were excellent throughout. 
Onions always make a popular class, and in this 
case were represented in collections as well as in 
single dishes. With the latter, Rousham Park 
Hero, a very fine handsome white Spanish selection, 
was well first, and the flatter and much browner 
Pinesfield was second, whilst curiously enough, 
having regard to the time of the year, the judges 
put a dish of the Giant Rocca third, although it is 
usually held that any good sample of winter Onion 
is superior to large Italians that will readily start 
growing. In the collections, Rousham Park, 
Walker’s Exhibition, Sutton’s Improved Reading, 
White Spanish, and some others, bore a singularly 
suspicious resemblance to each other, and we think 
a fine stock of any one would give all these. 
The old and now little grown Blood Red, Deptford, 
James’s Keeping, and some others were shown well, 
though not large bulbs, but these will keep much the 
longer than will the large ones, and are in the long 
run the more useful. 
The White Stone or as some call it Globe was the 
best Turnip, and very good were the samples. Brussels 
Sprouts, shown in plants of fours, were not a success, 
and we have seen plenty of better ones. To show a 
good strain no doubt plants tell the tale most readily, 
but as Brussels Sprouts are not sold or eaten in plant 
form, we do not see why the usual rule of showing 
best heads or selections should be departed from. 
Certainly there was nothing shown at all approaching 
an ideal Brussels plant. 
Beet was abundant, though not as a rule clean an 1 
good. Probably the dry season has had much to do 
with that, but we have seen plenty of prettier cleaner 
roots. The old popular form, Dell’s Crimson, shown 
under various names, seemed to be the most in favour. 
Endive was served up by one or two exhibitors in 
capital form, clean and finely blanched. The best 
sorts were Broad-leaved Batavian, Pipcus White, 
Green, and Digswell Prize, curled. A set of dense 
plants of the Stagshorn Endive, full of matter, were 
only wanting good blanching, but it is a dense capital 
kind. 
Cauliflowers, it need hardly be said, this season were 
gigantic. Some of those shown were literally as big as 
a bushel baskets, though it was gratifying to note that 
the judges gave the preference at first to heads very 
solid and white and of medium size. Still most of 
the heads shown, if big, were wonderfully good. It is 
very probable that in competition for single dishes 
we see more roughness than in collections of vege¬ 
tables, as in these latter the best men only compete. 
It is when such growers as Miles, Haines, Ward, 
Gilbert and others compete there comest he tug of 
war. 
-— ' .m — 
AUTUMNAL TINTS. 
Nor only is the lovely weather we are getting doing 
all that can be desired in ripening up the wood and 
developing the buds of fruit-trees, but it is colouring 
the leaves of most arboreal subjects in such a way as 
to make the face of the country really beautiful, for 
look where one will the varied tints meet the eye and 
seem to force themselves on our notice. I could not 
fail to-day to feel this in coming up the Orwell, as the 
wooded banks were all aglow under the sun, and the 
contrast most charming, especially on the south side 
of the river, as there the red of the foliage of the wild 
Cherries, the yellow of the Elms and Horse Chestnuts, 
and the warm brown of the Beech, contrasted with the 
still deep green of the Oak and sombre hue of some 
Firs, made a picture which no artist could paint. 
It is sad, however, to reflect that this scene of 
loveliness may soon be marred, and that frost, cold 
and cruel, has the power to spoil all in a night, as, 
after its icy hand is laid on, the face of nature is 
changed, as if by magic, and leaves come tumbling 
down, strewing the earth and rendering the trees 
bare. All we can hope for is that the pitiless monster 
may lag on his way, or be confined to the Arctic 
regions for some time longer, and that when he does 
come he will do his work slowly, or the shock will 
be great.— J. Sheppard, Woolverstone Pari;, Ipswich, 
October 24th. 
AZOLLA CAROLINIANA. 
In an interesting article by “ Luke Ellis ” on “ The 
Amateurs’ Garden,” p. 104, Azolla pinnata, a Cape 
aquatic, is mentioned as spreading rapidly and crowd¬ 
ing out the common duck-weed. The plant until 
quite recently was cultivated under this name, but it 
is A. caroliniana, a native of the Southern United 
States of North America, and occurring at least as far 
south as Peru. A. pinnata is probably not in cultiva¬ 
tion, and is confined to the Old World, occurring in 
India, China, Japan, Tropical Africa, Madagascar, 
Australia, and New Caledonia. I have not, however, 
seen a specimen from the Cape. A. caroliniana 
appears to be spreading in this country, as it is 
naturalized at Pinner and also near Gainsborough. 
If it is able to survive severe frost, which indeed seems 
probable, there seems nothing to prevent it overrunning 
the country as Elodea canadensis has done. It is a 
charming little plant for a small aquarium,—A'. 
