Dec. 20th, 1884. 
243 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20 m, 1884. 
"Vegetables in Season. —Christmas with its 
customary festivities will find the market amply 
supplied with good fresh vegetables. Of course, 
let our home shortcomings be what they may, our 
foreign supply will inevitably be large, but with 
all our Free Trade sympathies we may well be 
pleased when our home growers have a turn and 
a good one too. Very often it is said that with an 
abundance of green stuff and prices low, a few 
sharp frosts would send them up, and prove 
profitable to the grower. On that head we may 
well be sceptical, because frosty weather of 
necessity demands more labour in securing the 
crops for market, whilst the greens always shrivel 
in bulk, and therefore a greater area must be 
covered to fill the bushel than is the case in open 
weather. This year the green crop owing to the 
dry summer and autumn is not a heavy one, and 
prices now are fairly good. The Cauliflower 
season is over, and when that passes by the more 
common though more hardy members of the 
Brassica family get a chance. It is marvellous 
that gigantic Drumhead Savoys, which must be 
rather strong eating, should find purchasers, but 
they do, in fact, the bigger they are, the better, 
with a certain class of customers, they are liked. 
Small green curled Savoys, good Kosette Cole- 
worts, Brussels Sprouts, and "White Turnips 
always find a good demand amongst buyers of 
more elevated tastes, and Carrots, also a fairly 
abundant crop this year in Carrot districts, are in 
good request. Spinach, early Brocolis, forced 
Asparagus, Seakale, and other choice vegetables 
may -be had by those who can pay for such 
delicacies. The great mass of consumers happily 
can get good vegetables with their roast beef, if 
fortunate to possess the popular Christmas joint, 
including plenty of excellent Potatos cheaply’. 
We should like to see the demand for these 
products enormously increase, and that for some 
other things much less healthy and wholesome 
decrease, for in the end all classes would be more 
prosperous and happy. 
The Weathee. —How under the influence of 
the prevailing south-west winds, laden as they 
have been with soft invigorating moisture, the 
prospects of a severe winter fades away. True 
it is we are a long way from being out of the 
vood, and in weather matters it is never safe to 
prophecy; but it is an undoubted fact that the 
very features which have marked the early 
portion of previous mild winters now mark the 
present one, and so far there is every indication 
that softness of temperature will rule. The 
season is without doubt full of very grave 
isappointment to mere pleasure-seekers, those 
who have neither cares nor sorrows, and are 
always well fed and warmly clothed. To 
them a hard Christmas time, a low tempera- 
cure, intense frost, and bitter cold would be 
rail of enjoyment, because it would create ice 
an skating, and all the delights incidental to 
?ueh a pastime. Alas! for the poor and those 
miserably clothed when the rigours of winter 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
prevail, for then their sufferings are great, and 
tens of thousands not absolutely poor are brought 
to the brink of poverty and suffering because of 
the check given to labour. These considerations 
tend to make us rejoice at the prospect of another 
mild winter, because thenlifeeven to the most mise¬ 
rable is far less bitter than it is in severe weather. 
Besides we have bad a wonderfully dry year, and 
much rain is yet needed to fill up in the earth the 
vacuum of moisture the long spell of drought bas 
created. A hard winter would probably be a dry 
one, whilst a mild winter will most likely give us 
the needed rainfall and assured abundance of 
moisture to withstand the drought of another 
summer. Work in all directions just now shoidd 
be plentiful, especially on the ground, and 
planters are specially rejoicing at the rainfall. 
Gulls in the Gaeden.— Mr. G. F. Wilson 
writes from Heatherbank, Weybridge “ I can 
recommend gulls for an enclosed garden. They 
are very useful in picking up grubs, and seem to 
do no mischief among plants. They watch the 
men digging, and nothing seems to escape their 
watchful eye. They see grubs and small worms 
which we cannot see. We are now reduced at 
Gakwood to one of the large grey gulls, but I 
hope to get a pair, and that they will nest by 
the pond.” 
Jasminum ntjdifloeuji. —What a beautiful 
object this hardy climber is at this inclement 
season of the year! It seems to defy the rain 
and fog to impare its beauty, and at the present 
time may be seen in hundreds of our suburban 
gardens. A few daj^s ago the writer observed a 
house whose sole adornment in the shape of 
vegetation was a pair of these plants, one trained 
on either side of the porch, and clothed with its 
beautiful flowers from head to foot. It was 
introduced from China by Mr. Fortune, and was 
described by Dr. Bindley in The Journal of the 
Horticultural Society. It was there called a 
greenhouse climber, and the conditions of its 
culture described. But the plant was soon 
discovered to be hardy, a fact which Dr. Bindley 
afterwards mentioned when figuring it in The 
Botanical Register in 1846. Since that period 
it has been most extensively propagated and 
planted, as its abundance at the present time 
sufficiently demonstrates. Its graceful sprays of 
bright primrose-yellow flowers would be a suffi¬ 
cient recommendation even if it flowered at a gayer 
season of the year, but at the present time they 
become quite indispensable, unless, indeed, we 
agree to banish hardy flowers altogether during 
the dull season, a condition of things which, 
happily, is not likely to be soon realized. 
Asplenium Geejianicum. —At the last meeting 
of the Edinburgh Botanical Society, Dr. John 
Bowe, King’s Bynn, Norfolk, communicated a 
paper on Asplenium Germanicum, in which he 
contended that it was not a hybrid between A. 
septentrionale and A. Buta-muraria, as was 
sometimes alleged, but a mere variety of A. 
septentrionale. In Switzerland he had always 
observed Germanicum associated with septen¬ 
trionale, and never with Kuta-muraria, and in 
1882 he found several specimens bearing on the 
same root every intermediate form betwixt 
septentrionale and Germanicum. These roots, 
which were still flourishing, had put up a goodly 
crop of fronds, which were all typical forms of 
Germanicum. Extreme care was taken to see 
that there was only a single root—all the fronds 
being observed issuing from the same point. It 
was mentioned in the paper that Mr. Boyd had 
obtained a specimen with intermediate fronds, 
which ultimately developed into septentrionale. 
Mr. Bindsay, curator of the Botanic Gardens, 
said that in growing septentrionale from spores 
he found that the young fronds were identical 
with Germanicum. Eventually they turned out 
septentrionale. He doubted very much if true 
Germanicum ever reverted to septentrionale. The 
view that the ferns were quite distinct seemed to 
find favour with the Society. 
-Hh- 
Single Maeigolds.— It is strange that after 
we have been pulling up and throwing all our 
single French Marigolds to the rubbish heap that 
it should now be proposed to raise a single strain. 
Ibis is an odd.taste, because the most enthusiastic 
lover of single flowers could hardly dare to assume 
that striped single flowers will compare with good 
double ones, even if these be of any colour. The 
Marigold is a massive and in some of its forms 
almost perfect double flower, but this perfection 
from the florist’s point of view is only found 
in the striped flowers. For average garden 
purposes, however, those who have seen the now 
well selected compact habited strain, which is so 
wonderfully floriferous, that in these at least 
single flowers bear no comparison to the best 
double forms. Nearly all the most perfect 
striped flowers are found on the tall straggling 
habited plants ; but the dwarf kinds show pure 
yellow, orange, buff, chestnut, and edged flowers, 
as well as beautifully striped and mottled ones. 
In the single Marigold the large and prominent 
centre cannot under any circumstances be termed 
pleasing, though the single row of rayed petals if 
striped are pretty enough. The Marigold, because 
of its objectionable odour, cannot be classed with 
flowers for cutting, and it only is as a border 
flower that it is so decorative. 
_ 
Begonia Gloiee de Sceaux. —A beautiful 
winter-flowering Begonia of the first order of 
merit is figured in a recent number of the Revue 
Uorticole. It is said to be a veritable hybrid 
between two very beautiful and distinct-species, 
B. subpeltata and B. socotrana ; the former being 
the male parent and the latter the female. It 
forms a compact conical pyramid, of vigorous 
habit, and is very floriferous, producing flowers 
from October to May. The leaves are unequally 
cordate, not peltate; and the male flowers of a 
beautiful rose colour, and li ins. in diameter. It 
is said to have the peculiar property of never 
producing female flowers. The plant is destitute 
of the small tubercles of B. socotrana, but is 
readily propagated by the numerous buds which 
it produces. 
Cyclamens.— The well-known failure on the 
part of private gardeners generally to produce 
Cyclamens of the superior order seen in our 
leading growers’ establishments, is one of the 
wonders of the day, viewed from a purely cultural 
aspect. Gardeners, as a rule, are good cultivators 
of most kinds of plants, but nearly always they 
fail with Cyclamens. Yet those who have been 
privileged to inspect any of our leading Cyclamen 
establishments can hardly have failed to come 
away with the conviction that no plant needing 
house space can be more easily grown. We have 
seen the Cyclamen in scores of places, under 
diverse conditions, and in all the varied phases of 
existence, from seedlings just coming through to 
grand plants in 8-in. pots, literally superb 
masses of foliage and bloom, and yet never gave 
reason to conclude that there was any special 
secret about the ordinary routine of culture, or 
that Cyclamens were more difficult to grow than 
scores of other greenhouse plants. We find the 
culture to be now immensely simplified, because 
the old notion of keeping old bulbs or cornis over 
the summer in a dry state is an exploded one; 
indeed, the best growers seldom trouble about 
keeping any old conns for a second blooming, 
