278 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
Jan. 3rd, 1885. 
being duly developed, the colour, however, was pale 
green. We hear that some of these have been prepared 
in the orthodox Potato-fashion, that they were cooked 
in half-an-hour, but that the quality was waxy and 
very poor—in fact, that it is the worst thing yet 
attempted in the way of a Potato.— X. 
MID-WINTER FLOWERS. 
There are many plants which may be'induced to 
flower about this season; but while some only give 
a scant and ineffective supply of blossoms, others 
produce them in summer-like profusion and richness; 
and it is these which we wish to bring prominently 
into notice. Of the twelve months, December and 
January are those in which flowers are most valued; 
about Christmas and onwards anything in the form of 
a flower is welcome, and showy blooms are greatly 
appreciated. 
Camellias.— What Rhododendrons are in our woods 
and pleasure-grounds in April and May, and Roses in our 
flower-beds in June and July, Camellias are amongst 
indoor plants about Christmastide and throughout the 
winter, and therefore their culture should be universal. 
Indeed, it is pretty nearly so, but we fear their blooms 
are not so common, or they would not be quoted weekly at 
so many shillings per dozen in Covent Garden Market. 
Many of/the newer varieties have larger blooms than 
the old sorts, but for supplying a large quantity of 
useful flowers the old kinds have everything to 
recommend them. The old double white, for instance, 
is, to our mind, the finest Camellia grown. None can 
surpass it in purity, and none will produce more 
blooms when planted out in a bed. Many get their 
plants to make abundance of wood, and flower-buds 
are formed in plenty, but they fall off before they 
open, andjmany fine blooms are lost in consequence. 
This misfortune is said to be caused in many 
different ways, but we attribute it to three. The 
first is dryness at the root, the second aridity of 
atmosphere at the time when the blooms should be 
opening, and the third indifferently ripened wood. 
Camellias detest dryness in any form, and soon show 
then- abhorrence of it. We all know that no half- 
ripened wood will bloom or fruit perfectly, and this 
applies forcibly to Camellias. We grow our plants 
in all the sunshine possible throughout the year, and 
the roots and atmosphere, especially at this season, 
are constantly saturated. If we cannot syringe twice 
daily through danger of damaging the blooms, we 
moisten the ground under them and the centre leaves 
where flowers are not so plentiful as outside. In 
order that Camellias may bloom freely at this time, 
they should be induced to make young wood in April 
or about that season, and then the buds have plenty 
of time to swell up, mature, and open out in gorgeous 
profusion at this season. 
Bouvardias should be grown in every garden to 
bloom at this time. They are like Ixoras in 
miniature, but much easier grown, and mostly more 
profuse in blooming. At one time we had upwards 
of a dozen sorts, but now variety has no charm for 
us; we only value those which bloom best, and these 
we have found to be B. Vreelandi, a grand pure white, 
and B. Hogarth, a very fine scarlet. Plants of these 
in 6-in. pots will produce from two to three dozen 
heads of bloom in December, and, as each will 
measure from 3 ins. to 5 ins. in diameter, they are 
objects of the greatest beauty; and, besides this, when 
grown in a stove temperature, and induced to go on 
making wood, they keep on flowering in constant 
succession. We propagate young plants of them in 
March, grow them in cold frames during summer, 
and keep the shoots well pinched in until September, 
when, in a little more heat, they throw up numerous 
shoots and lovely flower-heads in profusion. 
Poinsettias are most brilliant in winter. The 
brightest bed of scarlet Pelargoniums which anyone 
ever saw in summer does not excel a quantity of these 
placed together, when fully developed. July is soon 
enough to put in cuttings of them. If taken and 
rooted in March or April, the plants will be fully 
grown by August; then, as a rule, the bottom leaves 
fall off, and the plants do not improve. Late-rooted 
plants, on the contrary, cannot do this; they grow on 
until December, and they have a freshness both in 
foliage and floral bracts which early ones never 
possess. They require no special forcing to have 
them in perfection now. It would be almost an 
impossibility to prevent them from blooming at 
Christmas; very good plants of them may be grown 
in 6-in. pots. They will do with little more than cool 
frame treatment until October, when an intermediate 
temperature will grow them on and bring them out 
well. The largest heads will be formed in a very 
warm place, but the most useful are those from an 
intermediate-house. Heads cut from great heat will 
not remain fresh and bright in rooms for more than 
two or three days, but firmer and cooler-growm ones 
will last a fortnight or longer. 
Primulas — i.e., those belonging to the Chinese class 
—are thorough winter flowers, and most useful they 
are, especially the grand double varieties. Their 
culture is so simple and their flowers so well known, 
that I need not enter into any lengthy argument here 
in their favour, but it cannot be too much known that 
everyone who possesses a greenhouse should have 
some well-grown and full-bloomed Primulas with 
which to decorate it at this season. 
Cinerarias are charming now, and well worth all 
the attention required to make them bloom, and after 
all there is nothing in this worth speaking about, as 
it is simply a matter of sowing the seed early. Our 
plants now in bloom are the produce of seeds sown in 
April. They are kept in cool frames until October, 
and then are moved into a temperate conservatory to 
bloom. Insects are never allowed to injure them, and 
they are potted on from time to time until they remain 
in 8-in. pots. Dwarf bushy plants with plenty of 
bloom stems are the best, and these can be secured 
by growing the plants in plenty of light and near the 
glass. 
Of Begonias we like B. insignis best. This we grow 
on like the Bouvardias, and it makes a most beautiful 
winter-flowering plant. Through checking the leading 
shoots it is induced to form many side branches until 
it becomes bushy, and then it forms itself into one 
elegant and drooping mass of light pink blooms. It 
is well suited for dinner-table decoration or for that of 
the drawing-room. It is a plant from which one may 
cut basketfuls of bloom. Of all winter-flowering 
Begonias this is the'one I can recommend with the 
greatest confidence. Plants of it will bloom as freely 
in 2-in. and 3-in. pots as in 6-in. and 8-in. ones. 
Calanthes are a very fine class of mid-winter 
blooming plants, and wherever there is a stove they 
should be grown. If started into growth in May, and 
grown on in pots or baskets in a stove temperature, 
they will develop bulbs which will produce from two to 
four spikes of bloom each, and these may be had in 
great beauty before Christmas. Here we have only 
the heat of an intermediate-house to give them, and 
they do not bloom with us in November as they do in 
many places ; but they are fully out about this date, 
and we find them most useful for all kinds of cut- 
flower decoration. 
The Eucharis amazonica is another gem in December; 
its delicate flowers, of the greatest purity, are unsur¬ 
passed by those of any other stove plant. This Lily, 
we find, does best when undisturbed at the root for 
years ; our best plant has not been turned out of its 
pot for three years. It is not so large as some we 
have seen, but it blooms uncommonly well, and is now 
opening its fourth crop of blossoms this year. During 
the time it is throwing up its flower-spikes and 
blooming, it is put into the warmest place we have, 
and during that time it makes many fresh leaves. As 
soon as it has finished flowering it is placed in a cool 
house for a few weeks, and then it is submitted to a 
strong heat again to bloom; this it never fails to do if 
plunged in the pine bed where the bottom heat is 
about 90 degs. and the atmospheric heat 65 degs. To 
have it in bloom in December, we would recommend 
its being rested in October and plunged in heat in 
November. 
Zonal Pelargoniums are very showy at this season ; 
even those which have been blooming in pots 
throughout the summer are in use now. The only 
way by which they can be got to bloom freely, and 
make a fine display in December, is to propagate 
young plants in May, shift them into 6-in. pots as 
soon as ready, and keep them in the open-air from 
June until September. During that time they should 
not be allowed to bloom, and a sunny position ripens 
the wood, and hardens it for winter flowering. The 
end of September is a good time to take them indoors, 
and a light, airy greenhouse or pit is the kind of 
structure in which they will succeed for some months 
afterwards. At present we have plants of Henry 
Jacoby, bearing eight and ten massive trusses of the 
brightest hue. As a scarlet, this variety has no equal 
as a winter bloomer. 
Epacrises are lovely at this time, and never fail to 
give satisfaction. They do not bear confinement in 
rooms well, but they supply a very fine lot of cut 
bloom, and their long shoots, so beautifully furnished 
with various chastely formed and coloured flowers, 
are charming for vases. They bear being cut down 
when in flower better than most plants, as this only 
encourages them to produce more shoots, which 
bloom in their turn, and ultimately give place to a 
host of others. 
The Eranthemuh pulchellum is a famous plant 
for blooming in December; it produces a multitude of 
flowers at the end of every shoot, of a bright sky-blue 
colour. Spring-rooted cuttings bloom now, and so do 
old plants if cut back in early summer and allowed 
to form bushes in frames throughout the bright 
months of the year. 
Amongst Azaleas, the wonderfully bright, small¬ 
flowering A. amaena is one of the best of these to 
flower in profusion now, and it is most useful for 
cutting or for pot decoration. Fielder’s 'White is 
another Azalea which almost blooms naturally at this 
season. A. Borsig forces well, is semi-double, and very 
fragrant; the flowers are pure white, and it forms a 
good companion to Stella, which is a very bright, 
free-flowering kind. 
Roman Hyacinths and various coloured Tulips of 
the Due Van Thol section, and double Roman and 
paper white Narcissi, are about the only bulbs which 
we can force profitably in December, but all these are 
blooming most satisfactorily now .—The Field. 
— o_-. -- 1 - ^_p — 
HARDY FRUIT CULTIVATION. 
Interplanting. —The intervening spaces between 
the Apple-trees when planted as recommended at 
p. 214, should also be cultivated and planted. The 
effect on newly-planted, as well as on old-established, 
Orchard-trees, by breaking up the ground between 
them either with the spade or plough, is in most soils 
so marked and beneficial as to appear incredible to 
those who have not proved it. I recollect an instance 
of an old orchard, situated on the heavy clay of 
Lincolnshire, where the trees had such a cankered, 
moss-covered, miserable appearance that to resuscitate 
them seemed quite impracticable. The dead wood 
was pruned off them, they were cleansed from filth, 
the ground—an old pasture, was then ploughed up 
somewhat shallow between them, harrowed, cleaned, 
and planted rather thinly with vegetables so as to 
allow of the horse-hoe being worked between them, at 
the same time a portion of rotten manure was pdaced 
over the surface of the ground within a radius of 
10 ft. from the stems of the trees, the ground to this 
distance was occasionally hacked over with what was 
there termed a “ Canterbury ” hoe— i.e., a hoe with 
three long prongs projecting at the back opposite to 
the blade—by this means not only were the weeds 
destroyed, but the surface soil, previously hard and 
impervious to rain and air, and liable to crack in hot, 
dry weather, became pulverized and friable. The 
effect on the trees was perfectly magical, as they not 
only made free, clean growth, but the second year 
after the change they bore more fruit, and finer in 
quality than they had done the previous dozen years 
put together. 
Nor are Apples and Pears the only orchard trees 
which derive benefit from this method of under 
cultivation, for, strange although it may seem, the 
shallower rooting kinds, such as Cherries and Plums, 
derive even greater benefit from this method of 
cultivation than even the deeper-rooting kinds, 
provided the cultivation is not so deep as to injure 
the main roots. Cherries and Plums will not, how¬ 
ever, succeed so well as orchard trees, especially the 
former, except the locality and soil be favourable to 
them. I would not, therefore, advise their being 
planted largely unless previous experience warrants 
it. 
In breaking up the ground between the trees, the 
plough and harrow or the shallow scarifier are, of 
course, the most convenient and economical imple¬ 
ments ; at the same time the spade and pronged hoe 
