Jan. 10th, 1885. 
twist, had generally parted company from the roots, 
and frequently become utterly illegible, producing a 
state of confusion which most undoubtedly we never 
expected to regret; but this year we had followed 
the one perfect system of labels of unglazed china, 
highly varnished after writing on them, and fastened 
on by wire; and it had answered so completely, that 
one, and one only, had broken from its moorings. 
No hope could be gathered from that quarter. The 
Phoebus was gone. So much was clear ; and our loss 
being fully ascertained, we all began, as the custom 
is, to divert our grief and exercise our ingenuity by 
different guesses as to the fate of the vanished 
treasure. 
My father, although certain that he had written 
the label, and wired the root, had his misgivings 
about the place in which it had been deposited, 
and half suspected that it had sliped in amongst a 
basket which w T e had sent as a present to Ireland; I 
myself, judging from a similar accident which had 
once happened to a choice Hyacinth bulb, partly 
thought that one or other of us might have put it for 
care and safety in some such very snug corner, that 
it would be six months or more before it turned up; 
John, impressed /with a high notion of the money- 
value of the property, and estimating it something as 
a keeper of the regalia might estimate the most 
precious of the crown jewels, boldly affirmed that it 
was stolen ; and Ben, who had just had a demele 
with the cook upon the score of her refusal to dress a 
beef-steak for a sick greyhound, asserted, between 
jest and earnest, that that hard-hearted official had 
either ignorantly or maliciously boiled the root for a 
Jerusalem Artichoke, and that we, who stood lament¬ 
ing over our regretted Phoebus, had actually eaten it,, 
dished up with white sauce. John turned pale at the 
thought. The beautiful story of the Falcon, in 
Boccacio, which the young knight killed to regale his 
mistress, or the still more tragical history of Couci, 
who minced his rival’s heart, and served it up to his 
wife, could not have affected him more deeply. We 
grieved over our lost Dahlia, as if it had been a thing 
of life. 
Grieving, however, would not repair our loss; and 
we determined, as the only chance of becoming again 
possessed of this beautiful flower, to visit, as soon as 
the Dahlia season began, all the celebrated collections 
in the neighbourhood, especially all those from which 
there was any chance of our having procured the root 
which had so mysteriously vanished. 
Early in September, I set forth on my voyage of 
discovery—my voyages, I ought to say; for every day 
I and my pony phaeton made our way to whatever 
garden within our reach bore a sufficiently high 
character to be suspected of harbouring the good 
Dahlia Phoebus. 
Monday we called at Lady A.’s ; Tuesday at General 
B.’s; Wednesday at Sir John C.’s ; Thursday at Mrs. 
D.’s ; Friday at Lord E.’s; and Saturday at Mr. F.’s. 
We might as well have staid at home ; not a Phoebus 
had they, or any thing like one. 
We then visited the nurseries, from Brown’s, at 
Slough, a princely establishment, worthy of its regal 
neighbourhood, to the pretty rural gardens at South 
Warnborough, not forgetting our own most intelligent 
and obliging nurseryman (Mr. [Martin Hope] Sutton, 
of Beading—Belford Begis, I mean), whose collection 
of flowers of all sorts is amongst the most choice and 
select that I have ever known ; hundreds of magnifi¬ 
cent blossoms did we see in our progress, but not the 
blossom we wanted. 
There was no lack, heaven knows, of Dahlias of the 
desired colour. Besides a score of “ Orange Perfec¬ 
tions,” bearing the names of their respective growers, 
we were introduced to four Princes of Orange, three 
Kings of Holland, two Williams the Third, and one 
Lord Boden. We were even shown a bloom called the 
Phcebus, about as like our Phoebus “ as I to Hercules.” 
But the true Phoebus, “ the real Simon Pure,” was as 
far to seek as ever. 
Learnedly did I descant with the learned in Dahlias 
over the merits of my lost beauty. “ It was a cupped 
flower, Mr. Sutton,” quoth I, to my agreeable and 
sympathizing listener (gardeners are a most cultivated 
and gentlemanly race): “ a cupped Dahlia, of the 
genuine metropolitan shape; large as the Criterion, 
regular as the Springfield Rival, perfect as the Mary, 
with a long bloom stalk like those good old flowers 
the Countess of Liverpool and the Widnall’s Perfection. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
And such a free blower, and so true! I am quite 
sure that there is not so good a Dahlia this year. I 
prefer it to ‘ Corinne ’ over and over.” And Mr. 
Sutton consented and condoled, and I was as near to 
being comforted as anybody could be, who had lost 
such a flower as the Phcebus. 
After so many vain researches, most persons would 
have abandoned the pursuit in despair. But despair 
is not in my nature. I have a comfortable share of 
that quality which the possessor is wont to call per¬ 
severance—while the uncivil world is apt to designate 
it by the name of obstinacy—and do not easily give 
in. Then the chase, however fruitless, led, like other 
chases, into beautiful scenery, and formed an excuse 
for my visiting or revisiting many of the prettiest 
places in the county. 
Two of the most remarkable spots in the neighbour¬ 
hood [of Beading] are, as it happens, famous for their 
collections of Dahlias—Stratfieldsaye, the seat of the 
Duke of Wellington, and the ruins of Reading Abbey. 
Nothing can well be prettier than the drive to 
Stratfieldsaye, passing as we do, through a great 
part of Heckfield Heath, a tract of wild woodland, a 
forest, or rather perhaps a chase, full of fine sylvan 
beauty—thickets of fern and holly, and hawthorn and 
birch, surmounted by oaks and beeches, and inter¬ 
spersed with lawny glades and deep pools, letting 
light into the picture. Nothing can be prettier than 
the approach to the Duke’s lodge. And the entrance 
to the domain, through a deep dell dark with magnifi¬ 
cent firs, from which we emerge into a finely wooded 
park of the richest verdure, is also striking and 
impressive. But the distinctive feature of the place 
(for the mansion, merely a comfortable and convenient 
nobleman’s house, hardly responds to the fame of 
its owner) is the grand avenue of noble elms, 
three quarters of a mile long, which leads to the 
front door. 
It is difficult to imagine anything which more com¬ 
pletely realizes the poetical fancy, that the pillars and 
arches of a Gothic cathedral were borrowed from the 
interlacing of the branches of trees planted at stated 
intervals, than this avenue, in which nature has 
so completely succeeded in outrivalling her hand¬ 
maiden art, that not a single trunk, hardly even a 
bough or a twig, appears to mar the grand regularity 
of the design as a piece of perspective. No cathedral 
aisle was ever more perfect ; and the effect, under 
every variety of aspect, the magical light and shadow 
of the cold white moonshine, the cool green light of a 
cloudy day, and the glancing sunbeams which pierce 
through the leafy umbrage in the bright summer 
noon, are such as no words can convey. Separately 
considered, each tree (and the north of Hampshire is 
celebrated for the size and shape of its elms) is a 
model of stately growth, and they are now just at 
perfection, probably about a hundred and thirty years 
old. There is scarcely perhaps in the kingdom such 
another avenue. 
On one side of this noble approach is the garden, 
where, under the care of the skilful and excellent 
gardener, Mr. Cooper, so many magnificent Dahlias 
are raised, but where, alas 1 the Phcebus was not; and 
between that and the mansion is the sunny shady 
paddock, with its rich pasture and its roomy stable, 
where, for so many years, Copenhagen, the charger 
who carried the Duke at Waterloo, formed so great an 
object of attraction to the visitors of Stratfieldsaye. 
Then came the house itself, and then I returned home. 
Well ! this was one beautiful and fruitless drive. 
The ruins of Reading Abbey formed another as fruit¬ 
less, and still more beautiful. 
Whether in the “ palmy state ” of the faith of 
Rome, the pillared aisles of the Abbey Church might 
have vied in grandeur with the avenue at Stratfield¬ 
saye, I can hardly say; but certainly, as they stand, 
the venerable arched gateway, the rock-like masses of 
wall, the crumbling cloisters, and the exquisite finish 
of the surbases of the columns and other fragments, 
fresh as if chiselled yesterday, which are re-appearing 
in the excavations now making, there is an interest 
which leaves the grandeur of life, palaces and their 
pageantry, parks and their adornments, all grandeur 
except the indestructible grandeur of nature, at an 
immeasurable distance. The place was a history. 
Centuries passed before us as we thought of the 
magnificent monastery, the third in size and splendour 
in England, with its area of thirty acres between the 
walls—and gazed upon it now 1 
295 
And yet, even now, how beautiful. Trees of every 
growth mingling with those grey ruins, creepers, 
wreathing their fantastic garlands around the moul¬ 
dering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the 
midst of that decay ! I almost forgot my search for 
the dear Phcebus, as I rambled, with my friend, Mr. 
Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any 
station be remarkable for acuteness and acquirement, 
amongst the august remains of the venerable abbey, 
with the history of which he was as conversant as 
with his own immediate profession. There was no 
speaking of smaller objects in the presence of the 
mighty past 1 
Gradually chilled by so much unsuccess, the ardour 
of my pursuit began to abate. I began to admit the 
merits of other Dahlias of divers colours, and actually 
caught myself committing the inconstancy of consi¬ 
dering which of the four Princes of Orange I should 
bespeak for next year. Time, in short, was beginning 
to play his part as the great comforter of human 
afflictions, and the poor Phoebus seemed as likely to 
be forgotten as a last year’s bonnet, or a last week’s 
newspaper—when, happening to walk with my father 
to look at a field of his, a pretty bit of upland pasture 
about a mile off, I was struck, in one corner where 
the manure for dressing had been deposited, and a 
heap of earth and dung still remained to be spread, I 
suppose, next spring, with some tall plants sur¬ 
mounted with bright flowers. Could it be?—was it 
possible ?—No !—Yes 1—Ay, certainly, there it was, 
upon a dunghill—the object of all my researches 
and lamentations, the identical Phcebus I the lost 
Dahlia I 
FROST AND MEALY-BUG* 
So far as I have been able to learn the general 
impression is that frost would destroy mealy-bug, if it 
were safe to expose the subjects on which it is found 
to such a low temperature, and so seldom is it 
found on subjects as it is safe or convenient to 
•expose, that up to the night of November 26th I 
thought the same. On the morning of the 25th, I 
exposed three plants of Souvenir de la Malmaison 
Carnation, which I am sorry to say were infested 
with that tiresome pest, and on the following morning 
we had 14 degs. of frost, which I felt sure would have 
destroyed all life in the insects. Being desirous of 
cutting blooms from these Carnations at the earliest 
date, they were again placed in the house, and on 
examination a month afterwards, we found that the 
bug was still alive. We had suspected from its 
appearance since it was taken inside that the bug 
was not dead, and to settle the point, a day or two 
ago we took a plant into the stove and placed it in 
a warm position, when we thought the bug would 
be more in its element. After it had been there a 
few hours, I disturbed some of the insects, when 
it was easy to see them move with the naked eye, and 
with a pocket lens unmistakable proof of life was 
seen. 
The reason why this question as to allowing frost 
to destroy the bug on vines, which are well known to 
bear frost without the least injury, has not been 
settled before this is, that in the majority of establish¬ 
ments the vineries have to be used for plants in the 
winter months, and if it were possible to take the 
vines outside and expose them through the winter, it 
would be of little avail, as the bug that lurks about in 
the walls, trellis, and every crevice and corner would 
be sufficient to infest the vines again another year. 
It would be interesting if some of our readers would 
give us their experience in destroying this pest in them 
vineries by frost. 
I remember, some fifteen years ago, an amateur 
coming to the gardener under whom I was then 
serving, and seeking advice as to the best method of 
eradicating this pest from his vinery. The description 
he gave of it left no doubt as to what it was. At that 
time no such remedy as gas-tar and clay was known 
to him or myself, and we had difficulty enough with 
the bug on our own vines, so that our amateur visitor 
met with no encouraging advice or help from us. If 
my memory serves me right this house had neither 
hot-water pipes nor plants to protect in winter, so that 
the bug had no further protection than the glass roof, 
and yet by all accounts they thrived amazingly.— 
G. Warden, The Gardens, Clarendon Park, Salisbury. 
