308 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Jan. 17th, 1885. 
the best keeper. It seems this year to be hardly 
so sweet as usual, and is perhaps suffering from 
the drought of the previous autumn. Matchless 
White aud Grove White are also amongst the 
best sorts of this section. After all, good solid 
Celery very much depends upon soil and excel¬ 
lence of cultivation. 
Wallflowers— It is so commonly the rule in 
writing of Wallflowers to advise the sowing of 
seed in the month of May, that many readers, in 
the habit of adopting that advice, will be surprised 
to learn that some market growers of this fine 
old flower took advantage of the open nature of 
the season to sow seed last week, not small patches 
in frames, but large beds of several rods in extent, 
and such as will give them many thousands of 
plants. It is early sowing that so verylargely tends 
to the production of early bloom, and early bloom 
is the most valuable. It is true that constant care 
in selection has enabled some of our market 
growers to obtain a strain that is naturally eaily, 
but still they always sow early that they may have 
big sturdy plants, each capable of producing a 
good bunch of flowers. Wallflowers are grown so 
largely around London that breadths of twenty 
acres in extent, especially under fruit trees, are 
not uncommon. The market people stick to the 
rich velvety blood-red kind because its colour 
seems to be the most favoured, but there seems 
good reason to believe that a fine early strain of 
pure yellow hue would be equally popular, 
especially as this latter colour is always constant. 
The tall Golden Wallflower is a fine early kind, 
but of leggy growth, whilst the rich Orange 
Bedfont Yellow has a stout sturdy growth, 
dark foliage, and blooms very early. No doubt 
when plentiful it will make a valuable market 
kind. 
Greenhouse Heaths.— We remember, during 
the past year, making a call upon a gardener who 
had a collection of Ericas. He was impatient at 
their slow growth, and in order, as he said, “ to 
push them on,” he depended upon the one-shift 
system, he syringed overhead the last thing at 
night, and shut up close, and disastrous was the 
result. Others have tried novel modes of treat¬ 
ment. Some have had for their object the 
inducement of rapid growth; others, to obtain 
a superabundance of flower both in and out of 
season. Then, again, experiments have been 
tried on the soils, by using leaf-mould, and 
even a portion of loam, foul river sand, and even 
the scrapings of roads. In this way have 
unfortunate Heaths been tortured. The suc¬ 
cessful cultivator and exhibitor of Heaths may 
be disposed to look upon this statement with 
suspicion, but it is a record of facts that have and 
are occurring. The Erica is probably one of the 
very worst plants to bear experiments of this 
character ; it is, to a great extent, an untractable 
subject, not conforming to any forced or artificial 
mode of culture. It is a slow-growing plant, and 
all the art of man cannot make it otherwise. It 
requires soil and treatment suited to its consti¬ 
tutional habits, and it will not thrive if any other 
be substituted; a dry atmosphere, any degree of 
cold short of freezing, plenty of air, and as little 
sun as may be, these are essential to grow Heaths 
successfully, and upon them depends the health 
of the plant. 
Lilium auratum. —Some grand consignments 
of Lilium auratum and other Lilies are just now 
being received in fine order and sold by auction 
at Stevens’s Booms. On the 8th inst., at a very 
interesting sale of cool Orchids and Lilies, Mr. 
Stevens disposed of a fine lot of immense bulbs 
of L. auratum at a very low rate considering the 
high quality of the sample. The other Lilies and 
cool Orchids, too, went well and cheap, and it is 
most likely that some who went only after Lilies 
bore away some of the easily grown cold Orchids. 
The annual general meeting of the National Chry¬ 
santhemum Society will be held on Monday evening 
next, at the Old Four Swans, Bishopsgate Street 
Within, at 7 p.m. The principal business will be to 
receive the report and balance-sheet for 1884; to 
elect officers and committees for the ensuing year, 
and also to adopt schedule of prizes for the next 
exhibition to be held at the Royal Aquarium, 
Westminster, on Wednesday and Thursday, November 
11th and 12th. 
The Cambridge Botanic Garden Syndicate, recog¬ 
nizing the able manner in which Mr. Lynch has 
carried out the duties of his office since he became 
curator of the garden, have recommended the increase 
of his salary from £150 to £200 per year. 
The Birmingham Chrysanthemum Society will hold 
its next annual exhibition on November 18th and 
19th. 
Those of our readers who visited the Vegetarian 
Society’s dining-room at the International Health Exhi¬ 
bition may be interested to know that 161,000 meals, 
or an average of about 900 per day, were served during 
the season; and that financially the experiment was a 
great success. After paying all expenses, the Society 
has returned the guarantee fund subscribed, and has 
a balance of over £100 in hand, besides the crockery, 
tables, Ac. The balance is being spent in providing 
vegetarian meals for the poor in several large towns. 
Messrs. Wills & Segar, of South Kensington, had 
the honour of presenting to Prince Albert Victor, by 
special permission of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, a 
lovely bouquet composed of Lily of the Valley, Parma 
and Russian Violets, Gardenias, and magnificent 
arching spikes of Odontoglossum Alexandras, and 
Her Royal Highness .'the Princess of Wales was 
graciously pleased to accept the floral offering from 
Prince Albert Victor. 
In addition to the prizes won at New Orleans by 
Messrs. Cheal & Sons, mentioned in our last, we 
are informed that they also exhibited the best plates 
of Beauty of Hants, Blenheim Orange, Emperor 
Alexander, Reinette du Canada, Ribston Pippin, The 
Queen, and Hoary Morning. 
The Shropshire Horticultural Society will hold its 
spring show on March 26th, and its great summer 
exhibition in “ The Quarry,” on August 19th and 
20th. 
The will (dated August 17th, 1883), of Mr. George 
Bentham, late of No. 25, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge, 
who died on September 10th last, was proved on the 
11th ult. by Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and the Right 
Hon. Sir Nathaniel Lindley, the executors, the value 
of the personal estate amounting to over £23,000. 
The testator bequeaths £8,000 to Madame Wallon, the 
grand-daughter of his late sister; £2,000 to Sir H. J. J. 
Brydges, Bart., the brother of his late wife ; £1,000 
each to the Linnean Society of London and the Royal 
Society Scientific Relief Fund ; and legacies to his 
executors, trustees, servants and others. The residue 
of his real and personal estate is to be held upon trust 
to apply the same in preparing and publishing botanical 
works, or in the purchase of books or specimens for the 
botanical establishment at Kew, or in such other manner 
as his trustees may consider best for the promotion of 
botanical science. 
Live Plants in Bed-rooms. —At a medical confer¬ 
ence recently held in France, it was demonstrated to 
the satisfaction of all the savants there present, that 
plants, as long as they are plants only, may safely, 
and even with advantage, be admitted to the elysium 
from which they have so often been exiled. These 
pretty ornaments, as a learned writer now declares, 
11 far from being hurtful, are beneficial, inasmuch as 
they exhale a certain amount of ozone and vapour, 
which maintain a healthy dampness in the air, and 
besides that are destructive of the microbes which 
promote consumptive tendencies in human beings. 
It is only flowers, and not the plants which bear 
them, that do the damage. Ferns are innocuous; 
Roses and Sunflowers are pernicious—at least during 
the interesting period while they are in bloom.— 
The Globe. 
CHEAP GREENHOUSES. 
There has long existed what might well be termed a 
popular error in reference to the building and ventilat¬ 
ing of greenhouses. That error has been this, that 
side ventilation is absolutely essential to the growth of 
plants and that such ventilation must be given through 
the agency of side-lights or sashes. Consequent upon 
this notion, it has been the common rule to design 
glass houses of nearly all kinds with glass sides above 
the walls and beneath the. roof, these sides being 
chiefly in the form of swing or movable sashes opening 
outwards, and when so opened admitting a very free 
circulation of outer air. Not so many years since the 
man would have been held guilty of rank heresy who 
dared to assert that side ventilation for plant-houses 
was not essential. There are many very good gardeners 
who still hold to the ancient belief, in spite of the 
fact that myriads of examples can now be shown to 
the contrary. 
If any one sceptical in this matter will but pay a visit 
to some of our large market plant nurseries, they may 
see scores of houses full of plants of many kinds, all 
luxuriantly healthy; indeed, there are no such wondrous 
pot-plants in the world as are those grown for 
market in good nurseries. And yet in not one of 
these houses is there side ventilation. We have seen 
in that remarkable and instructive plant nursery at 
Swanley, associated with the famous Mr. H. Cannell, 
literally dozens of long houses built without sides, 
except of course the brick or concrete walls from 
which the roofs spring, and in very many cases these 
long span sideless houses are side by side so close that 
the narrow space of perhaps not more than 12 ins. 
between the walls is filled up with clay and then surfaced 
with tar or asphalte, slightly hollowed so that all the 
rainfall on the roofs on either side runs into this 
channel, and is in that way conveyed away from the 
walls and houses. All damp is prevented, no spouting 
is required, and the broad furrow admits of ample 
access to the roofs for cleaning and repairing 
purposes. 
In not a few cases we have seen, where there is good 
natural drainage, the inner path of the house sunk 
some 16 ins. in the soil so that side walls are hardly 
needed. Such houses consist almost entirely of span 
roofs and gable or door ends, and are cheap beyond 
compare. 
It need hardly be said that plant-houses of this 
simple kind are not of greenhouse builders’ designs. 
They are the product of practical plant growers, who, 
having in the exceeding sharp competition of the day 
to produce plants very cheap, have erected their own 
houses from simple designs and thus been enabled to 
obtain what they need at a minimum of cost. Not 
merely is the form and design simple, but the 
materials employed are also purposed to secure the 
greatest amount of light with the least possible 
amount of obstruction. Thus we see in these cheap 
houses no solid rafters or beams. The wooden bars 
forming the roof are just stout enough to support the 
glass and give needful strength to the entire structure 
and yet are ample for the purpose. The glass is of 
the fullest width consistent with strength, and being 
throughout of exactly the same dimensions enables 
the builder to obtain it at the lowest possible price. 
Added to these advantages, the principle of the design 
throughout is so simple that even an amateur having 
the materials to hand may put up his own house with 
little difficulty. 
Through the courtesy of one of our most eminent 
building firms, that of Messrs. Boulton and Paul, of 
Norwich, we are enabled to present our readers with 
a very admirable and exact illustration of one of the 
span-roof houses such as we have been describing, 
and which this enterprising firm, stepping aside from 
horticultural builders’ customary designs, have wisely 
adopted. The house illustrated may be of any length 
or width, but as a rule the width is about 10 ft., thus 
giving a centre walk of say 2 ft., and “broad stages 
or beds on either side, each 4 ft. in width. That is 
an excellent width for amateurs, as all plants are 
thus brought within easy reach of the grower. As 
will be seen, the only ventilation given is by means 
of the doors at either end, which may be left opened 
or be closed as desirable, and by means of flaps in 
the upper part of the roof; within, side walls either 
of brickwork or concrete may be built on either side 
of the centre path, and the beds thus formed between 
