404 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Feb. 28th, 1885. 
with low prices the planters cannot afford to do 
much manuring. Cinchona is mentioned as 
I'ising in value, and, as it is expected to continue to 
do so, those who have this bark anticipate large 
returns during the next few years. Tea planting 
appears to be the rage just now, and the writer 
remarks that “ everyone is in earnest in the 
matter.” Cocoa is reported as doing well in 
DumburaandMatala, and to be still commanding 
fine prices. Cardamoms are, it seems, also a paying 
product, and there are still many acres in the 
island suitable for its cultivation. “ I am 
going,” says the writer, “ to give some attention 
to fibre plants, and have recently planted several 
thousands—Rhea Grass and Sanseviera are the 
most important. The labour question is causing 
some anxiety among the planters, and ‘ crimping ’ 
is not uncommon. Two coolies per acre are 
required on a tea estate in full plucking, and I 
do not anticipate much difficulty in getting them. 
As to Britishers, no willing man need want a 
situation here at present, although salaries are 
poor as compared with what they were five years 
ago.” 
Gardening in the Black Country. —Pits, 
cinder banks, and blast furnaces, none of the 
readers of The Gabdening Woeld are ever 
likely to covet as desirable adjuncts to gardening. 
But where there’s a will there’s a way, and the 
experience of the last few years is proving that 
it is possible to grow even highly creditable 
produce amid adverse circumstances. TheBilston 
Horticultural Society has certainly done some¬ 
thing to prove this. This Society was inaugurated 
in 1881 through the efforts of Mr. J. Knight, and 
at the annual meeting for 1885 just held, the 
Secretary made the following very gratifying 
announcement: — “ The number of exhibits 
entered by the cottagers at the first Show was 
59, at the second 156, at the third 237, and 
last year 305. The total number of entries 
at the first Show was 286 in all classes, and at 
the last 574. In the first year they started with 
a prize list of £30, the second with £46, in the 
third year this was increased to £66 and left 
off with a balance in hand of £91; last year the 
prize list was increased to £87, and left a balance 
in hand for next year of £102.” These results 
from such a district should encourage others to 
move in the matter of local Shows for densely 
populated industrial districts where such do not 
now exist. Any one wishing for information as 
to how the above well-conducted Society is 
managed can obtain it by applying to Mr. J. 
Knight, Bilston. 
The Intebnational Potato Show. —We 
learn that the schedules of the International 
Potato Show to be held at the Crystal Palace on 
October 17th and following days, will shortly be 
ready, and will show an increase of an extra 
prize to each of the classes, with such an 
arrangement of the sums as can hardly fail to 
give satisfaction. In this way the chances of 
exhibitors are greater than at any previous Show. 
Some important changes may be made in certain 
classes, and in the conditions, but these are not 
yet fully decided upon. The entering fees will 
be slightly increased, and encouragement given to 
exhibitors to become full subscribers, especially 
as so much of the income of the Committee is 
furnished in the shape of special prizes, and so 
little in the form of subscriptions to meet current 
expenses. The Lord Mayor has kindly consented 
to open the Show this year, and preside at the 
luncheon, and will do so in state. As the 
attendance will probably be unusually large, it is 
desired that those requiring lunch tickets should 
bespeak them early. It will be found necessary 
this year to materially reduce the number of free 
tickets, this item having proved last year much 
too heavy a burden for the Committee, and 
therefore it is constrained henceforth to be much 
less liberal than in the past. 
(Sarbmhrg Ipistelkng. 
A sub-committee of the Scientific Committee of the 
Royal Horticultural Society has been formed “ to 
Enquire into the Doubling of Narcissus, and to 
Collect and sift evidence of Modern Reversions from 
Single to Double.” The committee will meet at the 
Lindley Library, on March 10th. 
At Messrs. Protheroe & Morris’s special sale of 
Orchids, on Tuesday, a plant of the extremely rare 
Ccelogyne cristata alba was, after a keen competition, 
knocked down to Mr. Bull for £131. The plant had 
seven flower-spikes, and the blooms were snowy-white, 
without the least shade or tint. A plant of Lycaste 
Skinneri alba, with 7 bulbs and 5 flowers realized 
19 gs., at the same sale. 
Mb. Thomas Maunder, who for forty-four years was 
gardener to the Earls of Abingdon, at Wytham Abbey, 
Oxford, died on February 13th, at Stoke-by-Clare, 
Suffolk, aged 78 years. 
A correspondent of the Agricultural Gazette has 
found the use of carbonic acid gas in his garden a 
complete cure for the Potato disease ! 
The Maidstone Chrysanthemum and Fruit Show, 
which is conducted by the Maidstone Gardeners’ 
Mutual Improvement Society, and confined to residents 
in Mid-Kent, will be held on November 17th and 18th. 
Yesterday (Friday) evening a lecture on the 
Chrysanthemum for exhibition and decorative pur¬ 
poses was delivered at The Institution Hall, Yeovil, 
by Mr. Iggulden, Marston House, Frome. 
On May 2nd next, M. Em. Bodigas, Director of the 
Zoological Gardens, Ghent, will complete the twenty- 
fifth year of his Professorship at the Ghent School of 
Horticulture, and a large Committee has been formed 
to present him with a suitable testimonial in recogni¬ 
tion of the eminent services he has rendered to the 
School, and to Horticulture generally, during the 
period named. M. Ed. Pynaert is the secretary and 
treasurer. 
An autumn Fruit and Flower Show, at which 
Chrysanthemums will be the leading feature, will be 
held at Yeovil, in November next. 
The Journal of Horticulture announces the death, 
on the 18th inst., at Raploek-by-Stirling, of Mr. 
Alexander Meiklejohn, aged 88 years. The deceased 
was an enthusiastic grower of several florists’ flowers, 
and notably of the Auricula, of which he at one time 
had a large collection. He was the raiser of Mrs. 
Meiklejohn, a very showy Alpine variety, but it is the 
fine grey-edged variety raised by Kay that will best 
recall his name to the memory of contemporary 
florists. 
Mr. S. Mortimer has resigned the position he has 
held for the last nine years as gardener at Purley 
Park, Beading. Mr. Mortimer has proved himself 
during that time a most successful prize winner with 
all kinds of garden produce. 
The Spring Seed Show, under the auspices of 
the Inverness Farmers’ Society, was held on 
Tuesday. The number of entries was not large, 
but the samples shown were very superior. 
— g__. -n r - j — 
Papaver Hookeri. —Considerable interest attahecs 
to this pretty novelty, both on account of its 
intrinsic merits as well as for the singular fact 
that, although cultivated for only two seasons since 
its introduction from Northern India, it has already 
shown a marked tendency to become double. It 
approaches in its botanical characters the well-known 
P. Rhseas, but is taller and more robust, with larger 
and more finely incised foliage, and flowers nearly as 
large as those of the Opium Poppy. They are of the 
most varied colours, including many shades of 
crimson, purplish-red, rose, Ac., some of them being 
single, but many as densely double as the long 
cultivated Pasony-flowered and other annual garden 
Poppies. The flowers from their large size are 
extremely showy, and further cultivation will un¬ 
doubtedly give rise to numerous varieties.— W. 
Thompson, Ipswich. 
Davallias.— In the list of Davallias given at p. 394, 
the beautiful D. Fijiensis was omitted. Of this there 
are three different forms, i.e., D. Fijiensis, D. Fijiensis 
major, and D. Fijiensis plumosa; these are all very 
pretty, but the latter is the most elegant. D. 
Griffithiana is another beautiful species of recent 
introduction* 
CARPET BEDDING. 
In our number for February 7th, at p. 361, we 
published a design of a large carpet bed planted by 
Mr. Gibson, in the garden of the Boyal Hospital, 
Chelsea, which we have now the pleasure of supple¬ 
menting with another from the same master hand. 
The present is the more simple design of the two, but 
it would be difficult to say which was the most effec¬ 
tive, so faultlessly were both -carried out. The eight 
small stars and the large central one were set in a 
carpet of Alternanthera versicolor grandis. The 
inner circle of the large star contained a plant of the 
Fish-bone Thistle, Chamapeuce diaeantha, carpeted 
with Sedum glaucum. The ring surrounding this 
was composed of Echeveria glauca metallica, while 
the four larger wings were planted with Alternanthera 
amasna, edged with Pyrethrum Golden Feather, and 
the smaller ones with Echeveria glauca metallica, 
edged with Santolina incana. Two patterns were 
used in the case of the eight small stars, those 
shaded on the plan being planted as follows:—The 
centre, Echeveria glauca metallica, enclosed in a ring 
of Santolina incana ; the larger wings, Alternanthera 
amsna, edged with Golden Feather, and the small 
ones Santolina incana without an edging. The 
unshaded stars had a centre of Iresine Lindeni, 
surrounded by Echeveria seeunda glauca, while the 
larger wings were composed of Alternanthera parony- 
chioides major aurea, edged with Golden Feather, 
and the smaller ones of Echeveria seeunda glauca 
only. The small circles represent dot plants, the 
four larger ones being large plants of Echeveria 
glauca metallica, and all the others smaller specimens 
of the same handsome succulent. 
The light shaded portion of the outer ring was 
composed of Echeveria seeunda glauca, and the 
small circles of Pachyphytum bracteosum and 
Alternanthera paronychioides major aurea alter¬ 
nately, and with the latter plant the dark shaded 
sections "were planted in a frame of Golden Feather. 
— a__- — 
COLLINSIA VERNA. 
Is this beautiful species going out of cultivation ? 
I hope not. It used to be the practice, and possibly 
is now, for London seedsmen to send C. grandiflora 
for C. verna, and this misapplication of the latter 
may perhaps be traced to the publication by Sweet in 
his British Flower Garden of a figure of the former 
plant under the name of C. verna, and there is reason 
to believe that Sweet supposed the two names to be 
synonomous. But to whatever cause the mistake is 
due, nothing is more certain than that the two plants 
are decidedly distinct, both in their botanical char¬ 
acters and their habit of growth. Further, C. 
grandiflora is a native of the Pacific side of the 
Rocky Mountains, whilst C. verna occurs chiefly in 
the Eastern States, from Western Pennsylvania to 
Kentucky and northward; and though found also in 
Missouri, it ceases long before arriving at the Rocky 
Mountains, where the climate is too dry for it. It is 
somewhat remarkable that while our gardens have 
long been decorated by the species indigenous to 
distant California, a species inhabiting regions 
so much more accessible should have remained 
unknown, or, at any rate, unintroduced to cultivation. 
The peculiar habits of C. verna will account for 
this, for its seeds refuse to vegetate unless sown in 
autumn, soon after they are ripe; or should a very 
small percentage maintain their vitality until spring, 
as sometimes happens, the seedlings never attain the 
same size, and, owing to these flowers being developed 
at a later period of the spring, when the sun possesses 
more power, little if any seed is produced, paradoxical 
as such a statement may appear. Mr. William 
Thompson, of Ipswich, who introduced the true form 
of C. verna about twenty-years ago, recommended the 
following method of treating this beautiful plant — 
“ The seeds must be sown about the end of August, 
or from that time to the middle of September, in pans 
of light vegetable soil, which should be kept 
thoroughly damp. In a fortnight the seedlings will 
show themselves, and when they have made their 
first pair of leaves, be pricked off singly into pans, 
boxes, or pots ; the latter if intended for blooming 
under glass. From this moment it is important that 
the seedlings should be kept cool and damp, and as 
near the glass as practicable, that their growth may 
