500 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
April 11th, 1885. 
(Sartrmhrg; IBistelkm 
Flower Shows and Meetings to be held Next 
Week. —Tuesday : Fruit and Floral Committees at 
South Kensington, and Exhibition of Daffodils.— 
Wednesday and Thursday: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
Horticultural Society’s Show. 
Messrs. James Dickson & Sons, of Chester, have 
received a royal warrant appointing them Nurserymen 
to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 
November 18th and 19th are the dates selected 
for holding the Burton-upon-Trent Chrysanthemum 
Society’s Show. 
The collection of plants grown at Caversham Park, 
Beading, will be sold early in next month by Mr. 
J. C. Stevens, owing to the death of Mrs. Crawshay. 
The specimen stove and greenhouse plants so well 
cultivated and exhibited by Mr. J. Child, gardener, 
Garbrand Hall, Ewell, are to be sold on Wednesday 
week by Messrs. Protheroe & Morris, owing to the 
death of their owner, George Torr, Esq. 
A Children’s Flower Show and Industrial Ex¬ 
hibition is to be held on June 26th in the Agricultural 
Hall and Grounds at Ball’s Bridge, Dublin. 
On Wednesday evening a paper on the Cultivation 
of the Poinsettia, by Mr. John Marsden, Westbourne, 
was read at a meeting of the Sheffield and Hallam- 
shire Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Society. 
Mr. John Matthews, of the Boyal Pottery, Weston- 
super-Mare, who went out to Chili, South America, 
in October last, arrived home this week. His many 
friends in the gardening world will, we are sure, 
be pleased to hear that he has enjoyed the trip, and 
that his well earned holiday has been the means of 
greatly improving his health. 
Mr. Maclean, who has been gardener at Beaumanor, 
Park, Loughborough, Leicestershire, for forty years, 
is retiring on a pension, and Mr. Hamshere, late of 
The Brand, Loughborough, has been engaged to 
succeed him. 
Mr. Edward Bowe, florist, Northampton, died on 
the 30th ult., aged forty-six years. Mr. Bowe was 
formerly gardener to the Viscountess Clifden, and 
was a very successful exhibitor of Chrysanthemums. 
At the annual meeting of the Kislingbury, Beds., 
Sparrow Club, held lately, it was stated that nearly 
7,500 sparrows had been destroyed in the parish 
during the previous twelve months. Every member 
is supposed to produce twelve sparrows a month, or 
forfeit a penny for every one deficient, and no birds 
are allowed to be destroyed on Sundays! 
The first new Black Hamburgh Grapes that we 
have seen this season appeared in Covent Garden 
Market early in the week. Some samples of Beurre 
Superfine and Glou Morceau Pears, imported from 
the Cape, have also appeared in the market lately. 
Photinia serrulata, a very ornamental evergreen, 
best known in many gardens by the name of Crataegus 
glabra, is beautifully in flower against the mansion 
at Vinters Park, Maidstone. Its rich panicles of 
small white flowers, and handsome shining foliage, 
render it an object of great beauty. 
Pteridologists will be pleased to learn, says a 
writer in The Gardeners' Chronicle , that two very 
interesting Lyeopods have recently been added to the 
collection of living Ferns at Kew; they are Phyllo- 
glossum Drummondi, a truly remarkable little plant, 
not much more than 1 in. high when fully developed, 
and Tmesipteris Forsteri, which has a habit somewhat 
similar to the allied Lycopodiums, but differs in having 
the leaves arranged in threes and in their being large, 
falcate, and bilobed, with the capsule seated in the 
base of the fork, 
The twenty-ninth edition of the Official Guide to 
the Boyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, enlarged and con¬ 
siderably improved, has just been issued from the 
press. 
The first annual exhibition of the Newcastle, Staf¬ 
fordshire, Bose and Horticultural Society will be held 
in July next. 
The Aberdare Horticultural Society will hold its 
annual exhibition on Thursday, August 6th. 
So that the Daffodil Committee, at its meeting at 
the Boyal Horticultural Society on Tuesday, may have 
an opportunity of examining as many new forms of 
Dafiodil as possible, amateurs and others are invited 
to send up any forms which they think to be new, 
MIGNONETTE IN POTS. 
In reference to Mr. King’s note on the cultivation 
of Mignonette at p. 474, allow me to say that I do not 
think the system of stopping the plants is to be 
commended if the production of large spikes of bloom 
is desired. The mode of culture that I have found 
to answer best is to sow the seed in the autumn for 
early spring flowering, using 4-in. pots filled with 
sandy loam and leaf-mould in equal parts, and 
placing them in a cold frame. The seed is sown 
rather thickly, so that a good selection can be made 
of four to six of those with broad round foliage, as 
plants with laciniated leaves invariably produce short, 
puny spikes. It is a good plan to make two sowings 
in the autumn, one about the end of August, and 
another towards the beginning of October. The first 
sowing will, by thinning early and giving a 2-in. shift, 
using some good rich loam and removing the plants to 
a light position in a warm greenhouse, be in bloom by 
Christmas. 
But it is to the late sowing that we must look for 
the production of large spikes. As they are sown 
late and wintered in a cold frame the plants will 
make a steady growth until the end of the year 
without showing flower, which is an object of 
importance, for if the plant should show flower 
prematurely, it is better to cut the plant out entirely 
than to stop it and so produce three or four weakly 
ones. Towards the turn of the year, before the 
flower buds form, they should have a shift into 6-in. 
pots, using some good turfy loam, with a liberal 
admixture of bone meal or other manure in the soil, 
and a small portion of fowl or pigeon-dung over the 
drainage will be especially beneficial. They should be 
potted firmly, and have a neat stake put to each 
plant, and when the pots are filled with roots, liquid 
manure should be given freely, and care be taken 
that the soil is never allowed to become dry at any 
time. 
If extra large spikes are desired, all side shoots 
must be closely stopped. I consider the chief points 
in Mignonette culture to be (1) to obtain a good 
strain of seed, (2) to pot firmly, and (3) to feed freely. 
I have frequently, by following this system, produced 
spikes of bloom averaging 9 ins. to 12 ins. in length ; 
the longest one I ever remember seeing attained the 
extraordinary length of 17 ins., but it is only by 
careful selection of seed and the free use of stimulants 
that such results can be obtained. 
The reason I prefer 4-in. pots for sowing in is that 
owing to the extremely tender roots peculiar to this 
plant, and the slowness in producing them, and to 
the soil being made quite firm, they can be shifted 
on without a check. After the plants have done 
flowering some of the best may be selected for potting 
on into 8-ins., but for general decorative purposes 
6-in. pots will be found quite large enough. Where 
required for decoration during the summer and 
autumn, seeds should be sown every other month, 
and it is surprising with what ease a few dozen 
convenient-sized pots can be nicely filled with sweet, 
healthy-grown Mignonette.— M. C., Somerset. 
■ 0—- -O 
THE AMARYLLIS AS AN 
AMATEUR’S PLANT. 
The notes published in this journal at p. 455, on the 
Amaryllis at Messrs. Veitch’s, and the gorgeous display 
produced by them in then- nursery, have doubtless 
produced a feeling in the hearts of many amateurs 
that they would like to possess a few of them, if they 
had but a suitable place in which to grow them. To 
all such as have any doubt as to their facilities 
for growing these popular plants, I would say that, 
according to my experience, they are among the 
easiest cultivated plants with which I am acquainted. 
Anyone possessing a vinery and a greenhouse, or even 
either the former or the latter only, may successfully 
grow and flower the Amaryllis, the main essentials to 
success being a good growing temperature after they 
have done flowering, and perfect rest during the 
winter months. 
Assuming one to be in possession of plants now in 
flower, or about to flower, an ordinary greenhouse or 
conservatory will suit them well until they have 
passed out of flower, when a light position in a vinery 
which is now in growth, and therefore kept at a grow¬ 
ing temperature, would suit them well. They should at 
this stage be supplied with an abundance of water at 
the root, whenever they become at all dry, and also 
have occasional waterings with diluted liquid manure 
through the whole of the growing season. Towards 
autumn, when the plants begin to show signs of going 
to rest, the liquid manure should be wholly withheld, 
and water also to a certain extent, no more being 
given than is necessary to keep the foliage from 
suffering by flagging; and as soon as the leaves have 
turned yellow, no more water should be given until the 
following spring at starting time. Too much stress 
cannot be placed on this system of wholly withholding 
water, for if by any means the bulbs are excited into 
growth before they have had their full season of rest 
and ripening, the reward will be a crop of leaves and 
no flowers. Neither is it necessary to remove them 
to a cooler structure when the resting commences, 
as they will be perfectly at home in the vinery even 
till the following spring, provided frost is excluded. 
It is well-known what a baking the bulbs of Nerine 
will bear—indeed it is necessary to their successful 
flowering. I have known pots of these stand on 
shelves in the summer months, exposed to the blazing 
sun without a particle of shading, or even water, the 
whole of the time. It is well known that A. Belladonna 
seldom flowers in this country, except after hot and 
drying summers, without it is specially favoured by 
some artificial means. Where watering and such 
like work is left to others who do not thoroughly 
understand the nature of these plants, there is aa 
hankering desire to give the plants going to rest just 
a little drop of water, thinking that to be the safest 
plan, and the consequence is the plants are started 
into growth again and no amount of drying will 
remedy the evil done during that season. To avoid 
this, the pots in which the plants are growing should 
be turned over on their sides and remain so until 
started again in spring. 
Those who do not care to go to the expense of 
buying flowering plants will welcome the opportunity 
now offered in the way of seed, and it is to be hoped 
that by one of these two means these delightful plants 
will be found in almost every garden where one or 
more glass structures are at command. Seed purchased 
now, or a little earlier, as would have been more 
desirable, and sown in a sandy mixture of peat and 
loam, and placed in a Cucumber or Melon frame, would 
in a few weeks be fit to pot off. These should be 
potted on as they require it and kept in a growing 
temperature in a light position not too far from the 
glass. It would not be advisable to dry off young 
growing plants so much as those that it is intended 
should flower, and if well treated these young plants 
will flower after their second year’s growth. 
The best time to pot old flowering bulbs is at 
starting time, shaking them clean out of their pots and 
placing them in fresh ones well drained, in a mixture 
of peat, loam, and a little powdered dry cow-manure, 
with a good portion of sharp sand. Give them one 
watering to settle the soil, and place them in a brisk 
heat, if at command ; water with care till growth in leaf 
and root has taken place, after which liberal supplies 
will be necessary. By starting a few at a time they may 
be had in flower for many weeks and will not fail to 
produce an imposing effect when mixed with other 
spring and early summer-flowering plants.— W. C. C. 
— 'g — 
THE CARNATION DISEASE. 
I may be repeating something already said about 
this matter, but it is of such importance that I think 
most of your readers interested will excuse it. I 
think we have demonstrated that the cause of tbe 
Carnation disease, and, in fact, of most of the other 
diseases of plants is, first, from lessened vigour in the 
variety, first caused by treatment contrary to what the 
nature of the plant demands. To begin with, the 
Carnation for the past twenty-five years has been 
forced for winter-flowering in almost every section c f 
the country, and nearly in all cases by the sane 
process of keeping a temperature at night averaging, 
from November to April, at least 55 degs., with 
perhaps 15 degs. more during the day. Cuttings are 
taken off from the forced plants, put into a propagating- 
house, often at a high temperature, and when rooted 
are grown along at the same temperature at which the 
plants that are forced for flowers are grown, until they 
are planted out in the open ground in May, where the 
