January 5, 1898. 
298 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
much longer time to open their flowers than those 
taken say, three weeks later, but several kinds will 
be much too soon for the time specified if allowed to 
remain exposed to the sun. These I place about 
three feet from the foot of a north wall, at the end 
of August, no stimulants being given as feeding only 
aggravates the evil of softness of wood. They are 
kept under this wall until the flowers show colour. 
Plants that set from August 6th are disbudded at 
one operation, and those that are inclined to be late, 
are kept on the dry side and placed in the sunniest 
position. From the time the buds begin to set until 
they have attained the size of a pea, feeding is 
resorted to very slightly as a preventive against 
undue thickening of the stem directly below the 
buds. 
Housing.— I begin to house the plants about the 
i6th of September, and contrive to have all in by 
the end of the first week in October. Before the 
plants are taken in the pots are well washed, and the 
tips of the plants dusted with tobacco powder. They 
are also syringed with the solution for mildew, as re¬ 
commended by Mr. Molyneux in his able book on the 
Chrysanthemum, the recipe being to boil one pound 
each of sulphur and unslacked lime in five gallons 
of water for twenty minutes. Of this I use three 
wine-glassesful to three gallons of water. One 
person holds the plant slantingly over and another 
syringes thoroughly the undersides of the leaves. 
I find this a positive cure and preventative, and per¬ 
fectly safe to use. 
For the first fortnight after the plants are in, all 
the air possible should be put on the houses both 
day and night. Afterwards, as the buds gradually 
unfold, reduce the quantity, more especially that 
admitted by the bottom ventilators, and keep a night 
temperature from 50° to 55°, with a regular circula¬ 
tion of air. Under no consideration should the 
houses be closed, excepting when it is necessary to 
fumigate. This should be done only at night, and 
then the air should not be off for more than two 
hours. Damping I attribute chiefly to over-feeding, 
deficiency of air, and a low temperature. Even in 
foggy weather I keep a good chink of air on the 
top to carry off inside moisture, and to assist this I 
also leave a little on the bottom. During the fog 
I raise the temperature to 58°. If the above instruc¬ 
tions are rightly carried out there will be little 
damage done through fog. 
Scalding. —Several sorts are subject to scalding. 
Nearly all the dark colours, particularly such 
varieties as G. W. Childs, W. Seward, Alberic 
Lunden, Gloire du Rocher, Col. W. B. Smith, J. 
Shrimpton, and Jeanne Delaux. These I shade with 
brown paper from the time the buds show colour, 
the buds also being treated in the same manner. 
The same temperature as advised above is main¬ 
tained, viz., 50° to 558 Fahr., a low temperature 
being detrimental to the keeping qualities of the 
blooms while in the house. 
Preserving Blooms. —To preserve the blooms 
that are too early I place the plant in a loft above 
the potting shed, which is darkened, also placing a 
heap of lime-shell in each corner, and a bag of 
charcoal in the dampest part. In this loft I have 
often kept blooms fresh for a period of from 
two to three weeks. The plants receive just enough 
water to keep them from flagging, and are taken in 
when to finish the bloom. The chief essentials for 
their preservation is to keep a steady temperature 
and a dry atmosphere. 
Late Blooms may be assisted with sulphate of 
ammonia, as advised, and placed in the warmest 
part of the house, keeping the buds from 12 to 18 in. 
from the glass. In fact, if all the buds can be kept 
at this distance the colour will be much improved. 
Broken Shoots. —If by any means the tips of the 
branches be broken off, either in a growing state or 
after the buds are set, I strongly advise that such 
should not be cut off at the base at once, but rather 
that a few inches be cut off every other day until 
the base is reached. Doing so the plants receive 
little or no check, and flowers are much better than 
they would be otherwise. 
Insects. —Green fly, puck or spit fly, earwigs, and 
caterpillars are the greatest pests we have to contend 
with. Tobacco powder is the best preventive, it is 
easily applied, killing all green fly, and keeps them 
from damaging the points better than anything I 
know. For earwigs and caterpillars it is a good 
plan to go through the plants at night with a lamp 
and destroy them. 
Staging.— Time prevents me from speaking about 
staging more than simply saying try and furnish the 
boards with even sized, well-finished, and well- 
coloured blooms, rather than have a few extra large 
flowers to the detriment of the remainder. Arrange 
the colours so that each assists in bringing out more 
fully the qualities of its neighbours to the fullest 
advantage. 
-- 
THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 
In a recent lecture at Oldham on " Plants and 
Flowers, and why they are interesting to us all,” 
Archdeacon Wilson, of Rochdale, said :—Everyone 
knew the fame of the Lancashire botanists. 
Certainly thirty years ago it was a conspicuous 
feature in the intellectual interests of that county, 
and there were still many botanists in Oldham and 
other Lancashire manufacturing towns. It was, 
however, the general opinion that the interest in 
botany among the working class had fallen off of late 
years, and it was worth considering why it was so. 
It was in part due, he was sure, to the extreme 
interest taken in games—in football in the winter 
and cricket in the summer—which had attracted 
people who used in former times to take walks and 
to study. He had been assured by Mr. Bruce 
Findlay, of the Botanical Gardens, Old Trafford, 
that now no more than a hundred persons went to 
visit his gardens on holidays where a thousand used 
to go a few years ago. That gentleman attributed 
the falling off to the cause he had stated. There 
was something also perhaps in the pressure of life, 
and something perhaps, too, in the difference of the 
education which was now given. There was besides 
another reason connected with botany itself, and that 
was the only reason with which he was concerned 
now. It was that the objects of botany had to some 
extent changed during the last thirty years, and he 
thought there was an impression that it had got past 
the stage at which amateur work could be of much 
service. It was to resist that opinion, and to show 
that amateur work had more to do in botany now 
than it ever had before, that he was present that 
night to try if he could do something to revive the 
study of botany among them, to put before them its 
charms and its interests, to suggest fields of work for 
them, to encourage those who were studying the 
subject, and perhaps to induce new volunteers to 
take it up. Certainly he was very strongly of im¬ 
pression that there was much of engrossing interest 
bearing not only upon botanical studies themselves, 
but upon philosophy generally which might be done 
by amateurs, even in this unfavourable district, in 
the heart of a manufacturing town. Thirty years 
ago he was something of a student and teacher of 
botany, and though other studies had long ago 
supplanted botany in his life, he had never lost his 
intense interest in that study. In passing he might 
say that there were still discoveries open to them. 
In this county of Lancaster not long ago a Bacup 
working man made a most interesting discovery of a 
plant quite unknown to England, which was now one 
of the treasured possessions of Kew. Plants and 
flowers no doubt originally interested people as they 
interested savages and quite uneducated people at 
the present time—chiefly from the point of view of 
their utility. Plants were divided by such people 
into those which were edible, those which were 
medicinal, and those which were poisonous. When 
savages saw a botanist collecting they always thought 
that it was with a view to finding something good to 
eat. Their curiosity had not reached beyond that 
point. The next stage which people reached was the 
cultivation of flowers for their beauty, and that, as 
they knew, had long been rooted in England to the 
very great benefit of England. Nothing was more 
charming than the cottage gardens spread over the 
whole land, and the cultivation of beautiful old- 
fashioned and new-fashioned flowers. Very much 
gain had accrued to the study of botany from this 
love of flowers, which seemed in-born in children, 
and belonged to our whole race. It was one of the 
characteristics of the English people that they liked 
to grow flowers in their gardens and windows for the 
sake of their beauty, and he believed that flowers 
had had a great and sweet influence on the character 
of the English people. Then there was another 
interest in flowers, that was the passion for collecting 
and classifying them. This began, as did nearly 
every fertile idea that still existed in the world, with 
the Greeks. Some three hundred years before Christ 
there arose naturalists in Greece who studied flowers 
for their own sake from pure curiosity, and classified, 
described and arranged all the plants that they knew, 
Like many other branches of study it died out during 
the early Christian centuries in all that turbulent 
time and through the dark ages. 
With the Renaissance and the recovery of Greek 
literature there began in Europe a study of classifi- 
catory botany. He could not attempt to describe 
what progress was made during the 15th, i6tb, and 
17th centuries. Suffice it to say that through Europe 
that study had begun to attract great names. In 
the 18th century there was one name that stood out 
above all others, that of Linnaeus. He acquired 
with astonishing rapidity all the knowledge of botany 
that the world possessed up to bis time, and 
advanced it by travelling in every country in Europe. 
It was to Linnaeus they owed the naming of plants 
—that each plant had a double name of its genus 
and species. He discovered that in plants so widely 
diverse as they were, there were certain parts which 
were repeated in every plant, and therefore parts 
that deserved special names. Up to his time plants 
had been elaborately described, but there was no 
type of a plant to which all plants could be referred. 
He therefore invented because he discovered the 
need of technical nomenclature, and he also by 
making a scheme of orders and genera gave an 
immense impetus to the study of plants with a view 
to finding new species. All over Europe people 
began to study the Linnaean system, and were 
charmed with the discovery of a plant not known 
to Linnaeus ; hence the formation of local floras— 
that was a list of all the plants that could be found 
within miles of a certain spot. There arose 
obviously comparisons between these local floras and 
others which led to the study of geographical 
botany, and an examination of the reasons why the 
flora in one place differed from or resembled that in 
another. The result of all this was that the number 
of known plants grew quite enormously. 
In the time of the Greeks perhaps 500 plants were 
known, in the time of the Romans when Pliny wrote 
perhaps 1,000 plants were known and named, when 
Linnaeus lived 10,000 were known to him ; and at 
the present day, partly owing to the causes he (the 
lecturer) had described, and the discovery of the 
microscope, the number had risen to about 200,000, 
and there was no reason for believing that the limit 
had been reached yet. A more natural system of 
classification had followed the Linnaean system, and 
was now universally adopted. Meantime there was 
growing up quite a large interest in botany and the 
study of the morphology of plants. Everyone knew 
that mammalia were formed upon a certain universal 
plan. Cats and dogs, horses and cows, whilst they 
had specific generic differences, were plainly formed 
on one type, and it was so with plants. There 
followed a great deal of microscopic study of botany 
and study of the cell containing its little atom of 
protoplasm. Modern botany had passed into the 
stage of morphology, and it was this stage that so 
attracted botanists and was so open to the work of 
amateurs. His lecture would give them very little 
information, but his purpose would be served if they 
would look into some of the modern books on 
botany, which were as interesting as romances. As 
text books Archdeacon Wilson advised his hearers 
to study the University Extension manual, “ Chapters 
on Modern Botany,” by Professor Geddes, and 
“The Natural History of Plants” (two volumes), 
by Kerner and Oliver. In his subsequent remarks 
the lecturer dealt with the study of plants as living 
growing organisms with marvellous instinct. En¬ 
larged photographs of parasitic and insectivorous 
plants were exhibited on the screen and described in 
a lucid manner. 
--*»- 
Certificated Chrysanthemums.—The committees 
appointed by the American Chrysanthemum Society 
to examine and report on the new seedling Chrysan¬ 
themums have recommended the following varieties 
for the Society's Certificate :—Miss Gladys Spauld¬ 
ing, white, incurved Chinese; Helen Bloodgood, 
clear pink, incurved Japanese; Jeannie Falconer, 
yellow, incurved Japanese ; Miss Margaret Newbold, 
pink, incurved Japanese; Oak Shade, purplish-pink; 
Mrs. Edwin H. Trotter, white, reflexed Japanese; 
Miss Louise D. Black, bright yellow, incurved 
Chinese ; Mrs. Wm. H. Rand, orange-yellow, reflexed 
Japanese ; Fred Walz, lilac-pink, incurved Japanese ; 
New York, white tinged with lemon, incurved 
Japanese; Francis B. Hayes, rose-pink, incurved 
Japanese; Gold Fever, yellow, incurved Chinese; 
Henry Rieman, deep yellow, Chinese; Elma O. 
Farrell, rose-pink, reflexed Japanese; and Mrs. Wm. 
H. Kemble, white, divided petals, Japanese.— 
Gardening (American). 
