April 18, 1895. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
523 
than they are, for beside the earliness of the display 
they afford, their use would introduce a variety into 
the flower garden that many places now lack under 
the prevailing system of the extensive filling of 
beds and borders with Zonal Pelargoniums, Calceo¬ 
larias, and other material of a like nature to which 
the advent of a few degrees of frost spells ruin. The 
saving of labour, too, were the planting of hardy 
flowering or evergreen shrubs more extensively 
followed, would be considerable. The subject is cer¬ 
tainly worthy the attention of every gardener who at 
this season of the year is apt to complain of the way in 
which both the plant and fruit houses are crowded 
with bedding stuff in all stages waiting for the 
warmer weather before they can be placed in their 
flowering quarters with safety, whereas, if some of 
the flower beds were filled with hardy subjects, a 
great deal of this overcrowding might be avoided.-//. 
-- 
A PLEA FOR BIG ONIONS. 
Of all the various kinds of vegetables wthch it falls 
to the task of the gardener to produce with a greater 
or less degree of excellence, none are of more 
importance or give a better value for labour 
expended upon them than the Onion. If any 
proof at all were needed of the high esteem in 
which it is held by all classes, we might be inclined 
to ask where we should find another vegetable—with, 
of course, the exception of the Potato—which is of 
such value to man as food, or which finds a place in 
so many of the gardens throughout the length and 
breadth of the country. Even the cottager with his 
all too few square yards of land looks upon his crop 
of Onions as one of the most necessary of all 
vegetables, in fact, in most cases second only in impor¬ 
tance to the Potato. These men have found by practical 
experience the exceedingly great value of the Onion,not 
only as a delicious vegetable which he enjoys at the 
table, but also on account of its health-giving proper¬ 
ties. At this point I am reminded of a story of a coun¬ 
try doctor, who, on passing a cottage garden containing 
a large bed of Onions, the owner of which was bnsily 
engaged in weeding the same, remarked that he 
feared that family would not need his services very 
frequently during the ensuing year. 
In most of the larger and more pretentious gardens 
Onions are not cultivated so much for use as a 
vegetable to be cooked whole and sent to the table 
in that condition, as for their value as a flavour¬ 
ing agent in the many dishes that appear upon 
the tables of the upper classes, of which the working 
portion of the community has no conception. 
Accordingly, it is very seldom that the gardener in 
large establishments attempts to grow Onions of 
large size unless it is a few for purposes of exhibition, 
esteeming it in many cases a waste of time to do so. 
That this is by no means the case may be testified to 
from more than one quarter, where it is the rule to 
obtain bulbs as large as possible to be cooked whole 
and sent to the table as an ordinary vegetable. It 
will also be discovered that these large Onions are 
always much milder in flavour than the smaller 
ones, and hence receive a better welcome than would 
the stronger flavoured and smaller bulbs. 
It has also been urged against them that the high 
feeding necessary to obtain bulbs of large size 
seriously injures their keeping qualities. This 
again is a fallacy, for providing the bulbs are 
thoroughly dried and ripened before they are con¬ 
signed to the shelves of the store-room, there is 
nothing to prevent them keeping as well as any of 
the rest. The complaints that have at times been 
made against the keeping qualities of large Onions, 
and which are alleged to be caused by their huge 
size, may be usually traced to insufficient or careless 
drying and ripening at harvest time, and every 
gardener knows that if the bulbs, whether large or 
small, are to keep properly through the winter they 
must be well ripened before being stored away.— 
Cepia. 
--o8-- 
PROTECTING EARLY PEAS. 
Peas which have been raised in pots or boxes and 
transferred to the open ground during the brief spell 
of warm, spring-like weather, which cheered us all a 
week or two ago have been having an exceedingly 
bad time of it of late. Judging from present appear¬ 
ances they will have to grow at a very rapid rate in 
order to come in early in the season, as they are ex¬ 
pected to do during ordinary years. While a degree 
or two of frost does not seem to harm them to any 
appreciable extent, the dry cold winds that we have 
been having seem to cause growth almost to stand¬ 
still, and thus we have been able to note exceedingly 
little, if any progress of late. To give them every 
every chance, steps should be taken to shield them 
somewhat from the breath of these unkindly winds. 
If the taller growing sorts have not been staked, this 
should be looked after at once, for it is astonishing 
the amount of shelter that even a thick row of Pea 
stakes will give. This may be supplemented by a 
quantity of cut boughs of evergreens or boards 
which should be placed against the stakes on the 
side from which the cold winds come, and as the 
rows will run from north to south and should, if 
possible, have a wall behind them to shield them 
from the cold north winds, protective material laid 
so as to break the force of the east winds will make 
all things snug and should assist the plants in 
making the headway which every gardener is now so 
anxious to see. For the dwarf varieties, where it 
has been elected to use these for early work in 
preference to the taller growing sorts, a screen of 
Russian mats if these are obtainable placed on the 
eastern side of the plantation will form an invaluable 
shelter.— Beche. 
--*■- 
Hardening Miscellany. 
tXJ 
STREPTOCARPUS GRATUS. 
The name is applied to a new race of hybrids that 
present a different aspect from those already in 
cultivation, and which have been so much inter¬ 
crossed with one another within the last few years. 
S. gratus was obtained from one of the ordinary 
strain crossed with the pollen of S. Dunnii. The 
latter, as is now well known, produces only one large 
leaf, and branching cymes bearing very numerous 
flowers. Plants of the strain under notice produce 
one moderately large leaf and a number of small 
ones, generally about three or four. From the base 
of these arises a large number of flowers of large 
size, and crowded together on scapes but a few 
inches high. Individuals vary slightly in colour, 
some being rosy-purple, others bright rose with a 
shade of violet, and all have darker markings in the 
throat. The value of this strain is that it flowers 
in winter and spring. A batch of plants was flower¬ 
ing in the nursery of Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, 
Chelsea, before the advent of the severe weather, 
but when the temperature rose again in March the 
plants resumed their flowering, and have continued 
a mass of bloom ever since. How long they will 
continue remains to be seen, but evidently they will 
keep up a display for weeks to come. If the dark 
and dull months of the year can be bridged over by 
these useful subjects, a great advantage for horti¬ 
culture will have been gained. 
ASARUM MAXIMUM. 
Our native species, Asarum europaeum, has small, 
dull brown, and inconspicuous flowers, and other 
species are mostly objects of curiosity from a garden 
point of view. One or two are notable for the 
beauty of their foliage. That under notice is a 
comparatively recent introduction from Central 
China, where so many new things have been brought 
to light within the last few years. The leaves are 
heart-shaped, and in no way superior to the foliage 
of our native species, but the flowers are both large 
and curious, as well as to some extent conspicuous 
owing to the strange contrast of colours. They 
nestle amongst the leaves, and are of a velvety dark 
brown with a large white blotch at the base of each 
of the three segments. The surface of the flower is 
warted all round the mouth of the short tube, which 
is filled up with the six dark brownish-purple 
stigmas. A specimen has been flowering in the 
Begonia house at Kew for some time past. 
PAEONIES IN POTS. 
In the flower garden Paeonies always attract a good 
deal of attention, and hence they are held in very 
high esteem as hardy flowering subjects, most 
gardens of any size containing a few of them. Still 
in exceedingly few instances do we see them grown 
in pots for indoor decoration, the reason probably 
being that the idea of doing so has not entered into 
the heads of the majority of gardeners. When 
grown in this way, however, they give but surpris¬ 
ingly little trouble, and grow and bloom away as 
freely as could be desired. In the conservatories 
throughout the country there is, as a rule, a manifest 
sameness in the material they contain at correspond¬ 
ing seasons of the year. The same subjects are 
grown year after year with surprising regularity. 
True they may look well and make a brave display, 
and thus the gardener is tempted to cling to the old 
and well-proven subjects, and hesitates or totally 
refuses to attempt experiments with other plants, the 
result beiDg that we are considerably the losers with 
regard to the charm of variety that is after all one of 
the chief attractions of a well-ordered show house. 
A batch of Paeonies of the Moutan section that are 
at present one of the chief features in the greenhouse 
at Kew admirably illustrate what may be done in 
the way of utilising hardy plants as pot subjects for 
spring blooming. The plants in question have been 
recently brought from Japan, and comprise some 
magnificent scarlet and rosy-pink varieties. 
CRINUM GIGANTEUM 
The great size to which most of the Crinums attain 
before they commence to flower, and the correspond¬ 
ingly large amount of room they require to develop 
themselves, militate to a very large extent against 
their chances of extensive cultivation, although there 
are very few indeed but would accord them a word 
of well-merited praise on seeing them in all their 
beauty. The above fine species, however, is 
evidently contented with considerably less space 
than most of the rest of its congeners, to judge from 
the specimen now in bloom in the Aroid house at 
Kew. The strongly growing scape is about 2 ft. in 
length, and is carrying ten flowers in various stages 
of development, an unusually large number. The 
perianth tube is about 4 in. in length, and the limb 
campanulate and pure white in colour, with the 
exception of a faint orange stripe which runs down 
the centre of each segment. The strong and yet 
vastly agreeable fragrance which the flowers exhale 
is another point in favour of this species which must 
also be mentioned. Like the other Crinums, 
C. giganteum needs an abundance of water during 
its growing and flowering periods, and liquid manure 
may be frequently given with advantage, as it is a 
gross feeder, a stove temperature being necessary. 
It is a native of Western Tropical Africa, being 
introduced from thence as early as the year 1792. 
GOETHEAS. 
It is very seldom indeed that we find these really 
beautiful and showy plants in any of the ordinary 
collections of stove, foliage, or flowering plants 
although no one who had ever seen them would, we 
should imagine, question their right to a place amid 
the ranks of our floral favourites. The genus takes 
its name from J. W. Goethe, a German poet of 
world-wide fame. The segments of the calyx proper 
as well as those of the epicalyx constitute the showy 
part of the flower. G. floribunda has these segments 
of a rich scarlet hue, the leaves being about 6 in. in 
length lanceolate and acuminate, and is both a showy 
and an attractive plant. G. Kermesina has calyx 
segments of rather deeper colour than, and not so 
wide as those of G. floribunda, the leaves also being 
rather broader, and like it, is well worthy of the 
cultivator's attention. Examples of both these plants 
in flower may now be seen in the stove at Kew; also 
a specimen of G. intermedia var. rosea with pink 
coloured calyx segments. 
--*■- 
THE CULTURE OF VEGE¬ 
TABLES. 
(Concluded from page 507.) 
The Mushroom. 
I feel sure that I am well within the bounds of 
reason when I say that no vegetable is more 
appreciated on the table than this well-known 
esculent, and to produce it in quantity with anything 
like regularity is sometimes a difficult matter. Plenty 
of fresh horse-droppings are necessary, these being 
carefully dried and fermented till in a fit condition 
to be used in making up the beds. The shelves in 
the Mushroom house should be made of wood for 
preference, and formed of narrow strips on the 
bottom and side, these being covered with turves cut 
from the meadow when the bed is being made up so 
as to prevent the material from dropping through. 
The manure should then be spread equally over and 
rammed hard until the rack is full; a depth of 18 in. 
will be quite sufficient. When the temperature cf 
the bed has fallen to about 85° Fahr., the spawn 
