192 
THE G/VRDkNING WORLD. 
November 26, 1892. 
Our Chrysanthemum growing friends at 
the Antipodes will thus be able to see some¬ 
thing of the quality which holds good about 
London. The flowers will be sent out in 
two stands, as set up for exhibition, with 
tubes and cups complete and frozen solid in 
zinc frames with room enough to admit of 
three inches width of ice all round the 
stands. When placed in the water the 
vessels were put into a cold chamber regis¬ 
tering 14 degrees of frost, and in about a 
week they were ready for the zinc tops to 
be put on. Before dispatching them on 
their long journey the zinc boxes will be 
placed in strong wooden cases with a pack¬ 
ing of sawdust between the wood and the 
zinc, and in this way there will be no diffi¬ 
culty in sending them out. 
The thanks of the committee are largely 
due to Mr. Kaye, the manager of the Cold 
Storage Company, for he has given every 
facility for freezing the blooms, and that 
without any cost to the National Chrysan¬ 
themum Society. Mr. Kaye’s staff have 
also taken a lively interest in the matter, 
the lovely flowers evidently being a decided 
change to them from the daily sight of little 
else but frozen mutton. 
$The Naked Jasmine.— This remarkable 
^ plant may very well be said to con¬ 
stitute the link which binds the shrubby 
or hardy climbers of the old year to those 
of the new. It seems as if it were an odd 
and almost unnatural fancy on the part of 
this plant that ic should display its first 
blooms in November, just as all other 
things seem to be giving over, and should, 
except when very severe weather prevails, 
be found blooming all through the winter. 
With the aid of this hardy climber we may 
have some of this useful section of plants 
in bloom all the year round. Hardly is it 
over before the good old Pyrus japonica is 
flowering; and then, what with Jasmines, 
Clematises, Roses, Honeysuckles, Escal- 
lonias, and myriads of other things, there 
need be no lack of wall bloom until the 
yellow Jasmine again resumes flowering. 
Out in the border we have no plant so 
generous in winter blooming as is the 
Christmas Rose, or in the shrubbery as 
the Lauristinus, and for that reason alone 
are to be very highly valued. But whilst we 
should perhaps regard the yellow Jasmine 
with scant attention in the flowery months 
of summer, we should always have much re- 
gardfor the white Hellebores of ourborders. 
Happily for us, they bloom at a time when 
outdoors hardly another hardy plant (the 
Jasmine excepted*) is flowering. Yet in 
how many gardens do we find these 
really beautiful midwinter flowers con¬ 
spicuously absent ! Too many gardeners 
think they have done all that is needful 
if they crowd in as many flowers as is pos¬ 
sible into gardens during the short summer 
months, forgetting that a peck of bloom in 
winter or early spring is worth far more 
than a bushel in summer. 
The winter so far is sparing the late out¬ 
door Chrysanthemums, but when these are 
over, and that will be soon, what is there 
to furnish flowers other than the plants we 
have named, until the Snowdrops, Crocuses, 
and Squills remind us that spring is again 
with us, and the turn of the season has 
begun ? 
TTi.knheim.-— -There can be no doubt but 
^ that many interested in horticulture 
are looking with considerable concern as 
to the ultimate fate of this fine place. 
Whilst always a great show place—and 
that is far from being a special gardening 
recommendation—it has of late come to 
possess undoubted gardening features in 
the additions made to the glass department, 
and the collection at great cost of a remark¬ 
ably fine lot of Orchids, which under the 
able control of Mr. Whillans have deve¬ 
loped into a very valuable property. 
We have not too many wealthy men who 
care to embark in Orchid culture, and at 
one time of his life few men perhaps less 
regarded these beauti r ul epiphytes than 
did the late Duke of Marlborough. Now 
there is natural concern as to the ultimate 
fate of the Blenheim collection. We shall 
be sorry for many reasons to learn that it 
is to be dispersed, although that would 
cause no surprise. Orchid culture on a 
large scale is a costly luxury, although the 
floral returns are indeed considerable, for 
Orchid flowers ever will be a long wav 
beyond all other flowers in regard to beauty 
and rarity. Blenheim may well be said to 
constitute a sort of White Elephant to 
its not too fortunate possessor. It can 
only be maintained at enormous cost, and 
even the garden returns, which may seem 
considerable to persons of humble means, 
cannot go far towards recouping the heavy 
annual cost of maintenance. 
Perhaps some day the nation may be 
disposed to deal with the estate as it did 
recently with perpetual pensions, pay the 
owners a stipulated sum and let the palace 
and park revert to public uses. Alone the 
palace or the park would have little of 
horticultural interest, but the enclosed 
gardens certainly are first-rate-, and now 
more than at any previous time attractive. 
No doubt the unexpected death of the late 
Duke of Marlborough has left matters 
relating to Blenheim in great uncertainty. 
&he London County Council and its 
^ Parks.— As will have been remarked 
from a recent statement made in these 
pages, the London County Council has 
come to a wise determination with respect 
to the headship of the public parks and 
gardens department, and having appointed 
Mr. J. J. Sexby to the position of chief of 
the section, is now proceeding to the 
appointment of a duly qualified horti¬ 
culturist to serve as his assistant, as will 
be seen by an advertisement in another 
column. The salary attached to the office 
— £3°° P er year—is by no means excessive, 
yet fairly good, and should tempt very 
good men to try to attain so excellent a 
position, because it is certain that a post 
of this kind carries with it many social 
distinctions. 
But then the holder should be an able 
practical gardener and especially one who 
has a very wide knowledge of all that 
relates to the decorative aspects of garden¬ 
ing ; he must be a good manager of men, 
be capable of laying out new grounds, and 
above all it is needful that he should be a 
man of suave disposition and willing to 
regard with all consideration the opinions 
of the able men who now hold the position 
of park or garden superintendents, and 
with whom it might be very easily possible 
for an injudicious man to get into an un¬ 
pleasant condition of friction. 
It is to be hoped that the Council will 
not fix the maximum age for candidates for 
this post too low. It is not physical 
strength so much as practical knowledge 
and professional capacity which is required 
to fill such a position. 
--i-- 
Olympia.— The committee of the Gardeners’ 
Orphan Fund has arranged with Mr. Imre Kiralfy 
to take a ticket benefit at Olympia during the fort¬ 
night commencing on Dec. 5th, in aid of the Orphan 
Fund. We hope to give full particulars in our next. 
Proposed Earlier Opening of Kew Gardens.—The 
First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Works, Mr. G. 
Shaw Lefevre, has just given his promised interview 
to Mr. F. G. Heath, and has promised to carefully 
consider the subject of an earlier opening of Kew 
Gardens. 
Sotneth-ng like a Chrysanthemum. — A Derby 
paper states that one particular novelty this season 
in a gentleman’s collection of Chrysanthemums at 
Chesterfield “ was a green variety named Florence 
Davies, that when shown at Birmingham last year 
required several policemen to keep the crowd off.” 
This will be news at Lilford Road. 
The National Amateur Gardeners’ Association.— 
Arrangements have been made for the annual dinner 
of this association to take place at the Holborn 
Restaurant, on Tuesday evening, December 13th, at 
seven o’clock precisely. The medals, certificates, and 
other awards, won during the year, will be pre¬ 
sented to the respective winners on this occasion. 
Liverpool Horticultural Association—The first 
meeting of the season of the members of this associa¬ 
tion was held in the Free Library, Liverpool, on the 
19th inst , when Mr. Thomas White, of Aigburth, 
read a paper on “ The culture of hardy bulbous 
plants,” which was supplemented by some notes on 
the same class by Mr. Harrison, of Knowsley, and 
which will be found on p. 195. 
Hartland's WhiteTrumpet Daffodils.— We are sorry 
to learn from the Cork papers, that owing to a fire 
which originated in the out offices at Ard Cairn, 
Cork, and spreading to the bulb house, on the evening 
of the 17th inst., half of Mr. W. B. Hartland’s col¬ 
lection of White Trumpet Daffodils has been 
destroyed, including one lot of Colleen Bawn, pro¬ 
bably the most valuable of all (600 bulbs). We 
sympathise with Mr. Hartland-in his loss, and hope 
he was covered by insurance, though no money can 
possibly replace some of the stocks now in ashes. 
The Chiswick Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement 
Society has again organised a concert in aid of the 
Gardeners’ Orphan Fund, which came off on the 
10th inst., and with, we are glad to hear, a very 
gratifying measure of success notwithstanding the 
dense fog that enveloped the district that night. The 
surplus of receipts over expenses amounts to £21 5s., 
which sum will obtain four life memberships to be 
balloted for by those members of the association who 
took an active part in promoting the success of the 
entertainment. 
Parish Tithe Maps and Fees — It may not be 
generally known that three copies of each parish 
tithe map are kept in places of safety. One copy is 
to be found in the parish chest, a second at the 
diocesan registry, and the third at the office of the 
Board of Agriculture, in St. James’s Square. The 
passing of the recent new Tithe Act, and the trans¬ 
ference of the payment of tithe in consequence from 
the occupying tenant to the landowner, has caused 
very numerous inquiries to be made at the office in 
St. James’s Square, and many complaints have been 
received there of the largeness of the customary fee 
of 2S. 6d. charged for the inspection of each parish 
map. A fee of is. only is charged for the examina¬ 
tion of documents in the Record Office, and the 
President of the Board of Agriculture has, with the 
consent of the Treasury, now agreed that a similar 
fee of is. only shall be charged for the inspection of 
a parish tithe map. This change will not affect the 
various parish officers and diocesan registrars, who 
will continue to charge the statutory fee of 2s. 6d. as 
heretofore .—Mark Lane Express. 
The Birmingham Gardeners’ Association—The 
meeting of the association on the night of the 14th 
inst., was an exhibition night for new Chrysanthe¬ 
mums and other things. Mr. Robert Owen, 
Maidenhead, sent . a few blooms of new sorts, 
but as all were either from small plants 
or lateral shoots, a just estimate of their 
qualities could not be very well arrived at. The 
following notes are taken of them after seeing them 
in daylight the next morning. A bloom of a seedling 
marked White Fringed reminded us somewhat of old 
Marabout. It is a new type, the flowers pure white, 
and that sent was three inches in diameter, nearly 
half globe-shaped, very double, and each petal 
quilled as in the double flowers of Gaillardia picta 
Lorenziana, with Bouvardia like segments at the 
points. It is a pleasing flower. A Cultural Certifi¬ 
cate was awarded to three very fine blooms of Col. 
W. B. Smith, a fine Japanese sent out last year by 
Messrs. Cannell & Sons, and exhibited by Mr. C. 
E. Harvey. A Cultural Certificate was also 
