mber 26, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
193 
awarded to Mr. Dedcott, for two dwarf plants of 
W. H. Lincoln, struck from cuttings at the end of 
May, and which were about eighteen inches high 
with three good blooms in each. Messrs. Pope & 
Sons, King’s Norton Nurseries, sent two seedling 
Primulas of considerable promise, one an improved 
Emperor, the other a fine single pink variety. 
Roman Hyacinths.—Growers generally are rejoicing 
over the quality and quantity of bloom which the 
Roman Hyacinths are yielding this season, thanks to 
well-ripened bulbs, and we refer to the fact in order 
emark from evidence placed before us, that though 
seedsmen and other dealers are generally prejudiced 
against rough, ugly shaped bulbs, it does not follow 
that the ugly bulbs are the worst sample to buy. In 
the autumn we saw some very ugly ones in the 
possession of one of the largest wholesale importers, 
the bulbs having knobs all round the base, and a few 
days ago were shown a sample of them that had been 
forced and which gave extraordinary results in the 
way of spikes. One bulb bore no less than thirteen 
spikes, and on five bulbs we counted fifty-two spikes, 
or an average of over ten spikes each, and all 
saleable stuff. The moral is evident—Don't despise 
ugly bulbs. 
Pretty Well for Greens. — The newly published 
Memories of Dean Hole (London : Edwin Arnold) 
contains the following racy story, which the Dean 
used to tell with great gusto :—An old Oxford friend, 
who had a living in Worcestershire, was visiting his 
parishioners, when one of them, an old woman, 
informed him that since they met “ she’d gone 
through a sight of trouble. Her sister was dead, 
and there wor a worse job than that; the pig died 
all of sudden, but it pleased the Lord to tak’ 'im, 
and they mun bow, they mun bow.” Then the poor 
old lady brightened up and said, " But there’s one 
thing, Mestur Allen, as I can say, and ought to say 
-—the Lord's been pretty well on my side this winter 
for greens! ” 
-- 
THE FOG ANNIHILATOR. 
Plant growers in and about the metropolis, and 
Orchid growers in particular, have again had a sad 
reminder of the baneful influence of that specially 
detestable condition of the atmosphere which is 
known as the “ London particular.” Deplorable 
indeed are some of the accounts which have reached 
us with regard to several Orchid collections, and 
they set us wondering how Mr. Toope was getting 
on with his ” Fog annihilator ” On Tuesday we 
went down to Stepney Square, Mile End, to see what 
he was doing for ourselves, and are bound to say 
that we came away very sensibly impressed with the 
fact that Mr. Toope’s system of ventilation does 
reduce the deleterious effects of fog in plant houses to a 
minimum, and being capable of application to existing 
houses at a very moderate cost, we can with every 
confidence recommend the system for general 
adoption as the most satisfactory solution of the 
difficulty that has yet been introduced. 
A factory yard, in Stepney, is about the last place 
one would expect to find anyone putting up an 
Orchid house in, or anticipating even a very moderate 
amount of success in their culture, yet Mr. Toope 
has succeeded with the aid of his "Annihilator” 
under conditions that would otherwise have been 
well nigh heartbreaking. We have already given 
details of the system, and need now say only that it 
consists of affixing boxes of charcoal inside the house, 
over the bottom ventilators, and under the hot-water 
pipes, so that the air is purified before passing into 
the house and warmed at the same time, and drawn 
out of the house by means of exhaust caps fixed in 
the apex of the roof. By these means a current of 
fresh air can be constantly passed through the house 
night and day, fog or no fog, and the health of the 
Orchids and other plants of known susceptibility to 
damage by fog, which Mr. Toope has obtained for 
trial, testify to the efficacy of the system. 
In the case of Mr. Toope’s house, which is divided 
into two compartments, all the bottom ventilators 
have the charcoal boxes affixed to them, but this 
would not be necessary under all circumstances. In 
more salubrious places all that would be necessary 
would be to affix them to those ventilators which are 
used in the winter, the others being kept closed, and 
in this way a large house could be perfectly ventilated 
in winter by two boxes on each side of the house, 
and two exhaust caps on the top, the cost of the 
apparatus being a merely nominal sum. Mr. Toope 
is a very ingenious man, and the heating of his house 
is as ingenious as himself. For piping he uses only 
the same kind of zinc as he employs in the manu¬ 
facture of the numerous most useful little apparatuses 
which he has invented for heating small greenhouses; 
and in the daytime the water is heated by surplus 
steam from a steam boiler, and at night by gas. 
--- 
A NEW FUMIGATOR. 
Mr. William Finch, gardener to Mr. Alderman 
Marriott, Queen’s Road, Coventry, and one of the 
best specimen plant growers of the present day, has 
invented a new form of fumigator, which after some 
twelve months’ experience, he has found to answer so 
satisfactorily, that he is putting it on the market for 
the benefit of other growers. The special feature of 
the new fumigator is the water way, fed at the top, 
which surrounds the fire and the tobacco paper, and 
soplaced to prevent the smoke from being overheated, 
thus securing a dense body of cool smoke. The 
inventor also claims that by using this form of 
fumigator there is a great saving in tobacco paper or 
tobacco rag whichever may be used. Mr. Finch 
says also, "The fumigator being light in weight, can be 
carried about by a boy ; it is so securely made as to 
be practically indestructible ; and the draught is so 
perfect that much watching is unnecessary, the 
smoke passing freely through the smoke distributor.” 
The general design of the Fumigator is well shown 
in the accompanying illustration, and we may add 
that it is made in three sizes. 
-- 5 -- 
ON SEEDLINGS.* 
The long-expected book on seedlings, at which Sir 
John Lubbock has been working for the past eight 
years or more, has at last made its appearance in two 
bulky volumes. During the time he has been work¬ 
ing up the subject he has prepared separate papers 
for the Linnsean and other societies. That on 
seedlings has been used as an introduction to the 
present work, and some others have been incorporated 
with it. The writers on seedlings, seeds, &c., have 
been very numerous, but their works are small 
compared with the great work under notice—indeed 
there is nothing comparable with it except Gartner's 
De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum, and that is 
now about ioo years old. This work is therefore the 
*A Contribution to our Knowledge of Seedliws, by the Right 
Hon. Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., &c., with 684 figures in the 
text. In two vols., 8vo. Published by Kegan, Paul, Trench, 
Trubner & Co., London. 
most extensive and exhaustive that has ever been 
written by an English author, and will no doubt 
continue to be so for many years to come. 
Each volume consists of over 600 pages of text, 
with a copious index and a very extensive biblio¬ 
graphy at the end of the second volume. After the 
introduction, the whole of the natural orders of 
flowering plants, of which specimens of seeds or 
seedlings could be obtained, have been gone through 
systematically, from the Ranunculaceae to the 
Grasses. The Dicotyledonous orders have supplied 
by far the largest number of specimens, as may be 
judged from the fact that the first volume only gets 
to the end of the Cucurbitaceae, or Cucumber family. 
The more extensive orders, as might be imagined, 
have furnished the largest number of different types 
for illustration and description. T his again applies 
to the Dicotyledons; for, considering the number of 
the Orchidaceae, Palmaceae, Liliaceae, Gramineae, 
and other Monocotyledonous orders, the amount of 
variation amongst the seedlings is comparatively 
limited, and the embryos to a great extent modelled 
after the same plan. The Dicotyledonous orders 
furnishing many types are the Compositae, Legumi- 
nosae, Cruciferae, Rosaceae, and Ranunculaceae. 
The investigations have necessarily been limited to 
a great extent to garden plants cultivated for use or 
ornament, with such others as could be obtained from 
a few other sources. The resources of Kew are by 
no means limited in this respect when compared 
with other gardening institutions, but the Royal 
Gardens cannot be considered a place for the raising 
of Orchids, hence the material of that order dealt 
with in the book are rather meagre. The differences 
in the seeds and seedlings of that order are, how¬ 
ever, unimportant, because the embryo is always very 
diminutive and undifferentiated. 
The intention of the author has evidently been to 
confine the work to the description of the seeds and 
seedlings without going into lengthy speculations on 
the why and the wherefore of different forms occur¬ 
ring amongst allied plants, and which would have 
greatly burdened the text and rendered the work 
very unwieldly in its dimensions. The forms of the 
cotyledons are indeed accounted for in most cases as 
due to the size and form of the seed, and the folding 
of large embryos into the smallest space so as to 
occupy the space at their command in the seeds 
with the greatest economy. The index, together 
with the fact that the seedlings are all arranged 
systematically in their natural orders, will facilitate 
reference by those who may have occasion to refer 
to the work while carrying on investigations in the 
same or other fields of plant life. In short the work 
cannot fail to be of service or interest to botanists, 
physiologists, and naturalists generally in various 
spheres of intellectual research while working in the 
laboratory, the class room, or otherwise. 
Seedlings, there is reason to believe, represent the 
former conditions of the adult stages of plants 
at geologically remote periods of their history. In 
the majority of cases it is evident that an onward 
progress in the evolution of plants is being main¬ 
tained, but in other cases there is an evident retro¬ 
grade movement. For instance the seedlings of 
Acacias and their allies have pinnate or bipinnate 
leaves, while the adult plants in most cases have 
their leaves reduced to flattened petioles. The 
curious Acanthosicyos horrida has all its leaves 
reduced to mere prickles, while the cotyledons are of 
the average size of those of other members of the 
Cucumber family. The different stages of the 
embryo of Acer Pseudo-Platanus and Pterocarpa 
caucasica are very interesting, and show the methods 
by which the said embryos become so complicated 
when fully developed. Sir John Lubbock has also 
found out some very interesting cases of intercallary 
growth in the cotyledons of various genera of the 
Onograrise, whereby they ultimately come to resemble 
true leaves in form. These are all well illustrated. 
-—i*- 
The Wolverhampton Horticultural Society—-Four 
years of success has marked the duration of this 
society. A profit of /310 on last year's exhibition 
has resulted, and the society besides having a large 
reserve fund in hand has already voted good sums of 
money to the Public Park for improvements. A 
further sum of £74 has just been voted for the pur¬ 
pose of providing a band in the Park at times during 
the summer. A further sum of £1 ,000 has also been 
voted for the erection of a large conservatory in the 
Park, and still the society has £200 at its bankers 
besides the reserve fund. 
