* March 19, 1898. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
459 
CHINESE PRIMULAS AT SWANLEY. 
Amongst the various flowers which the Messrs. 
Caunell have taken under their wing, Chinese 
Primulas have been one of the most conspicuous 
successes. Year after year of patient labour, and 
skilful intercrossing and selection of superior forms 
has been necessary before the flower has been 
able to reach the height of excellence to which it 
has now attained. The man in the street can have 
but a very faint idea when looking at the highly 
developed modern Primula of the vast amount of 
work that is there represented. He may be par¬ 
doned, perhaps, for being content to take the plants 
upon their merits, for they are certainly beautiful 
enough, but the consideration that each of these 
highly bred Primulas is the outcome of a long line of 
ancestry covering a considerable range of years, 
through which the race has been guided by the hand 
of man, makes each plant vastly more interesting. 
In this important work no one has played a more 
brilliant part than the Messrs. Cannell, and we are 
fain to acknowledge the indebtedness of the modern 
gardener to them. 
The huge glass establishment at Swanley, supple¬ 
mented by the smaller glass department at the seed 
farm of the firm at Eynsford offers to the Primula a 
large share of its protected area, for house after 
house is filled with plants which, in their zenith of 
floral excellence, constitute an effect which, from a 
spectacular point of view alone, is magnificent. 
As our visit to the nurseries did not take place un¬ 
til the beginning of the present month we were too 
late to see the plants in the first flush of their virgin 
glory, but we reaped the compeosat ng advantage Of 
being able to judge better of the ultimate habit and 
general characteristics of the several varieties. This 
was important, however, because a large number of 
the Swanley varieties are of pyramidal habit of 
growth when fully developed, and thus it is not until 
the more mature stages of their existence that their 
full beauty stands revealed. 
For many, many years now the objective of the 
florist has been to produce a stubby dwarf plant 
with large umbels of fine flowers, and the more this 
dwarfness was apparent the better the strain in his 
estimation. The result was a plant handsome 
enough from his point of view, but almost worthless 
when put to the severe utilitarian test for supplying 
cut flowers. Something to cut, and something that 
will stand for a fair length of time when cut was 
what was wanted, and in his attempts to produce 
th is Mr. Cannell gave us the well-known " Lady ” 
Primula, than which there has been no more start¬ 
ling or complete break away from preconceived 
notions, and precedent during the century. The 
Lady Primula is all that the other type was not. 
Instead of a plant about 8 in. in height, we get one 
about 2 ft., which throws umbel after umbel of 
stellate flowers, one above the other, and the leaves, 
until we have a towering mass of flowers and foliage 
that is truly grand. 
Mr. Robert Cannell has taken " The Lady ” under 
his own wing, as it were, at Eynsford, and has used it 
extensively for the purpose of working up a strain of 
plants which shall have the larger flowers and varied 
colours of the dwarfer type, and the distinctive 
growth and pyramidal habit of the Lady. In this 
laudable enterprise he has nobly succeeded, although 
we look for even more remarkable results in the near 
future. 
In the variety Lady Emily Hart Dyke, of which 
the kindness ot the Messrs. Cannell enables us to 
give our readers an illustration we have one of 
the most valuable of the new race—for so we may 
term it. The habit is somewhat shorter and rather 
more compact than in the Lady, and the flower stems 
and leaf petiotes instead of beiDg black are pink. 
The pure white flowers, too, are larger and rounder, 
but *' The Lady ” blood is distinctly evident. This 
variety will be welcomed by all lovers of the Chinese 
Primula. 
The " Purple Lady ” is the counterpart of the type 
of the race with regard to habit, and the charac¬ 
teristic black stems may also be noted. “ Another 
dip or two,” said Mr. H. Cannell, senr., as we were 
admiring this form, •• and we’ll have a scarlet, and a 
crimson.” Without doubt this will be the case, for we 
noticed that the shade of purple varied considerably 
on the plants, thereby giving evidence that there were 
one or two more colour developments ready to make 
their appearance in the next generation. Once we 
have scarlet and crimson-flowered varieties there 
will be no class of plants more largely deserving of 
extensive recognition than the Lady strain of 
Primulas. Probably, too, we shall be presented a 
little later on with the much sought after “ blue ” 
and then the triumph will be complete. 
Lady Marcham is yet another variety that we 
must not forget to mention. It closely resembles 
Lady Emily Hart Dyke in habit, but the white 
flowers are occasionally blotched and mottled with 
cerise. 
In addition to the Lady race, the ordinary dwarf 
varieties are grown in great numbers at both 
Swanley and Eynsford, and a fine show they make. 
Notwithstanding the fact that pollination is com¬ 
menced soon after the first flowers have expanded, 
and is continued without cessation as the subse¬ 
quent flowers continue to open, and until each plant 
is loaded up to the full extent of its capability 
with seed pods, there always appears to be plenty of 
bloom, and such bloom too. Said Mr. Cannell to us, 
as we were passing through, “ we make no pretence 
of displaying the flowers, although visitors always 
find plenty of them to see, but the plants are grown 
solely to produce seed.” 
Of the varieties that most took our fancy we may 
mention Her Majesty (fern-leaf) and Cannell’s 
White, as two of the finest whites in existence. 
Duchess of Fife, which has large rosy flowers, is 
distinct by reason of the fact that its foliage is an 
evident compromise between the so-called palm 
leaved and fern leaved sections. It possesses the 
bad quality however, from a seedsman's point of 
view, of being a bad seed setter. Cannell’s Pink is a 
pink of pinks, and Glowworm is one of tne finest 
scarlets. Swanley Giant is well named, for its rosy 
cerise flowers are of truly giant proportions. 
Swanly Blue is a real blue in colour as well as in 
came, and not a half-toned nondescript. Eynsford 
Yellow is a remarkably distinct flower in which the 
yellow eye has been so strongly developed as to cover 
the whole of the limb of the corolla, with the excep¬ 
tion of a narrow marginal border, which is scarcely 
wider than the edge of the historic " parson's 
whittle.” " Another dip,” if we may use Mr. 
Cannell’s phraje, and this margin of white will 
have disappeared, and we shall have a grand yellow 
form. 
In conclusion, we may well bestow a word of praise 
upon the cultivation, to which every individual 
plant with its sturdy foliage and full complement of 
brilliantly coloured flowers, bore eloquent testimonyj 
THE SPARROW. 
At our Mutual Improvement Society meeting a few 
weeks ago, the discussion, as that of all craftsmen does 
at times, turned upon the subject of this note. It was 
concerning his doings or supposed doings to the buds 
of the Red Currants that we expressed ourselves. 
Some of us spoke with repressed feelings; one mem¬ 
ber being invited, declined, being unable to speak or 
think with unruffled feelings, and feared to give vent 
to them. Another, a young member, spoke a kind 
word for the d-, I mean sparrow and asked 
whether he was not too hastily judged, suggesting 
another as the culprit. I wish my kind-hearted 
friend had been with me the other morning. I 
think I should have convinced him of the error of 
leniency and misplaced sympathy. I have a range 
of Peach houses apart from any other buildings, in 
fact situated in the pleasure grounds quite ioo yds. 
away from the kitchen garden and other houses, and 
having trees now in bloom, both trained and pot 
plants. We have been troubled during the past 
week with these demons entering as scon as the 
ventilators are opened and picking and tearing off 
the blooms wholesale. This occurred persistently 
every day last week, as soon as the man in charge 
left the houses. I determined to make an example of 
some of them and was successful, after a time, in 
making a capture. We opened the top light (a slide 
down), and secreted ourselves and waited, when in a 
few minutes Cock Sparrow was busy tearing off the 
flowers and dropping the pieces. As the Yankee 
would say,’‘darned cusedness” seems to possess them. 
I dissected one wretch this morning and could dis- 
Primula sinensis Lady Emily Dyke. 
