28 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
September 12, 1896. 
ROMAN HYACINTHS. 
The Roman Hyacinth, of which such vast num¬ 
bers are forced annually in this country and America, 
is a variety of H orientalis known as H. o. albulus. 
It is a native of southern France, and is cultivated 
there very extensively. It is from this source that 
we draw the greater part of our annual supply. The 
bulbs should be secured as early as possible — they 
are usually to hand some time in August- -for it is 
important to have them potted up early, where they 
have to be forced hard enongh to produce a succes¬ 
sion of bloom from November, until such time as the 
later Dutch bulbs are in flower. 
The pure white, sweet-scented blooms of the 
Roman Hyacinth are in great request during the 
late autumn and early winter months, for the single 
blooms, when wired, make up nicely for buttonholes, 
sprays, etc. The double white Italian comes next to 
the Roman in point of earliness, but the flowers are 
not pure white, being suffused with pale rose 
The blue Roman Hyacinth has smaller flowers 
than either of the foregoing, but they, together with 
the scape, exhibit a very distinct and decided shade 
of purple blue. This form should be grown for the 
sake of variety, although it is not so useful as the 
white ones. 
Supposing the bulbs to be to hand the last week in 
August, they should be potted up at once. Five-inch 
pots are the handiest, and these will hold five 
medium sized bulbs, four round the side and one in 
the centre. A compost of equal parts of loam, leaf 
soil, and well-rotted manure, with a good admixture 
of sharp sand, will answer well. A little sand may be 
dropped in for the bases of the bulbs to rest upon, 
and when potting is completed the apices of the 
bulbs should just protrude from the soil. 
It is a good plan to cover the bulbs with an empty 
inverted pot before covering them with ashes. The 
moisture contained in the soil will be sufficient for 
the plants during the plunging period. By the 
middle of October the pots will be pretty well filled 
with roots, and the tops will have commenced to 
start. The plants must then be taken out of the 
ashes, and consigned to a cold frame, or cool green¬ 
house. Here they must be gradually inured to the 
light, and the young leaves will not be long in put¬ 
ting on their normal green hue. 
Batches of a size to meet the demand must be 
introduced into heat at intervals of from ten to four¬ 
teen days. If no other convenience exists a place on 
a shelf in the stove will answer. An occasional 
syringing will help the plants a good deal. As soon 
as the lower flowers on the spikes are open, the 
plants must be removed to the greenhouse or con¬ 
servatory. The plants at this stage will stand a 
little disturbance at the root, and by knocking them 
out of their pots, and removing a little of the loose 
soil, they may be easily transferred to ornamental 
vases destined to do duty in dwelling-rooms. 
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DERIVATION OF SCUTELLARIA. 
Notwithstanding Mr. Stogdon’s “ latest authori¬ 
ties,” I still insist that my rendering oiscutella is well 
within the meaning of the term ; and that, therefore, 
the readers of the Gardening World have not been 
led astray. My 11 antiquated ” friend may be a little 
out of date, perhaps, but I know him to be a man of 
keen perceptions, and of great research. Does Mr. 
Stogdon despise the ancients — from whom all wisdom 
flows— because they are " antiquated ” ? However, it 
was not my intention to have noticed any further 
references to the term in question, which, I am 
willing to allow, may bear more than one interpreta¬ 
tion. But Mr. Stogdon's unfortunate, not to say 
ungenerous, allusion to another matter, necessitates 
a reply. 
Mr. Stogdon asks, in a bitterly satirical way, for 
my "authority” for the word " logomarchy.” 
Logomarchy is, of coarse, a misprint for logomachy, 
which means " a strife about words,” a fact which I 
thought peculiarly apropos to the present dispute— 
hence the illustration. The word—as a word—is 
not new to me, in fact it is somewhat “ antiquated,” 
inasmuch as I first made its acquaintance in a 
philological essay on the Greek elements in the 
English language about thirty years ago. But the 
man who can found anargument, or assume a virtue, 
on a misprint, is almost sure to read his Pope awry. 
— C. B. G., Acton, W . 
HERBACEOUS FLOWERS FOR 
COMPETITION. 
Your correspondent “ Coila” (Vol. XII, p. 802) 
gives a list of herbaceous plants suitable for com¬ 
petition about the end of July, and in August. 
From that list I miss mention of the old Phygelius^ 
capensis, which in my early exhibition days was 
considered one of the finest herbaceous plants, and 
not the easiest to secure in good condition. Statice 
Gmelini and S. latifolia are equally good for any 
purpose, and should be placed at a higher estimate 
than S. incana, because they are more elegant and 
graceful for cut flower work. I do not urge their 
claims because they are old, but because they are 
beautiful and useful. Yellow flowers are usually 
over-plentiful during the end of summer, but room 
might be made for Helianthus Miss Mellish, 
Heliopsis laevis and Coreopsis lanceolata, the latter 
being one of the finest in colour and dwarfer in habit 
than C. grandiflora. Eryngium oliverianum might 
be supplemented by E. alpinum and E. amethy- 
stinum, both handsome, and not so often seen at 
shows, true to name as one could wish. I have 
often seen the same objection raised to Lilies as 
" Coila ” hints at, but could never glean a tangible 
reason why they should not be admitted to stands 
of herbaceous flowers staged for competition. They 
are bulbous plants to be sure, but all are herbaceous 
and many of them hardy, and very showy when 
properly grown. I would name Lilium tigrinum, L. 
Martagon dalcnaticum, L. chalcedonicum, L. pom- 
ponium, L. croceum, L. pardalinum, &c. Exhibition 
schedules sometimes expressly exclude Lilies; but 
why ? That is the question.— Plantsman. 
■ -♦*.-- 
JERSEY GUANO. 
This is one of the specialities of Mr. Wm. Col¬ 
chester, the well-known chemical manure manufac¬ 
turer of Ipswich. As far as the island is concerned 
the speciality is an unprecedented sale of the Special 
Jersey Guano, manufactured expressly for the Jersey 
Potato crop. On the firm’s establishment which is 
of gigantic proportions, three analytical chemists are 
constantly employed for the purpose, among other 
things, of testing the samples of different soils, in 
order to produce a special guano or fertiliser, whose 
properties will have the power of enriching a certain 
kind of soil, and greatly increasing its productive 
qualities. The Special Jeriey Guano, together with 
other fertilisers manufactured by the firm, have 
received over sixty awards. Into whose hands 
samples have been placed for trial purposes, they 
have been high in their praise of it as a chemical 
manure of excellent quality and great fertilising 
properties. 
In accordance with the usual custom of the firm, Mr. 
A. E. Stubbs, the genial and courteous manager, while 
on a visit to the island, decided to entertain a number 
of the principal clients and friends to dinner. This 
was arranged to take place at the Great Western 
Hotel, Pier, kept by Mr. J. B. BacoD, on the 27th 
ult. It was got up in fine style and the tables 
arranged with silver and flowers presented an 
exquisite effect. The company was a large one and 
included many of the leading residents of the 
island. 
Everything necessary for an enjoyable evening was 
provided, and after the usual toasts had been rendered 
there was speech-making interspersed with vocal and 
instrumental music. Mr. Stubbs who occupied the 
chair, in proposing “ The Industries of Jersey,” said 
that they were not of a varied nature, and consisted 
chiefly of the culture of Potatos. In England, 
farmers were only able to get one crop out of the 
ground, but in Jersey, two and sometimes three crops 
in one year were not considered out of the way. 
The English farmer had never been able to solve 
this problem, and he could not understand, with the 
high rate of labour and rent per acre, how it could 
be done. He believed it was quite likely that 
English farmers would pay the island a visit, in order 
to take a leaf out of its book, if possible. He had 
visited the island for the past eight years and found 
it still improving. The Jersey farmer was a very 
contented individual, and always bore a happy 
appearance, and after his day’s work was done would 
return home satisfied that he was one day nearer the 
goal or harvest Some farmers, of course, had bad 
years, but then they invariably retrieved themselves. 
In concluding he wished them every success in the 
future, and had great pleasure in calling on Mr. G. 
de Carteret, in the absence of Mr. F. Le Feuvre, to 
reply. 
Mr. G. de Carteret, in replying, thanked all for the 
kind manner they had received the toast. He was 
not quite of the opinion that a farmer's life was a 
very happy one, as he had many reverses and cares 
to contend with. They had to thank Messrs. Col¬ 
chester for being the means of lowering the price of 
artificial manures, which he assured them made a 
great difference in the farmer’s exchequer in the 
course of a year. The farmer was greatly dependent 
on the Potato harvest, and at the same time he 
thought that everything possible should be done 
for the visitors who, in a great measure, formed tte 
backbone of the island. He hoped that the future 
would be as successful, if not more so, than the past, 
and said that they really depended on the Colchester 
manures for their success. 
In connection with the appointment of Mr. Philip 
Vibert, late of L’Etoquet, St. Ouen’s, as agent, and 
Mr. Wm. Le Brocq, of Vauvert, First Tower, as sub¬ 
agent for Messrs. Colchester, it was stated that the 
firm would have about 1,000 names of customers on 
their books in Jersey alone. 
PLANT EVOLUTION. 
There are often several ways of looking at the same 
thing. A flower, for instance. We were wont to 
define it as a shoot modified for purposes of repro¬ 
duction. Goethe’s Ur-plant showed how the petals, 
sepals, stamens, and carpels were after all only leaves 
which, in virtue of their respective functions in con¬ 
nection with the ultimate object of. forming fruit 
containing seeds, assumed shapes differing more or 
less widely from what we generally associated with 
the term leaf. That is to say, the popular leaf being 
the flat expanded green foliage-leaf, we felt con¬ 
strained to derive the floral leaves from such a one. 
We could fold one up nicely to make a carpel, but 
stamens floored us rather, and we rejoiced over the 
Water-lily, which showed us how it had all happened, 
supplying a complete transition from the flat ‘ leaf ’- 
like petal to the anther-bearing filament. Double¬ 
flowers and monstrosities delighted us, for in them 
we saw a harking back to the original form. If we 
imagined anything of evolution it was an ordinary 
foliage shoot, becoming in course of ages converted 
into a flower, perfect and complete. And after all we 
found nothing in our textbooks, and heard nothing at 
our lectures, to contradict our little theory. 
The outer series, the sepals and the petals, were 
concerned mainly with the protection of the 
‘essential ’ stamens and carpels, or with visits of 
insects and other creatures associated with the 
deposition of pollen on the stigma. The pollen-sacs 
of the stamen, and the ovules borne by the carpel, 
were sporangia comparable with those borne on the 
fertile leaf of a Fern, or the sporophylls of an 
Equisetum. But when we came to study ‘ types ’, 
beginning with the unicellular plant, and working 
upwards, doubts would sometimes arise. Our series 
of types we somehow thought represented stages in 
evolution. The complex seed-plant had gradually 
evolved from the simple monad. But the latter was 
in the habit, at certain periods of its life-history, 
generally when times were hard, of simply becoming 
a sporangium, its living cell-content contracting to 
form spores. Obviously, the sporangium existed 
long before the leaf. Were we light then in deriving, 
as our training certainly tended to make us derive, 
the sporophyll (stamen or carpel, or what not) from 
the leaf? What was faintly foreshadowed in these 
doubts may become a reality for the next generation 
of students. There are some who tell us that the 
sterile tissue which we find forming bands between 
the spore-producing cells in the sporangium of Isoetes, 
or segmenting the pollen-sacs of certain seed-plants, 
recalls the commencement of the evolution of vegeta¬ 
tive from reproductive tissue; and that in such 
sterile tissue, in fact, we see the origin of the vegeta¬ 
tive structure—root, stem, and leaf—of the higher 
plants. We shall then have at any rate a consistent 
plan of evolution, though one not easily admitting of 
proof .—Natural Science. 
-- 
Hardening §iscellany. 
COLEUSES AT LEYLAND. 
For adorning the conservatory during the summer 
months there are no more gorgeous subjects than the 
