December 26, 1896. THE GARDENING WORLD. 261 
SUTTON’S STAR PRIMULA. 
The general tendency at the present day in con¬ 
nection with the raising of new varieties of Chinese 
Primulas, is to foster the production of dwarf atd 
compact plants with flowers of massive size. This 
is well in its way, but it must not be overlooked that 
such varieties are produced at the expense of the 
natural gracefulness of the original. For conserva- 
anything in general cultivation. Under good 
cultural treatment, the plants attain a height of 
18 in. to 2 ft., and a proportionate width. Already 
more than one cultivator has learnt how to grow this 
new race of plants to great perfection as recorded in 
a previous issue of The Gardening World, p. 229. 
The flowers are white, flaked to a slight extent with 
crimson, and their starry forms are well displayed, 
owing to their relatively small size, the slender 
A GOOD COS LETTUCE. 
Although there are many sorts of Lettuces before 
the public it is very doubtful if there has ever been 
a Cos variety that can surpass a good stock of the 
true Old Bath Black Seeder. 
It is very difficult to obtain a good true stock as 
compared with what prevailed twenty-five years ago. 
For several years I have been trying to get a good 
Sutton's Star Primula. 
tory decoration, elegance, and gracefulness are pro¬ 
ductive of light and charming effects that mere size 
and massiveness are incapable of accomplishing. In 
Sutton’s Star Primula we get a slender habited, 
rather tall plant, producing a profusion of flowers, 
about | in. in diameter, in tiers or whorls one above 
the other, forming a pyramidal mass of blossom, 
whose general appearance strikes the eye of the 
beholder as peculiarly graceful and quite distinct from 
character and great length of the supporting stems. 
The leaves are of the ordinary type. The variety 
under notice bears the same relation to the ordinary 
Primula sinensis as the single to the double Dahlia. 
We hope to see varieties of various colours produced 
presently. For this opportunity of placing a 
reproduction of Sutton's Star Primula before our 
readers, we are indebted to Messrs. Sutton & Sons, 
Reading. 
strain, and have not succeeded till last year. In the 
autumn of ’95 I was looking through the nurseries at 
Downham Market, Norfolk, and saw a grand strain. 
I at once ordered some seed and sowed it for standing 
the winter. When the spring came round I was 
rewarded with some of the best Lettuces I ever 
tasted. At the present time, December 12th, we 
have a grand batch growing on a raised border facing 
south, just fit for tying up; these will have hand- 
