December 30, 1899. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
285 
L. auratum will become annually scarcer and 
dearer. At one time the hills about here were 
covered with it, now there are not many, too few to 
pay for the collecting, and each year they have to go 
further ahead. Again, too many small bulbs have 
been sent out of the country, and the very large bulbs 
are each year, scarce as they are, sent off before they 
have attained the giant size. Lily bulbs are put on 
fresh soil annually and the same ground not used 
oftener than once in three or five years. When the 
Lily is working at the roots liquid human manure is 
given once a month \ as soon as the shoot appears 
above the ground no more is given. About Yoko¬ 
hama L. longiflorum is largely grown. It likes a 
damp soil and so is grown in the rice fields with the 
water drawn off. L. auratum does best on the hills 
in a dryer soil. In fact, the Lilies grown for the 
market have each their own favourite growing 
place. To get at the bottom of all this I would have 
to remain another summer. Among the shippers 
there is great competition and each has his own 
secret or thinks he has. One man who sends his 
bulbs to Colchester, near London, took me out 
a good deal and we appeared to be friends for life. I 
chanced to call upon him one day when he was 
among his Lilies and in two-twos our friendship was 
rent asunder. 
Iris Kaempferi is grown in the rice fields and the 
plantations are flooded as soon as the plants make 
their early growth. About August the water is 
drawn off and during winter they are treated with 
liquid human manure twice a month. As soon as 
the shoots appear no more manure is given. The 
Japanese are mostly vegetarians so that cow dung 
will take the place of human manure. For this 
grand plant beds should be prepared specially and 
in summer flooded frequently. In America I should 
recommend the same treatment as in Japan; in 
Britain not so much wet; in the west of Ireland the 
climate might be wet enough, while in other parts 
water might be needed. In Scotland, only on dry 
soils would the water be a necessity and in such dry 
seasons as the past summer when the gardens were 
burnt up. I arrived at these conclusions going 
north. I went about 8oo miles north to Sapporo, 
the capital of Yego. All the way up as soon as 
I got from the warm part of Japan I saw Iris 
Kaempferi growing on the banks of the hill sides, but 
in greater quantities in moist meadows. You may 
have seen the species of I. Kaempferi, a small 
flower. No.v they have varieties of immense size, 
twelve inches in some. It is upwards of ioo years 
since it became an amateur’s flower. The best 
collections are now much frequented in the flowering 
season and are turned into tea-gardens where you 
get tea or siki and if you have a poetic vein you can 
write poetry on the whole garden or on one favourite 
flower. Since the Damios were put down, garden¬ 
ing, one may say, came to a close. It was this class 
who were the gardeners and had their dwarfed 
trees that were in the family for hundreds of 
years.— Peter Barr, in the American Florist , Nov. 4th. 
-- 
IaRDENING fflSCELLANY. 
fj L3 
BERRIED PLANTS FOR GREENHOUSE. 
The Japanese grass-like plant, Ophiopogon Jaburan 
variegatus, suitable and respected enough for its 
foliage and graceful growth, has yet an additional 
attraction when the flower spikes have produced 
their dark berries. Everyone knows the plant, it 
being also suitable for amateurs who require easily 
cultivated plants. The Snowberry bush, Symphori- 
carpus racemosus, may not have been thought of in 
this respect before, but in pots sprightly little plants 
are to be had. Prune the plants back and keep the 
roots well confined. The Strawberry tree, Arbutus 
Unedo, in the northern parts, where it does not fruit 
freely, may be taken in hand as a pot subject. So 
with Skimmia japonica, whose bead-like flowers are 
also neat and pretty. The berries of the Daphnes 
form a large part of their attractiveness. Ardisia 
crenulata is even superior to the Solanums as a 
berry-bearing plant. The berries, or seeds within 
them, may be sown in well-drained soil during spring 
and grown on much in the same way as Solanums. 
Cuttiogs of half-ripened wood, taken from new 
flowering shoots, may be inserted from March till 
the end of summer. Cool conditions, steady shifts, 
light positions, and other careful attentions will 
generally be successful in developing nice plants. 
GILBERT’S UNIVERSAL SAVOY. 
This is one of ihe late Mr. Gilbert's best of the Bras- 
sica tribe, and will be generally preferred to the old 
dwarf curled. It is more conical in shape, and it is 
more hardy and much superior in flavour. It boils 
of a fine green colour. As yet, it does not seem to be 
much in the trade; only a few seedsmen seem to 
have stock of it.— William Carmichael, 14, Pitt Street, 
Edinburgh, November 27th, 1899. 
LISTS OF DWARF PEAS. 
The following dwarf Peas were supplied from Messrs. 
H. and F. Sharpe, Wisbech, from their home-grown 
seeds : —No.x, American Wonder ; 2, Cannell’s Ameri¬ 
can Wonder ; 3, William Hurst ; 4, Chelsea Gem ; 
5, Excelsior; 6, Daisy ; 7, Stratagem; 8, Gradus. 
The above were sown on February 25th. Nos. 1, 2, 
3, and 4 came in at the same time, the first week in 
July. They are all good sorts. Nos. 5 and 6 came 
in ten days later; and 7, Stratagem, a month later, 
Gradus is a straggling, useless sort, and never ought 
to have been sent out. The great advantage of dwarf 
Peas is that they do not require stakes, and I fully 
believe that they produce more Peas in the same 
piece of ground, as they only want to be iS in. apart 
in the rows. They do not shade the ground. As 
one sowing comes up sow another for succession. 
At the end of May, American Wonder is now super¬ 
seded by William Hurst, as it is more productive, 
and it is one of the best. Stratagem still holds its 
place, only it is 2 ft. in height, so that it will not 
produce as much on the same space of ground as 
William Hurst. I have sown a lot of William Hurst 
on November 24th, and will let you know when it 
comes in. My soil is dry and warm.— William Car¬ 
michael, 14, Pitt Street, Edinburgh. 
ACACIA RICEANA. 
The family of the Acacia includes some of the most 
striking and elegant plants we have for the decora¬ 
tion of cool houses and conservatories, and this is 
one of the very best among them for the purpose, 
but like many others of the family it requires plenty 
of room. I was looking at a plant recently in the 
winter garden attached to a large red-brick mansion, 
where it is trained over one of the doors leading 
into a large room, and there hangs in cascades or 
festoons of yellow and green. I say trained, but it 
is loosely done so that it assumes the most natural 
appearance as to growth, which circumstances admit 
of, and is a combination of loveliness and elegance 
rarely met with.— W. B. G. 
THE BLACK CURRANT MITE. 
This pest appears to be rapidly extending its 
ravages among the plantations of this favourite fruit. 
It seems unfortunate that so many are unaware of 
the foe they have in their midst till untold damage 
is done. My own experience and observations lead 
me to conclude that if taken vigorously in hand 
upon its first appearance it may with comparatively 
little trouble be held at bay. If a sharp look-out 
for the abnormally large buds the pest produces by 
making its home in them, and they are either picked 
out or cut off and burnt, all would be well, but when 
a plant gets badly infested the right thing is to grub 
it out and burn it at once. A friend of mine who 
followed my advice to this effect two years back kept 
clear of it by the sacrifice of one bush, and vigor¬ 
ously cutting out all the affected portions of his 
other plants.— W. B. G. 
YELLOW BANKS1AN ROSE. 
In its way I know of no other which excels this old 
denizen of the Rose garden, but there are very few 
among us who have ever seen it at its best (that is, in 
the home counties) where it is generally fastened to 
walls where it makes a good green covering but 
frequently flowers sparingly. The best position for 
this gem is under glass in a cool conservatory or 
corridor, where it will flower most profusely, more 
so in fact than the favourite Crimson Rambler, 
which is a sheet of crimson when fully in flower, 
the yellow Banksian a sheet of gold. The misfor¬ 
tune is that there are comparatively few places 
where it can be so treated.— W. B. G. 
CISSUS DISCOLOR. 
In very few places do I ever see this most lovely 
climbing plant in that state of perfection to which it 
is capable of being developed. It would seem 
specially to enjoy an abundance of rooting area, and 
of atmospheric heat and moisture. A narrow, rather 
low roofed span-house, facing east and west, if one 
must be exact in detailing the details of a known in¬ 
stance of most successful culture, together with the 
other conditions above mentioned, that is, a 
thoroughly warm temperature, say 68° at night up 
to 75 0 and more during the day, plus plenty of root 
and atmospheric moisture. The lODg, dark red 
shoots should be allowed to fall pendantly from 
every break of the stem. It is an excellent old 
plant. 
THE GREEN CHRYSANTHEMUM. 
Gardeners and others who have much decorative 
work or who have a love for novelties do not care on 
the one hand to throw away the old favourites whose 
distinct colours have not been improved upon, while 
again any variety likely to create interest is sought 
for and grown. InMdme. Edmund Rogers we have 
a neat flowering, green, incurved Chrysanthemum. 
It is distinctly green, as green as grass. The form 
is generally pretty, compact, though many growers 
complain against it. The habit is dwarf, and it 
flowers freely. Growers who used to know Primrose 
League and Florence Davis as green-flowered varie¬ 
ties will now discard these in favour of the truer green 
variety. 
HYDRANGEA HORTENSIS. 
This favourite flowering plant can be had in dense 
masses of blooms by allowing the lateral shoots on 
a stem, to branch out and develop, instead of con¬ 
fining the energies to a crown truss. Mr. Angus, a 
gardener lately residing near Aberdeen, is very 
successful with this beautiful plant, and his method 
has been to cut off the blooms and then to root the 
shoot by the process of notching. A cut is made 
half through at a joint then upward for nearly 
thus forming a slit or tongue. A small piece of wood 
will keep this open, whence moss is bound round the 
part thus acted upon. After a week or two there are 
sufficient roots formed to allow of the shoot being 
severed from the lower part. It may then be potted 
and grown on in a cool moist house. The side 
shoots develop strong trusses. The plant should 
not be strongly fed until it shows its flowers. 
-- 
A WORLD WITHOUT GLASS. 
Gardeners as students of nature and as growers of 
tender exotic plants may find the following a most 
interesting and suggestive article, one which 
appeared in the Family Friend. “Thiak what would 
go with the manufacture of glass ! All our sciences 
and half our civilisation ; the beauty of our home, 
the luxury of our lives, chemistry, physiology, 
electricity, astronomy, and every other teacher of 
humanity, down to the pretty airs and graces, taught 
her by her mirrors, of our youngest and most 
fascinating coquette. We should be literally 
beggars in the world of mind if we lost the art of 
melting sand and flint together, and running out 
slabs of common unregarded glass. We should get 
on better with the loss of textile fabrics 
than with the loss of glass; but indeed these 
two represent the hands of civilisation, without 
which but very little would be done in the world, 
and that little very badly. Civilisation reduced to 
iron hooks would never learn to use them with grace 
and profit. Every day glass is turned to some new 
account. Glass rooms for sea flowers and fishes, 
wherein they can live and bloom far away from their 
great mother; glass homes for mountain Ferns, 
where they may grow and flourish amidst London 
smoke and the eternal eclipse at Glasgow or Man¬ 
chester ; glass houses for rare exotics and for rarer 
birds; glass cases for preserved curiosities of Nature, 
which the air must not touch, and which man must 
inquisitively study ; glass registers of heat and rain, 
of the power of sunshine and the depth of fall; 
glass specula, whereby the moon may be mapped 
out and the sun brought nearer to the knowledge of 
man, whereby the nebulae are resolved into their 
perfect systems and comets are dethroned from their 
place of flashing executioners and heavenly 
messengers of wrath, which they used to hold, to be 
received as the youngest child of science ; whereby, 
too, life is yielding up its mysteries, one by one, and 
