THE GARDENING WORLD. 
633 
June 2, 1900. 
mowings are quite different. Burn the prunings and 
so obtain valuable woodashes. The grass soon 
decays and when turning it over, add a sprinkling of 
lime. Carbonate of potash will be formed if wood- 
ashes are also mixed in. By and bye, nitrate of pot¬ 
ash will form and this is one of the very finest 
fertilisers there is. 
Destroying Earwigs.— Oxford : Trapping seems 
to us the only reliable way of destroying earwigs. 
Pieces of Cabbage blade laid about, or folded pieces 
of brown paper, give them a haven in which to hide 
—but on this case, a death-trap. Small inverted 
flower pots filled with moss and placed on the 
top of Bamboo or other kind of stakes, affords 
them a shelter in which they congregate and can be 
caught. Knock them into a bucket of scalding hot 
water. 
Use for Lawn Mowings.— T. Pringle : What yon 
wish to do is done in many, many places. The 
grass does not injure the roots through beating, but 
it preserves aDd gives moisture to them. Still, only 
a moderate amount should be given to each tree or 
plant, as they continue to grow until late in the sea¬ 
son, and cannot ripen their wood properly before 
sharp frosts appear. 
Pansies Going Off.— J. G .: Sometimes in dry 
soils it is necessary to water Pansies or Violas after 
planting them. This should be done in the evening. 
You watered yours when the sun was bright and 
powerful, the result being that some of the plants 
are what specialists call “ stewed.’’ 
WEBB’S SUPERB CALCEOLARIAS. 
Calceolarias, but more particularly the greenhouse 
strain of large flowering forms, have been brought to 
a great state of perfection within the last few years. 
This must have been accomplished by painstaking 
care in the crossing and selection of varieties for 
perpttuation, and by improved and improving 
methods of cultivation. Last year and this, Messrs. 
Ed. Webb & Sons, Wordsley, Stourbridge, have 
shown us what they can do in the way of Calceo¬ 
laria culture at the Temple Show, on the Victoria 
Embankment. The strain was originally saved 
from a remarkably fine prize collection of plants; 
and the process of selection has been continued 
with scrupulous care ever since. It is difficult to 
compare the flowers with those of any other plant, 
so greatly have these Calceolarias been increased in 
size by selection and cultivation. Some have com¬ 
pared them to the large and flattened or cockscomb 
type of Strawberry, as they hang in a semi-hori¬ 
zontal position on the plants like Strawberries 
neatly packed in boxes. Every shade of colour 
seemed to be represented by Messrs. Webb’s large 
group at the Temple Show; and amongst the 
spotted, netted, and marbled varieties, scarcely two 
seemed to be coloured in the same way. The self 
colours were equally pleasing. The plants were neat 
and bushy models of cultivation, and as dwarf as we 
could wish or desire them to be. If this feature 
were carried much further the plants would become 
too dumpy and compact for the size of the blossoms, 
so that they would lose much of their decorative 
value for greenhouse or conservatory decoration. 
We hope that gardeners everywhere will now strive 
to emulate such excellent examples of cultivation 
put before them at the Temple Show. The ac¬ 
companying illustration, for which we are indebted 
to Messrs Webb, shows a sample of their splendid 
exhibit of Calceolarias in the Inner Temple Gardens. 
In Praise of the Apple.—The old Scandinavians 
believed that the Gods subsisted wholly upon 
Apples, and that it was through the peculiar proper¬ 
ties communicated by„this queen of fruits that they 
acquired the wisdom imparted to men. The acids 
of Apples are exceedingly useful through their 
stimulating influence upon the kidneys, whereby 
poisons are removed from the body, and the blood 
and tissues purified. The acids of Apples are all 
highly useful as a means of disinfecting the stomach, 
since the ordinary germs that grow in the stomach, 
producing biliousness, headache, and other troubles, 
will not grow in fruit juice or fruit pulp.—Editorial 
in Gopd Health. 
DOVER HOUSE. 
(Concluded, from p. 596.) 
When one comes to examine the outdoor gardens 
at Dover House, Roehampton, it soon becomes evi¬ 
dent that gardening is carried on under considerable 
difficulties. Ignoring the proximity to London, 
there is the question of soil, which on this elevated 
plateau of Surrey consists of old valley gravel, dry, 
poor, hungry and unfossiliferous. A large number 
of trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables, like some¬ 
thing more substantial than this. Hence it follows 
that the ground has to be specially prepared for a 
great number of things; and this is what the garden¬ 
er, Mr. J. F. McLeod, has been doing for many years 
past, gradually ameliorating the soil and making 
satisfactory crops possible. His employer, J. P. 
Morgan, Esq., and his family are fond of flowers 
and spare no expense in getting material with which 
to improve the garden. 
A Tea Rose garden was made during the past 
winter by taking out the soil to a considerable depth 
and replacing it with two feet of fresh soil. The 
ground was then laid out in beds, each of which was 
planted with one variety of Tea Rose, edged with 
Violas to match. The beds are numerous and so 
arranged as to form one design. The Roseshaving 
been planted in good time, have made a good start 
as if well established. Arches of wire netting have 
been furnished with Crimson Rambler and other 
climbing Roses as well as Clematis and other plants. 
Close by this garden a long border has been thor¬ 
oughly prepared for Carnations, Gladioli, Pentstem- 
ons, and other useful subjects. An iron fence behind 
is furnished with Roses, Honeysuckles and other 
climbers. Other borders have been sown with long 
hedges of Sweet Peas. 
A part of the pleasure grounds has been trans¬ 
formed into a garden for dwarf and standard, hybrid 
perpetual Roses, the latter being thinly planted 
amongst the former. The expenses attached to this 
improvement were very great. The natural soil, 
consisting largely of gravel, was taken out to a depth 
of 3 ft. Six inches of clay was placed in the bottom, 
then the remaining 2J ft. filled up with Banstead 
loam at a cost of 21s. a load. Some good Roses 
should presently be obtainable from this. On the 
occasion of our visit a high brick wall was rendered 
gay by large plants of Choisya ternata and Magnolia 
conspicua soulangeana, flowering profusely. A large 
plant of Viburnum plicatum was laden with buds 
fast approaching the blossoming stage. 
In several parts of the pleasure grounds old choke- 
muddle shrubberies have been grubbed up and their 
places taken by something else. A fine bed of 
Rhododendrons in prepared soil has taken the place 
of a worn out bank of shrubbery. An old bank of 
Laurel Cherries has also been grubbed up, and the 
soil trenched to a depth of 3 ft., and ameliorated by 
the incorporation of a great quantity of more bind¬ 
ing material, including some hundreds of loads of 
soil from the foundations of the new church at 
Roehampton The ground was then laid down in 
grass and a large number of new beds made for choice 
flowering and foliage trees and shrubs. The beds 
have been considerably raised above the surrounding 
level, but the grass edgings have been made to slope 
up rather rapidly to the soil, so that by such means 
the moisture artificially applied, or furnished by 
rain is conserved. 
A bed of Azalea Anthony Koster, heavily laden 
with flower buds, will be a gorgeous sight presently. 
Beds of Irises are now gay, as are beds of Lilacs, 
Laburnums, dwarf and standard specimens of 
Cytisus scoparius andreanus, standard Lilacs with 
an undergrowth of Paeonies and Cupressus.Paeonies 
and Sweet Williams, and Rhododendrons, which 
will be gay presently. Crimson Rambler Roses on 
wire trellises will be a fine feature in their season. The 
site of another old mass of shrubbery is now occu¬ 
pied with double flowering Cherries, Genista praecox, 
Berberis japonica, Lilacs, and many other showy 
subjects, beneath which are clumps of Doronicums 
and other effective hardy herbaceous subjects. 
Olearia Haastii, or New Zealand Daisy Bush, is the 
furnishing of another bed. Guelder Roses, Stapby- 
lea colchica, and many other subjects of a kindred 
nature make another massive bed, furnishing a 
succession of flowers. Yellow and red deciduous 
Azaleas also succeed admirably in a bed prepared 
for them. Tall standard foliage and flowering 
shrubs of various kinds makeup another large bed. 
The whole of the pleasure grounds have practically 
been renovated within the past few years, so that 
Mr. McLeod has been exercising unwearied dili¬ 
gence. 
The flower garden proper was, at the time under 
notice, occupied with the spring bedding ; and a 
varied array of early Tulips had just passed their 
best. The old fashioned but ever popular Wallflower 
was nevertheless flowering profusely. 
There is also a fine collection of herbaceous 
plants in a border, specially devoted to them, in¬ 
dependently of beds, scattered clumps and masses 
amongst or in front of shrubbery, and on rockeries. 
This particular border has recently been re-planted, 
each clump consisting of three plants inserted 
triangular fashion, and furnished with neat metal 
labels having the names upon them in raised letters. 
A long succession of bloom, extending, in fact, all 
over the possible growing season, is kept up. On the 
opposite side of the path the border is laid out in 
beds and planted with Parrot Tulips, Poppy 
Webbs’ Calceolarias at the Temple Show. 
