January 18, 1908. THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Pride of Ryecroft, and the way to secure 
these is to retain some of the old piants 
each year. Do not repot, but give a good 
top-dressing of fresh soil and artificial 
manure in early May, and afterwards 
feed as recommended for young plants. 
C. Blair. 
Preston House, 
Linlithgow. 
-- 
Autumn Sown . . 
- Peas. - 
+ 
The old practice of sowing Peas in the 
autumn, although not now generally fol¬ 
lowed, is still to be commended in good 
- situations and where the soil is light and 
warm; for, however carefully Peas are 
transplanted in the spring, and gradually 
inured to the open air, they are sure to 
suffer more or less from cutting, frosty 
1 
winds, whereas those sown in the autumn 
acquire a more robust constitution and 
readily respond to the finer weather and 
longer days of the early spring. There 
is also a gain of at least a fortnight from 
these autumn sowings over those put in 
at the ordinary time for early Peas, that 
is, February and March. 
A warm border facing south and shel¬ 
tered from the north and east should be. 
selected if possible, and if the soil is 
fairly rich, no manure will be necessary 
at this season. If, however, the border 
is considered too poor, a dressing of old 
mushroom-bed manure or even leaf mould 
would be preferable to heavy farmyard 
manure, this latter inducing too rank a 
growth, which would not winter so well. 
A good plan is to slightly raise the soil 
where the drills are to be drawn and 
sowing rather shallow, this tending to 
keep the seed from rotting until germina¬ 
tion takes place. Some sifted leaf mould 
or old potting soil strewn along the drills 
before covering in greatly assists root 
action. 
The distances should be the same as 
the height of the Peas. This admits 
•plenty of sun and light to the haulm and 
roots. 
Mice are sometimes troublesome among 
Peas, but if the seed is slightly damped 
over wfith paraffin oil and then well 
dusted with red lead no mouse or bird 
will touch it, while it does not injure the 
seed in the least (this I have proved 
scores of times). As soon as the young 
growth shows above ground, some small 
Yew or Fir boughs placed alongside the 
rows will provide a means of shelter, 
while a couple of strands of black thread 
stretched just over the young plants will 
ward off the attacks of sparrows. A 
dressing of soot and lime will also be 
necessary now and then to check the 
ravages of slugs, which generally abound 
in mild winters. In regard to the varie¬ 
ties most suitable for sowing at this time 
any of . the small round-seeded sorts, such 
as English Wonder, Chelsea Gem, Wil¬ 
liam Hurst, Sutton’s Little Marvel, etc., 
may be depended upon. 
The Rosy Crown Vet ch 
(Goronilla varia.) 
At least ten species of Coronilla are in 
more or less general cultivation. Some 
of them are hardy shrubs, others green¬ 
house shrubs, and the rest are her¬ 
baceous. The dwarfer ones have been 
employed for planting on rockeries for 
many years past, and nothing is more 
permanent when once they get estab¬ 
lished, owing to their deep rooting char¬ 
acter. That, of course, applies also to 
many other plants belonging to the Pea 
family. 
The subject under notice, C. varia, as 
the popular name implies, has rose col¬ 
oured flowers, being thus quite distinct 
from all others we have seen in cultiva¬ 
tion, as most of them have yellow flowers, 
in a few cases tinted with red. To give 
readers an idea of the plant, we may say 
it is essentially a plant for the border to 
begin with, being too tall for a small 
rockery. Its actual height will depend 
upon the time it has been established and 
the nature of the soil. W ell-established 
plants in a light, rather rich soil will 
grow’ 2 ft. to a yard in height, and as far 
through. The specimen represented 
would be about 2^ ft. in height, was 
simply one mass of flowers, as the illus¬ 
tration taken at Kew shows. 
The main stems rise up strong and 
erect, then they begin to branch and arch 
over at the tips, rising tier by tier, as it 
were, until they have built up a perfectly 
symmetrical bush if the surroundings al¬ 
low of this equal development. The leaves 
are pinnate and feathery, like other mem¬ 
bers of this group of the Pea family. It 
comes into bloom some time in July and 
keeps on through the greater part of Au¬ 
gust. The individual flowers are very 
durable, but the plant keeps up a succes¬ 
sion over a long period of time. The 
best plan to keep this plant tidy is to 
put in one to three stakes to which the 
main stems should be tied, after which 
the plant will take care of itself, but it 
must be given room according to the size 
of the plant. Those who cannot accom¬ 
modate large plants can easily get small 
ones by division for any given' situation. 
We have also seen small plants doing 
well on a rockery, because if the soil is 
hard and rather poor, the plant will be 
very' much dwarfer and will flower freely 
in the same way as the better known 
Galega officinalis and its white variety, 
under similar conditions. 
Worthing. 
F. A. 
Coronilla varia. 
[.Maclaren and Sons. 
