September 19, 1908. THE GARDENING WORLD. 
597 
Purest Human Pleasure. 
Speaking at the opening of the sixth 
annual show of the Normanton Horticul¬ 
tural Society, the Vicar of Normanton 
(the Rev. C. Bird, M.A.) said that in his 
opinion gardening was the purest of human 
pleasures, physically invigorating and 
mentally refreshing. The subject was in¬ 
creasingly important in view of the pre¬ 
sent-day cry of the social reformer — " Back 
to the land’ 1 — and the tendency towards 
the establishment of ‘‘garden cities.” 
Anything which bound men to the land 
increased the spirit of brotherliness and 
neighbourliness, and tended to break 
down the barrier raised by differences of 
opinion on religious, social, or political 
subjects. He hoped the love of the land 
would eventually diminish the number of 
“overgrown, dropsical cities.” 
vor three inches above ground, so often 
! ie same spring, that I have despaired 
( eir surviving the hard treatment they 
lived. But in spite of it, when they 
■ : ast got past the slug stage, they 
<med as freely as. ever, showing how 
i y and easily grown they are. They 
, id be well staked early, and tied, as 
1 grow, as their beauty is dreadfully 
1, ted by being knocked about in the 
jls. 
Glad to li fr om Langpo rt. 
Maclaren a7id Sons. 
Gladiolus Countess of Limerick. 
past, so that their cultures are very ex¬ 
tensive indeed, and it is an easy matter 
to get flowers to send to various shows 
all over the country. We were re¬ 
cently reminded of this by a box of long 
spikes sent us direct from Langport. 
Indeed, so vigorous were these spikes 
that many of them had produced a 
strong side shoot from near the base of 
the spike, and this would form a 
secondary spike of no mean importance 
after the first one is over. A very 
choice and chaste variety was Countess 
of Limerick, with very large white 
flowers, lightly streaked and shaded 
with flesh-pink. Our illustration repre¬ 
sents a spike of this, but the top had 
been broken off in transit, probably by 
rough treatment on the railway. 
The brightest and most effectively- 
coloured spike was Prince Henry of 
York, which might be described as 
brilliant orange-scarlet with a crimson 
blotch on the lower segment. This re¬ 
minds us of the striking scarlet colour 
of the variety G. brenchleyensis, which 
used to be planted so largely in gardens 
all over the country. Richard Martin 
was 'a handsome salmon - coloured 
variety, having one or two large white 
blotches on the lower petals. Alex¬ 
ander Edward was another scarlet 
variety with even larger flowers, and it 
gave evidence of G. Saundersii in the 
parentage, judging by the large area 
covered by small specks in the throat. 
Those who would like a striped flower 
would find a very good one in Countess 
of Dudley, which was richly striped 
with dark scarlet on a rosy pink ground. 
This had ten flowers open with about 
ten buds on the same spike. Commo¬ 
dore Login was another highly coloured 
variolty, being more or less bright 
scarlet shaded with crimson on the 
upper part of the segments, while the 
throat was rosy pink with a creamy 
blotch on the lower segment. There 
seems to be no end of variation 
amongst these improved garden forms 
of Gladioli, and Messrs. Kelway and 
Son seem to be very successful in 
getting them into large size under field 
cultivation. 
Most’of our readers are aware of the 
beautiful race of Gladioli that is grown 
by Messrs. Kelway and Son, Langport, 
Somerset. The firm has been raising 
and improving this race for many years 
