248 THE FLORIST. 
of editorship; and inserts two cither real or fictitious letters, threatening 
him with vengeance for some remarks he had made in one of his previous 
numbers. I am not quite in that position, but I have before me two 
exceedingly quiet and gentlemanly letters on the subject of a phrase I 
used in reference to the above composition. I said ‘‘Why will people 
puff such things?” Isaid this after having as I thought followed the 
directions on the paper, and syringed my greenhouse with it, the result 
of which was that my plants looked as if they had been done with 
diluted whitewash. Smarting under the infliction, I may perhaps have 
used strong words in the above sentence; but I never intended to say 
that it did not kill green-fly ; all that I stated was that it was a dirty 
and nasty smelling thing. G. W. suggests that possibly the water I 
used was strongly impregnated with lime or some other salts, and that 
I ought to have used soft water. I used water that had been exposed 
to the sun for some days, and which, though originally Aard, had 
acquired by that sufficient softness. I did not allow it long to settle 
down (as is suggested by a letter which has been received from a very 
experienced gardener, who states that he finds 1t answer; and encloses 
two leaves to bear out his view of it, which leaves he said had been 
dipped six times); therefore, I must only suppose that I have not 
followed out the directions fully, while at the same time I most decidedly 
decline to repeat the experiment. I say nothing whatever as to its 
merits for Roses, or thick-leaved plants; it may suit them; my only 
objection lies on the score of its use for Pelargoniums. I should be 
sorry if the assertion I made was to be considered as arising from a 
spirit of fault finding; and therefore, in self justification, would add that 
I see in a recent advertisement of another composition, that a very large 
nurseryman, in a certificate which he gives as to the merits of the new 
one, objects to the strong smell of Gishurst; and also that I have, since 
receiving G. W.’s letter, made enquiries of the largest and most 
successful growers of Pelargoniums, both public and amateur, and that 
I do not find that they use it, seeing that tobacco or tobacco paper suits 
their purposes much better. I hope that these remarks may set the 
matter right. ad 
Deal. 1: 

“HOME AGAIN.” 
HoME again, from the third Grand National Rose Show—so tired, 
and yet too happy, too excited for any beds save those in my Rose 
garden. As some young girl, returning from her first Court Ball (and 
am I not just arrived from a ‘ Palace,” and from the presence of the 
Queen of Flowers ?), forgets her weariness, and cannot rest until she 
has “talked it over’ with some sympathetic friend; or, as an earnest 
hunter who has ridden bravely in some trying run, and come home 
twenty miles in rain and darkness, defies all drowsiness, that he may 
tell his friends how muffs were pounded and how fields were won—and 
goes gaily, with his cigar in his mouth, to take a last fond look at his 
steeds, grinding away at their suppers upon beds of clean white straw ; 
so I, coming home with a thousand pleasant thoughts and memories. 
