88 
Journal  of  horticulture  and  voltage  gardener. 
flebfuafy  4,  l8§7. 
ously  wainscotted  room,  with  much  oak  carving.  The  house  is 
now  being  considerably  enlarged  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr. 
Blomfield,  the  well-known  architect,  so  that  nothing  will  be  done, 
we  are  sure,  to  alter  the  character  of  the  house  or  offend  the  eye. 
In  these  days  when  so  many  of  the  gardens  of  our  nobility  and 
country  gentlemen  are  more  or  less  market  gardens,  where  every 
bit  of  produce  is  sold  in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  which  is 
occasioned  by  the  depression  in  agriculture,  it  is  pleasant  to  be  able 
to  record  an  instance  where  the  reverse  process  is  going  on,  for 
the  gardens  here  have  hitherto  been  of  the  ordinary  commonplace 
ones  which  are  everywhere  to  be  found,  but  I  am  very  much 
mistaken  if  they  will  not  in  a  few  years  present  a  very  different 
appearance.  I  found  them  on  my  visit  in  charge  of  the  son  of 
a  very  old  friend,  Mr.  Frost,  whom  I  have  known  for  the  last  forty 
years  at  Turner’s  Nurseries,  Slough.  He  used  to  have  under  his 
charge  those  magnificent  specimens  of  Show  and  Fancy  Pelar¬ 
goniums  which  were  such  marvels  of  fine  culture,  and  afforded 
such  delight  to  all  lovers  of  beautiful  flowers.  Alas  !  they  seem  to 
have  had  their  day,  and  “  Othello’s  occupation  is  gone,”  for  Mr. 
Frost  has  now  under  his  care  Cyclamens  and  other  popular  flowers  ; 
but  I  suppose  we  must  not  complain.  It  was  hardly  possible  to 
conceive  how  any  further  improvement  could  be  made  in  the 
colouring,  form,  and  texture  of  the  flowers  raised  by  Messrs.  Hoyle, 
Foster,  and  Turner. 
Mr.  Frost’s  son  seems  to  be  an  able  and  intelligent  gardener( 
and  has  already  begun  to  make  things  look  differently.  A  Rose 
garden  is  being  now  formed,  Chrysanthemums  are  well  grown,  and 
have  already  raised  somewhat  of  a  commotion  at  our  local  shows. 
Beds  of  Carnations  look  well,  but  the  point  which  most  struck  me 
on  my  visit  there  lately  was  the  splendid  house  full  of  the  Persian 
Cyclamen.  There  is  no  flower  in  which  I  think  a  more  marvellous 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  last  twenty  years  than  this.  I  well 
recollect  the  time,  very  many  years  ago,  when  it  was  considered  one 
of  the  most  difficult  flowers  to  propagate,  and  old  Donald  Boaton 
thought  he  had  conferred  a  great  boon  upon  gardeners  when  in  the 
pages  of  the  J ournal  he  told  them  to  cut  up  their  roots  in  order  to 
multiply  their  plants  ;  moreover,  we  were  directed  to  shake  them 
out  of  their  pots  after  flowering,  and  plant  them  in  the  open  ground. 
ISow  all  this  is  changed  ;  they  are  raised  in  immense  number*  from 
seeds  every  year,  and  with  careful  management  they  bloom  in 
twelve  months  after  the  seed-sowing,  and  they  not  only  have 
increaied  in  size  but  exhibit  great  variety  in  their  colouring 
They  are  to  be  found  from  pure  white  to  the  deepest  crimson,  and 
various  shades  of  pink,  salmon  and  rose.  But  amidst  all  this 
improvement  there  is  one  thing  we  must  regret  ;  the  flower  used  to 
be  called  Cyclamen  persicum  odoratum,  but  the  delicately  sweet 
perfume  is  very  rarely  to  be  met  with  now. 
There  is  no  firm  that  has  been  more  successful  with  this  flower 
than  that  of  Messrs.  Sutton  &  Son*,  Reading,  and  the  beautiful 
collection  at  Godinton  Park  is  from  their  strain.  We  used  to  be 
satisfied  with  having  our  Cyclamens  in  March  and  April,  but  now 
we  get  them  long  before  Christmas,  and  at  the  time  of  my  visit  in 
the  early  part  of  December  a  long  house  was  filled  with  about  300 
plants  carrying  about  2000  expanded  blooms  with  plenty  of  buds 
to  give  a  succession.  Mr.  Frost  says  that  he  sowed  Giant  White, 
Giant  Crimson,  and  Giant  Crimson  White,  and  late  in  February, 
1895,  some  of  the  plants  from  that  sowing  measured  16  inches  across 
with  three  or  four  dozen  flowers  out  at  once.  “  My  second  sowing,’’ 
he  says,  “  was  in  February,  1896.  It  was  owing  to  unavoidable 
circumstances  that  I  sowed  so  late  as  February  ;  the  time  I  prefer 
for  sowing  is  October,  and  the  plants  so  raised  flower  in  about  twelve 
month 3  time.”  This  second  sowing  consisted  mainly  of  Sutton’s 
Vulcan,  Butterfly,  and  Salmon  Queen. 
He  says  the  culture  of  the  plants  is  none  of  the  easiest.  “  I 
find  good  loam  (which  we  can  get  at  Godinton),  leaf  soil,  burnt 
earth  or  rather  wood  ashes,  Bedfordshire  sand,  and  artificial 
manure  answer  for  their  potting  material.  We  drain  the  pots 
W©11  and  carefully,  also  look  well  after  the  Watering  of  the  plants 
in  the  variou*  itages  of  their  growth,  never  allowing  them  to  get 
too  wet  or  too  dry.  Shading  is  another  great  point  in  their 
culture  ;  they  like  a  strong  light  but  no  sun,  plenty  of  ventilation 
when  in  the  frames — in  fact,  we  take  off  the  lights  in  the  evening 
that  they  may  receive  the  dews,  and  we  make  a  point  of  syringing 
them  lightly  three  or  four  times  a  day  in  the  summer  when  it  is 
very  hot.  Cleanliness  is  another  great  point  ;  we  never  allow  any 
green  fly  or  thrips,  which  unfortunately  they  are  liable  to,  to  have 
any  quarter.  We  give  the  plants  weak  liquid  manure  as  soon  as 
the  pots  are  full  of  roots,  and  keep  on  all  through  the  time  of  their 
flowering.  We  keep  our  Cyclamen  house  at  45°  to  50°  by  night* 
and  about  55°  in  the  day.  Some  of  our  giant  flowers  measure  2  to 
3  inches  deep." 
I  may  add  to  this  that  one  peculiarity  about  Cyclamens  is  the 
one  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Frost — that  they  come  remarkably  true 
from  seeds,  showing,  I  suppose,  that  they  are  not  hybridised  with 
any  other  Cyclamen  species,  but  that  the  varieties  now  cultivated 
have  been  gained  by  careful  selection  ;  thus,  for  instance,  the  last 
valuable  addition,  the  beautiful  salmon-coloured  variety  of  Me«srs. 
Sutton,  is  obtained  from  a  plant  which  exhibited  a  tendency  to  that 
colour.  Another  noticeable  thing  is  that  the  very  dark  crimson 
variety  Vulcan  does  not  attain  anything  like  the  size  of  the  others, 
nor  does  it  seed  so  freely.  Whether  this  will  be  overcome  in  time 
it  is  Impossible  to  say,  for,  indeed,  the  progress  that  has  been  made 
hitherto  seems  to  make  nothing  impossible. 
I  am,  of  coune,  aware  that  results  such  as  these  I  have  recorded 
are  to  be  seen  in  many  a  nursery  establishment,  but  they  are  not 
common  in  private  gardens,  especially  at  the  season  of  the  year 
in  which  theie  were  found  in  full  flower.  We  have  always  asso¬ 
ciated  them  with  spring  flowers,  but  I  think  their  value  is  increased 
when  they  can  be  brought  to  gladden  our  eyes  in  midwinter. — 
D.,  Deal. 
PRECEPT  AND  PRACTICE. 
( Continued  from  page  48.) 
“Don’t  be  inquisitive”  was  an  extinguisher  frequently  applied 
in  my  juvenile  days  to  snuff  out  those  sparks  of  desire  for  infor¬ 
mation  most  boys  have  who  are  interested  in  their  work.  We  need 
not,  do  not  I  think,  rake  up  these  embers  of  the  pait  in  a  purpose¬ 
less  manner.  They  have  burned  sufficiently  deep  to  leave  an 
impression  upon  us  old  boys,  from  which  has  sprung  the  desire, 
now  a  prominent  feature  in  the  Journal  of  Horticulture,  to  fan  the 
spark  into  a  flume  instead  of  quenching  it.  Somehow  a  boy  who 
loves  plants  ha*  an  inordinate  desire  to  find  out  their  names, 
deriving  satisfaction  in  ratio  to  their  length,  or  in  the  difficulty  of 
spelling  them.  Inordinate  I  say,  it  was  regarded  so  then,  or  why 
was  I  led  astray  when  not  tripped  up  in  tracking  knowledge  to  its 
root  ?  Faults  on  both  sides  probably,  for  I  may  have  been — yes,  I 
believe  I  was — something  of  a  young  prig  in  chattering  of  how 
much  I  knew,  not  then  knowing  that  every  page  of  our  knowledge 
is  but  the  introduction  to  volumes  where  “  Fini*  ”  finds  no  place. 
Will  you,  youngest  of  young  brothers,  accept  the  above  as  a 
truth  and  digest  the  moral  ?  It  may,  too,  save  you  tome  painful 
touches  in  tender  spots.  The  early  troubles  of  life  are  very  real 
at  the  time,  however  much  matured  age  can  afford  to  smile  upon 
them.  My  self-imposed  task  was  to  learn  the  names  of  s  x  plants 
every  day,  facilities  for  which  were  afforded  by  copious  labelling 
at  this  place — my  entrance  to  the  gardening  world.  Difficulties 
surrounded  the  start  in  the  pronunciation,  proceeding  chiefly  from 
the  failing  above  described,  by  bringing  down  the  weight  of  ridicule 
so  unpleasant  a  burden  to  the  sensitive  youth.  Id  that  garden 
Lomaria  chilensis  was  long  known  as  the  Lo  !  Maria,  my 
unfortunate  pronunciation  in  displaying  the  profundity  (?)  of  my 
knowledge.  Youthful  indiscretion  also  left  an  opening  for  the 
insertion  of  such  gratuitous  information  by  my  teachers  as  that 
Rowland’*  Macassar  oil  was  good  for  Maidenhair  Ferns,  and  other 
equally  choice  elixir*  entered  into  the  mysteries  of  culture. 
However,  there  are  happier  recollections  of  this  baptism  into 
the  gardening  world  ;  and  what  a  beautiful  world  it  wa*  in  that 
little  corner  of  sunny  Kent,  and  what  an  unlimited  fund  of  interest 
those  hard  names  yielded  as  time  lifted  the  mists  of  igaorance. 
Writing  then  a  fair  boyish  hand,  it  was  requisitioned  during  spells  of 
potting  to  assist  in  the  labelling  ;  a  most  delightful  task,  but 
requiring  ample  elbow  room,  and  accompanied  by  all  those  facial 
contortions  which  follow  the  movements  of  a  boy’s  hand.  But  I 
was  soon  laughed  out  of  that,  and  eventually  learned  to  write  my 
