574 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
June  24,  1897. 
Kensington  in  18G1.  I  asked  old  Donald  Beaton  on  the  opening  day, 
“  Have  you  seen  Standish’s  new  Lily  1  ”  “  Yes.”  he  said  ;  “  but  I  have 
seen  something  much  better  worth  looking  at,”  and  he  brought  me  before 
Mr.  Leach’s  collection  of  Disas.  “  I  have  long  wished,”  he  said,  “  to  see 
what  I  felt  must  be  a  most  lovely  thing,  and  now  my  wish  is  gratified.” 
The  fact  which  rivetted  Mr.  Leach’s  attention  was  that  when  the  plant 
had  done  flowering  there  appeared  a  shoot  at  the  base,  and  instead  of 
drying  the  plant  off,  as  cultivators  had  previously  done,  he  repotted  it 
at  once,  and  so  succeeded  in  overcoming  the  difficulties  which  had  been 
Fig.  12). — Mr.  Owen  Thomas  (page  562). 
connected  with  it.  He  did  not  keep  this  information  to  himself,  but  let 
all  the  world  know  how  he  had  succeeded. 
Passing  away  to  the  New  World,  the  districts  of  Central  America 
have  been  explored,  and  we  should  almost  have  said  denuded,  of  its 
lovely  Orchids,  many  of  which  being  produced  in  some  of  the  hottest 
regions  of  the  world  has  made  their  importation  to  Europe  so  difficult. 
I  remember  once  visiting  a  celebrated  establishment  in  the  Metropolis 
where  new  and  rare  plants  were  the  special  object  of  the  owner,  and 
while  I  was  there  some  boxes  of  Orchids  arrived  from  Central  America, 
but  the  greater  portion  of  them  were  a  pulpy  mass,  yet  hundreds  of 
pounds  had  been  expended  in  the  venture.  This  is  the  home  of  those 
beautiful  Lselias  and  Cattleyas,  while  Odontoglossums  and  Dandrobiums 
have  been  introduced  from  the  same  regions.  In  the  “Orchid  Hunters’ 
Adventures”  Mr.  Millican  shows  us  something  of  the  dangers  and 
difficulties  to  which  collectors  are  exposed  in  order  to  enrich  our  plant 
houses.  Many  of  these  plants,  such  as  Cattleyas  and  Ltelias,  grow  high 
up  on  the  trees,  and  it  has  been  found  necassary  to  cut  down  the  trees  in 
order  to  obtain  them. 
North  America,  too,  has  enriched  our  gardens,  but  the  greater  portion 
of  the  plants  introduced  from  there  are  hardy  ;  the  rich  Lilies,  the 
terrestrial  Orchids,  and  various  other  bulbs  and  flowering  plants  have 
been  by  the  zeal  and  perseverance  of  our  collectors  added  to  our  stores. 
Take  for  instance  a  very  common  plant,  the  Columbine  ;  the  old  flowers 
that  used  to  be  the  denizens  of  our  gardens  were  pretty  enough,  but 
since  the  introduction  of  Aquilegia  chrysantha,  Skinneri,  and  others, 
what  wonderful  progress  has  been  made  in  them,  their  graceful  forms 
and  infinite  variety  of  colour  making  them  moBt  attractive.  Nor  must 
we  forget  the  fine  Conifers  which  have  been  introduced  to  us  from  the 
same  region  ;  although  I  am  afraid  that  the  Wellingtonia  and  Arau-  « 
carias  will  never  add  much  to  the  beauty  of  our  English  landscapes. 
Rock  and  Alpine  Plants. 
Ooe  feature  connected  with  the  progress  of  horticulture  and  the 
approvement  of  our  gardens  has  been  the  re-introduction  and  better 
mangement  of  rock  gardens.  These  are  no  longer  filled  with  un¬ 
suitable  plants,  but  all  the  mountainous  districts  of  the  world  have  been 
ransacked  to  fill  them,  and  plants  which  we  were  formerly  led  to  con¬ 
sider  could  only  be  seen  in  high  mountain  latitudes  now  flourish  in  all 
parts  of  the  country.  Take  for  example  the  Edelweiss.  Every  traveller 
who  had  anything  to  do  with  a  garden  vainly  essayed  in  many  instances  to 
bring  home  a  plant  ;  but  now,  as  it  freely  produces  seed  with  us,  plants 
are  every  year  raised  in  considerable  numbers,  and  although  there  may 
not  be  sentiment  connected  with  it  as  there  is  with  a  plant  gathered  in 
the  high  Alps,  yet  we  can  enjoy  it  if  we  only  put  sentiment  on  one  side. 
The  environments  of  plants  have  been  studied  in  their  native  habitats, 
and  the  knowledge  thus  acquired  has  been  made  use  of  in  overcoming 
the  difficulties  of  culture  ;  more  especially  has  this  been  the  case  with 
regard  to  plants  that  dislike  lime.  We  have  long  known  that  it  is  a 
hopeless  thing  to  attempt  to  grow  the  Rhododendrons,  Kalmias,  and 
what  are  ordinarily  called  American  plants,  anywhere  on  the  chalk 
formation,  but  there  are  lowly  plants  which  eqaally  refuse  to  grow  in 
such  districts  or  in  such  soils,  and  many  a  failure  has  had  to  be  noticed 
which  after  a  long  while  we  have  found  out  to  be  due  to  this  cause ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  this  without  experience,  for  there  are 
some  plants,  of  the  same  family  even,  which  refuse  to  grow  in  calcareous 
soil,  although  other  closely  allied  species  are  quite  at  home  in  it ;  thus 
in  the  lowly  tribe  of  Saxifragas,  while  most  of  them  will  grow  almost 
anywhere,  there  are  some  which,  like  S.  oppositifolia,  drag  on  a 
miserable  existence  in  it.  Many  growers  for  sale  of  these  plants  make  a 
point  of  noting  in  their  catalogues  the  peculiar  conditions  required  for 
iheir  successful  growth— and  thus  it  is  from  the  Himalayas,  the 
mountains  of  Asia  Minor,  the  Carpathians,  Dolomites  Appenines, 
Alps  and  Pyrenees,  our  rockeries  have  been  enriched  with  the  most 
lovely  gems.  _ 
There  are  ever  still  some  of  the  alpine  plants  which  we  cannot  make 
amenable  to  our  wishes ;  thus,  for  instance,  that  little  gem,  the  Eritrichium 
nanum,  which  forms  a  carpet  of  the  most  lovely  blue  in  some  places  of 
the  Engadine,  will  not  survive  in  our  lower  latitudes  ;  but  with  all,  if 
we  i  recollect  what  rockeries  used  to  be,  and  what  horrors  some  of  them 
were,  it  is  refreshing  to  note  the  wondrous  change  and  development 
which  has  taken  place.  No  one  years  ago  would  have  attempted  to  do 
what  a  friend  of  mine  did  after  visiting  the  Pyrenees.  He  had  seen  the 
beautiful  Ramondia  pyrenaica,  and  with  some  difficulty  obtained  plants 
of  it.  When  he  came  home  he  got  blocks  of  the  red  sandstone  from  fifty 
miles  away,  placed  them  in  his  rock  garden,  bored  holes  in  the  face  of 
them,  in  which  he  placed  his  plants,  and  grew  them  to  a  perfection  that 
I  have  never  seen  elsewhere.  How  much  we  owe  to  such  enthusiasts 
as  these  1  how  much  they  have  tended  to  the  progress  of  horticulture 
and  how  fervently  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  leave  others  behind 
who  will  show  the  same  zeal  and  love  as  their  predecessors  have  done. 
Achievements  in  Hybridisation. 
But  if  we  owe  much  to  the  zealous  collector  and  the  careful  cultivator 
of  introduced  plants,  what  is  to  be  said  about  the  hybridiser  ?  This  is  a 
subject  which  appals  one  by  its  magnitude,  for  there  is  not  a  depart¬ 
ment  of  horticulture  which  has  been  left  untouched  by  him.  Time  was 
when  it  was  considered  that  there  were  certain  classes  of  plants  to  be 
kept  sacred  from  his  innovations,  and  botanists  in  many  instances 
scoffed  at  him  ;  but  he  very  soon  turned  the  tables  on  them  when  he 
began  to  interfere  in  what  had  been  considered  the  sacred  territory  of 
the  Orchid.  In  some  of  the  classes  of  this  flower,  however,  he  has  been 
most  successful,  and  now  no  department  seems  to  be  free  from  his 
audacious  attempts.  And  here  let  us  remember  that  some  of  our  foreign 
horticulturists  quite  equal,  if  they  do  not  excel,  us.  For  a  long  time 
many  of  the  French  growers  especially  have  been  noted  for  their  success 
as  hybridisers,  amongst  whom  I  think  the  palm  must  be  given  to 
M.  Lemoine  of  Nancy,  who  in  so  many  classes  of  garden  flowers  has 
given  us  such  happy  results.  They  have  set  us  an  example  which  many 
of  our  home  growers  have  not  been  slow  to  follow. 
Take,  for  example,  the  Rose.  At  one  time  they  had  almost  the  field 
to  themselves,  and  even  now  they  almost  hold  it  with  regard  to  the  Tea 
Rose  ;  but  the  late  Mr,  Henry  Bennett,  when  he  took  the  matter  up 
