308 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
September  30,  1897. 
of  Ferns  in  pots  with  plenty  of  moss,  some  bright  flowering  plants, 
and  a  few  stately  Palms  may  be  all-sufiBcient  for  the  purpose.  In 
most  cases  of  this  kind  the  decorator  will,  probably,  have  to  work 
with  a  restricted  hand  so  far  as  any  obstruction  of  the  floor  space  is 
concerned. 
The  decoration  of  a  private  mansion  for  a  social  function  offers 
great  opportunities  for  the  gardener  to  display  good  taste  and  artistic 
ability,  and  when  called  on  to  execute  it  he  should,  with  this  power 
in  his  hands,  think  himself  happy  if,  in  rising  to  the  occasion,  he  is 
able  to  express  his  ideas.  With  examples  furnished  by  our  eminent 
tradesmen,  who  as  decorators  carry  out  to  order  those  magnificent 
schemes,  exalted  into  a  fine  art,  and  exhausted  in  a  wealth  of  choice 
flowers  and  foliage,  we  have  naught  to  do,  although  it  is  good  for 
gardeners,  if  ojrportunity  occurs,  to  criticise  all  details,  to  note  the 
strong  points,  and  weak  ones  if  there  are  any  to  he  found.  With 
what  a  gardener  may  be  called  upon  to  do,  with  what  he  has  to  do  it 
with,  and  how  it  may  Ije  done,  is  our  immediate  concern.  By  taking 
as  an  example  the  successful  treatment  of  the  festive  decoration  of  a 
mansion,  we  may  next  study  the  question  from  the  hall  door,  where 
it  commences,  to  the  reception  rooms  and  the  staircase,  where  the 
principal  features  and  the  greatest  possibilities  occur.  It  may  be  here 
remarked  that  the  expert  decorator  is  always  anxious  to  avoid  working 
upon  stereotyped  lines,  and  although  always  ready  to  notice  any 
particularly  good  or  striking  effects,  they  are  more  of  service  to  him 
as  suggestions  than  as  models  to  be  closely  copied. — Decora. 
fTo  be  continued.) 
IS  aAIIDENINO  DECAYING? 
Some  Excuses  and  a  Moral. 
The  gardening  fraternity  of  the  present  day  flinches  fsom  the 
challenge  which  I  threw  down  a  few  weeks  ago.  Silent  are  the  men 
who  are  heard  at  the  shows  loudly  glorifying  their  productions,  silent 
are  they  %yho8e  voices  and  pens  are  most  frequently  at  work  in  mutual 
laudation.  Not  a  woid  has  been  said  in  disproof  of  the  indictment 
which  I  levelled  at  the  present  aspect  of  horticulture,  and  the  charges 
I  made  stand  firm  on  the  rock  bed  of  unassailed  accuracy. 
What  a  picture  it  is  !  For  years  past  I  have-  been  watching  the 
development  of  gardening  into  a  vast  mutual  admiration  association, 
in  which,  instead  of  labouring  to  raise  their  standard  of  knowledge, 
the  members  extol  their  own  and  their  neighbours’  commonplaces,  for 
all  the  world  as  though  they  were  better,  rather  than  woise,  than 
those  of  past  years.  Yet  when  someone  comes  forward  who  has  lived 
long  enough  to  perceive  the  fallaey  of  it  all,  and  has  the  temerity  to 
speak  what  he  thinks,  these  pusillanimous  heroes  lurk  in  the  rear, 
unable  to  say  a  w'ord  of  exculpation  or  justification. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  a  nice  warm,  comfortable  camp  had 
been  formed,  a  place  where  the  members  of  the  mutual  admiration 
association  fancied  themselves  snug  and  secure.  Into  this  camp  a 
sb-ell  suddenly  dropped,  scattering  the  talkers  and  writers  in  all 
directions.  Such,  I  suppose,  was  their  confusion  and  discomfiture,, 
that  they  were  unable  to  gather  their  forces  for  one  poor  little  volley  ; 
and  so  I  return  to  the  charge  again,  prepared  to  maintain  my  position, 
and,  indeed,  only  too  anxious  to  drag  from  their  obscurity  the  cham¬ 
pions  —if  there  are  any— of  the  new  order  of  things. 
In  what  has  transpired  as  a  result  of  my  article,  nothing  hut  what 
is  corroborative  has  appeared.  Is  not  this  significant  ?  An  apologetic 
tone  has  been  in  most  cases  assumed,  but  the  broad  result  is  an  admis¬ 
sion  of  the  truth  of  my  contentions.  Let  me  now  glance  at  some  of 
these  apologies.  One  writer,  beginni-og  with  a  compliment  to  my 
literary  abilities  which  I  neither  deserve  nor  covet,  passes  on  to  refer 
among  other  things  to  the  increase  of  decorative  work  as  a  reason 
for  the  decay  of  sound  general  practice.  Of  all  the  excuses  which  could 
be  brought  forward,  this  is  surely  one  of  the  lamest.  Was  there,  then, 
no  decorative  -work  done  in  the  old  days — work  that  would  vie  with 
the  vaunted  efforts  of  the  present  time?  Why  I,  whom  this  corre- 
pondent  insidiously  attempts  to  disarm  with  laboured  compliments, 
have  probably  spent  more  time  than  he  has  in  some  of  the  most 
delicate  and  at  the  same  time  extensive  “furnishing”  ever  c-irried 
out  in  this  country.  In  truth,  such  trivial  excuses  as  excess  of  indoor 
work  are  futile. 
It  would  he  amusing,  if  it  were  not  melancholy,  to  perceive  the 
attempts  that  are  being  made  all  along  the  line  to  raise  side  issues. 
I  have,  I  see,  set  a  few  of  the  professors  by  the  ears,  with  regard 
to  the  question  of  wall  fruit.  Here,  again,  no  endeavour  is  made  to 
repel  my  arguments,  but  a  cloud  of  dust  is  blown  up,  as  if  that 
M'ould  help  us  to  see  daylight.  If  my  position  were  seriously 
assailed,  which  it  is  not,  I  should  have  abundant  comfort  in  the 
fact  that  as  the  clever  men  who  are  at  issue  with  each  other  are 
using  up  all  the  dainty  ejfithete  they  can  find  I  should  certainly  be 
spared.  I  do  not  doubt  that  they  “  stupid,”  I  am  not  going  to 
question  the  fact  that  they  are  talking  “  nonsense ;  ”  I  only  want 
to  make  it  clear  that  that  is  not  my  style  of  argument,  hut  theirs. 
But  what,  after  all,  does  all  this  talk  about  the  decadence  of  wall 
fruit  amount  to  ?  Let  us  have  done  with  the  mutual  admiration  asso¬ 
ciation,  and  face  the  facts.  It  is  admitted  that  there  is  great  deteriora¬ 
tion,  although  no  one  appears  to  have  had  the  courage  to  state  the  case 
in  plain  words,  and  the  question  I  want  to  ask  is  this.  If  a  gardener 
had  an  important  department  under  his  charge,  which  he  perfectly 
understood  the  demands  of,  would  he  not  find  some  means  of  giving  it 
at  least  as  much  attention  as  was  necessary  to  keep  it  in  a  tolerably 
satisfactory  condition  ?  Would  he  let '  his  Chrysanthemums,  for 
example,  destroy  his  fruit?  Assuredly  not.  It  is  because  our 
gardeners  are  getting  into  the  way  of  thinking  that  half  a  training  is 
as  good  as  a  whole  one — that  as  soon  as  they  have  completed  their 
first  jiear  in  the  bothy  they  are  qualified  to  take  a  head  place — that 
things  are  drifting  as  they  are.  Why  disg-uise  the  fact  ?  Why  not 
face  it  like  men  ? 
There  is  much  in  the  statement  that  Chrysanthemums  have  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  the  decay  of  all  round  gardening ;  but  it  is  not 
because  the  plants  simply  take  up  a  great  deal  of  time,  it  is  because  a 
race  of  men  is  springing  up  who  know  very  little  about  anything  else 
but  these  overrated  plants.  The  thing  is  as  plain  as  the  day.  Ladies 
])ay  a  considerable  amount  of  attention  to  Chrysanthemums  for  a 
week  or  two  in  the  autumn,  and  consequently  a  collection  is  grown 
much  too  large  for  the  place.  This  thinz  is  bound  to  be  attended 
by  a  reaction.  Masters  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  spend  large  sums  just  for  the  privilege  of  hob-nobbing  with  a 
handful  of  squabbling  specialists  at  an  aucumn  show.  The  Chrys¬ 
anthemum  is  already  on  the  decline,  and  when  the  time  comes,  as 
come  it  will,  for  the  word  to  be  passed  round  among  the  gentry  that 
the  coetly  Chrysanthemum  “  collection”  is  to  he  reduced,  woe  to  the 
man  who  has  for  so  long  existed  under  the  notion  that  his  knowledge 
of  the  culture  of  one  plant  will  enable  him  to  pass  muster  as  a  good 
gardener.  A  Nemesis  is  pursuing  him,  and  the  signs  of  its  approach 
are  already  apparent. 
I  am  not  sorry  in  one  sense  that  this  point  of  the  Chrysanthemum 
has  cropped  up  in  the  discussion  which  followed  my  first  letter. 
Traverse,  if  you  will,  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country,  as  I  do, 
and  you  will  find,  as  I  have  found,  that  the  egotism  which  prevails 
amongst  our  modern  gardeners  only  assumes  its  worst  phases  when  a 
Chrysanthemum  circle  is  formed.  I  have  attended  many  Chrysanthe¬ 
mum  shows,  and  listened  to  many  Chrysanthemum  papers,  and  the 
conclusion  I  have  come  to  is  this — that  the  impression  is  common  that 
the  universe  was  designed  specially  for  Chrysanthemum  growers,  and 
will  revolve  round  them  until  the  end  of  time. — Traveller. 
[Our  trenchant  “  Traveller,”  who  has  suddenly  appeared  to  sparkle 
like  a  new  star  over  a  degenerate  world,  does  not  say  anything  about 
Shrewsbury.  We  would  now  suggest  his  attending  the  November 
show  of  the  National  Chrysanthemum  Society — if  he  can  find  room. 
We  let  the  “  squabbling  specialists  ”  stand  as  the  greatest  novelty  of 
the  season  up  to  date.] 
ARE  ROMAN  HYACINTHS  POISONOUS? 
One  is  inclined  to  answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative,  judging  by 
the  intense  irritation  set  up  hy  handling  the  bulbs.  This  effect  is,  how¬ 
ever,  not  common  to  all,  as  some  people  can  handle  the  bulbs  with 
impunity  ;  and  it  is,  I  believe,  not  at  all  certain  whether  the  annoyance, 
experienced  by  some  is  due  to  a  poisonous  principle  in  the  cuticle  of  the 
bulb,  or  to  some  kind  of  abrasion  consequent  upon  the  presence  in  the 
skin  of  the  bulb  of  myriads  of  mkiute  needle-like  crystals  of  calcium 
oxalate  (raphides). 
These  acicular  crystals  are  common  to  all  Hyacinths,  but  I  have  never 
known  any  bad  results  from  handling  the  ordinary  Hyacinths,  so  that 
evidently  there  is  some  peculiarity  of  the  Homan  Hyacinth  that  needs 
further  explanation,  especially  so  as  it  is  merely  a  variety  of  the  common 
garden  form  (Hyacinthus  orientalis).  The  crystals  appear  to  be  as 
plentiful  in  one  variety  of  the  Hyacinth  as  the  other,  so  that  so  far  as 
quantities  of  these  little  raphides  go  I  do  not  think  there  is  anything  to 
choose  between  the  two. 
Anyone  in  possession  of  a  microscope  can  with  ease  examine  these 
crystals,  with  an  inch  or  a  quarter-inch  objective.  The  preparation  is 
very  simple.  Tear  off  a  shred  of  the  cuticle  and  soak  it  for  a  few  hours 
in  methylated  spirit,  then  clean  it  by  soaking  it  again  for  a  short  time  in 
clove  oil,  when  it  can  be  mounted  in  Canada  balsam.  Some  faint  idea  of 
the  myriads  of  crystals  can  then  be  formed  by  comparing  the  size  of  the 
shred  of  skin  examined  with  the  numbers  of  raphides  on  the  field  of  the 
glass.  The  form  of  the  crystals  can  be  better  seen  by  using  the 
polarisoope. 
.  Tour  correspondent  “  .1.  C.”  asks  for  a  remedy  or  a  preventive. 
The  latter  is  very  easy — wear  when  handling  the  bulbs  a  pair  of  old  kid 
gloves.  It  is  better  even  to  run  the  risk  of  being' thought  “  a  kid-gloved 
gardener”  than  to  suffer  the  irritation. — John  W.  Odell,  Stanmore. 
