268 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
April  6,  1899. 
Flowering  as  it  dors  contemporaneously  with  the  Solomon’s  Seal, 
it  associates  remarkably  w'ell  with  it  in  vases,  the  greenery  of  the 
one  and  the  brightness  of  the  other  being  both  harmonious  and 
))leasing.  'Die  Solomon’s  Seal  is  as  grand  for  naturalisation  as  it  is 
useful  for  cutting,  and  well  deserves  good  treatment  in  the  way 
of  an  annual  top-dressing. 
AVith  the  iilea  not  only  of  helping  the  decorator,  but  of  sparing 
the  hardy  Hower  borders  as  much  as  possible,  many  freegrowdng  plants 
commend  themselves  for  treatment  as  wildlings,  or  under  semi-wild 
culture.  d'he  Doronicums,  Alontbretias,  many  of  the  Iris  tribe, 
Aquilegias,  and  other  kinds  as  equally  suggestive  are  equally  useful. 
That  hardy  flowers  for  decorative  purposes  lack  some  of  the  subtle 
refinement  which  seems  an  inherent  quality  of  those  produced  under 
glass  goes  without  saying,  but  a  good  deal  lays  in  their  arrangement. 
As  a  rule,  each  kind  goes  best  with  its  own  foliage,  ard  mixtures  are 
seldom  pleasing  combinations.  For  instance,  the  big  Chinese  Tree 
Pseonies,  cut  ■with  plenty  of  stem  and  loosely  arranged  in  large  vases, 
are  grand  objects  in  a  large  room,  and  Daffodils  are  never  so  happily 
displnyrd  as  when  set  up  with  their  own  leaves. 
Carden  cultivation  of  the  most  useful  plants,  apart  from  the  usual 
routine  of  the  hardv  borders,  has  much  to  commend  it  for  cutting 
jiurposes.  The  little  trouble  entailed  in  ministering  to  each  kind’s 
particular  requirements  is  amply  repaid  by  the  greater  quantity  and 
higher  (prality  of  the  blooms  obtained.  After  pressing  the  claims  of 
naturalisation  it  may  appear  anomalous  to  promulgate  the  doctrine  of 
inversion — viz.,  the  taming  of  our  wildlings — but  from  the  present 
point  of  view  any  means  to  the  end  need  not  be  despised.  The  Chrys¬ 
anthemum  of  our  meadows,  popularly  called  the  Ox-eye  or  Moon 
Daisy,  simple  and  common  as  it  undoubtedly  is,  deserves  more  than  a 
passing  notice  for  our  purpose.  In  old  pastures  230''erty  is  often 
inimical  to  good  substantial  blooms,  but  by  transferring  some  roots  as 
early  in  the  season  as  procurable  to  a  w^ell-enrichcd  plot  the  beauty 
and  usefulness  of  the  flowers  are  much  increased.  For  table  decoration 
the  Ox-eye  Daisy  is,  in  my  experience,  far  and  away  the  best  flower 
of  its  kind.  The  cultivated  Marguerites  have,  when  cut,  a  disap¬ 
pointing  habit  of  reflexing  into  nothingness.  Arrangement,  however, 
has  not  a  little  to  do  with  the  successful  employment  and  consequent 
appreciation  of  flowers.  The  same  also  applies  to  all  our  wildlings. 
Ovei’-elaboration  is  fatal  to  effect. 
If  we  cull  wildlings  from  the  great  garden  of  Nature,  to  her  must 
w'e  go  for  the  secret  of  that  namele.^s  grace  she  invests  them  with. 
For  a  dinner-table  to  be  successfully  decorated  with,  say  Ox-eye 
Daisies,  they  must  be  lavishly  employed,  yet  loosely  arranged,  without 
any  approach  to  i)rimness.  If  the  Daisies  are  cut  full  length,  some 
with  branched,  others  with  single  stem,  they  may,  for  a  centrepiece, 
be  inserted  in  a  bowl,  or  other  receptacle,  of  wet  sand,  care  being  taken 
to  make  them  stand  well  out  round  the  edge,  disposing  them  au 
nahirel,  without  any  attempt  at  rigid  formality.  Whatever  vases  are 
used  as  supernumeraries  the  Daisies  will  be  arranged  in  them  in  a 
similarly  careless  manner.  Having  arranged  centrepiece  and  vases 
upon  the  table,  the  effect  upon  a  white  cloth  is,  at  least,  insipid,  I 
grant  you;  but  the  one  touch  of  Nature  is  yet  to  come;  with  a 
handful  of  our  tall,  nodding,  native  grasses,  the  missing  link  is 
restored.  Given  a  lofty  room  and  a  large  table,  on  which  say,  three 
or  more  bowls  are  used  down  the  centre,  such  Grasses  as  the  drooping- 
headed  Bromus  may  be  made  to  tower  above  the  flowers  2  or  3  feet, 
making  the  blooms,  as  it  were,  an  undergrowth. 
Similar  arrangements  with  single  red  Poppjies  or  the  Corncockle 
for  a  luncheon  table  (the  colour  of  this  is  not  suitable  for  artificial 
light),  are  particularly  effective,  never  producing  a  discordant  note  in 
that  harmony  of  natural  grace  in  which  all  floral  decorations  should 
be  transposed.  This  is  but  one,  although  the  more  important  side 
of  the  question,  the  other  being  the  saving  of  time  and  sparing  of 
choicer  materials.  Beyond  a  boy’s  time  spent  in  gathering  the 
wildlings,  an  hour  is  ample  in  which  to  decorate  a  dinner-table  for 
twenty  persons.  It  is  needless  to  descant  at  length  upon  the  variety 
of  material  naturally  supplied  from  such  time  as  early  summer  makes 
the  meadow's  and  hedgerows  things  of  beauty  till  late  autumn  crowns 
the  year  with  a  galaxy  of  dying  foliage  and  ripening  berry.  AVhere 
plants  are  called  for  to  furnish  firopjlaces  during  the  season,  the 
common  Water  Flag,  Iris  irseud-acorus,  is  a  capital  substitute.  The,se 
may  be  cut  off  at  the  base,  selecting  them  of  whatever  lengths  is 
deemed  necessary,  and  when  placed  in  pickle  jars  of  water  are  easily 
arranged  au  natural  with  a  bank  of  moss  to  hide  the  receptacles. 
This  wildling.  for  the  purpose,  cannot  be  too  highly  recommended ; 
not  to  mention  its  exquisite.  Orchid-like,  canary -yellow  blossoms, 
w'hich  9-o~ef  07  other  decorative  purposes. 
Where  such  things  have  not  been  hitherto  introduced  employers 
have  been  found  to  welcome  the  change,  not  less  to  those  who 
grudgingly  sacrifice  the  objects  of  their  skill  and  care  upon  the  altar 
of  necessity. — K.,  Dullin. 
HARDY  FRUIT  PROSPECTS  IN  SOUTH  WALES. 
Notwithstanding  the  severe  spell  of  winterly  weather  experienced 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  country  lately,  and  the  advanced  state  of 
the  fruit  buds,  w'hen  the  thermometer  registered  from  18°  to  30°  of 
frost  in  some  places,  the  Apple  and  Pear  trees  here  are  covered  with 
strong  (apparently  uninjured)  flower  buds,  which  give  every  promise 
of  an  abundant  crop  of  fruit,  if  the  flow'ers  are  not  injured  by  frost 
later  in  the  season. 
Last  year  the  Apple  trees  bore  a  heavy  crop,  but  the  fruits  were 
much  smaller  than  usual,  and  a  great  many  dropped  after  swelling  to 
a  good  size,  owing  to  the  long  continued  drought,  and  to  the  young 
growths  of  the  trees  being  badly  infested  with  aphis  and  honeydew. 
They  were  so  badly  blighted  that  I  was  afraid  they  would  be  crippled 
for  a  year  at  least.  I  had  all  the  points  of  the  infected  shoots  cut  off 
and  burned,  and  the  trees  syringed  with  a  mixture  of  softsoap  and 
water,  after  which  they  made  clean,  firm,  w'ell-ripened  growths 
bristling  wnth  fruit  buds.  You  see,  Mr.  Editor,  I  am  still  a  believer 
in  having  well  ripened  wood  (whether  it  be  the  wood  of  Vines,  Apple, 
cr  Pear  trees)  to  produce  a  good  crop  of  fruit.  And,  I  know,  I  am 
not  singular  in  that  respect,  although  a  writer  in  “  our  Journal  ”  tried 
hard  to  make  us  believe  otherwise  a  few  years  since. 
The  Pear  trees  in  the  open  quarters  never  looked  better.  They  do 
not  seem  to  have  been  injured  in  the  least  by  the  long  drought  of  last 
year.  Pitmaston  Duchess  is  fuller  of  buds  than  ever  I  remember,  and 
the  trees  are  going  to  be  one  mass  of  flow'ers,  and  the  same  may  be 
said  of  most  of  the  other  varieties.  Some  trees  on  the  walls,  however, 
are  not  quite  so  full  of  flower  buds  this  year  as  usual,  which  1 
attrioute  to  the  fruit  borders  getting  so  very  dry  during  the  drought 
of  last  year.  Apple  trees  are  swelling  their  fruit  buds  fast,  and,  like 
the  Pear  trees,  promise  an  abundant  crop  if  all  goes  well  w'iih  them 
during  the  setting  period  of  the  fruit. 
Plums  promise  w'ell  for  a  crop  at  present ;  the  trees  in  a  day  or 
two  will  be  smothered  with  flowers,  but  it  is  a  very  uncertain  crop  in 
this  district.  The  gardens  here  are  in  close  contiguity  to  the  town — 
in  fact,  surrounded  by  it;  and  stone  fruits  are  more  subject  to  the 
attacks  of  aphis  and  red  spider  than  trees  growing  in  the  open  country 
districts.  I  have  on  that  account  given  up  growing  Morello  and  other 
Cherries  long  ago,  as  I  found  it  was  almost  impossible  to  keep  the  trees 
in  a  clean  and  healthy  state.  Try  whatever  remedies  I  might,  there 
was  no  getting  rid  of  the  pests. 
Peach  trees  in  the  district  around  Cardiff  look  promising,  but  some 
of  the  earliest  opened  floweis  were  injured  by  frost,  although  the 
trees  were  w'ell  protected  by  a  double  thickness  of  fish  netting.  Still 
sufficient  uninjured  flower  buds  are  left  to  insure  a  crop,  if  the  fruits 
set  well. 
Cathays  Park. 
The  fine  fruit  gardens  in  Cathays  Park  containing  the  grand  col¬ 
lection  of  specimen  Apples  and  Pear  trees  which  have  been  so  much 
admired  by  gardeners  and  others  visiting  the  Castle  Gardens,  w'ill  soon 
be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Cathays  Park  and  fruit  garden  (about  60 
acres  in  all)  have  been  sold  to  the  Coriroration  for  the  sum  of  £160,000 
to  build  a  new  Town  Hall,  Law  Courts,  college,  museum,  and  other 
municipal  buildings*  thereon.  The  Corporation  have  taken  possession 
of  their  purchase,  and  thrown  the  park  open  to  the  public  until 
building  operations  have  begun.  The  fruit  garden,  for  the  present,  is 
kept  in  their  own  hands,  and  the  trees  will  not  be  done  away  with 
until  the  garden  is  required  for  building.  I  shall  try,  if  possible,  to 
get  a  few  of  the  Apple  and  Pear  trees  photographed  before  they  are 
destroyed,  to  keep  as  a  memento  of  what  can  be  done  in  fruit  culture 
in  this  country  in  the  space  of  twenty  years. 
The  trees  were  all  planted  when  maidens  of  one  year’s  growth  from 
the  bud  on  free  stocks.  The  Pear  trees  in  the  open  quarters  are 
trained  as  pyramids,  and  the  Apples  in  tree-bush  form.  A  great 
many  of  the  Pear  trees  are  now  from  28  to  30  feet  high,  well 
furnished  from  base  to  apex,  with  good  fruiting  branches.  I  have 
never  seen  such  fine  specimen  trees  anywhere  as  those  of  Pitmaston 
Duchess,  Beurre  Diel,  Marie  Louise,  Beurre  d’Amanlis,  Brown  Beurr4, 
Beurre  Superfin,  Beurre  Magnifique,  and  Beurre  Eance,  as  those  here. 
The  Pear  trees  on  the  south  w'all  are  very  fine ;  trained  in  fan-shape 
they  look  well  at  all  seasons,  whether  denuded  of  leaves,  covered 
with  flowers,  or  bearing  heavy  crops  of  fruit.  The  varieties  growing 
on  the  wall  are  Pitmaston  Duchess,  Beurre  d’Amanlis,  Easter  Beurre, 
AVilliams’  Bon  Chretien,  Beurrd  Clairgeau,  Beurre  Diel,  Marie  Louise, 
Beurre  Bose,  Beurre  d’Esperne,  General  Toffleben,  and  Nec  Plus  Meuris. 
The  wall  is  from  14  to  15  feet  high,  and  it  is  well  furnished  with 
healthy  vigorous  trees  from  top  to  bottom  in  a  full  bearing  state. — 
A  Pettigrew,  Castle  Gardens,  Cardiff. 
[The  trees  in  question  are  highly  worthy  of  photographic  repre¬ 
sentation  and  preservation.  When  visiting  Cardiff  some  years  ago 
we  regarded  them  as  splendid  examples  of  culture,  training,  and 
productiveness.] 
