APRIL. 115 



been thrown away. The number of new varieties of vegetables brought 

 out year after year by the trade, and offered for sale generally on the 

 sole recommendation of the vendors, only bewilders the majority of cul- 

 tivators, who have hitherto looked in vain for a tribunal to which they 

 could refer for an opinion sufficiently unbiassed to be considered an 

 authority as to their comparative value. 



We do not by these remarks intend to question for a moment the 

 correctness of descriptions appended to new varieties of vegetables in 

 the seed lists annually published ; on the contrary, we know from our 

 own observations on new productions, carried over a number of years, 

 that the descriptive notices which have accompanied the novelties we 

 have tried have proved generally correct, and may therefore be relied on. 

 But it appears to us that an investigation into the comparative qualities 

 of vegetables in the same class, as to earliness, lateness, productiveness, 

 &c, is most wanted. For instance, as regards Peas, let us take a dozen 

 catalogues, and out of the class early Peas select a dozen varieties, all 

 recommended as the best, &c. ; of these every gardener well knows 

 that three or four kinds, perhaps, are better worth growing than the 

 others, owing to some particular property which stamps them with a 

 higher value. But how are isolated gardeners and amateurs, growing, 

 probably, only one kind of early Pea, to find out the best, with their 

 limited opportunities for comparing the different varieties when grown 

 side by side ? And if out of a dozen kinds three or four represent 

 all that is valuable in this particular class, why grow the other eight or 

 nine kinds, as is now done? simply because the public has no standard 

 of comparison to guide their judgment in the matter of selection ? We 

 might lengthen these observations by citing numerous classes of vege- 

 tables, where a similar cutting down might and certainly would be 

 effected, when once a series of fair trials, under the same conditions, had 

 established the respective merits of the kinds under trial, and this infor- 

 mation had been made public. We look forward, therefore, with some 

 interest to these class experiments as a means of settling the relative 

 value of cultivated vegetables, and bringing the information resulting 

 therefrom within the reach of everyone having a garden. 



We have on more than one occasion pointed out the mistake the 

 Society made by going to a great expense in growing fruits for the 

 purpose of testing their merits, as the information obtained could 

 only be considered as marking the peculiarities and properties of fruits 

 within a very circumscribed area — the Thames valley — and that 

 one of the most favourable soils in Britain for fruits. To establish 

 anything like a general data as to the flavour, hardiness, and pro- 

 ductiveness of fruits, a much wider range of country, and all the 

 contingencies of varied exposures, altitude, and difference of soil, 

 have to be taken into consideration. These objects the Pomological 

 Society started with at their commencement, and the mass of useful 

 information, in the shape of Reports and Transactions, on these subjects 

 that Society is yearly amassing shows how valuable this information 

 will be to the Pomologist. More recently the Fruit Committee of the 

 Horticultural Society has taken up the same grounds of inquiry ; but 

 let us ask the question, how much more would have been known of 



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