446 THE GARDENER. [Oct. 



them may be — and we wonder what would become of it ! The passage it has 

 found so applicable to the fraternity is as follows : — 



"The history of science proves that unconnected, unsystematic, inaccurate 

 observations are worth nothing ; therefore it is that common experience is 

 almost absolutely useless in all practical arts, which, without exception, 

 depend for their progress upon the advance of science — that is, upon method- 

 ical, continuous, and scrupulously accurate observations and experiments." 



"For the present," says your contemporary, " we confine ourselves to this 

 extract." So we may expect further complements by-and-by, when perhaps 

 the accurate sayings and doings of your contemporary may come under review 

 also. 



As the season draws towards its close, we begin to gauge more accurately 

 the effects of the unfavourable weather upon the crops. 1879 will long be re- 

 membered. A competent authority in the ' Times ' reckons the loss on the 

 corn, potato, and bean crops alone at forty-three millions of pounds. And 

 this takes no account of the loss on the hay, hops, and root crops. The loss is 

 appalling, coming as it does after a long period of depression of trade. The 

 'Times 'in a leader asks: "What if next year should be like this? Bad 

 seasons, we are continually assured, come together, and we have been lately 

 told, apparently with a long retrospect and careful calculation, that in every 

 cycle there are several concurrent years more or less of one character, and 

 several concurrent years of another. If the losses in the next year be as great 

 as those in this, or as the average of the three years, the farmers, very few of 

 whom have any capital in reserve — very few of whom are not in debt — will 

 have to throw up their farms. The results of such a calamity as we are suffer- 

 ing will extend far out of the agricultural circle. Some thousands of land- 

 owners will have to do without rent, to reduce their establishments, put down 

 carriages and horses, turn off under-gardeners and labourers, dispose of their 

 London houses, and reduce the season to a few weeks in lodgings or to still 

 fewer at an hotel. They will, perhaps even less reluctantly, shut up their 

 country houses, and live for a year or two, without care, ostentation, or even 

 comfort, in Continental hotels. All this portends the discharge of many ser- 

 vants not very well fitted to make their way in the world, and loss of profit- 

 able custom to many tradesmen. Not only some kinds of industry, and some 

 special localities also, will suffer more than their share in such an agricultural 

 collapse as that which is at least not improbable. The residential neighbour- 

 hood of London and the watering places — that is, all the favoured resorts of 

 the wealthy — will feel with special force any general restriction of resources 

 and curtailment of expenditure." 



Horticulture is now feeling the effects of the depression more keenly. A 

 London paper, usually well informed on such matters, states that gentlemen 

 and landed proprietors are very generally reducing the expenditure of their 

 establishments to a considerable extent, which of course means a reduction of 

 both men and wages in private gardens, and which has already taken place in 

 numerous instances. 



The copious reports of the fruit crops in the 'Garden ' " tell," says that paper, 

 " of sad disasters to Apricot trees, owing to the remarkable season which we 

 have experienced. Branch-dying has been unusually prevalent, and many 

 trees have died outright. Peaches and Nectarines have suffered greatly from 

 blister, and so backward are their fruits that in many places they will never 

 ripen. Pears, though in some cases rusty and cracking, are better this year 

 than Apples, which are generally a thin crop, and the fruit still keeps drop- 



