58 



IRISH GARDENING 



APRIL 



committee on nomenclature representing various shades 

 of the most expert opinion was formed to decide what 

 should be altered and what should not be altered, what 

 should be done and what should not be done, in order to 

 unravel the tang-le in which we are fast becoming 

 enmeshed. But beware of the printer ! This, by the 

 way. We are aware, poor man, that he has probably 

 more to contend with in gardening copy than in anybody 

 else's copy. But we have been brought to book ourselves 

 about that man of letters. What did you mean in last 

 month's " Current Topics " by calling the Bray phormium 

 P. horiles ? The query was diplomatically referred to the 

 printer. What we sent him was P. nobilis ; but, there, 

 that perhaps is the very latest. You never can tell. 



There seems to be some little misunderstanding anent 

 cabbage classes at our local and district shows, and as 

 we may take it that a cabbage in that part of our 

 vegetable kingdom takes second rank only to the 

 "noble tuber" it is a matter which should be cleared up. 

 Now, the cabbage which finds favour in the eyes of our 

 expert judges at, say, the shows of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society of Ireland is a modest entity com- 

 pared with huge-hearted triumphs which make their way 

 to, sav, Athlone. The prize cabbage (this advisedly) 

 there may be of that weight and dimension which elicits 

 a cheerful chirrup from the little gentleman who pays 

 the rent (when he is so " dispoged ") and perhaps 

 powerful enough to bring a broad smile on the long face 

 of the gentle bovine who provides our pasteurised liquid. 

 Heavy weight and noble size tell in that direction of our 

 rural domestic economy, and there are cases, of course, 

 in which half a heart, sufficient to fill the most ponderous 

 of family pots, is appreciated by young Ireland when in 

 niimero familia. That is all very well if the matter is 

 understood, but being, as we invariably find it, mis- 

 understood, it is unfair to all concerned. Apropos of 

 this, we heard not a hundred miles from the midland 

 metropolis the following colloquy after staging where 

 over thirty entries went in for the cabbage contests 

 alone : — " Who do you think'U get it ?" " Well, if size 

 is put first, So-and-So has it ; but there, you never can tell 

 what a judge is going for." That is so. If a local 

 judge, which is rarely the case, perhaps, quantity rather 

 than quality, and if — but there, still the irritating 

 uncertainty. Some may think this topic too trifling — too 

 paltry — for parade in the high-class pages of our Irish 

 G.\RDENING, or, to quote another limerick, " Much ado 

 about nothing." The ado is admitted, au res/e, our rural 

 friend has often as much interest and anxiety in his 

 cabbage as the Napoleons of the art of vegetable 

 growing and showing, backed up by the artful aid of 

 black velvet, and sometimes he displays the outward 

 and visible signs of it in a more forceful manner when 

 " going " for that secretary with his protest and a 5s. 

 for its viaticum. More power to you, oh captious 

 cottager, and less laxity from the powers that be ! 



An Essex friend, writing from the neighbourhood of 

 Mayland, says — " I saw the French Garden, or rather 

 was told it was there, under the snow. What I really saw- 

 was a depressing sight (our friend is a pessimist 1. .All 

 work was stopped, and how the "golden soil" will look 

 when it again comes to \iew is hard to say ; but the out- 

 look is serious. Humph ! the snow is gone now, and the 

 French Garden is still there — at least we have no evidence 



to the contrary -and what a grand idea this is to relieve 

 the overstocked gardening profession ; men with a 

 little savings, you know, who have only to pick up the 

 theory and put it in practice right away, it being merely 

 a matter of an enlarged hotbed business dotted over 

 with cloches, things like bell-glasses with their knobs 

 knocked off. These, we believe, merely require a 

 month's daily handling for practice, then what remains 

 are pretty safe. First you take your acre of land (this 

 for Ireland, over there the regulations are different) — first 

 you take your acre of land (or somebody else's) and just 

 dump down a thousand tons of hot manure, and if you 

 do not keep a horse it is wise to pick your site near a 

 gee-gee garage, because the same quantity, hot and 

 strong, is wanted annually ; fit up a water supply, 

 including tanks, pumps, hydrants, and hose ; get in 2,500 

 cloches, pop them down, sow your seeds — special 

 varieties of the "Call me Early'' Kind — and then, 

 heigho for market on shank's mare if you h.ive no surplus 

 at starting for a gee-gee. There are, of course, a few 

 other odds and ends, such as 400 French-made lights, 

 13;} frames, 600 mats — we are not responsible for the 

 quantities, but detail them as per the eminent source 

 from which they came to us. .And then there is the 

 labour, which seems a bit vague. However, that is a 

 mere detail, too, presumabh-. There are such items as 

 shading the cloches — merely a pastime. Say you shade 

 100 cloches an hour, nearly two a minute, that at 2,500 

 works out at— er, that wont do, but our page is full. 

 To the man with a little means waiting to get on, there 

 you are. 



Culture of Vegetable Marrow. 



Bv William Johnsto.n', Longford. 



T 



'HIS delicious vege- 

 table, which is 

 also used as a 

 fruit, deserves to be 

 more widely grown than 

 it really is, since it re- 

 quires so little trouble 

 to bring it to perfection. 

 Some people imagine 

 that the treatment re- 

 quired to grow this 

 vegetable and the neces- 

 sary labour it involves 

 are more than the profits 

 that are obtained. They 

 also imagine that it is 

 necessar}" to have glass, 

 either frames or houses, 

 to bring the crop to perfection, and rather than go to the 

 trouble of obtaining glass they leave the growing of 

 this crop alone. But with an ordinary soil, warmth, 

 plenty of light and moisture, the cultivation of this 

 profitable vegetable is quite easy. 



Soil. — The richer the soil in which vegetable marrow 

 seedlings are planted the better will be the result 

 obtained. The soil best adapted to produce the largest 

 and finest fruits is that of a fibrous loam. Given this 

 soil, placed on the top of an old hot-bed, the roots will 



WiLLi.\M Johnston. 



