DECEMBER 



IRISH GARDENING. 



tickle the jud'cial tooth with Shannon trouts for break- 

 fast. And now it seems the leading" spirits have re- 

 sig^ied and the body is left with not a kick in it to shove 

 off a 1910 show. And then to think of all that it has 

 done, and to think that the old order of things in bog- 

 land may return— great Scott ! 



Fancy. Gros Colmans, or Gros Colmar, we never 

 know which, so generally spell them turn about, and 

 h.aving the precedent of a high class paper doing the 

 same no one need try to clip our bi-lingual burst, for the 

 difference 'twixt mar and man is soon made up, or 

 should be, and we are not open to conviction — fancy 

 Gros Colmans, and excellent Colmars, too, ticketed ten- 

 pence a pound in Dublin ? Is this over production or 

 under consumption, or a little of both ? For the grape 

 grower, unfortunate man, it looks as if the day of small 

 profits is not only at hand but actually arrived. How 

 are tomatoes judged ? Do the judges feel them, smell 

 them, pinch them, or pat them, or like the cabman's 

 horse with unfair fares gauge their rotundity, and then 

 jib at the heavy weights? Other points being equal 

 should flavour come into calculation ? The second 

 prize lot amongst twenty dishes at the recent Dublin 

 show was Waterpark Hybrid, the most delicious fruit 

 (or is it vegetable?) we have .sampled since the old Ham- 

 green favourite grew in days of yore. No ! we are 

 not judging the judges, nor did we sample them at the 

 show, that by courtesy of the grower was done since, 

 but merely promulgate this to get the opinion of the 

 visitor who carried off that dish by " mistake " ! Will 

 he, or she, kindly state it in the next number of Irish 

 G.^RDENING under the 710m de plume of " Lifter." And, 

 at the same time, will the visitor who miss-took the half- 

 bushel case of Xewtown-on-Fergus apples kindly return 

 empty to owner and advise us under the nom tic plume 

 <>i " Klepto." No questions will be asked. 



Ere this is in print the Irish Gardeners' -Association 

 will have wound up an excellent season with the mem- 

 bers' conversazione and dance in the D. B.C., and with 

 their new rules and new lion sec, will doubtless settle 

 down again seriously after the little " divarshion " to 

 more good works. And the Gardeners' Cup goes for 

 the second year to Mr. Davies (Obelisk Park Gardens), 

 who will have to be fought hard the coming year to keep 

 up the sport a little longer. 



Beyond the little glorification at Bray Head on 

 the last day of the Irish .Arbor Week, we don't hear 

 of much having been done in the way of this kind 

 of reafforestation. A good deal, of course, may 

 have been done, but, if so, why keep it dark ? After a 

 flourish of trumpets, when the music dies off " so suddint 

 like," it appears neither promising nor resultant. Cer- 

 tainly it is not the fault of the Irish Forestry Society, 

 who, having piped, are perhaps expected to dance 

 around themselves and Woburnise the bare bosom of 

 old Ireland. 



We should think that October did much to make up 

 the shortage in the year's rainfall, of which, according 

 to Rothamsted statistics, igog started with a deficiency 

 of 284 tons per acre. However, those are not Irish 

 measurements, still we have not been short of weather, 

 and the few cold snaps, with a couple of Christmas-cardy 

 kind of mornings, remind us of a winter in Kildare some- 

 where back close to the eighties, when frost set in on 



N'ovember ist and lasted till — till il went, anyway ; but 

 we have a vivid recollection of how it culminated in zero 

 at midnight — in the shade, of course — our thermometer 

 standing at o, with a south wind by the same token, and 

 in seven hours — viz., at seven in the morning — it stood at 

 40 degrees and was raining. It was a remarkable jump, 

 and broke the back of winter that season, but was fol- 

 lowed by another winter pretty well equal to it. Probably 

 there are but few young gardeners know W'liat zero 

 really means, and we haven't the time to tell them, 

 beyond remarking it was a fat time for the plumber but 

 a lean one in the garden. • 



Surely this year has made a record for aphis, and 

 grubs, and — and all the "divilment" of insect life that 

 comes to double our troubles and more than halve the 

 gastronomic joys of the restaurant diner as he suspi- 

 ciously picks his way through a cauliflower or a much 

 chopped cabbage. There does not seem much grease 

 banding done for the codlin moth in Ireland. Is it CAving 

 to what a gardener is averred to have seen — viz., that 

 Mr. Codlinmoth, who is blessed with a fine pair of 

 wings while "herself" has none, has been caught in the 

 act of picking up the missus on his back and flying with 

 her over the obstructing grease band to the incubating 

 grounds above? We note that the gardening paper 

 reporting these gymnastics asks for corroboration, and 

 our observant young Irish gardeners might be on the 

 qui vivf. 



The "golden soil " theory of French gardening seems 

 to have pretty well had the bottom knocked out of it 

 now, and without going into details the summing up may 

 be taken as about five per cent, on outlay, but this only 

 for those who have, as well as the money to put into it. 

 the skill, untiring patience, and constant watchfulness 

 to work it ; without the latter, and a few other virtues 

 as well, our French gardener may find himself pretty 

 well on a par with the talented author of Lorna Doone, 

 who lost ;£20,ooo in pear-growing at Teddington. 

 Speaking of pears, by the way, the French and their 

 climate combined seQm facile prhiceps with this fruit. ;ind 

 the collection of twenty-five varieties from Tours shown 

 in London on the 9th ult.. the bulk of which are unknown 

 to us, is said to have surpassed anything we can do or 

 are ever likely to do. 



Talking of fruit, somebody surely has blundered over 

 the plunder, we mean wonderberry. .Allowing for all 

 the proverbial Transatlantic tail talk, we cannot conceive 

 that this wretched berry, as we have seen it, is the 

 identical Burbank "' creation " which has been boomed 

 in the States. Compared with three samples we have 

 now seen of Irish growth, our common blackberry is a 

 king to it. .Again, surely, over this berry — wonderberry, 

 forsooth, nastyberry would be more nameful, this thiiig 

 which we never want to see or hear of again — some one 

 has blundered. 



How time flies ! With thisowrlast of Current Topics owr 

 twelfth round is completed, for it is good that rotation 

 of cropping should be recognised in Irish G.vrdening 

 both figuratively and literally. Christmas currents pro- 

 vide, perhaps, raisons d'etre for adding other December 

 topics to what should have been sooner done ; but, some- 

 how, stories lengthen when begun, so with one big. 

 hearty, old, seasonable wish the writer bids his readers 

 adieu. 



