lO 



IRISH GARDENING. 



tubers from this plant were preserved sepa- 

 rately, and during the following- seasons a 

 commercial stock was raised, which is now on 

 the market ■AsSolaiiuDi Cotiwic rsonii Wo\ei. We 

 have no space to enter into a description of the 

 new variety here, but the illustration will give 

 an idea of onQ of the tubers. M. Labergerie 

 claims a number of important points in favour 

 of his new variety, one of them being its special 

 suitability for wet situations, and another its 

 practical immunity against blight. Should these 

 claims be established and other things be in its 

 favour, it would seem to be an ideal potato for 

 culture in Ireland. It must, however, be stated 

 that by many experts, including such authorities 

 as M. Vilmorin, of Paris, and Mr. Sutton, oi 

 Reading, this Violet variety is considered not 

 to be a novelty at all, but to be merely an old 

 variety reintroduced —namely, the Blaue Riese 

 (geante bleue, Blue Giant t, raised some years 

 ago in Germany by Herr Paulsen. M. Labergerie, 

 of course, vigorously contests this, but when 

 the two varieties are seen growing side by side 

 in this country, and when carefully compared, 

 including their tubers, it is almost impossible to 

 find any substantial difference between them. 

 The differences are no greater than frequently 

 occur in plants of one and the same variety 

 of potato grown from " seed " emanating from 

 different sources. As regards immunity to 

 blight, this is far from being the case with the 

 Violet variety in Ireland. We have seen the 

 foliage o^ plants derived from tubers imported 

 direct from M. Labergerie quite seriously 

 attacked during the past season, and this in 

 spite of twice spraying. In addition to this, 

 many of the new tubers derived from these 

 plants have been found to contain the blight 

 fungus. 



During the past season the Department of 

 Agriculture in Ireland has been carrying out an 

 extensive series of experiments with this Violet 

 variety, and when the report o'i them appears 

 further important information on the matter 

 should be forthcomin<r. 



The School Garden. 



By L, J, HUMPHREY, Special Instructor in School Gardening under 

 the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for 

 Ireland. 



IN January most of the past season's crops 

 will have been removed, and active prepara- 

 tions should now be made for the spring 

 and summer work. During the preceding 

 months most of the ground will have been dug, 

 with the surface left rough in order that frost 

 may penetrate. The effect of the weather will 

 now be apparent on the soil surface, manv of 

 the rough lumps being already pulverised and 

 making evident the value of the practice in 



view of the seed-sowing to be commenced as 

 soon as local conditions will permit. If trench- 

 ing- or bastard trenching has not yet been done, 

 an early opportunity should be taken to get 

 some portion, at least, of the plots treated in 

 this way, if only for the value of the lesson to 

 the pupils. While this work is proceeding it 

 will be easy to invdte attention to the depth and 

 character of the soil and subsoil, and to make 

 clear something of the origin of the soil and 

 why the two spits differ in character. 



In the school g-arden, as indeed in all g-ardens, 

 system is a most important factor in the success or 

 otherwise of the crops, and to secure that the season's 

 work should be systematically carried out deserves 

 some thoug-ht and attention. Each day's work and each 

 lesson should be a part of a connected whole, tending 

 to arouse or increase the interest o^ e\'ery child in the 

 school in plants and how the\' grow. For convenience, 

 onl}' a selected few of the children should be allowed 

 to work on the plots, but all the others should know 

 what to look for in the garden — to know, for example, 

 which plant was the first to flower this year and which 

 of the plants frost will injure, and where you would look 

 for the chrysalids. Even where there is no school 

 garden the children might be encouraged to take an 

 interest in the plants around them by making a record 

 of their observations, placing ag-ainst each entry the 

 name of the child who made the observation. Such a 

 calendar would be of great interest, especially after a 

 year or two, when comparison with the lists of previous 

 years could be made. 



For the sake of the teacher hiinself, no less than 

 for the scholar, a plan of the garden should be 

 drawn up at the beginning of the session, and 

 each vegetable to be grown assigned a place upon 

 it, and then it will be an easy matter to order all 

 the seeds that will be required. In deciding what 

 vegetables are to be grown care should be taken to 

 include a good number of kinds, those of which small 

 quantities are required can usually be best grown in 

 borders or beds, and not on the pupils' plots, which 

 should contain a representative collection of the vege- 

 tables suitable for cultivation in the home garden. 

 Perennial vegetables and herbs can be planted in 

 borders set apart for them, and the plan should not be 

 considered complete without provision being made for a 

 border of herbaceous plants to demonstrate how effec- 

 tive and useful such a border can be. 



Something should also be done in the cultivation of 

 fruit trees and bushes ; it is not always possible to 

 include a typical collection at the beg-inning, but a 

 great deal can be learnt from a sinall number of such 

 plants. Half-a-dozen planted each year for a few years 

 would form a useful collection fully as soon as boys will 

 have been educated to let unripe produce alone, and 

 proceeding in this way the annual cost would be very 

 small. The possibilities of doing useful work in con- 

 nection with the school g-arden are almost unlimited. 

 Apart from g-rovving- vegetables and fruit there is the 

 need for beautifying the outside of the school by means 

 of flowering plants and shrubs ; a branch of gardening 

 that every school could take up to-morrow if they 

 would ; the arrangement of a school "arbour-day" and 

 the raising of plants co-operatively for distribution, all 

 of which would produce results of value out of all pro- 

 portion to the trouble and expense of starting them. 



Mr. BfRCH, of the Rose Nurseries, Peterborough, in a 

 recent lecture before the Beckenham Horticultural 

 Society, recommended a wash made by dissolving half 

 a bar of Lifebuo}- soap in three gallons of water as a 

 specific against mildew in roses. 



