94 



IRISH GARDENING. 



A Practical Glide to School, Cottage and Allot- 

 ment Gardening. By J. Weathers. London : Long- 

 mans, Green & Co. — This is a very useful and practical 

 hand-book of gardening-, and should be of great 

 assistance to everyone who has anything to do with small 

 gardens, as it deals with all the work of such a garden, 

 from the selection of the site to the value of the produce 

 which may be grown, as would be expected from the 

 name of the author. The book is thoroughh- practical, 

 and the chapters on Cottage Gardening, the Fruit Gar- 

 den, and the V^egetable Garden contain much informa- 

 tion not obtainable in other books of a similar character. 

 In the chapter on School Gardening we disagree with the 

 author when he says that only those lads who have a 

 taste for gardening should be chosen for school garden 

 work. Surely, the great argument for school gardens is 

 that they create a taste for gardening among those boys 

 who would otherwise have no opportunity of knowing 

 anything of gardening work, and a boy of school-going 

 age is hardly likely to have his tastes so fixed that he is 

 uninfluenced by his teacher. Gardening taught in con- 

 junction with nature-study can hardly fail to be of value to 

 every lad whether he starts with that uncertain quality 

 "a taste for gardening" or whether it is by reason of 

 the interest of the work a taste for it is afterwards 

 engendered. However, this in no way detracts from the 

 value of the practical information given in this chapter, 

 and a teacher with only a slight knowledge of gardening 

 would find in this book just the information he would be 

 likely to neeel in starting a school garden. The calendars 

 of work and the tables, particularly that of trees and 

 shrubs, should be especially valuable. 



Vegetables for Home and Exhibition. By Edwin 

 Beckett. London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, 

 Kent & Co., Ltd. Price, 5s.— The lengthy sub-title 

 of this attractively "got up" handbook sufficiently 

 describes its contents. It includes chapters cin soil 

 preparation, crop rotation, tools, preparing and ex- 

 hibiting vegetables, herbs and salading, diseases and 

 insect enemies of kitchen garden crops, a monthh^ 

 calendar of kitchen garden work, and numerous 

 illustrations of vegetables, vegetable exhibits, growing 

 crops, &c. The author is well known as a skilful 

 cultivator and a successful exhibitor, and we are 

 quite sure that all gardeners who buy this book will 

 thoroughly enjoy a perusal of its well-illustrated and 

 handsome pages. 



Manures for Fruit and other Trees. By Dr. A. 

 B. Griffiths. London : Robert Sutton. Price, 7s. 6d. — 

 In a brief historical introduction the author traces the 

 development of the art of the cultivation of plants from 

 the culture of cereals by the Chinese and Japanese 

 3,000 years before the Christian era up till the most 

 recent researches by modern chemists and bacteri- 

 ologists. This is followed by two chapters — one on the 

 physiology of plants and the other on the chemistry of 

 soils, while the bulk of the remaining pages is devoted 

 to tables of the chemical analyses of all the principal 

 cultivated fruit and other trees, to which a general chapter 

 on manures is added. The book should prove useful as 

 a work of reference to students, but gardeners, we are 

 afraid, would find it rather tedious and perplexing. 



Dahlias and their Cultivation — By J. B. Wroe. 

 London : CoUingridge. is. — This little work will interest 

 dahlia lovers. The directions for culture are clearly 

 stt forth and helpful illustrations are freely given. A 

 good deal of space is devoted to culture for exhibition. 

 The author strongly recommends the use of cuttings 

 rather than tubers for ordinary garden work. He 

 advises the tubers to be placed in heat early in the 

 spring, rear cuttings from them, and then discard the old 

 roots. 



Pansies and Violets. By D. B. Crane. London : 

 CoUingridge. is. — A little work dealing with the culti- 

 vation of all kinds of violas. It is well arranged, simply 

 written, and suitably illustrated. A special section is 

 devoted to culture for exhibition. A descriptive list of 

 cultural varieties is added. Any reader taking up the 

 cultivation of these delightful flowers will do well to buy 

 a copy of this little handbook. 



Nature Teaching, based upon the general prin- 

 ciples of Agriculture — By Francis WxXtts and Wm. G. 

 Freeman, 3s. 6d. London : John Murray. — This ex- 

 cellent little work is confined to the study of plants, 

 with special reference to their physiology and culture. 

 We commend it to the attention of teachers as a suitable 

 text-book for elementary students. 



The Country Home is the name of an attractively 

 produced monthly issued at sixpence by Messrs. Con- 

 stable & Co. It deals with all subjects likely to interest 

 dwellers in the country from the furnishing of a cottage 

 to gardening and natural history. It is pleasantly written 

 and beautifully illustrated. The cover in particular is 

 strikingly effective in colour and design. 



c^?* ^^ ^^ 



Daphnes. 



THE Daphnes are delightful spring-flowering shrubs, 

 the iMezereon, a shade-loving species, being one 

 of the very earliest flowering shrubs in the 

 garden. It is a deciduous plant, and its dense clusters 

 of purple flowers appear before the leaves. The Spurge 

 Laurel is another species [D. laureola). It is evergreen 

 and also shade-loving. Its flowers are of a yellowish 

 green colour ; they too arise in clusters, and are very 

 fragrant, especially at night. These two species are found 

 wild in certain parts of the south and west of England. 

 The berries of both species are poisonous, those of 

 Spurge Laurel being especially so. There are about fifty 

 species of Daphnes distributed over Europe, North Africa, 

 and temperate Asia, of which about fifteen are to be 

 found in cultivation. 



Mr. G. B. Mallett, in an article on Daphnes in the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle^ refers to D. Crcoruin as the most 

 attractive of all species of Daphne, and says that in 

 the moister climate of the west of Ireland it forms in 

 May lovely mounds of pink that everyone must admire. 

 It is a European species of trailing habit, growing to 

 about one foot in height, with smooth, lance-shaped 

 leaves half an inch long, each terminating in a little point. 

 The flowers are deliciously fragrant, especially after rain. 

 It is essentially a rock plant, but may be grown in ordi- 

 nary borders. Mr. Mallett says — " I have seen many 

 instances where the use of peat has proved detrimental 

 to this plant. It undoubtedly appreciates lime in limited 

 quantities, and I can recommend mellow loam and leaf- 

 mould in equal parts as the best soil for it, weighting 

 the whole with a few pieces of soft mountain limestone. 

 Thus treated and given shade for a year or two it will 

 thrive. 



D. oroda, introduced from China and Japan, is an ever- 

 green attaining a height of four feet. Its flowers are 

 sweet-scented. It is rather tender, but Mr. Mallett 

 believes it can be successfully grown in Ireland. 



D. indica is a greenhouse plant bearing deliciously 

 scented flowers in early spring. Daphnes can be readily 

 propagated by layers. 



