334 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ April 18, 1872. 



prizes offered appears to be improvemeut in the science of 

 horticulture ; surely, then, the first consideration should be 

 utility — that is, a house constructed for doing the greatest 

 amount of work in the best maimer with the smallest amount 

 uf labour, composed of the best materials and workmanship, 

 with a view to durability. Secondly, novelty, so far only as it 

 conduces to tlie above. Thu-dly, cheapness in proportion to 

 the work done, and goodness of material used. If ornamenta- 

 tion and elegance of design are to be the criterion of excellence, 

 the prize becomes one for taste and the longest pocket only, 

 and has little to do with horticulture per se. If, on the other 

 hand, cheapness is to be the sole criterion, the worst house 

 gets the priz3. Like the race, however, in which the last 

 donkey wins, everyone should in this case be compelled to 

 build his neighbour's house ; this might save us from these 

 tumble-down erections. I trust, however, that the Council of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society will not leave the public long 

 in the dark on this point. — Queky. 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT GROWING. 



(Contiitiied from page 307.) 



Natl'ke, too, has favoured some districts with climate, to rival 

 which by artificial means is a very upliill and profitless uuder- 

 taking. Witness the early products of Cornwall and the Channel 

 Islands in the London markets ; and the success of the consign- 

 ments to Glasgow I have already mentioned, and which was no 

 doubt owing to their forestalling the northern growers, perhaps 

 only by a few days, but still showing the advantage of earliness 

 in vegetable-production and the levelling influence of railways. 



Around London there are about 12,000 acres devoted to market 

 gardening, and (iOOO to orchards intermixed with vegetables and 

 flowers ; for although it is not the practice in the cider and perry 

 districts to cultivate the orchard ground, it is in those around 

 London. About 40,000 hands are irregularly employed upon 

 these grounds. On the chalk formations around Mitcliam, Car- 

 shalton, and Epsom there are about -500 acres devoted to the 

 production of herbs, of which Lavender is the pi-incipal. These 

 crops bi'ing in from i'20 to i'30 an acre annually, altliough the 

 land on which they grow is not worth more than 30s. an acre for 

 any other pui^pose. The returns from the suburban market 

 gardens are sometimes very large and remunerative, arising 

 more from the enormous crop the land is made to produce than 

 from high prices. In a very productive year prices are usuallj' 

 low, and when there is only a partial crop foreign supplies of 

 fruit and vegetables — all of which come in duty free — keep down 

 the prices. The only protection tliat native growers now have 

 is, produce abundantly, and keep down the cost of production. 

 Most of their grounds are managed with such consummate skUl 

 and industry, that to offer a suggestion would appear almost like 

 jiresumption, but I will venture to offer one or two. 



From excess of ammoniacal manure a good many of their crops, 

 both bulbous and Brassica, run more to top and leaf than to root 

 and head than is profitable. The Brassica tribe are also subject 

 to clubbing, and the sui-face of the ground to be infested with 

 Chickweed. Now the whole of these drawbacks can be remedied 

 by the application of mineral manures, bone-dust, and super- 

 pnospliate of lime, and that inexpensive article, gypsum. Last 

 year I tried what the effect would be of London dung applied at 

 the rate of 100 tons an acre on deeply trenched land, on which I 

 planted Bovinia Potatoes, 6 feet apart each way ; Long and Globe 

 Mangel, Swedish yellow and white Turnips, white and red 

 Carrots, Parsnips, Cabbages, and Maize, at proportionately wide 

 distances, and the result was a total failure in every case except 

 the Maize, which reached 8 feet in height, and was well podded. 

 On another piece of garden ground, trenched two spits deep, and 

 manm-ed from the farmyard, and dusted at the rate of ?cwt. per 

 acre with dissolved bones, I dug Bovinia Potatoes at the rate of 

 2 cwt. per perch, or 10 tons per acre, and some of the tubers 

 weighed 3 lbs. 11 ozs. each, and many of them 2i lbs. and 3 lbs. 

 I would also suggest, to economise the valuable orchard grounds 

 around Loudon, which are being gradually curtailed by build- 

 ings and railways, that the French espaUer system of training 

 fruit trees should be adopted, and Ukewise dwarf or busli fruit 

 trees planted. The latter in windy places are invaluable, and 

 the fruit can be gathered with little' labour or expense. 



In forming new orchards and gardens it is not only necessary 

 to select the best species, but to propagate from the most 

 vigorous and productive parent plants. This is as beneficial in 

 the vegetable as in the animal world, for like produces like, and 

 establishes what may be called pedigi-ee plants. Thus, the late 

 Mr. Circuit's celebrated Sovereign Rhubarb arose from one root 

 which he espied in another man's field, and tempted him to seU 

 for the sum that gives the plant its name. Fortunes have been 

 made out of this one root, and one of the largest gr-owers in- 

 formed me that lie began by planting an acre of it at a cost of 

 4120, and found it pay. Rhubarb, Uke Potatoes, can be propa- 

 gated from the seed, but, like them also, it may throw twenty 



kinds of Rhubarb, but not a single duplicate of the parent. It 

 is therefore necessary to propagate from the root to preser\'e a 

 good sort. If new sorts are required, they must be obtained 

 from the seed, as in the case of Potatoes, and occasionally a hit 

 may be made, as was done in Potatoes by the late Mr. Paterson, 

 of Dundee, when he originated the Victoria and Bovinia. But 

 when we knov.' that this was the main success of forty years' 

 perseverance and some hundreds of experiments, there does not 

 appear much inducement to practical men to be the originators 

 of varieties. In the case of Vines, I have known instances where 

 slips from fruitful parents produced twice the weight of Grapes 

 that were obtained from others of the same variety gromng side 

 by side, and under the same treatment. The celebrated Fenton 

 Wheat, which has long been one of the mainstays of Lothian 

 farming, was originated and propagated in this way liy the 

 tenant of the farm that gave it its name. Movability of tenant- 

 occupiers is so entirely incompatible with the high manurial 

 condition required in market gardens and the establishment of 

 orchards, that many of the great growers around London are 

 their own landlords. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES OF A VISIT TO MESSRS. CARTER & CO.'S 

 SEED FARMS.— No. 1. 



The season, backward as it had been, was somewhat too far 

 advanced when last year we visited the extensive seed farms 

 where Messrs. Carter & Co. raise a large j^roportion of the seeds 

 which are required to meet their great aimnal demand; but 

 to those about to sow (and no time could be more favourable 

 than the present), some notes of the numerous varieties 

 of the many species there grown may not be \vithout their 

 utilitj'. 



These farms are situated between the Mamiingtree station of 

 the Great Eastern Railway and Dedham, and there is another 

 at St. Osyth, eleven miles fmiher south, near the Essex 

 coast. The Jupe's Hill and East House farms, with another 

 smaller one, are about 250 acres in extent, nearly the whole of 

 which is devoted to seed-production. At Jupe's Hill vege- 

 tables are principally grown, at East House flowers; and there 

 are few more brilliant spectacles to be met with than the great 

 masses of the latter when caught at perfection — here scarlet, 

 there yellow ; here the brightest and purest of blues, there 

 pm-ple, or ro.se, or a drift of snow-white. At St. Osytli both 

 vegetables and flowers are cultivated, 132 acres being thus 

 occujjied ; but as on each of the farms some of the subjects 

 grown on one are also to be found on the others, or certain 

 varieties of a plant occur at one jdace and other varieties 

 of the same plant at another, it will be most convenient to 

 take the whole of the seed gi-ounds collectively and not 

 separately. 



Taking flowers first, from the extent of gi'ouud, and the 

 number of Tropieolums grown, it was evident that great import- 

 ance was attached to them, and special attention bestowed 

 upon their selection. The Tom Thimib kinds, of such value 

 for bedding, are gro^^^l by the acre — indeed, on one farm alone 

 there were half-acre pieces of Tom Thumb Scarlet, Spotted 

 Tom Thumb, Pearl, Beauty, Crimson Tom Thumb, and how 

 many more patches there were of the same kinds it would be 

 difScnlt to say. The finest dwarf scarlet variety was King of 

 Tom Thumbs, of very compact, free-flowering habit with blue- 

 green foliage ; Golden King of Tom Thumbs differs only in the 

 colour of its flowers ; and King Theodore is another of the same 

 race, with blue-green foliage and very dark flowers. Of the 

 Lobbianum varieties, Triomphe de Gand was remarkable for 

 its very bright orange scarlet flowers ; Lilli Schmidt, bright 

 crimson, was also very fine, and Zanderi nigrum as having 

 almost black flowers. Imperatrice Eugenie, red, spotted and 

 striped with yellow, was also very desirable. 



For Marigolds both French and African Messrs. Cai-ter are 

 as celebrated as they are for Tropaolums. Of the excellence 

 of some of these a short notice appeared in last volume, page 

 164. Duunett's Tall Orange French was very rich in coloiu', 

 and there were several beautifully marked dark crimson and 

 orange or yellow forms. Of thc.\frican sorts the Orange Quilled 

 was large, very double, and remarkably showy. The Lemon 

 variety was equally fine, but bemg paler was thrown into the 

 shade by its richer-coloured neighbour. 



CaUiopsis was also well represented in numerous varieties. 

 Those of C. bicolor (better known as Coreopsis tinctoria), 

 comprised some very sliowy yellow and crimson flowers, and 

 some of the plants were so dwarf that they did not exceed 

 4 inches in height, but it must be remembered that elsewhere 

 they would probably attain twice that height, as the object 



