212 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUIIE AND COTTAGE GAKDENER. 



[ September 18, 1878. 



]ias been applied without typhoid having been transmitted, 

 affords no conclusive argument upon the question. As we 

 said before, ' It is no good argument to say that many persons 

 have used sewage-grown produce without having typhoid fever. 

 The question is, Can the fever ever be transmitted in this 

 way ? ' This point seems to us to be worthy of further in- 

 vestigation." 



We agree in so thinking ; but cultivators and consumers 

 may continue to grow and to eat sewage-manured vegetable 

 produce with great equanimity, as there is at present no known 

 instance of such produce having caused disease of any kind. 

 Many years' experience, on the contrary, shows that such pro- 

 duce is wholesome, and we have this fresh sustaining evidence. 



" The Merthyr Tydfil sewage filtering and sewage irrigation 

 scheme having now been in operation for nearly three years, 

 Mr. Thomas Williams, Clerk to the Merthyr Tydfil Local Board 

 of Health, sends us, at the desu-e of his Board, the following 

 extract from the periodical report of Mr. Dyke, the medical 

 ofiicer of health for the district : — ' Much discussion has re- 

 cently arisen as to the supposed injurious effects which would 

 follow upon the use of vegetable food by man and animals 

 when that food was grown on land watered by sewage. To 

 you and to the public of this town and neighbourhood it is 

 well known that now for three summers and two winters large 

 quantities of vegetables have been grown on land specially 

 prepared, watered by the strained sewage from this town, and 

 also that very large supphes of green food for animals have been 

 obtained therefrom. The use of these vegetables and grasses 

 for so long a period by men and animals would certainly by 

 this time have shown some evidences of the evU consequences 

 assumed to result from the mode of growth. It has been my 

 duty carefully to watch the mode of culture and to note any 

 unfavourable signs ; but, so far from being able to discover 

 any such, I can with confidence point out to you certain facts 

 which show that the assumed pernieiousness of the use of 

 vegetables so grown is without any basis of truth. First, 

 mUk forms the chief food of children. The supply of this 

 liquid nourishment was, until lately, very scanty in Merthyr, 

 but it has been remarked that the supply was more abundant 

 during the autumn, winter, and spring of 1872-3, and also 

 that considerable quantities of Italian Rye-grass, Carrots, Man- 

 golds, (fee, grown on the sewage-watered lands, were used 

 during those periods as fodder for milch cows. Were any 

 pernicious effects in the health of children noticed ? Certainly 

 not ; for, while the mortality of the young under five years old 

 formerly averaged 48, 50, and 52 out of each hundred deaths, 

 in the second quarter of 1873 the average was but 39 per cent. 

 Secondly, diarrhosa would be a form of disease that would very 

 quickly be set up in human beings by the use of vegetable food 

 tainted by sewage. The number of Cabbages grown on the 

 filtration and irrigation areas during the last thirty months 

 would number many tens of thousands. All have been con- 

 sumed by the inhabitants of Merthyr and the neighbour-hood. 

 Has diarrhaia been thereby incited ? On the contrary, last 

 year the Registrar-General called attention to the fact that 

 diarrhcea was less prevalent in Merthyr than in any place in 

 England aud Wales; and, as I have already stated, the fatal 

 cases from this disease in the second quarter of 1873 were but 

 two, and those infants at the breast. Tried, then, by these 

 two tests — the use of fresh fodder grown on sewage-watered 

 lands by milk-giving animals and of vegetables (similarly grown) 

 by human beings — the experiences of the population of this 

 town and neighbourhood demonstrate the perfect salubrity of 

 the vegetable food so grown.' " 



THE PDEPLE BEECH. 



The beauty of the Purple Beech in landscape scenes and 

 ornamental forestry, its fitness for affording variety to the 

 monotonous green of our woodlands, and for giving effect in 

 assemblages of trees great or small, are so well known that I 

 need only hint that the adoption of this and other deciduous 

 trees with coloured foUage at planting would be a means of 

 giving a chai-m to our woods they do not at present possess. 

 What our woods need is colour with a grouping of the subjects 

 so as to give distinct and varied features. Beautiful as most 

 of our woodland scenes are, they wotild be vastly improved in 

 effect by adding in conspicuous places groups of deciduous 

 trees with coloured leafage. 



It is not to the fitness of this tree for producing effect as 

 a specimen or in a group that I wish at present to direct 

 attention, but to seek for information on what appears to 



militate against the tree's arriving at specimen size. I have 

 several young trees that may be a dozen years old, eight or 

 nine years planted, aud from 10 to 15 feet in height. Annu- 

 ally some of these fail ; some are in exposed positions, and are 

 blown down, the top broken off at the junction of the stock 

 and graft ; others die outright, the connection of the stock 

 with the graft being evidently severed. The stock hves, it is 

 the scion that dies. The leaves of the scion assume a bright 

 scarlet colour in August, and are certainly very beautiful ; it 

 is the last time they will gladden us by their presence. In 

 autumn the leaves fall never again to be renewed. Upon ex- 

 amination I find the stock has increased in thickness much 

 more than the stem of the scion immediately above the junction 

 of the stock and graft ; it is at the junction that the fault lies, 

 and this, I think, is due to the stock or conmion Beech having 

 larger sap-vessels than those of the scion or Purple Beech. 

 The sap seems to pass into the head freely from the stock in 

 the early years of growth, as evidenced by the free growth, but 

 after a few years the growths are considerably weaker, and it 

 is then that the mischief happens, though it is only likely it 

 has been gradually going on from the commencement of 

 growth in the scion. The barks have not united perfectly, 

 and the wood of the stock is dead opposite that of the graft, 

 though usually covered with hve bark, or in some cases ex- 

 hibiting a scar. It is known that the wood of the stock and 

 graft never unite, and that the barks, though they unite, remain 

 distinct ; but in this instance the union of the bark does not 

 appear to have been complete, there being a ring as if a cut had 

 been made and the bark separated. This is the most common 

 in the case of heads that are broken oft' by the wind, the bark 

 of the stock being disposed to grow over and cover tliat of the 

 scion ; whilst in the dying of the head the bark of the scion just 

 above the junction becomes dry, the sap taken up by the stock 

 not entering it, hence its existence is cut off by the inability of 

 the scion to receive the needful support from the stock. Is 

 there any remedy for this '? Has anyone practised the budding 

 of the Purple on the common Beech, and what has been the 

 result ? — G. Abbey. 



HORTICULTUBAL SHOWS IN THE NOETH— 

 BISHOP AUCKLAND. 



Railway travelling during August and September is so 

 general, that one is not surprised at now and then meeting 

 a neighbour at a distant station, where the hurry of the mo- 

 ment allows scarce time for the briefest of greetings. It is only 

 when one is fairly seated again, and the carriage in motion, 

 that something like the pleasures of travelling are reahsed ; 

 and notwithstanding all grumbling and complaints, somehow 

 railway travelling has its fascination, and in fine weather and 

 good company time passes speedUy. But railway travelling 

 is not always accompanied by this kind of social intercourse, 

 for many experience great difficulty in conversing amidst the 

 noise of the train, aud a quiet and almost continual look-out 

 of the window when not going through a cutting or tunnel is 

 to me a great source of enjoyment. I always endeavoirr, if 

 possible, to have a peep at what is going on in any district 

 thi-ough which I travel, even if it happens to be one known 

 to me. 



There are few railway journeys that do not present something 

 interesting, and most of the lines leading out of London pass 

 through districts where gardening is carried on for the supply 

 of the great metropolis ; witness the orchards of Middlesex 

 and Kent, while large breadths of land are required for vege- 

 tables in the latter county, as well as Herts aud Beds. Essex 

 also sends its share, and experienced travellers know where 

 and when to look out for certain things on their way. The 

 Lavender fields on the confines of Beds and Herts before the 

 flowers are cut are of much interest, and so are the fields of 

 Onions, a bulb which is not everywhere to be found subjected 

 to field cultirre. I was agreeably surprised lately to notice 

 the use made of the seeding Onions to assist another crop in 

 its early growth. Rows of Onions for seed had been formed a 

 yard or more apart, ridge Cucumbers had been planted be- 

 tween them, and, from the healthy appearance the latter pre- 

 sented, it would appear they were doing well. 



Railway travelling, especially if the journey is long, also 

 shows the effects of latitude on crops. Thus, on leaving Lon- 

 don in August the grass fields are brown and Ijurut-up with 

 the dry weather, and the corn either ripe or cut; but by degrees 

 as the train makes its way northwards, after the chalk and 



