46 



.lOTJENAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ January 18, 1877. 



Sir Edward Dering, Bart., at Snrrenden, and when there was 

 an active member of the Committee of the Ashford Horticul- 

 taral Society. Mr. Sage was an earnest and snccessfal gar- 

 dener and a worthy man. 



At the meeting of the Eotal Hobticultueal Society 



held yesterday, Lord Alfred S. Churchill aunounced that tlie 

 next meetings of the Fruit and Floral Committees, on the 14th 

 Febrnary, will be held iu the conservatory, and that a military 

 baud will perform during the afternoon. 



The Sonth-Eastern Railway Company conveyed on the 



loth inst. from London via Folkestone and Boulogne, en route 

 lor Milan, 9i8 cases of silkwoems' eggs, weighing 2G tons 

 11 owt. This consignment was from Japan. 



The Gcnnantorcn Telegraph has published the follow- 

 ing relative to the value of salt and soot as manuees : — Mr. 

 Cartwright received from the Board of Agriculture the honor- 

 ary reward of a gold medal for a valuable set of experiments 

 made by him to ascertain the value of salt in agriculture. Of 

 the soil he used nearly three-fourths was sand, the remainder 

 consisted of calcareous and vegetable matter, with alumina 

 and a small quantity of oxide of iron. Having tried all the 

 usual manures alone and differently combined, he found of 

 mixed manures that salt and soot were superior to all others. 

 The produce upon which these experiments were made was 

 Potatoes, and it was observed that wherever salt was used this 

 root was free from scabbiness, with which it is commonly in- 

 fected. One peck of soot and a quarter of a peck of salt were 

 used to a bed 1 yard wide and 40 yards long." Our corre- 

 spondent, " A NoRTHEBN Gardener," in another column speaks 

 highly of the value of salt and soot as manures for Potatoes, 

 and we know him to be an experienced and successful cul- 

 tivator. 



AiTHOtiGH the Common Holly has not produced many 



berries in the last year, the variegated-leaved varieties have 

 been prolific, and a correspondent, Mr. J. Hardie, reports the 

 same observation from Scotland. 



Public attention is almost constantly being directed 



to the advisability of planting trees in towns, and every week 

 the matter is discussed by parochial boards and vestries. On 

 every consideration the planting of trees in such places is 

 desirable, and experience has taught that the best of all trees 

 for the purpose are Planes. Other kinds of trees will exist in 

 smoky places, but not flourish with the same vigour as Planes. 

 A point in favour of these trees, and which weighs heavily 

 with continental authorities, is that Planes retain their foliage 

 nntil late in the autumn, and then oast it all at once imme- 

 diately after the first smart frost, and thus the interminal 

 litter caused by the falling of the leaves of other trees over a 

 long period, and the consequent and frequent sweepings neces- 

 sary for cleanliness, is avoided. Planes, in short, are the 

 healthiest, the handsomest, and the cleanest of all " town 

 trees." In parks and suburban gardens other trees thrive 

 more or less satisfactorily. Limes, Elms, Chestnuts, Thorns, 

 Acacias, Laburnums, and the Tree of Heaven (Ailantus 

 glaudulosus), but for avenues in streets no trees are com- 

 parable to Planes. 



Allotment Gardens foe the Poor. — Mr. J. Wright writes 



to the Times from Springwell, Saffron Walden : — "In a parish in 

 which I was born, and which formed a part of the large estate 

 of the late Lord Maynard in Essex, his lordship required his 

 tenants to allow every cottager to occupy from 10 to 40 poles of 

 land near to his dwelling, and at the same rent per acre as 

 that paid by the farmers ; and many years back, and during 

 his lordship's life, I heard blessings invoked upon him for 

 having filled the belly of many a poor man's child which other- 

 wise would have gone empty; and, as the same system is con- 

 tinued by the trustees of this estate, I should be glad to see 

 the labourers, by the work of their hands, raise some lasting 

 memorial to the memory of so benevolent a nobleman. In the 

 parish of Willesden, in which I have resided for the last thirty- 

 five years, I established the present system of allotment gar- 

 dens, of which there are now about sixty, and in the summer 

 months anyone may see in Pound Lane, in a field granted by 

 Mr. Prout of Neasdon, the working of the system, and the 

 highly-prized productions of the tenants. I have lived to see 

 the fallacy of Mr. Malthus's arguments, for there is no redun- 

 dancy of population ; but, on the contrary, every able-bodied 

 man can find employment at considerably increased wages, 

 and the Union houses are no longer needed, and ought not to 

 exist except as asylums for the aged and hospitals for the 

 afflicted." 



We regret to hear of the death, at the age of 58, of 



Mr. Alfred Smee, F.R.S., which occurred on Thursday at his 

 residence, 7, Finsbury-cireus. Mr. Smee was born in the City, 

 where his father was chief cashier in the Bank of England, and 

 he had resided iu the City all his days. He received his early 

 professional education at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, 

 became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons iu 1840, 

 and a Fellow in 1855. He held the office of surgeon to the 

 Bank of England, being the first appointed. Mr. Smee was 

 well known for his practical knowledge of electricity, and had 

 given his name to a galvanic battery, being besides the author 

 of many practical works connected with electricity and pro- 

 fessional subjects. He was the inventor of the present mode 

 of printing Bank of England notes. His best known works are : 

 " Electro-Metallurgy," " Sources of Physical Science," " The 

 Potato Plant ; its Uses and Properties," " Principles of the 

 Human Mind," " Instinct and Reason," " Lectures on Electro- 

 Metallurgy" delivered at the Bank of England, and "The 

 Process of Thought Adapted to Words and Language.'' One 

 of his latest works was " My Garden," in which he minutely 

 describes his garden at Croydon. Mr. Smee was a director of 

 the Gresham Life OfBce, the Protector and Accident Assurance 

 Companies, and the East London Railway, an active member 

 of several institutions, and he was for many years a member of 

 the Scientific and Fruit Committees of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society. He was also for seven years a Member of Council of 

 the Society. The annual flower shows iu the City have lost 

 in him an enlightened supporter. 



— — Fasciated Branches. — In reference to a broadly flattened 

 branch of a Sweet Potato, Mr. Meehan, at the Philadelphia 

 Academy of Sciences, said these branches were found on 

 numerous plants, and there was no reason why all plants may 

 not be found to produce them. They were species of fasoia- 

 tions which took different forms at times. In trees they often 

 appear as " crow's nests." The old theory referred them to 

 over-luxuriousness ; but in a paper published in the Troy 

 Proceedings of the American Association it was shown to be 

 just the reverse. In union there is strength, in vegetable as in 

 other bodies. Any tendency to a multiplicity of small shoots 

 on a tree instead of making a few large branches, all other 

 things being equal, is an evidence of lower vitality. And_ this 

 was proved by these fasciations. In severe winters fasciated 

 branches were the first to die ; often they were the only 

 branches that were destroyed. Again, it had been shown in 

 his papers before the American Association and before the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, that only when 

 a flowering portion of a plant was in the best conditions to 

 maintain its hold on life, in other words in the highest con- 

 ditions of vitality, did it produce pistils or female flowers. 

 With a lowered or depreciated vitality the male organs of the 

 flower or male conditions were favoured, and it was a singular 

 fact that whenever theee fasciations flowered, the female organs 

 were nearly always abortive, and stamens and petals increased 

 at their expense. These were some of the facts which had 

 proved the old jiotion that over-luxuriousnees in the sense of 

 high vital power had nothing to do with fasciations, but rather 

 the reverse. This was as near to the full explanation as science 

 could get as yet. 



In the month of July last says, the " Journal des Eoses,' ' 



M. Paul Brunaud of Saintcs (Charente luferienre), presented 

 to a meeting of the Central Horticultural Society of France 

 the description of a remarkable monstrosity of the Provins 

 Rose. This Rose is proliferous, and the shoot which proceeds 

 from the centre of the flower has, one following the other, two 

 other flowers more or less rudimentary, above which is a small 

 cluster of leaves. Its calyx is developed into normal leaves, of 

 which four have five leaflets and the fifth three. This is one 

 of the freaks of nature which are sometimes met with where 

 Rosea are grown to any great extent. 



CYTISUS RACEMOSUS OUT OF DOORS. 



Tnis useful plant is generally found growing in pots in 

 greenhouses, and is considered a great acquisition to the con- 

 servatory at this season of the year. To me it is a novelty to 

 see this useful greenhouse plant grown to perfection in the 

 open air. We have several specimens growing here, two of 

 which have stood unprotected since the year 18G9, and have 

 grown to the height of G feet and measure 12 feet round. They 

 are now blooming freely and are likely to continue so for a long 

 time. Those plants are quite hardy and always bloom twice 

 a-year. In April the old wood that has flowered is removed 



