September 9, 1869. ] 



joubnaij op hobtioultdbe akd cottage gabdener. 



20'J 



ont as those potted-off and grown in a cold frame. The ground 

 where they are to be planted mast be well forked over, and, if 

 possible, at every 3 feet make a bole IS inches square and a 

 foot deep, and fill it with hot dung; after drawing the soil 

 over it, each set of plants will stand on a slightly-raised mound, 

 the top of which shculd be made flat. Three or four plants 

 will be snflicient for each mound. Allow inches from plant 

 to plant every way. Give a gentle watering, and protect from 

 Bun and cold with an inverted flower-pot. Water will be re- 

 quired every second or third day, according to the heat or dry- 

 ness of the weather. Tbe distance between the rows may be 

 U feet. Watering should take ^ilace in the evening, or early in 

 the morning. No stopping will be required if the shoots be 

 equally distributed over the surface. AH but four plants may 

 be taken from each hand-lifiht. It usually takes a month from 

 sowing until the plants are of a size fit to plant out. They 

 will fruit in August and September. 



Instead of sowing under band-glasses and planting out after- 

 wards, seed may be sown in pots, and the plants pricked off 

 when large enough, sowing and forwarding them in a frame, 

 and when they have three roueh leaves they may be planted 

 out where they are to fruit. Tbe sorts most suitable for ridge 

 culture are Stockwood Long Ridge, Bedfordshire Snrprise, and 

 Long Prickly ; for open-ground crops the Long Prickly, and 

 the Short Prickly for pickling. — G. Abbey. 



THINNING MELONS. 



Having on several occasions been unfortunate in Melon- 

 growing, owing to tbe first-setting fruit having taken the lead, 

 and appropriated all the nutriment to itself, I have this season 

 experimented on one of my plants, by cutting off the fruit 

 when it had attained a suffiuient size to show me that it would 

 deprive the others of a fair share of sap. This practice has 

 proved a success ; in fact, it has more than answered my ex- 

 pectations. The plant I selected for the experiment was 

 Trentham Hybrid, which at the time of flowering produced 

 eight female blossoms, all of which I fertilised, but I soon 

 found that one of them was swelling much more quickly than 

 the rest. I allowed it to attain the weight of 2 lbs.; the others 

 at this time were all turning yellow, and were not larger than 

 a pigeon's egg. Tbe result was, that every Melon on the plant 

 began to swell rapidly, thus allowing me to choose whether I 

 would allow them all to grow, or reduce them to my usual 

 number, which is four to a plant, and by preferring the latter 

 I have obtained some fine fruit. — W. Wkench, Padnall Grove, 

 near Chadwell Heath. 



[The plan you have adopted has been advocated by Mr. Fish 

 and others, only we would not let a Melon grow to the weight 

 of 2 lbs., and then cut it off, but would do so at a much earlier 

 period. If one Melon sets and swelU freely on a plant, later 

 ones will not often swell whilst it remains ; hence the impor- 

 tance of having the requisite number set, and commencing to 

 swell at once. — Eds.] 



DEATH OF MR. ROBERT THOMPSON. 



It is our painful duty to announce the death of Mr. Robert 

 Thompson, so long known and so highly esteemed as the 

 Superintendent of tbe Fruit Department in the garden of the 

 Eoyal Horticultural Society at Chiswick, author of the " Gar- 

 dener's Assistant," and numerous other contributions to gar- 

 dening literature. The sad event occurred on Tuesday last, the 

 7th of September, at 7 25 p.m. For a considerable time past 

 llr. Thompson hes been gradually declining since suffering from 

 a stroke of paralysis, with which he was attacked about two 

 years ago ; and although he was latterly incapacitated from 

 doing anything either in the way of work or amusement, his 

 inteUect never failed him to the last. 



From 1824 to the day of his death Mr. Thompson may be 

 said to have been connected with the Horticultural Society, for 

 although his active duties ceased only eighteen months ago, 

 the Society, in recognition of his worth, retained him after 

 affliction had incapacitated him from farther service, and now, 

 after a life of forty-four years of great activity, this kind- 

 hearted amiable old man has gone to his rest. There are 

 many who will read this record with feelings of regret. There 

 are those, and they are now few, who began life with him ; 

 who shared with him as young men in those early days of 

 Chiswick gardens, tbe pleasures and privileges attendant on 

 the impetus then given to gardening, such as it had never 



before received — those days of Thomas Andrew Knight, Sabine, 

 and Lindley. And there is the younger and far more nu- 

 merous class who have sat at his feet, and have drunk-in in- 

 struction from his words and his writings. They, too, will 

 regret him. 



Mr. Thompson was born at Echt, in Aberdeenshire, early in 

 September, 1798. The precise date of his birth is not known, 

 as at that period the birth registers of Scotland were not pre- 

 served with that care with which they are now. But from his 

 baptism having been on the 16th of October in the same year, 

 we may reckon with some degree of certainty that this cere- 

 mony was performed, as it usually is in Scotland, a month or 

 six weeks after birth. His father was a small farmer, and after 

 be had received the solid education of his native parochial 

 school, he was placed under his uncle, who was gardener to 

 Mr. Skene, of Skene, where he was employed in the garden and 

 plantations. He then removed to Haddo House, the seat oJ 

 the Earl of Aberdeen, where he remained till 1820, and then 

 left for the garden at Dunottar Castle, the residence of Lord 

 Kennedy. After remaining there for one year, he removed in 

 November, 1821, to the gardens of Robert Ferguson, Esq., of 

 Raith. in Fifesbire, where he was for nearly three years. 



In 1824 Mr. Thompson reached London, and went directly to 

 the garden of the Horticultural Society, at Chiswick, to which 

 be had been recommended by his late employer's brother. 

 Sir B. Ferguson. The garden was then nearly completed; 

 tbe collection of fruit trees had just been planted, some of them 

 which were worked on Paradise stocks were coming into fruit ; 

 and the walls which enclose the orchard and kitchen garden had 

 then been just finished. Mr. Thompson was at once placed in 

 the fruit department, which was then superintended by a Mr, 

 Coristie, and no time could have been more opportune for his 

 entering on his duties, as from the first he had under his ob- 

 servation the immense collection of fruits which then and sub- 

 sequently has existed in the gardens. Early initiated by Mr. 

 Kuight and Mr. Sabine into a knowledge of the characters and 

 merits of the then existing varieties, Mr. Thompson acquired 

 a knowledge and taste for the study of fruits and fruit trees 

 which increased with his years, and which he retained to the 

 last. During the whole of the forty-four years of his active 

 life at Chiswick, pomology was his special and passionate 

 study, not only as it was exhibited under his eye in the garden, 

 but in the literature and practice of the pursuit, as existing on 

 the Continent. It was this well-grounded and thorough know- 

 ledge of the subject which enabled Mr. Thompson so well to 

 produce that laborious work, the " Catalogue of Fruits culti- 

 vated in the Garden of the Horticultural Society of London," 

 which has formed the foundation of modern pomological 

 synonymy. No one, except such a person as Mr. Thompson, 

 could have done this work so well. His proverbial patience 

 and painstaking, his excessive care and caution, admirably 

 fitted him for such a work, and stamp it with an authority which 

 has never been assailed. It was not, however, in pomology alone 

 that Mr. Thompson excelled. Every department of horticul- 

 ture received from him its due share of attention ; and not in 

 the practice only, but also in the higher principles of the pur- 

 suit, did Mr. Thompson eminently shine. In physics, we be- 

 lieve we are doing none of his contemporaries an injustice 

 when we say he excelled them all. His love of physical 

 science was equalled only by his love of gardening ; and hig 

 knowledge of mathematics was of a high order. No better 

 evidence of the combination of these qualities can be given 

 than that which is furnished in that admirable compendium 

 of horticulture " The Gardener's Assistant." Meteorological 

 science is much indsbted to him for the constancy and correct- 

 ness of the observations he conducted at Chiswick from 1830 

 till within a few months of his death; a period of thirty-nine 

 years. And here we may take the opportunity of noticing 

 a remark we sometimes have heard made by others who note 

 meteorological observations. Doubts have been expressed as to 

 the correctness of the instruments used at Chiswick. It has 

 been said that the temperatures announced by Mr. Thompson 

 were, when excessive, too high or too low, and that they did 

 not correspond with those of other observers. It is, neverthe- 

 less, a striking fact that on an average of thirty years' obser- 

 vations — from 182(5 to 1855— the difference in the records of 

 mean temperature between Chiswick and Greenwich amounts 

 only to 0.0(3°— a lasting tribute to the care with which the 

 Chiswick meteorological observations were made. 



Mr. Thompson was a voluminous writer, though he does not 

 appear as the author of many works. In the " Transactions 

 of the Horticultural Society," besides the bulky meteorological 



