128 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ Febniary 17, 1876. 



table decoration, was exhibited by Mr. Green, Botanical Nnreery, 

 Holmesdale Road, Reigate. Mr. James, Castle Nursery, Lower 

 Norwood, exhibited a plant with two blooms of a fine variety 

 of Dendrobium nobile. Peperomia marmorata Stevensii was 

 sent by Mr. Stevens, gardener to G. Simpson, Esq., Wray 

 Park, Reigate— a small plant with acuminate leaves and nicely 

 marbled foliage. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 



A SMALL BAND OF HORTiccLTUBiSTS, invited by Sir H. W. 

 Peek, assemble fortnightly at the gardens of Wimbledon House, 

 Surrey, for the purpose of diecussing horticultural topics, the 

 reading of essays, &c. This season they have gone on most 

 satisfactorily, and a great number of subjects bearing on horti- 

 culture have been warmly discussed. Some of the essays are 

 published, and these gatherings are looked forward to with 

 more than ordinary interest. To Mr. Otterhead, Sir H. Peck's 

 able gardener, great praise is due for the way Sir H. Peek's 

 wishes are carried out, and for the warm and hearty welcome 

 the visitors meet with; and to his exertions are due that within 

 the past few days over forty gardeners have been added to the 

 list of members of the village club and lecture hall. Prior to 

 this the ordinary or working-class members only numbered 

 twenty-two. These new members have issued a circular which 

 has been headed by a subscription of £5 5s. from Sir H. Peek, 

 and others are forthcoming, so that in a little time we hope 

 this village club will have a library of useful standard horti- 

 cultural works. The honorary members will, we hope, appre- 

 ciate this effort made by these men, and drop in occasionally. 

 The movement is, we think, a step in the right direction. 



Mk. Don is about to leave the service of the Royal 



Botanic Society. The Society will not obtain another Super- 

 intendent more able or, in every qualification, his equal for 

 their Superintendent. 



Some Continental Horticultural Exhibition.? of note 



are announced. An "International" is to be held at Rome 

 from May Cth to 14th, the first of the kind held in the impe- 

 rial city. A great Exhibition is to be held in Vienna from 

 April 2!)th to May 4th. The Genoa Exhibition will be held on 

 April .30th, and a great horticultural gathering is to take place 

 at Erfurt from September 9th to 17th. 



Mr. Shirley Hieberd, in a paper read at a recent meet- 

 ing of the Society of Arts on the " Cultivation of Hardy 

 Fruits," directed attention in a prominent manner to the irra- 

 tional mode of pruning generally adopted, and urged the desir- 

 ability of a free and unrestricted mode of growth to fruit in 

 common with forest trees. The lecturer, in his trenchant 

 manner, alluded to the thickheaded gardeners who go about 

 hacking and slashing, and seemed to take it for granted that 

 trees, as a rule, were pinched and pruned on a system which 

 might be described as preventing fruit trees bearing fruit. 

 While admitting the soundness of the arguments generally it 

 is impossible to ignore the fact that the lecturer was occasion- 

 ally too sweeping in his surmises. Gardeners, as a rule, must 

 in justice be credited with a considerable amount of knowledge 

 in fruit-production. It is not they who violently restrict and 

 prevent the trees bearing fruit. Many British gardeners are 

 themselves the greatest authorities in practical fruit culture, 

 as their full supplies of fine fruit testify. They know and 

 deplore the pet system of extreme restriction to which many 

 trees have been subjected by amateurs, and are the first to 

 admit the erroneous ideas which have been prevalent as affect- 

 ing the fruit supply of the nation. Yet, on the other hand, 

 these dwarfed trees (while many have proved profitable) are 

 not always cultivated for profit. It is the pleasure of nume- 

 rous owners of gardens to cultivate such trees as ornaments or 

 curiosities. The trees are preferred small on the same prin- 

 ciple that a great number of small rather than a limited num- 

 ber of huge specimen plants should adorn their greenhouses. 

 On that principle alone the system of dwarfing is justifiable. 

 Like most reformers, the author of the generally useful paper 

 went from one extreme to the other ; and it is neither likely 

 nor advisable that a system of no pruning will be uniformly 

 adopted in our gardens. Attention was also directed to a 

 model Peach garden, the trees being trained as espaliers and 

 protected by moveable shelters of boards which can be placed 

 as desired — on the south sides of the trees in spring, to retard 

 the opening of the blossoms until the weather is genial ; and 

 on the north sides, to conserve the heat of the sun in summer 

 EC as to aid in ripening the fruit and wood. The idea is 



worthy of trial ; and as it is not patented, a gentleman by 

 the aid of his carpenter and gardener (if the latter is not too 

 "thickheaded") may have crops of fruit on the "wooden 

 wall" system, but — he must prune the trees. 



A SECOND GREAT INTERNATIONAL PoTATO ShOW IB tO be 



held in the Alexandra Palace on September 28th and 29th, 

 when prizes amounting to upwards of £100 will be offered, the 

 Alexandra Palace Company heading the list by a donation of 

 forty guineas. The last exhibition was a great success^was 

 in fact the finest display of its kind ever held, and the" second 

 edition" will doubtless be as successful as was the first. 



— — The adjourned Annual Meeting of the Royal Hor- 

 ticultural Society to consider the privileges of Fellows for 

 1876 will be held on Thursday, the 24th, at three o'clock. 



Mr. Stark has in the " Journal of the Statistical 



Society" stated that in the colony of Victoria, Austraha, there 

 were in 1874, 9,000,000 Vines under cultivation, producing 

 105,050 cwt. of Grapes. Most of these were made into wine, 

 an industry which is steadily increasing in the colony. In 

 1873 there were 38,349 acres of Potatoes, 583 acres of Tobacco, 

 and lO.OGO acies were devoted to gardens and orchards. 



The average production of wine from French vine- 

 yards is estimated at 17,000,000 gallons, and 5,000,000 acres 

 are devoted to the cultivation of the Vine. The annual value 

 of wine, spirits, and liqueurs exported from France is estimated 

 at £16,000,000 sterling; of sparkling wines alone not less than 

 50,000,000 bottles are exported annually. 



ALLAMANDA HENDERSONII. 



In the spring of 1873 I planted out in a small border at the 

 back of my stove a young plant of the above. It soon com- 

 menced growing, and by the end of September had covered a 

 large portion of the roof, when water was gradually withheld 

 in order to accelerate the ripening of the wood. In February 

 the following year the plant was pruned back and a top-dress- 

 ing of decayed turf, decayed cow manure, and charcoal was 

 given to the border (the same material being used in planting). 

 In the latter part of May its noble orange blooms began to 

 open, from which time until September hundreds of blooms 

 were picked, when water was again withheld. In February 

 last year the border was again top-dressed and the plant 

 shortened back. About the middle of May the first blooms 

 again opened, and during the four following months it was 

 simply a mass of bloom. During the last Christmas week 

 scores of blooms were picked, although little or no water 

 had been given for three or four months. 



Mixed with the brilliant Vallota purpurea and the beautiful 

 and chaste Eucharis amazonica, with some sprays of Maiden- 

 hair Fern, the combination presents a beautiful appearance. 

 To all who can find room I say — Grow Allamanda Hender- 

 sonii planted out. I ought to add that during the growing 

 season copious waterings were given and the syringe was 

 freely used. — J. H. 



APPLICATION OF MANURE. 



The interesting discussion which took place between Mr. Pear- 

 son of Chilwell and the Editors of this Journal on the above 

 subject in the latter part of the year 1809 will be in the recol- 

 lection of the readers of this .Journal. What appeared to me 

 most preposterous was when Jlr. Pearson said he had acres of 

 laud covered with manure as dry as wind and sun could make 

 it before it was plonghed-in. Since then I have given his 

 system a fair trial, and I have come to the conclusion that he 

 is right, notwithstanding the difference of opinion that may 

 exist between scientific and practical men. 



Time and space will not permit to give a detailed account of 

 all my experiments, but I will mention one made in 1874. In 

 March of that year I gave a good dressing of pig and stable 

 manure to a large plot, one half of which dressing was dug-in 

 at once, and the other half was allowed to remain about six 

 weeks on the surface before it was dug-in. The whole plot 

 was planted with Veitch's Autumn Cauhflower. The result 

 from the latter half was so Eatisfactory that I have decided in 

 favour of Mr. Pearson's practice. 



I read from the pages of the Journal the discussion which 

 took place upon the subject before a meeting of the Tnnbridge 

 Gardeners' Mutual Improvement Society, when an animated 

 debate ensued, and the prevailing opinion was in favour of 



