86 



NATURE 



[November 22, 1900 



tnade arrangements for the repetition in the south and 

 -centre of England of the Northumberland " manuring 

 for mutton" experiment. This work, started in the spring 

 of 1897, took the form of determining the results of the 

 ■manurial treatment of grass land, not in terms of hay, but 

 in the terms of live-weight increase. Ten three-acre plots 

 •were fenced off on a large field of poor pasture, and nine 

 of these plots were subjected to as many distinct forms of 

 treatment. The plots have each year been grazed by 

 sheep, each plot being stocked with as many animals as 

 a committee of practical farmers considered it would 

 •carry. The individual weights of the animals are deter- 

 mined by monthly weighings. During the first season 

 '(1897) variations in the yield of animal increase were 

 fairly pronounced ; while in the second, third and fourth 

 years the results have been extremely striking. Lime, 

 used alone, has almost failed to act ; while phosphates, 

 -especially basic slag, have, in some cases, enabled the 

 'land to carry twice as many sheep as the untreated area, 

 and not only so, but the animals have given more than 

 double the individual live-weight increase. The addition 

 of sulphate of ammonia or potash to a phosphatic dress- 

 ing has had extremely little influence, whereas the bene- 

 ■ficial effects of a similar addition of pulverised lime have 

 been very conspicuous. The yield of hay on separate 

 sub-plots gave but a modified reflection of the mutton 

 results, showing that the manures have had much more 

 influence on the quality than on the quantity of the 

 herbage. By a single expenditure of about twenty 

 :shillings per acre on manure, it has been shown that land 

 worth five shillings per acre per annum has been — tem- 

 porarily at least— raised in value to five or six times this 

 •sum. Whether such a result will be obtained in other 

 .parts of the country it would be hazardous to predict, but 

 there can be no question of the desirability of putting 

 ithe matter to the test, and it is satisfactory to find that 

 the Board has made arrangements to do so. 

 , The past ten years may be regarded as a period of 

 adjustment in the history of the provincial agricultural 

 •colleges. They were called into being as a result of the 

 sudden endowment of county councils with large funds, 

 and practically no preparations had been made for their 

 reception. They were placed in the receipt of grants 

 from public bodies, and these bodies naturally wanted 

 results for their money. If these results could be made 

 to loom large in the eyes of the county council elec- 

 'torate, so much the better. The success of a local lec- 

 ture was judged rather by the size of the audience than 

 "by any educational standard. The county councils vied 

 with each other as to the number of field demonstrations 

 "they could show. But things are different now. Both 

 •colleges and county councils have elaborated educa- 

 itional schemes, and work will in the future be tested by 

 its intrinsic quality. Now that the feverish incentive to 

 the production of results has been replaced by a demand 

 for thoroughness, it is to be hoped that the colleges will 

 'be allowed to settle down to do some first-class work. 

 But, with the best intentions, county councils sometimes 

 handicap the staff of the institutions that they support, 

 ilt is quite impossible that a department of agriculture 

 can develop in such a way as to do justice to its students, 

 or to take its proper place amongst the other depart- 

 ments of a college or University if a large portion of the 

 time of the members of its staff has to be spent away 

 from headquarters. The local work that they are doing 

 may be of the greatest importance, but the time occupied 

 'in its preparation and accomplishment makes a serious 

 inroad on the efficiency of in-college work. It is to be 

 hoped that county councils will give their support to 

 central institutions without being too exacting in their 

 local demands upon them, while the Board of Agriculture 

 should be endowed with funds sufficient to enable the 

 agricultural departments of the colleges to prosecute the 

 Jiighest forms of research. Wm. Somerville. 



NO. 1 62 I, VOL. 63] 



HORTICULTURAL PRACTICE. 



/^NE method by which the gardener "improves" 

 ^-^ particular plants was well illustrated at the Hybri- 

 disation Conference held in the gardens of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society last year. The proceedings of that 

 meeting were amply recorded in these columns at the 

 time, so that there is no need to do more than mention 

 that branch of the subject. Another method of improve- 

 ment consists in the continuous selection of the best and 

 the cotemporaneous elimination of inferior varieties. 

 This is the method followed by the great seed-firms, 

 who devote large areas to their trial grounds and take 

 the greatest pains" to secure and maintain the purity of 

 their stocks. A variation may arise from seed or from 

 " sports," the latter term being applied to bud-variations 

 which occur suddenly, no one knows why. If the varia- 

 tion be a desirable one, the cultivator preserves the seed, 

 sows it, and in due time finds that a certain percentage 

 of the seedlings reproduces the desired form. Further 

 sowings take place, the percentage of the new variation 

 being constantly increased till at length the seeds are 

 said " to come true," and a new species, at any rate so 

 far as gardens are concerned, is evolved by the constant 

 practice of selection. 



In the case of a sport, propagation is effected by 

 cuttings or grafts. 



The advent of the Chrysanthemum season reminds us 

 of other practices which the gardener adopts with the 

 view of securing " improvement." Those who visited 

 the recent exhibitions at the Royal Horticultural Society 

 and at the Westminster Aquarium must have been 

 forcibly struck with the contrast between the wild Chinese 

 Chrysanthemum and the Japanese varieties, which con- 

 stituted the essential part of the exhibition. The wild 

 plant, sent from the Royal Gardens, Kew, was discovered 

 in central China. Horticulturally it was but a poor 

 weed, with small yellow flower-heads about half an inch 

 in diameter, by no means so attractive as our own corn- 

 marigold. Yet from this plant, either alone or when 

 crossed with another species, the Chinese and the 

 Japanese have evolved flowers of every shade of colour 

 except blue, and the gardener has produced flowers 

 15 and 18 inches in diameter. 



The Japanese varieties, originally introduced by Fortune 

 in 1862, at once attracted attention by their large size 

 and fantastic form. It is these Japanese varieties that 

 now constitute the staple of our exhibitions, and their 

 size and colour offer, as we have said, the greatest pos- 

 sible contrast to the inconspicuous flowers of the wild 

 plant. They are purely artificial productions, and nothing 

 like them occurs in nature, although occasionally, in 

 Composites, malformations occur in the ray-florets which 

 give a clue to the origin of these strange productions. 



It is mainly to the art of the gardener that we owe 

 these monstrous blooms. That art consists essentially 

 in "disbudding " or in removing certain buds and leaving 

 others. As the history is interesting and not generally 

 known in scientific circles, it may be well briefly to 

 summarise the facts of the case. The " first break " or 

 lateral bud of a Chrysanthemum makes its appearance 

 from the middle of April to the middle of June, the 

 precise period differing in the case of different varieties. 

 The second or "crown" bud appears in August, and 

 consists of a flower-bud surrounded by leafy shoots, 

 which grow sympodially ; these are removed, and the 

 development of the central flower-bud allowed to proceed. 

 The third or "terminal" bud is formed in September, 

 and always consists of one central bud surrounded by 

 other secondary flower-buds, but not by any leaf-shoots. 

 The secondary flower-buds are removed, and all the 

 energy of the plant concentrated in the central bud, 

 which, in florists' language, is " taken," or, more correctly, 

 which is reserved. 



