214 



THE GABDENEBS' CHRONICLE. 



[August 25, 1888. 



Advertisers are specially requested to note, that, 

 under no circumstances whatever, can any 

 particular position in the paper be guaran- 

 teed for advertisements occupying less space 

 than an entire column. 



APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 



MEETING. 



TUESDAY, AUG. 28-! Eoya i Horticultural Society : Fruit 



' ( and Floral Committees. 



SHOWS. 



WEDNESDAY, Aug. 29— Harpenden and Bishops Stortford. 

 THUESDAY, AUG. 30— Hawick. 

 FRIDAY, AUG. 31— Sandy. 



SALES. 



( Dutch Bulbs, at Stevens' Booms. 



MONDAY, Aug. 27 -j Dutch Bulbs, at Protheroe & Morris' 



( Booms. 



/ Flowering and Imported Orchids, 

 I at Protheroe & Morris' Booms. 



TUESDAY, Aug. 28 ' Greenhouse Plants, at the Nursery, 



j High Boad, Stamford Hill, by 

 V Messrs. Protheroe & Morris. 



f Dutch Bulbs, at Stevens' Booms. 

 New Orchids from Mr. F. Sander, 

 at Protheroe & Morris' Booms. 

 Clearance of Stove and Greenhouse 

 flants, &c, atBelsfleld, Winder- 

 mere, by Messrs. Protheroe & 

 Morris (two days). 

 \ Imported and Established Orchids, 



at Stevens' Rooms. 

 j Dutch Bulbs, at Protheroe & Morris' 

 Rooms. 

 THURSDAY*, Aug. 30 { Freehold Nursery and other Pro- 

 perty in Kingston, by order of the 

 Executors of the late Mr. T. Jack- 

 son, at the Mart, London, by 

 Messrs. Protheroe & Morris. 



FRIDAY, 



b Protheroe & Morris' Rooms. 

 ( Dutch Bulbs, at Stevens' Booms. 

 Sept. 1 J Dutch Bulbs, at Protheroe & 

 ( Morris' Rooms. 



The National Co- ^ first so-called Festival of 

 operative Labour, and the third co-opera- 

 F Fiower a s I how! d tive flower sn °w", were held at the 

 Crystal Palace last Saturday. 

 Great interest attaches to this demonstration to 

 working people of their own varied powers of 

 self-help, and which serves to exhibit the progress 

 already made in co-operation. The presence of 

 more than 27,000 visitors may be accepted as a 

 solid proof of the progress already made, and as 

 full of promise for the future. 



This is hardly the place to say much about the 

 Festival of Labour, though we yield to none in 

 the pleasure the association of the two ideas 

 affords. Work in many spheres of labour — far 

 removed from trades in which sweating systems 

 have been thought possible— has become far too 

 much of a drudgery, and there are few trades or 

 professions in which the old saw, " All work and 

 no play makes Jack a dull boy," is more fre- 

 quently verified than in gardening. Now, if this 

 is true of a business which, of necessity, is largely 

 prosecuted in the open air, it is much more so of 

 the majority of those industrial enterprises that 

 are carried on indoors, and many of them in 

 overcrowded and unsanitary workshops. 



The exhibition of co operative products — that 

 is, from workshops in which the operators share 

 in the profits — was contributed to by 150 co- 

 operative societies in England and Scotland, 

 three from France, and one from Italy. That 

 the members of our co-operative industrial 

 societies have taken up horticulture as a source 

 of recreation and profit is one of the most hope- 

 ful signs of the times. That the attractions of 

 horticulture were sufficiently strong to hold the 

 industrial classes as with a spell around the 

 horticultural products during the counter attrac- 

 tions of the other most interesting exhibitions in 

 which so many of the visitors had also a deep 

 personal interest, speaks volumes of the hold 



that horticulture has already gained over them. 

 Neither can the exhibition of fruits, flowers, and 

 vegetables of last Saturday fail to strengthen 

 the love of horticulture among the masses. 

 Up to quite recently the majority of the working 

 classes have been more or less apt scholars in 

 the utilitarian school of horticulture. Begin- 

 ning with the poor man's vegetable, the Potato, 

 the greater number of exhibitors seem to have 

 almost perfected its cultivation and gone on to 

 Carrots, Turnips, Onions, Parsnips, Beet, Cab- 

 bage, Cauliflowers, Peas, Beans — Broad, French 

 and Runners ; but beyond the first three of 

 these vegetables undue diversities of skill and 

 merit become more apparent. 



In the classes for vegetables the entries 

 were very numerous : — For a collection of six 

 vegetables, sixty-three entries ; thirty-six pods 

 of Peas, one hundred and three entries ; thirty 

 pods of Broad Beans, seventy-nine entries ; thirty 

 pods of Scarlet Runners, seventy-six entries ; 

 thirty pods of dwarf French Beans, eighty 

 entries; six Carrots, one hundred and nine 

 entries; twelve spring-sown Onions, sixty-three 

 entries ; six Turnips, seventy-one entries ; and 

 so on through the vegetable classes in section 1. 

 The task set the judges was by no means an 

 enviable one. 



The fruit exhibition doubtless suffered much 

 alike in extent and quality from the unfavour- 

 able season. Here the Gooseberry and Apple 

 occupy a corresponding place to the Potato 

 among the vegetables. Almost every operative 

 with a yard or two of ground aspires to the 

 possession of a Gooseberry bush or an Apple 

 tree — and there was a large display of the former 

 in fine form, and for the season a fair one of 

 Apples. Currants, especially red and black, were 

 also fine, while following in diminished numbers 

 and lowered quality. But superior fruits, such 

 as Pears, Plums, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots. 

 Figs were generally conspicuous by their absence, 

 to express it in general terms. Doubtless as 

 knowledge grows, taste becomes more cultured, 

 and a larger proportion of the profits of labour 

 remains in the hands of the workers. All these 

 superior fruits may become possible to the indus- 

 trial classes. Few things would afford such a 

 stimulus to horticulture or effect a more com- 

 plete and wholly beneficial 'revolution in the 

 homes and gardens of the working classes than 

 such a wide extension of superior fruit culture 

 as to bring it within reach of all who desire to 

 share its pleasures or participate in its profits. 



Flower culture seems to lag behind that of 

 superior fruit among the operatives, not in 

 numbers, perhaps, for in class 33, for six 

 bunches of hardy annuals, there were forty 

 entries ; in that for six bunches of Stocks, 

 thirty-two entries ; for six Asters, thirty-five 

 entries; a bunch of Sweet Peas, thirty-five 

 entries ; and six blooms of Roses, thirty-six 

 entries, and others in proportion. Greater 

 skill and more love, however, seemed to have 

 been put into the Potatos than into the 

 Roses. Nor is this to be wondered at, for in 

 the struggle for daily bread the stomach has 

 to be satisfied with food before the eye is filled 

 with beauty. The season, distance, inexperi- 

 ence, all told heavily against the exhibition of 

 plants and flowers. Not a few of the exhibits 

 had also suffered from the vicissitudes of transit. 

 Taking an all-round view of the subject, the 

 industrial flower show was a great experimental 

 success, pointing the way to much higher results 

 in the near future. It would be thrusting the cart 

 before the horse with a vengeance to expect the 

 pursuit of beauty to precede that of utility in the 

 gardening of the masses ; so let us have all things 



in due order of evolution — thus : vegetables and 

 fruits, flowers, and, finally, a due proportion and 

 tasteful disposition of all. To have opened so 

 many eyes to the perception of beauty — to have 

 incited so many to desire it — is to have set forces 

 in motion that will rest not from their labours 

 till beauty everywhere, in workshop, factory, and 

 mine, enobles labour, and adds sweetness and 

 restoration to rest. Compared with previous 

 shows this one marked a decided advance, and 

 should this great festival become an annual 

 fixture, there is no doubt it will prove one of the 

 most attractive of the kind held in the country. 

 Great praise is due to the staff, and especially to 

 Mr. W. G. Head, for the arrangement of such an 

 enormous number of exhibits in so short a 

 time. 



The BANYAN Tree (see Supplementary Sheet). 

 — The Banyan, with its spreading limbs supported 

 by natural props, forms one of the most striking 

 objects in Indian gardens, at least in the hotter parts 

 of that country. Owing to its peculiar mode of 

 growth the tree is rather to be looked on as an 

 aggregate than as a single tree. The offshoots have 

 successively occupied new territory, but they are 

 still in federal union with the main trunk. Marvel- 

 lous tales have been told of the area covered by these 

 trees — the more marvellous because true. The 

 imagination of Milton was fired with what he heard 

 of these trees, and his sonorous lines accord well 

 with the majesty of the trees themselves. One of 

 the largest was that in the Royal Gardens, Calcutta, 

 figured in our columns in 1873, p. 1705, where an 

 authentic account, including measurements, was 

 written for us by the late Dr. George Henderson. 

 Roughly, that tree, dating from 1782, covered 1 J acre 

 of ground, but it has since been injured by cyclones. 

 Our present illustration, which well shows the mode 

 of growth of the tree, is from a photograph taken in 

 the garden of Mr. Weir at Madura, in Southern 

 India. 



Royal Agricultural Society of England. 



— The preparations for the Jubilee Exhibition of 

 this Society, which will be held next June in 

 Windsor Great Park under the presidency of the 

 Queen, have already begun, as schedules have been 

 issued for prizes for Hops, jams, and preserved 

 fruits to be competed for at that meeting. The 

 prizes for jams and preserved fruits are of especial 

 interest in view of the fact that fruit growing is a 

 rising national industry, and that the Windsor Exhi- 

 bition of next year will probably be the first pre- 

 served fruit-show on record. There are two sets of 

 prizes — one in which fruit-growers and associations 

 of fruit growers are alone allowed to compete, and 

 the other for manufacturers of jams who are not 

 fruitgrowers. Classes will be made for jams, fruit 

 jellies, bottled fruit, preserved fruit for dessert pur- 

 poses, dried or evaporated fruits for cooking purposes, 

 and fruit pulps. In each case the jams or fruits 

 must be prepared exclusively from fruits grown in 

 the United Kingdom in the year 1888. The entries 

 close on December 1 for jams and preserved fruits. 



OUR Field CROPS. — The acreage of land in 

 Great Britain in 1888 under the following crops is, 

 according to a paper sent us by the Agricultural 

 Department of the Privy Council, as follows : — 

 Wheat, 2,564,010 ; Barley, 2,085,474 ; Oats, 

 2,882,223 ; Potatos, 590,123 ; Hops, 58,509 ; showing 

 an increased percentage, as compared with 1887, of 

 10'6 per cent, in the case of Wheat, of 5'4 per cent. 

 in the case of Potatos. Oats show a decrease of 

 6'7 per cent, in the same period, and Hops of 8'2 per 

 cent., while Barley remains about the same. In live 

 stock the decrease is general in all classes, except 

 pigs, which show an increase of 4'6 per cent. 



NOXIOUS PLANTS. — Farmers in Bedfordshire 

 are at present feeling considerable anxiety in con- 

 sequence of several horses and other animals haviDg 

 died in a manner which suggests the belief that they 



