414 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[October 13, 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. 



MEETI NGS. 



MONDAY, Oct. 15 i Na . tio i ]al f Chrysanthemum Society : 



' 1 Anderton s Hotel, 7 p.m. 



/Royal Horticultural Society: 

 TUESDAY, 



( Chiswick, at 3 P.] 



/Royal Horticultural Society : Na- 



WEDNESDAY, Oct. 17< tional A P p i e a ? d „, Pear . C 2 nf "- 

 , vm...,-v enc6i an ^ Great Show of Fruit, 



(. Chiswick, at 1 p.m. 



/Royal Horticultural Society : Na- 



THURSDAY, Oct. 18< tioiial Apple and_ Pear Confer- 



SALES. 



Bulbs from Holland, at Stevens' 

 Rooms. 



Dutch Bulbs, at Protheroe & Morris' 

 Rooms. 



Clearance, of Nursery Stock, at the 

 various Branch Nurseries, Kings- 

 ton Hill, Norbiton, and Long 

 Ditton, by order of the Executors 

 of the late Mr. T. Jackson, by 

 Protheroe & Morris (six days.) 



Nursery Stock, Greenhouse Plants, 

 Greenhouses, &c, at the Bath- 

 wick Nurseries, Bath, by Pro- 

 theroe & Morris (2 days.) 

 ('Bulbs from Holland, at Stevens 

 WEDNESDAY, Oct. n\ t,,?"?™ 3 ;: 



MONDAY, 



Oct. 15 



'.J Plants, Lilies, Bulbs, &c, at Pro- 

 (. theroe & Morris' Rooms. 

 t Choice Orchids in Flower and Bud, 

 I and 10,000 Japan Lilium auratum, 

 Oct. 18/ at Stevens' Rooms. 



j Dutch Bulbs, atProthe: 



V Rooms. 



i & Morris' 



FRIDAY Oct 19 * nnported an d Established Orchids, 



' ) at Protheroe & Morris' Rooms. 



/Bulbs from Holland, at Stevens' 



SATURDAY, OCT. 2d) n ^°? ms 4, .. t „ ' 



j Dutch Bulbs, at Protheroe & 

 L Morris' Rooms. 



» i- , . , We gladly give prominence to the 



National Apple " J ° / 



and Pear arrangements of the meeting and 

 Conference, exhibition to be held at Chiswick 

 October 16 to 20. next wee ]j. It is specially fitting 

 that the meeting should be held in the old home 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society, where a 

 representative collection of fruit-trees may be 

 seen, where the circumstances are so favourable 

 for the exhibition of fruit, and where we may hope 

 that the brilliant success achieved in the same 

 gardens, in 1883, may be repeated. Specially 

 appropriate also is the selection of our leading 

 pomologist for the post of Chairman on the first 

 day. His great knowledge, experience, and judg- 

 ment will prevent much of that mischievous 

 exaggeration and 'downright misstatements which 

 are so likely to injure a good cause, but which 

 have hitherto not been conspicuous by their 

 absence. 



As no direct commercial interests are involved 

 in this Conference we may hope for the best 

 results to fruit culture, and to the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society, which has rarely been occupied 

 to better purpose. The following is the 

 programme : — 



On Tuesday, 16th, the Council will attend and 

 formally open the Conference at 3 p.m. ; on Wednes- 

 day, 17th, the chair will be taken by Dr. R. Hogg, and 

 the papers to be read are " The Growth of Apples for 

 Profit," Mr. G. Bunyard ; " The Growth of Pears for 

 Profit," Mr. W. Paul ; " Stocks for Apples and 

 Pears," Mr. T. F. Rivers ; " The Fewest Varieties 

 of Pears necessary to ensure Supplies of Ripe 

 Fruit from August to March," Mr. W. Wild- 

 smith ; and " Pruning Apple and Pear Trees," 

 Mr, Shirley Hibberd. On Thursday, Shirley 

 Hibberd, Esq., will preside, and the papers to be 

 read are : — " Canker in Fruit Trees," Messrs. J. 



Douglas and E. Tonks ; " The Enemies of the Apple 

 and Pear," Mr. J. Fraser ; " The Varieties of Apples 

 for Sussex and their Cultivation on Heavy Soils," 

 Mr. J. Cheal ; " The Renovation of Old and Forma- 

 tion of New Orchards in the West Midlands," 

 Mr. W. Coleman; "Apples and Pears suitable 

 for Cultivation in Scotland," Mr. M. Dunn ; 

 and " The Cultivation of Apples and Pears in Jersey," 

 Mr. C. B. Saunders. T. B. Haywood, Esq., will 

 occupy the chair on Friday. The papers to be read 

 are : — " Compensation for Orchard Planting," Mr. 

 W. E. Bear; "Fruit Production and Distribution 

 from a Provincial Point of View," Mr. E. J. Baillie ; 

 and "Railway Charges," Mr. D. Tallerman. The 

 chair will be taken at half-past 1 p.m. each day. 



Visitors from the country who propose attend- 

 ing the meetings may be reminded that the Gar- 

 dens are within five minutes' walk of the Acton 

 Green station on the Metropolitan District Rail- 

 way, and trains run in half an hour from the City 

 and West End stations every half hour. Visitors 

 from the South will find trains from Clapham 

 Junction to Chiswick Station, which is within a 

 mile of the Gardens. The time occupied on the 

 journey from the City is a little overhalf an hour. 



Many are the theories that have 

 Stocks 6 keen P romi:ll g a ted as to the cause 



of the production of double 

 flowers, but few indeed have been the practical 

 experiments made with a view either to confirm or 

 confute the assumptions that have been so freely 

 made. But now we find a record in the Journal 

 of the National Horticultural Society of France 

 which bears so directly on the point, that 

 we shall be doing our readers a service 

 by calling attention to it. The record is 

 taken from one of the reports of the 

 German agricultural stations — institutions prac- 

 tically unknown here. The report in question 

 bears the name of Dr. Nobbe — a sufficient 

 guarantee of the credit that may be assigned to 

 the experiments. 



At the outset the point is clearly raised by the 

 enquiry as to the reason why seeds of herbaceous 

 plants improved by cultivation show a tendency 

 to produce double flowers ? Is there any appre- 

 ciable relation between the nature and con- 

 dition of the seed and of the flowers which 

 result from their development ? In the 

 horticultural department of the experimental 

 station at Tharand an attempt has been 

 made to find an answer to these queries. 

 For this purpose the common Stock was selected, 

 as completing its development in the course of 

 one season. Twelve distinct varieties were 

 selected from the establishment of M. E. Benary, 

 of Erfurt. Of each of the twelve varieties 100 

 seeds, as nearly alike as possible, were chosen. 

 These seeds were placed in Dr. Nobbe's germi- 

 nating apparatus, and submitted to a continuous 

 and uniform temperature of 20° C. (= 68° F.). 

 After four days some of the seedlings (which must 

 have germinated at once) were removed from the 

 apparatus, and placed in the open ground. The 

 other seedlings, which came up after four days and 

 between four and nine days after the commence- 

 ment of the experiment, were thrown away, so 

 that the seedlings reserved consisted of two 

 classes — one in which the germination had been 

 accomplished within four days, and the other 

 those in which germination was not appreciably 

 commenced till after the ninth day. We need 

 not give in detail the arrangement for the accu- 

 rate comparison of the two sets of seedlings — 

 suffice it to say that the seedlings were eventually 

 transferred to large pots, and placed side by side 

 half of the pot being occupied by those of slow, 

 growth, the second half by the quickly developed 



seedlings. Moreover, some of the two sets of 

 seedlings were placed in large, others in small 

 pots ; some in sterile sandy soil, others in 

 rich soil, care being always taken to make 

 the experiments rigidly comparable. In all, 

 nearly 600 seedlings were thus under obser- 

 vation. In each case the time of the first 

 appearance of the flower-bud was duly noted, and 

 the period when the first flower opened. From 

 the large mass of statistical details so obtained 

 the general result was arrived at that, for each 

 variety the period of time between the sowing 

 and the appearance of the first flower-bud was- 

 long in proportion to the slowness of germina- 

 tion. In some cases an interval of five or six 

 days was noticed between the seedlings of the 

 two categories. The vigour of the plant was- 

 uniformly superior in those cases where the ger- 

 mination was rapid, and, moreover, when sub- 

 jected to analysis the amount of dry matter as- 

 distinguished from water was always greater in 

 the quickly th m in the slowly developed plants. 



But the most remarkable results are those 

 relating to the production of double flowers. In 

 all the varieties the proportion of double flowers, 

 was greater in the case of those that germinated 

 quickly than in the case of the laggards. Ten 

 plants of one variety with violet-brown flowers 

 grown rapidly produced all double flowers, while 

 eight plants of the same variety which had germi- 

 nated slowly produced all single flowers. 



The following figures convey other striking 

 illustration of the facts now mentioned. Of one 

 hundred plants belonging to nine different 

 varieties the proportion of double flowers, accord- 

 ing to the period occupied in germination, was. 

 as follows : — 



Doubles. Singles. 



After rapid germination ... 82'56 17'44 



After slow germination ... 27'03 7297 



It may be suggested that the superiority might 

 be attributable to the varying influence on the- 

 same seeds of light, heat, or moisture ; but the 

 experimenters reply that the tendencies exist in 

 the seeds themselves, for the two categories of 

 seedlings were exposed to identically the same 

 conditions, and yet showed the differences already 

 mentioned. Moreover, although those seedlings 

 which were grown on in sterile sand were much 

 less vigorous than those grown in good soil, they, 

 nevertheless, showed corresponding inequality 

 as regards their flowers. Again, next to never 

 was a single flower found in the spikes, bearing 

 from ten to thirty double flowers, and conversely. 



Lastly, hybridisation shows that the seeds con- 

 tain in themselves unaffected by other condi- 

 tions the essence of what will be manifested in 

 the plant later on. It must be added that there 

 is in each variety a special tendency to produce 

 double or single flowers as the case may be. 

 There are some which, however treated, never 

 yield any but single flowers, while others pro- 

 duce almost, or quite exclusively, double flowers, 

 and are, in consequence, doomed to disappear. 



These results are so striking that we cannot 

 but think our great seedsmen will repeat the 

 experiments in due season, and avail themselves 

 of the valuable information thus placed at their 

 disposal. That our horticultural societies will 

 do anything so useful is, we fear, not to be hoped 

 for. 



The Royal Horticultural Society. — It 



has been decided to hold a large horticultural show 

 in the Temple Gardens on the Thames Embank- 

 ment about the end of the month of May next year, 

 the Benchers having kindly given their consent to 

 the Society to make use of the gardens for that 

 purpose. 



