THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



445 



fuml, which is used to met-i current ami office 



expenses, &c. ; and lastly the benevolent fund, out 

 of which grants were made in cases of unusually 

 heavy doctor's bills, and such like cases. He urged 

 that persons wishing to aid the Society should give 

 to the management fund. This was responded to by 

 Mr. N. Cole, one of the oldest members of the 

 Society. H. J. Veitch, Esq., proposed kindred 

 societies, saying that the one helped the others all 

 round, and did not by any means clash. Messrs. K. 

 Cutler and G. Deal replied. Mr. J. Wbight, in 

 speaking for the Trustees and officers of the Society, 

 said that the weakness of the organisation was in 

 the management fund, and that the best way to aid 

 the Society was by assisting this fund, which would 

 enable the Society to make itself better known than 

 it was now. Messrs. Wheeler, Chard, and Collins 

 replied. It was announced that Dr. IIogo had made 

 a donation of £12, and that Mr. Sherwood had be- 

 come a life member. The evening was pleasantly 

 passed, and the proceedings were enlivened by ably- 

 rendered music under the direction of Miss Marie 

 Belval, the ladies of the party being presented with 

 handsome bouquets. The tables were tastefully 

 decorated by the kindness of Messrs. Laing, Cas- 

 NELL, Chard, and others. 



National Auricula Society : National 

 Carnation and Picotee Society— The annual 

 general meeting of the above Societies will be held 

 iu the room of the Horticultural Club, Hotel Windsor, 

 Victoria Street, on Tuesday, October 23, 1888, at 

 4 p.m. precisely. The business of the meeting will 

 be, the election of officers and committee, receiving 

 the Secretary's and Treasurer's reports, the election 

 of judges for the ensuing year, and any other neces- 

 sary business as may pertain to the annual general 

 meeting. 



National Chrysanthemum Society,— In 



order to add to the attractions of what is now the 

 great Chrysanthemum show of the year, which is to 

 take place at the Royal Aquarium on November 7 

 and 8, a large space within the building will be 

 devoted to horticultural sundries, including model 

 greenhouses, hot-water appliances, manures, &c. 

 Applications for space have to be made to the Hon. 

 Secretary, Mr. William Holmes, Frampton Park 

 Nurseries, Hackney, E. 



" THE ORCHIDEENNE."— The first meeting of this 

 n j wly-established Society for encouraging the cul- 

 ture of Orchids among amateurs, was held on the 

 11th inst. in the exhibition-hall of the "Horticul- 

 ture Internationale," Brussels. In spite of the 

 unfavourable weather, eighty-five species and varie- 

 ties were exhibited. The jury consisted of M. de 

 Lansberghe, Chairman ; Secretary, M. Wallaert ; 

 and MM. Massange de Locvrex, F. Kegei.ian, and 

 others. A Diploma of Honour was awarded to 

 M. Linden for Catasetum Bungerothii, with twenty- 

 three flowers on two spikes. First-class Certificates to 

 M. Peeters, for Odontoglossum vexillarium super- 

 bum ; Chevalier Lctgi Modigliano, for Cypripedium 

 Sanderianum ; M. Van Hoten, for Masdevallia 

 chimffira; M. Massange de Louvrex, for Cypripe- 

 dium vexillarium ; Count De Boussies, for Vanda 

 Sanderiana ; M. Massange de Louvrex, for Cypri- 

 pedium expansum ; M. Linden, for Oncidium cris- 

 pum miniatum : J. O'Brien, for a collection of dried 

 llowers of various species ofDisa, Satyrium, &c, 

 from South Africa; E. Vervaet & Co., for cut 

 flowers of Cypripedium Harrisianum superbum ; M. 

 Miteau, for cut flowers of Miltonia Moreliana. 

 Second-class Certificates were awarded to M. Lix- 

 Dfor, for Oncidium varicosum Rogersii; Peeters, for 

 Cypripedium expansum ; Moens, for Lrclia Perrini ; 

 Peeters, for Cypripedium regale ; and a Second- 

 class Cultural Certificate to M. Moens, for Oncidium 

 phymatocheilum. 



THE FUNGUS Forays.— We have received ac- 

 counts of the doings at the Woolhope Club meeting 

 and in the New Forest. On both occasions the 

 weather was all that could be wished, but the supply 



of fungi in Herefordshire was but scanty. When our 

 readers have digested the fruit served up to them in 

 such profusion, there may be a chance of a hearing for 

 the fungi. In any case, we are compelled to postpone 

 the record of the meetings in question. 



ANAGALLIS PHILIPSII, Hid.— This is, says Mr. 

 Lynch, one of the very best of blue-flowered annuals. 

 It flowers ali summer and produces a flower in the 

 axil of every leaf measuring more than an inch across, 

 ol cobalt-blue colour. The plant is procumbent in 

 habit, with strong ascending branches which are four 

 or five angled, bearing lanceolate leaves, opposite 

 below but in whorls of three or four above. The 

 peduncles are longer than the leaves, sepals linear- 

 lanceolate, corolla rotate with finely erose margin, fila- 

 ments clothed with rosy hairs. The base of the corolla 

 is also rosy, but without lessening the intense blue of 

 the floral mass. De Candoi le says the plant is 

 perennial, but in the Cambridge Botanic Garden it is 

 annual. It is referred in the Prodromtis to A. collina 

 i far. 8. cceruleis), and it is also the A. Monelli var. 

 Willmoreana of Bui. Mai/, t. 3380, which figure 

 precisely represents the plant, but without demon- 

 strating its ornamental character. 



Fruit Culture in Ireland.— The following 

 letter, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 

 has been handed to us for publication : — 



" What strikes me most painfully in Ireland — 

 except in parts of the semi-Scotch province of Ulster 

 — is the remarkable absence of those accessories to 

 agriculture, which are indispensable to the success 

 of small holdings everywhere. I do not here allude 

 to the flax industry, peculiar to north-eastern Ulster, 

 but to fruit-farming and market-gardening. Had 

 Mr. Gladstone's famous big Gooseberry growing 

 remedy for the depression of British agriculture been 

 specially addressed to Ireland, he would undoubtedly 

 have been on the right track. 



" For, in Ireland alone, the economic conditions 

 necessary to its success, already prevail, viz., farms so 

 subdivided as not toaffbrd a comfortable maintenance, 

 except on the intensive, or market-garden system of 

 cultivation, together with the prevalence of abnorm- 

 ally large families. In the wives and deft-fingered 

 children of the 300,000 impoverished so-called 

 farmers, below £10 valuation, you have ready at 

 hand, and crying out for employment, an abundant 

 supply of the personally-interested and delicate 

 labour, required for sowing, thinning, transplanting 

 and gathering the finer kinds of vegetables and all 

 bush fruit. 



" The mild and moist climate of Ireland, where 

 sufficient sun heat cannot be relied en for riDening 

 the larger kinds of stone-fruit, is peculiarly favour- 

 able to the free growth of Currants, Cherries, Rasp- 

 berries, Gooseberries, Filberts, Walnuts, and fairly 

 adapted to Strawberry, Apple, Pear and Damson 

 culture. 



" .Most kinds of vegetables will do well everywhere 

 in Ireland, and her warm and moist soutli coast 

 might rival the Channel and Scilly Isles in the pro- 

 duction of early Peas, Potatos, Seakale, Broccoli and 

 Rhubarb. The finer kinds of vegetables are unac- 

 countably scarce at all times in Dublin, where two- 

 thirds of the fruit consumed is not grown in 

 Ireland. 



" Not only should Ireland grow all the fruit and 

 market-garden produce she needs for her own con- 

 sumption, but with her early springs and her weather 

 open to Christmas, she ought to supply the teeming 

 populations of the north of England and Scotland 

 with both early and late garden produce. 



" Dairying mustahvays, of course, be a main feature 

 of Irish farming ; but it, too, in the case of the 

 smaller holdings especially, should be combined with 

 fruit-growing. Every farmhouse everywhere, of 

 whatever sized holding, should have an orchard 

 attached. 



" Now that the Irish farmer has no longer any- 

 thing to fear from confiscation of his improvements, 

 he [has only himself to blame if he does not turn his 

 land to better account. But he still needs two things, 

 namely, skill and enterprise — the inestimable inherit- 

 ance of the foreign peasant, who beats him in the 

 British market. 



"If the present generation of Irish farmer is well 

 nigh hopeless, much may be done with the next, and 

 it seems the most obvious duty of the State to take 

 the matter in hand. 



" Were half an acre, or even a rood, of garden 

 ground, for the purpose of the practical application 

 of the scieuce taught within, attached to even 

 country school in Ireland, and the produce of the 

 scholar's labour allowed, as a perquisite of the school 

 teacher, an immense impulse would be given to gar- 

 dening in Ireland. Horticulture, in my opinion, 

 rather than agriculture, is practically adapted for 

 teaching in connection with the national schools. 

 The same teacher, at suitable times and seasons, can 

 both theoretically and practically, teach gardening 

 both to boys and girls, whereas it seems obvious that 

 practical farming instruction tan only be imparted 

 in connection with a farm— an impossible adjunct to 

 all but a few schools, and requiring a special farming 

 instructor. 



" To teach farming there should be at least one 

 counterpart of lilasnevin in each province, and I 

 venture to think that the existing 5 acre farm there, 

 which at present really illustrates nothing in par- 

 ticular, should be made a model of what a 5 acre 

 farm should be for an industrious peasant to get a 

 living out of, in illustration of the combined method 

 of gardening and farming suggested above. 



" Although I have here only dwelt upon the most 

 obvious and universally possible accessory to farm- 

 ing, I fully recognise the necessity for promoting 

 every feasible form of home industry in Irish villages, 

 such as wood-carving, basket-making, joinery, lace- 

 making, embroidery, knitting, straw-plaiting, &c, 

 to eke out the family income, and employ idle hands 

 during the long winter evening*. IV. H. (Bullock) 

 Hull. J.P." 



Horticultural Club.— The first dinner and 



cuvcrsationc for the session 1888— 1889 took place on 

 Tuesday last, October 16, at the new rooms of the Club 

 at the Hotel Windsor, Victoria Street, Westminster, 

 when there was a very large attendance, including Mr. 

 John Lee, Chairman ; the Rev. W. Wilks ; the Rev. F. 

 II. Gale ; Messrs. H. J. Veitch, J. Veitch, Strange, 

 Walker, J. II. Pearson, C. Pearson, A. H. Pearson, 

 Bunyard, Rivers, Druery.Girdlestone.Goldring, Morris, 

 &c. The subject for discussion was Peaches, and 

 was opened by a very interesting paper by Mr. T. 

 Francis Rivers. A discussion took place afterwards, 

 in which Messrs. Lee, G. Bunyard, 11. J. Veitch, 

 Pearson, Goldring, and others, took part. A vote of 

 thanks was given to Mr. Rivers, and the Secretary 

 announced that at the meeting in November, Mr. 

 George Bunyard would read a paper on November 

 and December Pears ; and in December Mr. Charles 

 Pearson one on the Chrysanthemum. Unqualified 

 approbation was bestowed on the new arrangements 

 for the Club, and a very agreeable evening was spent. 



British Fruit Growers' Association. - 

 The executive committee appointed at the first 

 Conference, held last month, submitted at the 

 meeting at the Crystal Palace on Thursday last a 

 draft constitution, which stated that the objects of 

 the Association would be to promote the profitable 

 culture aud the improvement of fruit in the United 

 Kingdom and to facilitate the distribution to con- 

 sumers. The Chairman (Mr. T. F. Rivers) said the 

 inception of this Association was wholly due to 

 Messrs. Gordon and Castle, who a few months since 

 began the organisation of a society which, he thought, 

 had succeeded in drawing the attention of the people 

 of England to the important fact that a large and 

 lucrative industry was being silently withdrawn from 

 our country, to the great advantage of those who 

 had skilfully taken advantage of our apathy and 

 indifference. The United States, Canada, Australia, 

 and New Zealand were all on the alert to supply our 

 markets with a commodity which they were 

 supposed to be unable to furnish. Were they 

 to sit with folded hands and allow this to 

 be done ? Were they to complain that their 

 inability was owing to landlords, laud laws, 

 railway rates, or middlemen ? In his opinion tiny 

 had nothing to do with it. The profits derived from 

 judicious fruit-cultivation were sufficient to cover! he- 

 moderate and fair rents now asked for land. The 

 real and fundamental cause was ignorance, not 

 arising from want of intelligence or energy, but from 

 the fact that no organised society, school, or college 

 had ever undertaken seriously to teach the methods 

 by which fruit-cultivation might become successful. 



