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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[December 29. 1888. 



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 'THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE, 



1 Vol. III., Third Series, JAN. to JUNE, 1888. 



W. RICHARDS, 41, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C. 



APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 



( Roses 

 \ Ha 



K 1/ Et " 



Roses, Fruit Trees. Shrubs, Border 

 Plants, and Bulbs, at Stevens' 

 Rooms. 



rsery Stock and Greenhouse 

 Plants, from sample, at Pro- 

 theroe & Morris' Rooms. 



auratum, Azalea", 



,i ] _ 



( Morris' Rooms. 

 [10,000 Lilium auratum from Japan, 

 \ and Otlier Boots, at Stevens' 

 THURSDAY, Jan. 3 ) Rooms. 



j Dutch Bulbs, at Frotheroe & 

 V Morris' Booms. 



_,„„... Tv „ , ( Imported Orchids, at Protheroe & 



FRIDAY, JA>. 4-j Morri3 . Ro oms. 



J 1 . 



( Rooms. 



In the press of every day work, 



T toe V Ye».° I whlere one dut y swiftl y succeeds 

 to another, and where the work in 

 hand is necessarily mingled with the preparation 

 for that which is to come, one is apt to forget 

 how much has already been done. Reflections 

 of this kind crowd upon us as we scan the pro- 

 ceedings of the year now at its end. No one who 

 will take the trouble to turn over the pages of 

 the horticultural journals for 1888 will deny that 

 it has been for horticulturists a year of great 

 activity and substantial progress. For our own 

 parts (if we may venture for a moment to speak 

 of ourselves), the reduction in price, which was 

 accomplished two years ago, is seen to have 

 been a substantial success, which bids fair to be 

 accentuated as time goes on. As the reduction 

 has been carried out without detracting from 

 the quantity or quality of the material put 

 before the reader, we may fairly congratulate 

 ourselves on the result. 



Turning to the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 as the. corporate representative of national 

 horticulture, it is evident that the worst has been 

 passed. The ill-starred connection with South 

 Kensington has been abolished, and the Society, 

 with its associated library, has been installed in 

 new and commodious premises. Moreover, thanks 

 to the energy and labour of its Council, it has 

 been freed from debt, new bye-laws have been 

 enacted, and very much done to put the Society 

 in a more satisfactory state, while a very large 

 number of new Fellows has joined the ranks, 



That the Drill Hall as a place for the fort- 

 nightly meetings should not have met with 

 universal approbation is not to be wondered at, 

 but it was the best that could be done at the 

 moment, and no locality more suitable on the 

 whole has yet presented itself, while the shows 

 themselves have been mostly excellent and 

 varied, the contributions from Kew affording 

 great variety and unwonted interest. The in- 

 conveniences of this place of exhibition will, in 

 the coming year, be greatly abated by the holding 

 of various meetings at Chiswick, and by the 

 repetition of a great show in the Temple Gardens. 

 That which was held in that locality this year 

 was very successful in itself, and would have 

 been more so but for the dreadful weather — 

 weather, by the way, which by its continuance 

 in evil doing, proved very prejudicial throughout 

 almost all the year, not only to many of our exhi- 

 bitions, but, what is of more consequence, to 

 many of our crops, the season having been the 

 worst since the disastrous one of 1879, though 

 fortunately not quite so lamentable in its results. 



The great Quinquennial Ghent Show in April 

 was the event of the year as regards horticultural 

 exhibitions. It was fully reported in our columns, 

 and was in all respects an unequivocal success. 

 The Rose shows suffered from the untoward 

 season, and the same may be said of the Chry- 

 santhemum shows, although the success and 

 progress of the National Chrysanthemum Society 

 must be noted as one of the features of the time. 



Great attention has been devoted to the sub- 

 ject of the culture of hardy fruit as a partial 

 remedy for agricultural depression. Conferences 

 at St. Albans, the Crystal Palace, Dunkeld, and 

 last, not least, at Chiswick, have undoubtedly 

 given a great impulse to this important matter, 

 and among the results already attained has been 

 the establishment of a horticultural college at 

 Swanley, and the formation of a company for 

 the express purpose of developing this industry. 

 Another company, under the title of the National 

 Fruit Growers' Association, has likewise been 

 formed, for the purpose of fruit farming and 

 other cognate enterprises. Provided due caution 

 be exercised, and exaggerated anticipations be 

 not indulged in, there is no doubt that there 

 is room, even under existing circumstances, for 

 a considerable development of profitable enter- 

 prise in this direction, though a perusal of the 

 fruit crop reports published yearly in our columns 

 for the last quarter of a century should tend to 

 modify exaggerated anticipations. Difficulties 

 dependent on land tenure, rates, &c, can doubt- 

 less be met, but the conditions of climate are less 

 amenable to human provision. Something may 

 be done, however, even in this direction by the 

 selection of suitable sorts, and by appropriate 

 cultivation. 



The promised establishment of a Hoard of 

 Agriculture, to include horticulture and forestry, 

 has for the present been postponed, though there 

 is little doubt that it will ultimately be estab- 

 lished when the thorny questions relating to the 

 occupancy of the land, the questions of tithes, 

 preferential railway charges and similar matters 

 may stand a chance of much-required readjust- 

 ment, though if they are made the war-cries of 

 party politicians it may be feared progress will 

 be slow. 



The charitable societies connected with horticul- 

 ture have prospered, the old established Gardeners' 

 Benevolent Society is thriving, while the en- 

 thusiasm which surrounded the inception of the 

 Gardeners' Orphan Fund — a memorial of the 

 Queen's Jubilee — has by no means subsided, and 

 the young institution is already in a prosperous 

 condition and effecting much good. 



Public recognition has been made of the im- 

 portance of horticulture as contributing to the 

 progress and welfare of humanity in the honours 

 accorded to some of its representatives. A 

 special medal was presented by the King of the 

 Belgians, at the instigation of the Ghent 

 Society of Botany and Agriculture, to Professor 

 Reichenbach for his life-long services to 

 Orchidology; and other distinguished honours 

 have been conferred upon English representative 

 men. 



Of new introductions in the way of plants and 

 vegetables we shall make farther note on another 

 occasion ; in the meantime, we may state that the 

 vegetable first figured in this country in our 

 number for January 7, 1888, p. 13, bids fair to 

 achieve considerable popularity. Under these 

 circumstances a popular name becomes a desidera- 

 tum. The French term Crosnes is hardly 

 acceptable, the epithet " Chinese Artichoke " is 

 doubly incorrect. To meet this difficulty Messrs. 

 Stuart & Mein propose to call it Knot-root, to 

 which no very grave objection can be raised, 

 though if we were inclined to be hypercritical we 

 should certainly not call it a 'root, while Mr. 

 Shirley Hibbebd's proposed term of Spirals is 

 hardly more appropriate. In the meantime, 

 Stachys is not a very objectionable word to employ. 



Of books and memoirs relating to botany and 

 gardening there has been a constant stream, as 

 one may see by merely consulting our index. 

 Adverting to forestry, we may permit ourselves 

 to refer to the paper of Dr. Schlich in our 

 columns on Abies Douglasii as a timber tree, 

 not only for its direct value as a contribution to 

 the history of the tree but as a model of the 

 kind of investigation which it behoves foresters 

 to undertake, if they would see their art progress 

 and develope its potential importance. Mr. 

 Harby Veitch's paper in the Journal of the 

 Linnean Society on the fertilisation of Cattleya 

 may be cited as another illustration of the kind 

 of work needed to forward the progress of horti- 

 culture in that direction. The vast Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica has been completed within the year, 

 and we allude to it here for the purpose of 

 pointing out that not only pure Botany and 

 Physiology, but Horticulture and Agriculture 

 are treated in it in a manner commensurate with 

 their importance, and in such a way as to be 

 available, not only for experts, but for the 

 general public. 



The obituary record of the year shows that it 

 was disastrous for botanists. The great and 

 much beloved Asa Gray was taken from us early 

 in the year, the eminent anatomist and mycolo- 

 gist, De Baby - , succumbed to the general fate. 

 Professor Dickson and Dr. Boswell made great 

 gaps in the ranks; while among horticulturists 

 the brave veteran ex-Curator of Kew, John Smith, 

 was very shortly followed to the grave by his suc- 

 cessor of the same name. John Day will be long 

 remembered among orchidists, while Wood- 

 bridge and Roger will remain in recollection 

 as representative gardeners. 



"We must confine ourselves here to this general 

 review of the year's proceedings. In successive 

 issues we shall have occasion to enter into further 

 details on particular departments than it is 

 advisable to do now. 



Symphyandra Hoffmanni, sp. NOV. (fig. 107). 

 — A fine specimen of this remarkable hardy plant, pro- 

 bably the first flowered in this country, was exhibited 

 from the Royal Gardens, Kew, at the Drill Hall last 

 summer, and although somewhat resembling the 

 better known 9. pendula, it has a more robust habit, 

 and produces flowers in much greater quantity. It is 

 a native of Bosnia, where it was found in 1883 by the 

 gentleman whose name it bears, and was figured and 



