222 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[April 6, 1912. 



EDITORIAL NOTICE. 



had cheap none but poor purchasers will every citizen. The form of the reply is 



ADVERTISEMENTS should be seat to the PUB- 

 LISHER, 41, Wellington Street, Covent Garden, 



W.C 

 Letters for Publication, as well as specimens of plants 

 for naming, sheuld be addressed to the EDITORS, 

 41, Wellington Street, Covent Garden, London. 

 Communications should be written on one side only of 

 thh paper, sent as early in the week as possible and duly 

 signed by the writer. 1/ desired, the signature will not bt 

 printed, but kept as a guarantee 0/ good faith. 



Special Notice to Correspondents.— The Editors do not 

 undertake to pay for any contributions or illustrations, or 

 to return unused communications or illustrations, unless by 

 special arrangevient. The Editors do not hold themselves 

 responsible for any opinions expressed by their correspon- 

 dents. 



■Newspapers.— Correspondents sending newspapers should be 

 careful to mark the paragraphs they wish the Editors to see. 



interesting, but the matter of it is vital. 

 It is natural for a public department 



buy them. 



As a matter of fact, the Horticultural 

 Trades Association maintain, and pro- to survey the result of its labours and 

 duce evidence in support of their conten- to pronounce it good ; but though bureau- 

 tion, that the purchasers of trees from the cratic power is sufficiently menacing it is 



Department do not belong exclusively to 

 the labouring classes. Other sections 

 of the community have not been slow 



not yet supreme, and the Trades Associa- 

 tion should not rest until it has taught the 

 Irish Department of Agriculture a 



methods. 



to take advantage of the vicarious salutary lesson both in manners and in 

 benevolence of the Irish Department of 

 Agriculture, until that Department has 

 become the salesman, not only to the 



labourers, but also to many of the land- 



Magnolia salicifolia (see fig. 99). — This 

 beautiful species is a native of the mountains of 



owners of the country. The wares which Nippon in Japan. Plants were introduced to the 

 APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. the Department sells are not apparently Arnold Arboretum by Professor Sargent, who 



confined to fruit and forest trees, but in- discovered specimens growing on Mount Hakkoda 



SATURDAY, APRIL 6- 



Soc. Francaise d'Hort. de Londres meet. 



MONDAY, APRIL 8-Bank Holiday. 



WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10- 



Kingsbridge Daffodil and Spring Fl. Soc. Exh. Royal 

 Caledonian Hort. Soc. Spring bh. (2 days). 



THURSDAY, APRIL 11— 



Cornwall Daffodil and Spring Fl. Sh. at Truro (2 days). 



Avkragi Mean Temperature for the ensuing week 

 deduced from observations during the last Fifty Years 

 at Greenwich— 46°. 



Actual Temperatures: — 



London.— Tuesday, April 2 (6 p.m.) : Max. 64° 5 Min.8*°. 

 Gardeners' Chronicle Office, 41, Wellington Street, 



Covent Garden, London— Wednesday, April 3 



(10 a.m.) : Bar. 297 p ; Temp. 51° ; Weather— 



Sunshine. 

 Provinces.— Tuesday, April 2: Max. 51° Cambridge ; 



Min. 48° England N. and Scotland. 



elude such purely ornamental subjects as 

 Cupressus, 4 to 5 feet high, Laurels and 



Clematis. 



The officials of the Irish Department 

 appear to be developing considerable 

 business activity — rare in Departments — 

 and according to the evidence of the 

 Horticultural Trades Association are 



at elevations of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above 

 sea level. Our illustration is reproduced from a 

 flowering spray of a tree growing in the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Kew. The plant grows best 

 in a moist soil, and forms a tree about 15 or 

 20 feet high, with Willow -like leaves, 5 to 6 inches 

 long, light green above and silvery-white be- 

 neath. The flowers are borne on rather long 

 stalks, and are narrow, tapering to both ends. 



pushing their sales, not only among the The spec ies has been cultivated in Britain for 



peasants, but also among the proprietors 

 of private gardens, to whom they offer 

 trees and shrubs at attractive prices. It 

 will be at once evident that unless the 



some years, but we do not know of a previous 

 instance in which a plant has flowered out-of- 

 doors. All Magnolias are flowering abundantly 

 this season, which is doubtless attributable to the 



SALES FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 



WEDNESDAY— _ TT J 



Herbaceous and Border Plants, Lilies and Hardy 



Bulbs, at 12; Roses, at 1.30; Palms and Plants, at 5; 

 at 67 &68, Cheapside, EC, by Protheroe & Morris. 

 Roses, Liliums, Palms and Bay Trees, at 12.30; at 

 Stevens's Rooms, 38, King Street, Covent Garden, 

 London. 



FRIDAY— 



Hardy Bulbs and Roots, Perennials, &c, at 12; Im- 

 ported and Established Orchids, at 12.45; Roses, at 

 L30 ; at 67 & 68, Cheapside, E.C., by Protheroe & 



Moiris. 



President of the Board and his officials do extra amount of sunshine experienced last sum- 

 this work entirely out of office hours they mer. 



are charging prices which are not fair to 

 the nurserymen. They charge nothing for 

 the services of the head of the Depart- 

 ment, nor for those of the army of official 

 commercial travellers who do the pushing 



of the goods. 



We note with astonishment the nature 

 of the defence urged by the Department, 



and say deliberately that it provides a 



remarkable example of bureaucratic in- 



We publish an illuminating difference. This defence is three-fold. In 



Irish De- correspondence which has the first place, it maintains that the 



partment taken place between the County Committees do not as a rule 



Agriculture Department of Agriculture supply fruit, forest or ornamental trees 

 and Retail of Ireland on the one hand 

 Trading. and the Horticultural Trades do so? Frankly, though the public 



to landowners. When, therefore, do they 



Association on the other. 



Departments of Great Britain are above 



The subject of the correspondence is the a ll suspicion of dishonesty, it is evident 



allegation made by the Horticultural that this setting up in the retail trade 



Trades Association that the Department i s bound to result in loss of prestige 



of Agriculture is doing grave damage to and confidence. 



the horticultural industry of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. It is alleged that this 

 damage is caused by the activity of the 

 Department in undertaking the sale and 

 distribution of fruit and other trees. The 

 Department purchases the trees by open 

 tender, and the sales carried out through 

 the Department are effected at cost price 

 plus charge for carriage. 



This new departure in departmental 

 activity appears to have had its origin in 

 the laudable desire on the part of the 

 Department of Agriculture to encourage 



Royal Counties Agricultural Society. 



•The annual exhibition of this Society will be 

 held at Guildford on June 11, 12, 13, and 14. 

 The arrangements include a flower show. The 

 secretary is Mr. C. S. Fuidge, Silverdale Road, 

 Southampton. 



Apples in Ontario.— The Fruit Branch of 

 the Ontario Department of Agriculture, in issuing 

 Bulletin 194 on Apple orcharding, has done a 

 valuable service to the State. The Bulletin com- 

 presses into the space of 64 pages an excellent 

 account of the cultivation of the Apple, as well as 

 information on spraying, marketing, and cold 

 storage. In the lists of the most valuable varie- 

 ties for market approved by the Board of Control 

 it is noteworthy that several varieties are re- 

 commended because of their special hardiness for 

 planting in regions north of latitude 46°. They 

 include: — summer: Transparent Lowland Rasp- 

 berry and Charlamoff ; fall and winter : Duchess, 

 Wealthy, Hibernal, Longfield, Patten, Whitney, 



In the second place, the Department Hyslop, and Milwaukee. 



is 



urges that its methods inflict no hard- 

 ships on the horticultural community. 

 What of the small grower? Is he 

 in a position to tender? What of the 

 differences between wholesale and retail 

 prices? Are they to be snatched 

 from the trade and used as credit 

 for a Government Department? But 

 we need not labour the point except 

 for the benefit of the new school of 



economics which exists at the Irish only native but also~fruits of temperate regions, 



Board. 



The Gardens of Udaipur. — The annual 

 report of the gardens of his Highness the Mahar- 

 ana of Udaipur shows that this excellent estab- 

 lishment continues to make good progress. 



interesting to find that the old difficulty of 

 sending seeds to India has been got over by our 

 seedsmen, and that all the vegetable seeds sup- 

 plied to Udaipur by Messrs. Sutton & Sons ger- 

 minated well and produced good crops. This gar- 

 den continues to do good work in cultivating not 



farmers, small holders, and labourers in The third item of the defence is the 



the work of planting unproductive land. most scandalous of all. It consists in 



So long as the efforts of the Depart- the curt announcement that " I am now to 



ment were confined strictly to educational remind your Council that what is done 



work no reasonable objection could be with the trees thus obtained in the open 



made to their giving a practical trend to 

 their propaganda by supplying the 

 poorer classes of the rural community 

 with useful trees at low rates. But no 

 reasonable man outside a Department 

 Ttfould imagine that when Plums are to be 



market by tender is a matter which con- 

 cerns the Department and the County 

 Councils alone." 



It does not. Until our form of Govern- 

 ment becomes officially a bureaucracy, 

 " what is done with the trees " concerns 



such as Plums, Apples, Pears and Quinces. 



Chemical Fertilisers in Egypt.- Owing 

 to intensive cultivation and also to the Iar» 

 area of land now under crops, Egypt ■■ 

 increased its consumption of artificial fertiliser* 

 enormously of recent years. The chief manure 

 used appears to be nitrate of soda (30,000 tons 

 1910), which altogether outdistances sulphate o 

 ammonia (1,660 tons). It is satisfactory to learn 

 that an increasing amount of the trade i*> 

 British hands. Thus, that share was in 1910 four- 

 fold the share in the previous year. 



