Mai 25, 1912.] 



THE GARDENERS 



CNR Nl CL E. 



353 



Royal Horticultural Society.— The next 

 meeting of the Committees will be held in the 

 Society's Hall, Vincent Square, Westminster, on 

 Tuesday, June 4. At the 3 o'clock meeting of 

 the Fellows, Prof. I. B. Balfour, F.R.S., 

 V.M.H., will deliver the eighth Masters Memo- 



have, ^however, been included as "provisional 



The operations in respect of parks boat- 



Mini^. 



ing are estimated to result in a surplus balance 



expenses 



This surplus, added to the estimated balance of 

 £665 brought forward, makes a total estimated 



small in proportion to the amount of final 

 salary. In this case, an official with 20 years' 

 service and a final salary with emoluments of 

 £244 10s. receives only £48 lis. 7d. a year. The 

 committee recommended that an additional 



;» ,he " , ** b ^ - p: ^™ °"^ z^zg^^\£~££ :»— e i^lt »• *"*■ ™< ih « — 



pagation. 

 History of Chelsea Hospital.— In view 



of the Royal International Horticultural Exhibi- 

 tion, which is being held in the grounds of the 

 Royal Hospital, Chelsea, an illustrated handbook 

 relating to the history of the Hospital has been 



propose that £1,500 should be regarded as trans- 

 ferable to the general county account, to be 

 applied in relief of other parks expenditure 

 chargeable on the general county rate, includim 

 facilities for recreation. 



Wo 



Mr. Tom 



KST-mE S2V25ZL ST. ! 'T S* •■»? i~* - «■«*«. u, al ,ho U °: 



its sale will be used for the benefit of the pen- 



sioners. 



Training of Horticulturists.— The North 



of England Horticultural Society held a con- 

 ference at Newcastle on May 4. to discuss " Hor- 

 ticulture in Secondary Schools and the New 

 Farm Institutes/ 5 A representative of the 

 Board of Agriculture insisted on the need for 

 instruction in ways of combating disease. He 

 also impressed on the meeting the necessity for 

 better packing, grading, choice of markets, 

 bottling, and stocking. The Staff Inspector of 

 Secondary Schools expressed the opinion that 

 whilst neither the elementary nor the secondary 

 schools could turn out professional gardeners, 

 they could teach the general scientific principles 

 of the practice of horticulture. The difficulties 

 in the way of teaching rural science were, the 

 inspector said, the lack of duly qualified teachers 

 and the difficulty of justifying expenditure on 

 the subject. The secretary of the society was 

 of the opinion that there should be centres all 

 over the country, " where people could go and 

 see things." These centres should be under the 

 care of horticultural experts, and not be repro- 

 ductions of county council plots. One speaker, 

 not a gardener, advocated the teaching of 

 microscopical research work to gardeners, but 

 Professor R. S. Seton, of the University of 

 Leeds, thought horticulturists did not want to 

 be bothered with microscopes, but to be so 

 equipped as to find the essence and poetry of 

 gardening. Professor Gilchrist, who presided 

 m the absence of Lord Grey, said he was con- 

 vinced that farmers could not be turned out by 

 agricultural colleges; they must be trained in 

 commercial and not college farms, and he be- 

 lieved this was equally applicable to gardeners. 



Tasmanian Fruit-growing Industry. -A 



special number of The Weekly Courier, 

 lasmauia, issued on March 21 last, deals with 

 the various phases of Tasmanian fruit culture 



1T1 an i«si MA .i' , 



89 years of age, still actively working as a nur- 

 sery employe in Messrs. John Waterer & 

 Sons' establishment at Bagshot, Surrey. He was 

 born at Bagshot Park, on November 1, 1823, and 

 was for some years in the service of the late 

 Duke of Gloucester. In 1846, Mr. Tom Cox 

 commenced work at the American Nursery, Bag- 



- --. — — ^ 



m an interesting manner. 



The views of the 



O *-*• j-xxc V.IGVY 3 Ul lilt 



orchards show large areas of bush trees regularly 

 |>et out at wide distances, so as to permit the 

 «se of horse-drawn cultivators. Many of these 

 tasmanian Apple orchards axe very extensive: 



MR. TOM COX. 



(A veteran nurseiy employe) 



shot, where he has been employed ever since. 

 He was well known in the Manchester district, 

 where, for many years, he took charge of Messrs. 

 Waterer' s special shows. 



A Park Superintendents Pension. — At 



* i--~ w~v,**««x U0 «*x C very ca tensive ; # 



" lustration is given of one which covers 280 a meeting of the London County Council on 



acres an/1 «~~i._* t* r-«« . %r n j.1.- n i t* /-* •,. i i 



May 7, the General Purposes Committee reported 

 that the Parks and Open Spaces Committee had 



an^n ci .— *«p*#h o r-AHKs.— xne rarks 



Conn ^^ P - aCeS C ' mmittee <* the London County 

 eS PStlmat * tHeir "P^ure during the 

 £141 9Pi? ear at £35 > 000 on capital account and 

 can.-li .° n rate and «*•»*: ^counts. The 



acres and contains 34,500 trees. 



■*- UMM) mo i- aixva ttiiu V^pcil opctL'tfS ^UIIlIIlll/Lec XlclU 



uifw. ° ST OF J -OKdons Parks.— The Parks expressed to them the view that the retiring 



allowance out of the superannuation and pro- 

 vident fund receivable by Mr. D. Carson, 

 superintendent of Victoria Park, should be sup- 

 plemented by a special grant. Mr. Carson, 

 who is 55 years of age, entered the service of 

 L.C.C. in July, 1892, and rose from the position 

 of labourer to that of superintendent. He was 

 retired from March last, being medically certi- 

 fied as unfit for further duty. The committee 

 considered this to be a case which might pro- 

 perly form the subject of a special allowance 

 on the ground of breakdown at an early age, 



estimates 



000 



sals 



W £2 m w y , the Counca - the lar s est item * 



^nVounTp^ ^ ° Ut St< James ' s recrea - 



*■ o?£2c t'mT Uff - ^^ iS a S eneral P™*- 

 n <>t agreSn acquisitions and contributions 



March T, ? COm P leted *t tie end of last 



o > %T£ m ate8 ° n rate account show an 



among 



agreed to the proposal. 

 The Red Sunflower. — Under this title 



Professor Cockerkll, of the University of 

 Colorado, gives in the Popular Science Monthly, 

 April, 1912, an extremely readable account of the 

 origin of a red Sunflower. The plant in question 

 (of the horticultural value of which it would be. 

 at present, premature to speak) was found singly 



a group of yellow Sunflowers, at 

 Boulder, Colorado, and proved to belong to the 

 prairie species, Helianthus lenticularis, which 

 is held by some botanists to be a variety of H. 

 annuus. Its ray florets were deeply suffused with 

 chocolate-red, and the "sport" received the name 

 of "coronatus," from a certain resemblance which 

 the arrangement of its colours presents with 

 those of the sun in eclipse. Since Sunflowers are 

 self -sterile, the red sport was crossed with wild 

 H. lenticularis. and with other varieties of H. 



— — — — — — ~ 



annuus. The result of the cross Russian (yel- 

 low Sunflower x coronatus) was an Fi genera- 

 tion, half the members of which were red, like 

 the red parent, and half yellow, like the other 

 parent, though the red colour was not uniformly 

 distributed in the different flowers. It will be 

 interesting to learn whether the plant thus de- 

 scribed becomes the progenitor of a true breed- 

 ing strain of red annual Sunflowers. 



Remedy for Insect Stings. — We have, 

 from time to time, drawn attention to various 

 palliatives for insect stings, such as the applica- 

 tion of oil of Cloves, oil of Geranium, the homely 

 blue-bag, Belladonna plaster, and rubbing the 

 affected part with a freshly -cut Onion, but pre- 

 vention is better than cure, although unfortu- 

 nately most of the preventives recommended are 

 too volatile to be efficacious. A simple yet reliable 

 remedy is Sanitas Fluid, and this well-known 

 disinfectant is also valuable for allaying the 

 irritation and inflammation which so often 

 follows the sting of various insects. 



Apricot Paste.— A recent Board of Trade 

 Report on British trade in Syria gives some 

 interesting particulars of the method of preserving 

 Apricots. This fruit is produced so abundantly 

 in Damascus, and in the valley of the Barada 

 that, after local requirements have been met, 

 there remains a large surplus, which is preserved 

 by drying and by making into a paste. In paste- 

 making the stones are removed, and, after being 

 well kneaded, the pulp is spread on boards and 

 placed in shady places to dry. The boards are 

 made of a standard size, so that each sheet of 

 paste, when dry, weighs about 2 okes (an 

 oke equals 2.828 English lbs.). When thoroughly 

 dry, these sheet B of paste are rolled up and taken 

 to the towns for sale. The paste is largely con- 

 sumed in the country, and is also exported to 

 Turkey, Egypt, &c, and so far afield as the 

 United States of America. The highest quality, 

 which is characterised by clear yellow colour and 

 thinness of sheet, realises from 12£d. to 13id. 

 per 5£ lbs. The annual production of Apricot 

 paste is estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000 

 tons. The making of the paste has proved so 

 profitable that many new gardens are being 

 formed. 



New Species of Nepenthes. — Two new 



species of Nepenthes from the Philippines are 

 described by Dr. Macfaklane in Contributions 



^crease 



*«Mtes. SumI 



Proposals not 



from the Botanical Laboratory of the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, vol. iii., No. 3. The 

 and also by reason of the fact that Mr. Cabson's species in question, Nepenthes Merrilliana and 

 rate of pay has been on a rapidly rising scale. N. truncata, are said by Dr. Macfaklane to 

 The allowance receivable from the superannua- rival any of the forms known hitherto. In either 

 tion and provident fund in such cases is very case, the pitchers are upwards of 1 foot in depth. 



