300 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLES. 
[Marca 9, 1895, 
EDITORIAL NOTICES. 
Advertisements 3 PUBLISHER. 
Newspapers.— Correspondents ewspapers should be 
. 
Local News.—Correspondents will greatly oblige by sending 
to the Editor early intelligence of local events likely to be 
of interest to our R or of a my matters which it is 
Miustrations.—The Editor will u en receive and select 
photographs or drawings, sw for reproduction in these 
age of gardens, or of neee plants, ~~ trees, 
r e for loss or injury 
APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK, 
MEETINGS. 
ual Meetin of the United Bene- 
MONDAY, In. 11) f and Frorident 
i Royal Hortclera Soei set Co 
mittees, at the ames 
TUESDAY, Man. 12 Street, Waatotineter. 
Horticultural Club, 
t 
FRIDAY, Man. 15 abe (eve Pe raga Society’s 
SATURDAY, Man. 16 Show a e e., at 
MONDAY, n uf OS aa 
TUESDAY, Mak. 12 Kiti sone at Protheroe 
e e Hee 
3 n rui rees 
WEDNESDAY, Man. oe 1 Ko Ss. at Prothe eroe & 
er et 
THURSDAY, MB. 14 nder 
y at Protheroe & Morris’ Room 
: ; Cattleya Mossise, koa 
FRIDAY, 8 Ae 2 TOW, & Co., at Pro- 
CORRECTED AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE ENSU. 
ING WEEK, DEDUCED FROM THE OBSERVATIONS 
OF FORTY-THREE YEARS, AT OHISWICK.—42°,2. 
Wa have reason for the belief 
that the cottagers and others who 
obtain land under the Parish 
Councils, will be considerably handicapped in their 
to obtain good returns for the labour 
expended on their holdings, owing to the diffi- 
culty t that will be experienced in obtaining a 
All, or most of them, 
will understand 5 need for manure; the 
Manure for 
Small Holdings. 
Council’s peripa ecturers on horticulture 
will see to that, even 3 tho terms of the 
letting not insist upon 80 amount 
of manuring being done ndr 5 
we may take it K when a oultiva 
dis uce lessening in bulk and 
aoet in qonti, be he will ascribe the deteri 
but in enin where 
or ange tg are kept, the difficulties are sure 
to be great. One means of su 
o 
a liquid, would be extremely useful. For use 
in the garden, if at home, the liquid en is, 
perhaps, preferable, beoause the distance to be 
traversed is always small; but the dry earth 
system (MouLx's) farnishes a more portable kind 
of manure. 
The liquid manure should be kept in casks 
sunk in the ground or not, according to fancy, 
and furnished with a lid. Into these should go 
e house’slops, soot from the oven flues and the 
chimneys, trimmings of vegetables, &c.; and 
when a cask is full, and the contents have fer- 
mented somewhat, a little gr vitriol (sulphate 
of iron), should be put into it so as to chec 
further fermentation, and consequently the 
emission of bad 
Those persons in a village who may not be 
engaged in the cultivation of land in any form 
Amongst others, the village 
always furnish more fertilising manures than the 
schoolmasters require for their gardens, would 
be enabled, if the dry earth system were adopted, 
to add considerably to the masters’ stipends if 
they were permitted to dispose of them to allot- 
ment holders, 
There need be no doubts of the efficacy of 
the manures obtained by MoùLE’s system, the 
dry earth being dried and re-used as often as six 
times, which is quite possible with dry clayey or 
purely loamy soils, being fully equal = commercial 
value to —— ok the price of t st Peru- 
vian guano, i.e., that 3 cwt. of the soil from a 
Moule’s Ge is equal to 1 cwt. of guano of the 
best kind. Such was Prof. VorLcKER’s opinion 
thirty years ago, when genuine Peruvian guano 
was obtainable at £12 per ton. 
0-cal guanos of to-day 
would be nearer 2 to 1; ‘a even then the dry 
earth so manipulated is a very valuable aid to 
plant growth. 
One great meet of the Movute system in 
country places lies in the dry earth being a 
powerful deodoriser, sii to a certain extent a 
disinfectant as well. 
The foul cesspool, with its attendant evil of 
infecting the drinking water if the latter be 
obtaine a well in the neighbourhood of the 
former, would cease to exist, and what was once 
a noisome evil, would become an inodorous source 
of profit to the cotter, 
We would urge on all persons interested in 
the well-being of the working population in our 
small towns and villages the proper conservation 
of the fertilisers ready to hand, which, as is too 
often the case, are allowed to run to waste or 
me a source of disease 
A VERY important advance in 
3 to gardening has just 
made by the Education 
Department, by perene horticulture into the 
list of class subjects. Agrioulture has long had 
educational recognition, but it was difficult to 
give to that subject more than theoretical study, 
valuable to the residents in the rural districts as 
that may be. Horticulture, that somewhat hard 
term for gardening, is in very different category, 
for that does admit of practical study and of 
Horticulture in 
Schools. 
nstruction, o or 
iste i any way by the . Depart- 
ment, yet in many cases these groups of 
have been directed ee on 
they have the required knowledge as well as 
willingness to undertake the duty. Then there 
has further been the e general oversight of the 
County ter horticultural instructors, so 
if but in a limi 
gardening will count as instruction 
to the department's requirements; and | encourage. 
ment is furnished to horticulture in this 
mentary stage, that is a long way in advance 
anything which has previously fe: das rie 
yet this new departure, after all, only puts gar. 
dening for boys into the same category as 
needlework or cookery, or laundry-work for girls; 
so that a boy’s claims to obtaining of a 
knowledge of practical work in schools js 
according 
recognised carpentry and other 0 
lads as a means of developing ar tisans, but 
the Education Department has done Tittle, 
hence the new d 
department is looking more favourably upon 
technical instruction as compared with merely 
academical instruction than has hith 
been the case. We therefore seem to be on the 
eve of very important changes i in the system of 
education as furnished by primary schools, and 
e presents itself as an admirable 
beginn 
A may too hurriedly leap to the con- 
clusion that this gardening instruction in 
schools will lead to the production of a nation 
of gardeners. So far as relates to the rural dis- 
tricts, to some extent that may be true, but 
certainly not of professional gardeners, because 
these cannot be fashioned in elementary schools, 
What it is hoped may result is, a wider love for 
gardening, shared by all classes, hence a wider 
desire for allotments and gardens: a better appre- 
ciation of the work as a vocation in relation to 
land cultivation, and thus in myriads of ways help 
to render labour more constant and more iden- 
tified with the land than it now is, The fact is, 
so far from being a nation of shop-keepers, we 
have a far P nation behind these, and that 
is a nation of consumers, Then, the shop- 
keepers, betig the indispensable intermediaries 
as distributors of products, we want a nation of 
producers—and of all things, of good food pro- 
ducts, such as the land can give us. Thus, the 
more ‘largely we rear cultivators, the more do we 
extend our production, the greater the wealth of 
the community, and the larger the consumption. 
t is in the hope that some such results may 
follow, that the County Councils first, and after 
these the Education Department, have placed 
gardening into such a prominent position in 
relation to elementary schools. 
Of course, very much will depend on the 
nature of the instruction given, and the form of 
supervision to which it is subjected. This latter 
supervision, it is obvious, cannot be furnished by 
the purely educational school-inspector. 
ably not one of these gentlemen has any pr 
knowledge of horticulture, and to place 
or instruction under their control would be A 
mistake. To secure efficient supervisi w 
department must either provide its own practics 
it must work in 
conjunction with the ty Councils, . 
instruction. 
have alread moted garden 
that way — tans tangible and useful e 
be effected. Where school committees ill 
take up horticulture as a class-subjeot, they ai 
of course have to find land, tools, crops; Ko, 
furnish the proper local supervision. 
so far, and especially in Surrey, the 
Councils have to some extent done. 
that the work thus admirably pe way be 
these county authorities will be 1 
checked by the action of the Laue 
ment. Rather i is it to be hoped d 
action may lead to yet greater efforts 
results, 
