74 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAOE GABDENEB. 



[ Judy 27, 1876. 



the table. Does the water remain in the middle ? Introduce 

 a pipe of running water to the middle of a flat stone hall. The 

 water flows all over the flat pavement, and finally escapes from 

 the hall by every door. Why ? Not because it flows without 

 a fall, but because it rises on itself, and so makes a fall. . . . 

 Stop the pipe of supply, and the hall will run dry; continue 

 the supply for ever, and a channel would be worn at each 

 door. . . . Nature drains and denudes every flat on earth 

 on this principle, a channel being cut backward from wherever 

 the water can escape with a celerity directly as the softness of 

 the soil. These channels become small valleys, and so the 

 flat, no flat, but hill and dale." 



If there is a good deal of geological detail in " Bain and 

 Bivers," the reader will find that the geological lore is given in 

 a very amusing style, and he will not fail to follow the author 

 with pleasure in his travels, not only along the seashore, but 

 amongst the water- worn terraces of our own valleys, and of 

 those of far distant lands. 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Council of the Eoyal Horticultural Society have sum- 

 moned a meeting of the debenture-holders for Tuesday next 

 the 1st of August, and also one for the Fellows of the Society 

 for Wednesday the 2nd, in both cases to lay before them the 

 present financial position of the Society. To the debenture- 

 holders such a meeting is full of interest. They advanced the 

 money wherewith to enable the Society to make the garden at 

 South Kensington, and they have a substantial interest in the 

 locality. With the Fellows it is different ; their interest is of 

 a less material description, and extends only so far as the 

 gratification of their pleasures or pursuits are concerned. 



It is known to those who have watched the progress of the 

 Society since the formation of its partnership with the Boyal 

 Commissioners for the International Exhibition of 1851, that 

 under the agreements between the two contracting parties 

 which are virtually incorporated in the charter the Boyal 

 Horticultural Society was to raise £50,000 on debentures, which 

 sum was to be expended on the Commissioners' property in 

 making an ornamental garden at South Kensington, the Com- 

 missioners expending the same amount in enclosing it with 

 arcades. Both these contracts were carried out, but instead 

 of being enabled to do the necessary work for £50,000, the 

 Boyal Horticultural Society spent no less than £73,000 before 

 they could complete the work that they had undertaken to do. 

 The Eoyal Horticultural Society have therefore during the last 

 fifteen years expended £73,000 on the Commissioners' estate, 

 and paid in round figures £30,000 interest on debentures to adorn 

 and maintain those 23 acres of ground at South Kensington. 



Practical men of business habits and knowledge of the world 

 will perhaps reproach the Society for entering into such a 

 speculation, and blame those who induced it to leave its quiet 

 retreat at Chiswick and migrate to the glare of the more aristo- 

 cratic " court suburb." Those who do so must bear in mind 

 of whom the Council was constituted in those days, and by 

 whose advice that bold but disastrous step was taken. He 

 whom our beloved Sovereign and the whole nation mourned, 

 and still mourn the loss of, was President of the Society at the 

 time, and he was unwearied in the attention he gave to a 

 scheme which he believed was for the advancement of science 

 and art, and calculated to be a lasting benefit to the Horti- 

 cultural Society, which he had taken under his beneficent 

 protection. But a oruel fate arrested his useful career, and 

 from the day that he was laid in St. George's Chapel at 

 Windsor the doom of the Boyal Horticultural Society was 

 sealed, and the wise counsellor who devised, and under whom 

 this great design was to have been executed, was removed 

 from his sphere of usefulness. 



If the Prince Consort had been spared the Society and other 

 interests at South Kensington would not have been in the 

 state they now are, and it is therefore out of place to cast any 

 reflections on the Society or its Councils because of what 

 happened fifteen years ago, and of the failures it has been sub- 

 jected to Bince. The only fault that can be charged against 

 past Councils is that they Bhould have paid interest on the 

 debenture bonds when a profit had not been made. The in- 

 terest on these is payable out of the surplus receipts from the 

 gardens, and as it is well known that there has not been, ex- 

 cept in two or three years, any surplus receipts from the gar- 

 dens, the payment of debenture interest was manifestly most 

 culpable. This has, no doubt, been the reason why the Society 

 has been so crippled all along. An annual payment of £1950 



for interest alone which was not due would ruin any concern. 

 Happily the present Council have acted more justly towards 

 the Society, and the payment of the interest is stopped. It is 

 for that reason that the Council have summoned a meeting of 

 the debenture-holders, and to explain to them the dangerous 

 position of their security in consequence of the inability of 

 the Council to maintain the Society as a going concern at 

 South Kensington. 



It seems hard upon the debenture-holders that £50,000 of 

 their money which they advanced in the joint adventure of 

 the Eoyal Commissioners and the Society should be entirely 

 sacrificed, and that the Boyal Commissioners, who are the 

 only persons benefited by this unfortunate speculation, should 

 not do something to alleviate the condition of those who ad- 

 vanced their money, as they believed, on the joint security of 

 the Commissioners and the Society. It is to be hoped that 

 they will regard the question as one of tenant right as well as 

 of partnership, and that they will not suffer any injustice to 

 be done to anyone by assuming what they may suppose to be 

 a legal position. A distinguished body like the Boyal Com- 

 missioners, incorporated as they were for the advancement of 

 science and art, will, it is to be hoped, execute their trust 

 better than to have it laid to their charge that the only one of 

 the chartered societies that they took in hand became a failure 

 under their fostering care. 



PEACH BLISTER. 



Having read the description of Peach blister by Mr. Luck- 

 hurst and also by Mr. Smith, I am induced to ask a few ques- 

 tions to help us to guard against or to cure the scourge. 



I may ask first if Mr. Smith means the form of blister figured 

 at page 31, July 8th, 1875, of the Journal. If so, that does 

 not show the blister we are so subject to here in Sussex. We 

 do not care for that kind of red warts, which are found both 

 inside and out, but to no extent — they do us very little harm ; 

 and I do not think we are so simple as to confuse blister with 

 what is commonly called curl, and shows great neglect, for 

 that we can cure or prevent in a few hours with a solution of 

 quassia chips, soft soap, and sulphur. It is that pest that 

 ruinB our trees, and of which we know of no remedy but glass 

 houses or cases. Canvas will not do it. My trees are tho- 

 roughly protected with canvas, and I have suffered this year 

 greatly. The sap being retarded we have found, instead of 

 leaves and branches, large ugly masses of thick blistered leaves 

 as thick as one's finger. Why do we have this most when 

 the extreme of temperature is the greatest ? If it is not the 

 cold winds how is it we do not have it, or very little of it, in 

 a mild Bpring ? Why does it not come later in the season or 

 in the autumn ? We never find it then. 



It is a fact that it is the worst when the trees are the most 

 exposed to cold ; it is a fact that if not exposed to cold winds 

 we do not have it ; it is also a fact that the two extremes of 

 temperature are the worst — very hot sun in the day and extreme 

 cold at night. I have a wall well sheltered from the east by 

 Poplar trees, and after eleven o'clock no sun reaches the wall. 

 On that wall I have young Peach trees, and this year they 

 escaped better than those on a south wall. I consider that 

 the extremes of heat and cold were not so great on the east as 

 on the south wall. — S. Jen-ks, Brambletye. 



NOTES OF A SCOTTISH TOUR.— No. 1. 



NEWTON STEWART. 



Hobticultubal of course ? Tes. I have perhaps as keen 

 an eye for scenery as most people, can rejoice in beholding 

 Nature in all her works, but I have no capacity for describing 

 my feelings in the enjoyment of wood, and lake, and mountain ; 

 and although in the short visit I have lately paid to the land 

 o' cakes I have seen much that has given me real enjoyment, 

 and the memory of which will serve as a feast for many a day, 

 yet I had rather tell of that which more concerns the readers of 

 " our Journal." I put on my horticultural glasses, and through 

 them come the impressions which I now record and, I believe, 

 will interest onr friends. 



I have already given a report of the Bose Show held at 

 Newton Stewart, and told of the zeal and energy with which 

 it is carried out, and so perhaps some would like to know what 

 sort of a place this is with its 2500 inhabitants which can take 

 at a Kose show as much as Maidstone with its 30,000 inhabi- 

 tants. Well, it is a well-to-do Scottish town where no very 

 great amount of manufacturing interest is to be noted, the 



