342 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ November 1, 1877. 



electors, like the Rev. C. P. Peach, go even further, for he 

 adds to his list of forty-eight Roses the names of fifty-three 

 other varieties, headed " Regret to have to omit the followirjg." 

 Oar "Peach" is far more tender-hearted in the kernel than 

 the fruit. — Joseph Hinton, Warminster. 



P.S. — Roughly looking at this point, I think I may say that 

 had this election been thus carried out the Marie-Finger- 

 Eugenie-Verdier Rose muBt have polled at least forty-two 

 votes, and the Ferdinand de Lesseps, Exposition de Brie, 

 Maurice Bernardin type would have mustered forty. The 

 former must have forced her way into the first dozen (a very 

 welcome addition in colour), and the^latter would have made 

 a plucky effort to follow her. — J. H. 



NOTES RELATIVE TO THE POTATO. 



Mr. Addison seems to think (page 225) that the disease is 

 brought on by deterioration in the sets and careless treatment 

 of the same rather than an atmospheric cause. I believe the 

 truth of the matter has been well elucidated by your able 

 correspondent " A Northern Gardener," and I add my 

 testimony to his. I do not know what the people of 

 England think, but I know that in Ireland we have been 

 taught by experience to look entirely to the season and the 

 state of the atmosphere. The most casual observer here can 

 and does prophesy about our crop. They draw their con- 

 clusions from the season. If the sets are planted about 

 March or early in April, and May and June set in showery, it 

 does very well ; but on the other hand, if July, August, and 

 September are wet, it is the universal ory, " The Potatoes are 

 in danger." This is quite true. Last season we had an ex- 

 ample of it ; from July till about the middle of September was 

 pretty dry, but about the latter period wet set in. The Pota- 

 toes were in full growth, or at least were quite green, with no 

 bad tubers. A fortnight afterwards we had lots of diseased 

 tubers, caused, we believe, by the change of weather. 



It has been said by some writer that the Potato disease is 

 contagious, and that it is an error to plant for years con- 

 secutively in the same piece of ground. This is a theory 

 which I think will not Btand in- the light of experience. I 

 know plots that cottagers have been growing Potatoes in (and 

 nothing else) for this last twenty years, and year for year 

 there is no difference in them from those grown in the best 

 rotation-of-crop system. Most observers have noticed that 

 there are varieties which are more subject to disease than 

 others, and also that it depends on the constitution of the 

 variety, as we find all sorts having soft delicate haulms are 

 more prone to disease than those having strong haulms of 

 upright growth. It is, I believe, a fact almost generally ad- 

 mitted that it is the haulm that conveys the disease to the 

 tubers. This being granted, if there is no disease to carry there 

 will be none at the root ; but if there is, the haulm that can 

 best resist it will have the most sound tubers. The potency of 

 this theory I have seen in the Skerry, the stalks of which do 

 resist the disease long after all others are cut down, and this 

 year, notwithstanding that all other Potatoes are much affected, 

 this variety is almost all sound. I know it to be a Potato requir- 

 ing much inorganic matter to bring it to perfection. In a lot 

 of about thirty varieties of seedlings that we had planted in a 

 field I observed that all haulms of a soft flimsy nature were 

 cut down with disease about August ; the tubers were very 

 bad. The haulms of others remained fresh and firm till we 

 were taking them up (10th of October), and the tubers were 

 fresh and almost free from disease. 



I endorse the most of what Mr. Addison says about disbud- 

 ding seed Potatoes several times before planting. It is a terrible 

 error in management. No doubt it deprives the sets of some 

 of their vitality, but how it can affect or assist a malady purely 

 atmospheric it beats me to know. I say atmospheric, as I have 

 seen what attacks the tops of the Potatoes on several plants, 

 especially this season, when it came on so early, while all 

 foliage was tender. I examined the leaves of Beans, Beech, and 

 Lilac, and to all appearance it waB identical. In this matter I 

 do not stand alone, as my employer tells me it was perceptible 

 on many trees and shrubs in the years of 1845 and 1846. 



In conclusion let me say that as the Potato is so valuable 

 as a culinary root, it by all means ought to be grown for its 

 quality and not for its quantity. It is to be seen in far too 

 many cases planted too thickly, so that when about half 

 grown they are growing into and weakening each other. I 

 believe if we were to grow none but those having stout haulms, 

 and plant them in soil mostly inorganic such distances from 



each other that they could be seen individually all through 

 their growth, we should have less of disease. This, I know, 

 would be a step in the right direction. Experience teaches 

 me Potatoes ought to have an inorganic soil, as the quality of 

 those grown on an organic Eoil is never so good ; besides, I 

 know the disease always attacks them on boggy soils first. I 

 believe the disease travels in the dense fogs that visit us 

 through the months of July, August, and September. These 

 fogs and aqueous organic soils have a great affinity for each 

 other, and therefore the disease settles here first. — B. G., 

 Co. Down. 



THE LATE ME. RIVERS. 



(Continued from page 228.) 



In our last we gave a sketch of the life and works of Mr. 

 Rivers in their general relation to horticulture. We will now 

 consider what he has done in that branch with which his 

 name is likely to be most enduring, and in the interests of 

 which he did more than any other person in modern times. 

 When Mr. Rivers first turned his attention seriously to fruit 

 culture our orcharding and fruit-tree management were at 

 the lowest possible ebb. The orchards of Kent which had for 

 centuries furnished the supplies of fruit to the great metropolis 

 had become gnarled, cankered, and unproductive. The re- 

 moval of the protective duty on imported fruit discouraged the 

 Kentish farmers ; many of them grubbed the orchards they 

 had, and those who had them not refused to plant. In this 

 condition did the fruit-producing districts for many years 

 remain ; the old cankered orchards became older and more 

 cankered, and no attempt was made to supply the deficiency 

 that was yearly becoming greater. No more Ehort-eighted 

 policy could have been followed by the English orchardists, for 

 by their action they merely opened a wider door to the foreign 

 grower. With a soil and climate adapted for fruit-growirjg to 

 supply our every want, we were about to be handed over to 

 the foreign producer for the supplies which we could easily 

 have of far better quality at home. Mr. Rivers saw the course 

 that was inevitable, and he set himself to arrest it. He wa3 

 strongly imbued with a patriotic feeling, and though suf- 

 ficiently cosmopolitan he never forgot that there was nothing 

 that any other nation could do that was not equally within 

 the power and grasp of the Anglo-Saxon race in similar circum- 

 stances. This was a feature in his character which we often 

 remarked, and one of the phases of it was that he never would 

 be outdone or allow that an Englishman could be outdone by 

 any other nationality. He used often to remark, "Why should 

 we import fruit from abroad when we have the soil and climate 

 to grow it here in England ?" He was always impatient of the 

 old Kentish orchardists, as he was of all laggards and dullards. 

 He was a man of action and great foresight, and knowing that 

 this state of affairs could not long continue he set himself to 

 inaugurate a better way, and he lived to admire the modern 

 orcharding of Kent. 



Mr. Rivera was not a mere talker and writer, for he acted 

 both what he talked and wrote. While he was instructing 

 the fruit-growers of the country by his writings, he was at the 

 same time showing them an example and instructing them by 

 what he did. It is now many years Bince he planted hundreds 

 of Louise Bonne of Jersey Pears and Early Rivers PJum as 

 pyramids, to Bhow what could be done on a small space of 

 ground with trees of email Bize properly managed. These 

 trees are in existence still and continue to produce abundant 

 crops. The practice which he followed in the nurseries at 

 Sawbridgeworth was, perhaps, of greater value than his vo- 

 luminous writings, for there facts could be studied, and those 

 who could not realise what they read by description could see 

 the real thing before their eyes. 



It was mainly in Worcestershire, in the Vale of Evesham, 

 and in some of the market gardens round London, that the 

 system which Mr. Rivers advocated was first practised ; and 

 the success that attended it being universally acknowledged, the 

 Kentish orchardists seeing the advantages of the new system 

 soon adopted it, and now in that favoured oounty may be 

 6een hundreds of acres of fruit trees grown on the pyramid 

 fashion, while perhaps a still greater extent is being planted 

 with standard trees of superior sorts both in quality and fer- 

 tility. That which aided Mr. Rivers in this description of 

 orcharding was the use of the dwarfing stocks — the Quince for 

 the Pears, and the Paradise for Apples. He was the firBt to 

 urge an extensive use of tbe Quince stock, and for years he had 

 to battle against much opposition before ha could convince 



