December 26, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



513 



J n a stock of materials for drawing and mensuration, but have 

 a store to fall back upon when a " rainy day " comes, as, rest 

 assured, it will ; and depend upon it, none pass through a 

 "rainy " period so well as those who have made the most of 

 sunshine. 



I ought to say that if the self-instructor be not so situated 

 as to avail himself of a teacher he should provide himself with 

 a key to the treatise, so that he may pursue his studies with 

 success, which is insured in this, as in everything else, only 

 by diligence and perseverance. — G. Abbet. 



DECISIONS OF ROYAL HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY'S FRUIT and VEGETABLE COMMITTEE. 



EMERALD GEM PEA. 



As Messrs. Suttons' communication (page 496) acquires im- 

 portance from its place in your columns, perhaps you will 

 allow me in my individual capacity, and not as Chairman of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society's Fruit Committee, to make 

 one or two remarks upon it. 



Messrs. Sutton appear to think that the Committee can be 

 improperly influenced in its decisions by its seedsmen members, 

 and to be unaware that its varied composition, consisting of 

 gentlemen's gardeners, seedsmen, nurserymen, fruit-growers, 

 doctors, and clergymen, makes this impossible. In the im- 

 mediate case, the Pea trials at Chiswick, no member knew 

 what or whose Peas he was considering until judgment had 

 been given. I have more than once heard a grower denounce 

 what, on reference to the register, proved to be his own Pea. 



Having served on several of the exhibition juries, and 

 therefore having seen something of the working of similar 

 mixed judicial bodies, I may perhaps be allowed to speak to 

 the care taken in, and absolute fairness of, the decisions of 

 the Fruit and Vegetable Committee. — Geoege F. Wilson. 



WIND AND GLASS. 



On the evening of the 8th and morning of the 9th inst. 

 we had a greater hurricane than we have experienced in this 

 neighbourhood for thirty years. Some fine old trees have 

 been torn up by the roots, and others have lost some of their 

 principal branches ; a few have been broken where the roots 

 were too firm and extended to yield. In the garden our chief 

 loss was half a score squares of glass blown out of the orchard 

 house ; and as the weather would not permit of fresh squares 

 being put in, the openings were filled up with sacking, cloth, 

 &c, to keep the wind from getting into the house. We glazed 

 these houses in the simplest and cheapest manner; but if we 

 were doing more, if we had not leave from a patentee to fasten 

 with non-conducting material, we would make the panes slide 

 in grooves and have a uniform plane. "With the grooves deep 

 enough there would be plenty of room for side expansion, and 

 any light matter for packing would hold the glass firm without 

 puttying. Ours are puttied in the usual way, and when the 

 putty cracks and splinters, and there is such a hurricane as 

 on the night of the 8th, or even a fierce gale, we are afraid of 

 the wind finding its way into those houses, for a fierce rush 

 would be apt to send a lot of squares wandering. We have had 

 little of this as yet, but the houses have required much watch- 

 ing, and if ever a square was blown out the hole was filled at 

 once with something to keep the wind out. Doors, too, had to 

 be made secure by pinning. When wind is expected we cannot 

 sleep soundly if all steep sashes on roofs, and sashes fully ex- 

 posed on pits and frames, are not securely pinned by fixing a 

 pointed wedge-like stick firmly, between the rafter and sash. In 

 our corridors, conservatory, &c, all doors and large upright 

 sashes were thus securely fixed, the doors having a tapered 

 wedge driven in at the bottom between the door and the stone 

 floor, and in extra cases a good strong tally, neatly pointed, 

 driven in between two folding doors halfway up the height. 



All these little matters are easily done, take up but little 

 time, and in our high exposed place are absolutely necessary to 

 prevent breakages and smashings from high winds. As a case 

 in point, we may mention that years ago of two folding doors 

 in the centre of a conservatory, the doors facing the south, one 

 of these doors was wedged securely at the bottom, but the man 

 to whom the work was entrusted having latched, locked, and 

 bolted the other door to its neighbour, imagined that that would 

 make all secure. The early morning told a different tale — latch, 

 bolt, and lock were set at defiance by a southern gale. Some of 

 the wood of the unwedged door was broken to splinters, and as 

 more than three-fourths of it was glass, every square was 

 smashed to pieces. Such a fact should carry its own teaching 

 with it. A little in the way of prevention may often save a 

 great deal of useless regrets. Many a sash is blown off in a 



gale that would have been perfectly safe if a little wooden-wedge 

 pinning had been resorted to. 



Many years ago a very singular thing happened with a large 

 sash of a Peach house, a lean-to, facing the south, the roof in 

 its slope consisting of two moveable sashes in the old-fashioned 

 way, when exposed before the spring equinox to a strong 

 westerly gale that uprooted some of our trees. Dreading what 

 the effects might be, we got up early that morning, and the 

 lantern we carried showed us something shining and glittering 

 on the walk 50 feet eastward from the Peach house, and this 

 glittering thing proved to be one of the long sashes that had 

 first been blown off and then carried by the wind to that dis- 

 tance ; but the marvel was that the sash lay along the middle of 

 the walk, and not a single square of glass was broken or even 

 cracked. But for the facts that we had locked all the doors our- 

 selves, no one else had then a key, and no one then lived on 

 the premises, we might have thought that the light had been 

 carefully taken off on purpose. A close examination of the 

 ground, however, showed the erratic course of the light, 

 where one end or one side had ploughed the soft ground with- 

 out the least mark of a footstep. The sash on the house had its 

 ends north and south, it had made several gyrations from the 

 marks on the ground, and ultimately at the stated distance from 

 the Peach house its ends reposed on the walk standing east and 

 west. Once again, on a stormy night, from insecure pinning, 

 either the same or a similar sash was blown off, but that did not 

 travel a third of the distance, but every square was smashed. 

 A little pinning, even if the pins are not larger than fair-sized 

 6-inch tallies, will often make all the difference between security 

 and breakage. — R. F. 



GLOIRE DE DIJON ROSE. 

 I have carefully read the interesting paper by Mr. R. W- 

 Beachey (see pages 461, 462), and I confess I am utterly unable 

 to understand why he should give Gloire de Dijon the pre- 

 ference to every other Rose. I admit that it possesses every 

 good property that is desirable, with the exception of colour, 

 and there I think his tabular scale is too limited to do justice. 

 If Gloire de Dijon deserves three marks, Marechal Niel deserves 

 six, yet the latter had six marks less than Gloire de Dijon, 

 and only one more than C<51ine Forestier, a Rose next to worth- 

 less ! With us, again, Marechal Niel possesses every good 

 property in common with Gloire de Dijon, with one exception 

 — want of hardiness. I was also surprised to find omitted 

 from the first twelve an old and never-failing favourite, Sena- 

 teur Vaisse. I know of no Hybrid Perpetual that deserves a 

 more honourable position in any list of Roses than this, which 

 is to be preferred to Comtesse d'Oxford. The latter with 

 us produced deformed flowers ; and I might with equal justice 

 name others, but upon the whole the list is a good one, and 

 Mr. Beachey deserves the thanks of all Rose-growers. I trust 

 that you will encourage the dissemination of the opinions of 

 different Rose-growers, as they are always interesting, and 

 useful knowledge is so obtained. — S. Etee. 



INFLUENCE OF THE ALDER UPON THE SOIL' 

 Louuon, in his "Arboretum Britannicum." referring to the- 

 notion that the Alder makes the ground about it boggy, ex- 

 presses some doubt as to its correctness. I do not know 

 whether he changed his opinion subsequently ; the fact is cer- 

 tainly as stated by Selby, who rightly attributes it to the 

 capillary attraction exerted by the extensive roots this tree 

 makes. An illustration of it may be seen on Wimbledon 

 Common, where in one of the hollows are scattered bushes of 

 the Alder. Before we were acquainted with this property of 

 the tree, a friend and myself used to be greatly puzzled how 

 it was that on a bit of sloping ground there were more 

 " plashes " of water near the top than at the bottom, though 

 there was seemingly no obstacle to prevent its finding its level. 

 These boggy places are due to the influence of the Alders, as 

 I now perceive. Yet, when growing on the banks of streams, 

 this tree does not seem to sodden the soil, indeed, it rather 

 tends to give it solidity; the roots, I presume, striking thus 

 upon a source whence water can always be had, do not need to 

 accumulate a store about them. — J. R. S. C. 



Visit of the Peince and Princess of Wales to Derby. — 

 Mr. Cooling, of the Mile Ash Nurseries, supplied the bouquet 

 which was presented to the Princess by the Mayoress. It con- 

 sisted of the rarest and most beautiful flowers in eultivation, 

 and was most elegantly arranged. The groundwork consisted 

 of choice Orchids, including Dendrobium nobile and monili- 



