June 15, 1912 



rHE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE, 



413 



upon the resources of the Institution. I 

 invite with confidence your sympathy and 

 generous aid in support of an Institution 

 which is doing so beneficent a work amongst 

 those whose vigilance and care in attending 

 our gardens adds so much to the pleasures 

 of our home life, and who are I think, 

 thoroughly deserving of any help we can 

 secure. Your hearty co-operation and 

 generous siippoii; will be much valued, and 

 any contributions sent will be gratefully 

 acknowletlged by the Secretary, Mr. G. J. 

 Ingram, 92, Victoria Street, S.W. 



Headquarters of the B.G.A.— 



Mr. Cyril Harding, the new secretary of 

 the British Gardeners' Association, asks 

 us to state that his address and the offices 

 of the Association, are now I^lvsses, For- 

 tune Green, London, N.W. 



Library of the Royal Gardens, 



Kew. — A catalogue of the books that were 

 added to the Library of the Royal Gardens 

 during 1911 has been published as an appen- 

 dix to the Kew Bulletin,'' and may be 

 obtained in the usual course, the price 

 being twopence. As in the case of the 

 catalogue, the list is printed on one side 

 of the page to allow of its being cut up. 



It is thought probable that many persons 

 and institutions will make the Kew cata- 

 logue the basis of their own, and will use 

 the lists of additions to supply printed slips 

 for fresh titles. 



Protecting: 



fessor Willis L. 

 Weather 



Fruit 



Moore, 

 Vnited 



Crops.- 



chief of 



Pro- 

 the 



nient of 



Biireau, Vnited States Depart- 

 Agriculture^ when streaking the 

 other day at the Royal Institution on the 

 practical value of the stud}^ of metcoro- 



said that by the River and Flood 



States We at her 

 to estimate the 



logy.. 



Service of the 

 Bureau the\ 



by 



rnite<l 



w 



able 



height of floods, almost to the inch, even 

 three weeks in advance, and by the Wheat 

 und Corn Service aud the Cotton District 

 Service they telegraphed to all parts of the 

 States the conditions of vegetation ov^^r the 

 A^hole area. Probably ten million dollars' 

 Avorth of property was put into safety in 

 consequence of a single forecast by the 

 bureau officials of the approach of a cold 

 wave, and they probably had as many as 

 20 or 30 such passing a<*ross the Continent 

 in the course of the winter. A warning of 

 only 24 hours to the fruit cultivators of 

 Florida enabled them to gather everything 

 that was I'ipe, to protect their beds with 

 straw, and, by means of the heaters, en- 

 tirely to protect their orchards. AVith the 

 nid of these heaters, w^hich were distributed 

 throughout the orchards, they were able 

 to maintain a temnerature 14 detrrees 

 higher 



which, 

 the 



a temperature ...^^ 

 than in the neighbouring region, 

 as a rule, was sufficient to save 

 industry from the disaster which 

 threatened it. 



American 

 dew. 



Mil 



Gooseberry 



Eleven baskets of goose l>erries, 

 from the Wisl>ech district, were seized at 

 Hull recently under the oi'der of the Board 

 of Agriculture, loecause they Avere infect-ed 

 with the (Joaseberry Mildew. A Pinchbeck 

 market gar<lener was fintMl 10s., and (X)sts, 

 HI each case for not pruning affected treev«i 

 JHid failing to dcvstroy clippings from 

 aflecte<l goosel)erry bushes ; this was the 

 first prosecution of the kind in Lincoln- 

 shire, but it was pointetl out that otTeiiders 

 ^vere liable to a fine of £10, and costs. 

 l?oferring to the Anieriran C!oOvSel>erry 

 Mildew Order of 1912, Dr. Collingridge. 

 Medical Officer of Health for the City of 

 London, stat^^ in his report that It has 

 l>een suggested that a repeated spraying 

 With a 4 per cent, solution of potassium 

 sulphide is effective in destroying the s])ores 

 or threads of the fungus, biit it must not 

 »e overlooked that the American Goose- 



beriy Mildew is not confined to the surface 

 of the fruit only, like other kinds of mil- 

 dew, but exists within the diseased shoot 

 itself, ultimately thoroughly infecting the 

 entire bush. It appears that unless enei- 

 getic measures are taken growers of goose- 

 berries ini Europe are threatened with 

 serious loss." 



rmon. The 



The Fairchild 



Master and Wardens of the Worshipful 



Company of Gardeners attended in state 

 at Shoreditch Chui-ch on May 29, to hear 

 the annual Fairchild Sermon, which was 

 preached this year by the Venerable E. E. 

 Holmes, Archdeacon of London, who took 

 for his text a passage from Genesis ii., 

 God made the earth anKl the heavens, and 

 every plant of the field before it was in 

 the earth, and every herb of the field be- 

 f o re it g re w . " As we have pre \ io u sly 

 stated, Thomas Fairchild was a famous 

 Hoxton gardener, who in 1722 wrote "The 

 City Gardener," and on his death in 1729 

 left a sum of £25 for the preaching of 

 an annual sermon on " The wonderful works 

 of God in the Creation" or The Cer- 

 tainty of the Resurrection of the De^d, 

 proved by certain changes of the animal 

 and vegetable parts of the Creation." 



Preservation of Commons 



and Footpaths. ^ At the recent 

 monthl}^ meeting of the Commons and 

 Footpaths Preservation Society, at which 



Lord Eversley presided ^ it was decided to 

 request the Home Secretary to re^^eive a 

 deputation to urge that facilities should 

 be given for the second reading of the 

 society's Rights of AVay Bill. The object 

 of the Bill is to simplify the proof of rights 

 of way. Arrangement-s for the settlement 

 on lines indicated by the society, of ques- 

 tions affecting 39 footpaths and bridle 

 paths, were approv ed, and it was reported 

 that 49 other cases had been referred to 

 the society for arbitration. It was stated 

 that the society was assisting to secure the 

 preservation of Leziate Heath, Norfolk, 

 and Hollesley Common, Suffolk, and that 

 £300 Avas still needed to complete tlie fund 

 for acquiring Minchinhampton Common, 

 Gloucester, in order that the land might 

 be vested in the National Trust. 



Workers in Market 



Gardens, etc.— The Insurance Com- 

 missioners have decided that, under cer- 

 tain conditions, casual workers employed in 

 gathering fruit , hops, peas, and flowers, 

 and lifting and picking up potatoes, are 

 to l>e exchKle<l from the provisions of the 

 Insurance Act as persons engaged in a sub- 

 sidiary employment. It is provided, how- 

 ever, that where a person engage<l for a 

 time in one of these excepted occupations 

 is at other times engage<l in Avork in con- 

 nection witli which he or she is an insured 

 person, the exclusion referred to will not 

 apply. For example, if a person engage<l 

 {is a fruit or hop picker for a few weeks 

 is at other times regularly engaged in agri- 

 culture or any other employment, and is 

 ah insured person, he or she and the em- 

 plover will be required to pay insurance 

 premiums wliiU* the fruit or hop picking is 



iiointx on. 



Proposed Extension 



Wim 



bledon Common. — ihe progress AVitn 



the fund that is being raised for the pur- 

 cha.se of a considerable area of land \yith the 

 object of extending Wimbledon Common is 

 not vso satisf{ictory as coiUd be wished. At 

 a nuH^ting of the Wimbledon District C oun- 

 cil, lield the other evening, it was dec:ded 

 to defer for six montlis the question of 

 obtaining from the Local Government 

 Board power to rai.se by means of a loan 

 the £10,000, which the Board vote<l in aid 

 of the scheme at a meeting held in October. 

 1910. 



FERN SPORE VARIATION. 



To those who devote their careful atten- 

 tion to the raising of varietal ferns from 

 spores, phenomena are frequently presented 

 of a very puzzling nature, and which cer- 

 tainly merit record^ since it is only by the 

 aocumuLation of such recoixls that any laws 

 underlying these apparently erratic phe- 

 nomena can ever be discovered. That 

 spores or seeds from valuable plants, pos- 

 sibly of mixed origin, should give rise to 

 diverse progeny appear^ natural enough, 

 hence in the case of seeds, cross-fertilisation 

 is the rule rather than the exception, and 

 therefore the offspring are naturally the 

 outcome of a sort of compromise between 

 diverse parental influences, with the result 

 that adjustment of the diverse potencies 

 occurs in different degrees. 



With the fern spore the case is rather 

 different. From the nature of the pro- 

 thallus, or small green scale, produced by 

 the spore prior to the development of the 

 sexual apparatus beneath the scale, self- 

 fertiHsation miist be the rule and crossing 

 the exception, the homologues of tJie pollen 

 grain, and the incipient ovule being so 

 close together, and the process of fertilisa- 

 tion of the one bj' the other so dependent 

 upon the presence of a minute drop of 

 water which forms the conveying medium, 

 that any other mode of conveyance which 

 can bridge the gap between one prothallus 

 and another is almost precluded. Never- 

 theless, it has been abundantly demons- 

 trated that such transference does occur, 

 since a number of easily recognisable 

 crosses l^etween diverse types are well 

 known to exist. 



It is not, however, with these easily ac- 

 countable cases that we desire to deal, but 

 with cases where normal self-fertilisation 

 may be reasonably assumed, and yet in 

 which the progeny are of the more diversi- 

 fied character. The comparatively iwent 

 introduction of a new strain of Polvstichum 

 aculeatum, known as the gracillimum " 

 ty]>e is a case in point. AVe commence here 

 with a wild plant of P. aculeatum, found 

 in a Dorsetshire hedge as a huge speci- 

 men. Instead of the robust, somewhat 

 dense, norm.al form of the species, it was 

 of much slenderer make, the secondary 

 pinnules of the fronds being much smaller 

 and further apart, and the primary ones 

 or pinnae running oiit into very slender 

 terminals. The fronds, much longer than 

 the normal ones, terminated uniquely by 

 the pinnje curving inwards and overlap- 

 ping the midrib, the tip finally extending 

 verv slenderlv to match those of the sub- 

 divisions. Finally, the tips of both 

 fronds an-d pinnfe showed a tendency to 

 expand fan-like, suggesting minute tassels. 

 So unique a form was naturally greatly 

 prized, but despite robust growth and a 

 marked tendency to produce lateral offsets, 

 which enabled it in time to be widely dis- 

 tributed, some forty years elaji^od before 

 nny spores were discovere<l. 



In view, however, of recent *^x]>erience 

 since that discovery, it appe;ns ])robable 

 tiiat the supposed barreniu\ss was leally 

 due to the fact that it bore no obvious 

 s])ores or spore-heaps accom])anied by an 

 indusium or s}X)re <over, but only pro- 

 duced sporangia or sjiore capsules in twos 

 or threes on the very edges of the sub- 

 divisions, and these only bore and there on 

 very robustly-gi'own .sjK'ciniens. Hence 

 they escaped observation, and were even- 

 tuallv onlv discovere<l with the aid of a 

 lens. Since, however, the sporangia were 

 well develo]>ed and ^each containe<l the 

 iionnal number of spores, some thirty or 

 fortv each, the first batch discovered 

 yielded considerably over a hundred plants, 

 which it was anticipate<l would yield 



