I 



June 29, 1912. 



THE GARDENTi^t^^' MAGAZINE. 



483 



cient alone ; large mountain areas are also 

 protected, and are called ^' Pflanzen-Sclion. 

 bezii-k-" This applies to nearly all the great 

 mountains which border the Konigsee near 

 Berchtesgaden, the pearl of the German 

 lakes. No one has the right to collect here 

 anv planrt, except a few men of science with 

 -special permission of the Government. 



Holland House Show 



The 



Royal Horticultural Society's saimmer show 

 at Holland House, Kensington, for July 2, 

 2 and 4, promises to be an unusually im- 

 portant function. I^ast year the summer 

 ihow was held at Olympia, but the Council 

 have now come to an arrangement which 

 promises to retain Holland Park as a per- 

 manent site for the summer show for sonie 

 years to come. New spacious tents, with 

 ^ special patent ventilation, are to he 

 erected for the exhibits, and so an 

 Improvement will be effected on past 

 -crowded and stuffy conditions. High 

 Street Kensington, is the nearest railway 

 station but Addison Road is ako quite 



near. 



The Rose Harvest in the 



Balkans..— The valley of Kezanlik, in 

 Southern Bulgaria, is yielding its annual 

 liarvest of rose blooms. For mde after mile 

 the plantations of roses, chiefly Damask 

 varieties, extend, the bushes being about 

 7ft. apart. About fifteen tons of half- 

 opened flowers go to produce a pound of 

 rose-oil or attar, and this amount of fra- 

 grant essence is worth from £14 to £20. 

 Some idea of the extent of the rose harvest 

 will be gathered from the statement that 

 the Kezanlik Valley produces annually 

 about fifteen tons of rose attar. 



The Devon Daffodil Society 



has notwithstanding a decline of £22 15s. 

 <>d 'in subscriptions, slightly increased its 

 <^redit balance as a result of the past year s 

 work:ng. We regret to learn that Captain 

 Parlby is resigning the secretaryship, owing 

 to his anticipated absence from Plymouth 

 during the coming season. Captain Parlby 

 has been an enthusiastic and capable secre- 

 tary, and Mr. Coryndon Matthews is to 

 be h's successor in that office. At the re- 

 cent annual meeting it was agreed that 

 the society^s spring show of 1913 should be 

 held at Barnstaple, in North Devon. 



Soil Fertility. — In the course of his 

 lecture on The Fertility of the Soil/' be- 

 fore the Royal Institution, Mr. A. D. Hall 

 stated that experiments at Rothamsted had 

 shown that the addition of carbonaceous 

 matter in the form of sugar to a Rotham- 

 sted plot poor in nitrogen had greatly in- 

 creased the yield in barley. It was possible, 

 he went on to show, that a production of 

 <jver four quarters per acre of wheat could 

 be maintained indefinitely by natural 

 agencies alone, provided that the small an- 

 nual losses of phosphoric acid and potash 

 were replace<l. The prospect of reducing 

 the waste of highly intensive culture was 

 not entirely hopeless. The losses were due 

 to bacteria, which attacked nitrogen com- 

 pounds and liberated nitrogen, but the re- 

 ^iearclu^s of Drs. Rnssell and Hutchinson 

 had shown that by putting the soil through 

 varions ))r()cesses of partial sterilisation, 

 ■such as heating or treatment Avith antisep- 

 tics like chloroform or toluenie, certain 

 organisms which checked the useful bac- 

 teria of the soil could be eliminated. Heat- 

 ing the soil to the temperature of boiling 

 water for ten hours would double its pro- 

 ductivity, and the process had been found 

 commercially profitable in the case of green- 

 house soils. The market growers of 

 cucumbers and tomatoes made up an excep- 

 tionally rich soil of virgin loam and stable 

 manure, bnt in a few A^ears such a soil, 

 ^vhile still enormouslv rich on analvsis, be- 



came incapable of growing a profitable 

 crop. Pai-tial sterilisation enhanced the 

 fertility of this soil by eliminating the 

 injurious organisms. At present these 

 processes had not been extended to the open 

 field, but progress was being made in that 

 direction, and gave some promise of a 

 method by which ultimately the unseen 

 fauna and flora of the soil would be domes- 

 ticated, the useful races encouraged, and 

 the noxious repressed, just as the larger 

 flora and fauna had been reduced to the 

 service of man since primitive man first 

 turned from hunting to the cultivation of 

 useful crops. 



Manuri£il Requirements of 



Carrots. — During the year 1911 the Mid- 

 land Agricultural College, Kingston-on- 

 Soar^ carried out some experiments in the 

 manuring of carrots that were of much 

 interest. According to the report, the 

 carrots were less affected by the drought 

 than swedes and turnips, and the yield 

 varied from 10 to 16 tons per acre. Farm- 

 yard manure was found the best founda- 

 tion dressing for land to be cropped with 

 carrots, and the best return was obtained 



when the animal manure was applied to the 

 previous crop. Supplementary applications 

 of chemical fertilisers usually give a pro- 

 fitable increas^salt, potash, and phos- 

 phates being the most effective materials. 

 The advantage of salt is that it mitigates 

 the influences of drought by retaining the 

 moisture in the land, while probably it 

 also aids the liberation of potash from its 

 compounds in the soil. A potash manure 

 should, it is stated, always be included and 

 is necessary when dung is not used in large 

 quantity and phosphates are more effective 

 than a "^nitrogenous substance. The manu- 

 rial treatment recommended is 3cwt. of 

 salt worked into land before sowing or 

 planting, 5cwt. superphosphate, and l^cwt 

 sulphate of potash mixed together, and 

 applied at the time of cropping, and Icwt. 

 sulphate of ammonia as a top dressing when 

 the plants are about 4in. high. AMien no 

 farmyard manure is used the quantities ot 

 artificials should be slightly increased. 



Growth of Douglas Fir- The 



AVest of Scotland Agricultural College, 

 Glasgow has published a report on an 

 investigation into the current annual 

 increment in girth of a Douglas hr 

 plantation on the Ben More Estate, 

 Kilmun, during 1911. Tlie trees were 

 planted in 1879. and in order to ascer- 

 tain the rate of growth they were mea- 

 sured five feet from the ground on May 1, 

 1911. and on February 17 this year. The 

 93 trees under observation showed an aver- 

 age girth increment of 0.86in. each, Avh'le 

 40 of'' the stronger trees gave an average of 

 1.09in. The details showing the height 

 growth are nnt considered so trustworthy, 

 but the few trees measured gave an aver- 

 age rate of about 3ft. a year. 



Fugosia halcesefolia.— This is a 



very uncommon member of the mallow 

 family, and as ree^ards the foliage a mo.st dis. 

 tinct one. It forms a rather upright-growing 

 shrub clothed with long, narrow, fleshy, 

 almost cylindrical-shaped leaves, bearing m 

 this resp^t a certain amount of resemblance 

 to some of the Hakeas, an Australian genus 

 of proteaceons plants. The flowers of the 

 fueosia are hibi.ciis4ike, being from three 

 to four inches across, and in colour purplish- 

 lilac with a central cluster of darker- 

 coloured stamens. Tliough now uncommon, 

 it is quite an old plant in gardens, having 

 been introduced from South Australia by 

 Messrs Lucombe and Pince, of Exeter, in 

 1846. Its propagation and culture presents 

 no difficulties : that is, if it is given ordinary 

 greenhoiL^e treatment. 



THE R.H.S. AND THE 

 ROYAL INTERNATIONAL 



EXHIBITION. 



The following correspondence has taken 

 place ]>etween Sir Trevor Lawrence, President 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society, and Mr- 

 J. Guruey Fowler, Chairman of the Board of 

 Directors of the International Exiiibition: — 



Eoyal Horticultural Society, 



Vincent Square, Westminster, S.W., 



June 5, 1912. 



Dear Mr. Gurney Fowler,— The Council 

 of this Society, at their meeting yesterday, 

 requested me to convey to you and your 

 colleagues on the direction of the Eoyal In- 

 ternational Horticultural Exhibition their 

 hearty congratulations on the signal suc- 

 cess with which the exhibition has been car- 

 ried out. The Council's own experience makes 

 them fully aware of the long-continued 

 and unremitting labours attending exhibi- 

 tions on even a much smaller scale; and 

 the success wliich hac. crowned your efforts 

 cannot fail to be most gratifying to all 

 concerned, and to reflect great credit on 

 them. It is the universal opinion that 

 uiore rom))lete and comprehensive, a better- 

 arranged, and more l>eautiful and instruc- 

 tive exhibition has never been seen in any 

 countrv- No wonder, then, that it has 

 received the fullest and most unstinted 

 praise and admiration from their Majesties 

 Ihe King and Queeu downwards. 



The Council, moreover, are glad to under- 

 stand that the financial results will pro- 

 lably show a .satisfactory surplus, and re- 

 iieve the P-uarantors from all liability. — I 



am, yours very truly, 



TREVOR LAWRENCE, President. 



J. Gurney Powler, Esq. 



Gleljelands, S. AVcodford, Essex, 



June 7, 1912. 



Dear Sir Trevor Lawrence— Your letter 

 of the 5th inst. has been received by me 

 with the very greatest pleasure, and this 

 pleasure will also, I am sure, be felt by 

 all my colleagues on the board when I com- 

 municate its contents to them. 



For some two years now we have been, 

 as you know, preparing for this exhiljition, 

 and it has caused to many of us much 

 work, troul>le. and, above all, anxiety. 

 Now that it i.s a thing of the past, a great 

 load of renpousibility, both financial and 

 otherwise, has been lifted from us, and we 

 are able to return to our ordinary work 

 with the satisfactory feeling that our 

 efforts have met with your Society s appre- 

 ciation, also with that of their Majesties 

 the Kiu'^ and Queen, and of the general 

 public, and have resulted also, as you say, 



in a signal success. 



This fact is an all-sufiicient recompense 

 for our many labours, aud I ho])e nio^t 

 sincerely that the exhibition will result in 

 the advancement of horticulture in all it^i 

 brajiches. This has been, and is, my con- 



-taiit endeavnir. _ . ^ 



lal 



It is early yet to talk about the fi 

 results but, so far as ^nc can see, there is 

 little likeliho'od of any call u]).ai the gua- 

 rantors, by Avhose generou.- >upport we 

 were so <JTeatly ifucouraged and assisted. 

 We look forward to having eventually a 

 considerable sum in hand to di>tnbute to 

 gardening charities or otherwise, as we 



may be advis-ed. 



Thanking you for your letter, believe me 

 to remain. Vfuuv most sincerely, 



J. GrUXKY FOWLER, Chairman. 



Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart. 



CytiSUS elegans — For greenhouse 

 decoration this cvtisus affords a pleasing 

 variation to Cytisus racemosus— the genista 

 of the market grower. From this last, ele- 

 gans differs in its looser habit, more silky 

 foliage, and lighter yellow flowers. Accord- 

 ino- to the '-Kew Handlist," it is but a 

 vaxietv of Cytisus fragrans, whicli is re- 

 garded as the correct name of Cytisus race- 

 mosus of gardens.— W. 



