COMMONPLACE NOTES. 



219 



motherlands and the newer lands across the seas are matters for un- 

 mixed rejoicing, and anything which helps, in however small a degree, to 

 promote and keep alive these feelings of kinship and friendship should be 

 gladly taken advantage of by all. We hope, then, that in the next few 

 years we may receive a large access of Fellows to our Society living in 

 the Colonies — lovers of gardens and of the outward face of Nature — who 

 will feel it a privilege as well as a duty to help support and to keep in 

 touch with the many useful and long-established institutions of the old 

 Mother Country. Fellows living in the Colonies and joining our Society 

 will find that the advantage is not by any means all on one side, for 

 besides the satisfaction of helping on the work of our Society they will 

 receive our Journal regularly, despatched to them by post as soon as it 

 is issued from the press, and many and many a colonist has borne witness 

 to the immense assistance he has gained from the J ouenal of the 

 Society. For the information of colonists in distant lands we may 

 mention that the volume for 1901-2 consists of 1,240 pages with 357 

 illustrations of new or rare plants, plant diseases, &e. ; and the volume 

 for 1902-3 has 1,478 pages of letterpress with 287 illustrations, besides 

 seven coloured plates. The Society has now entered on the hundredth 

 year since its first foundation in 1804, and it would cordially welcome, 

 and rejoice to enroll among its Fellows, any colonials who would like even 

 in this small way to help on the feeling of unity and friendship between 

 the centre and the most distant parts of the Empire. 



And what has been said of British colonies applies with almost equal 

 force to the United States of America, that great nation across the sea 

 which is almost entirely British and Irish by descent and parentage. 

 The centenary of our Society should see a large number of American 

 citizens wishful to join our old Society, which played so great a part in 

 the botanical exploration of North America in the first half of the last 

 century. 



Besides sending to all our Journal, we also hunt out for Fellows as far 

 as we can any questions in which they may be interested in plant life, 

 and obtain for them, as far as we can, by purchase or exchange, new or 

 rare seeds which they may be unable to procure in their own country. 



Anyone interested in gardens and gardening, in plant diseases and 

 plant life, is welcomed as a Fellow of this old Society, and should write 

 to the Secretary, 117 Victoria Street, Westminster. 



Very Early Tomatos. 



A Fellow living in Canada writes that he is anxious to get good crops 

 of Tomatos very early in the year, and he has been informed that it is 

 necessary to collect the pollen during the summer and dry it and store it 

 till winter, and then use it for artificially impregnating the earliest 

 blossoms. We cannot say whether this is really necessary in Canada, or 

 whether the dried pollen of the Tomato would prove fertile or not, but in 

 England we do not experience much difficulty in getting the blossoms to 

 set even in mid-winter. The soil must be kept rather dry and the 

 blossoms should be hand-fertilised in the middle of the day, from half-past 

 eleven to twelve o'clock, when the sun has most power. We do not suffer 



