March 12, 1898. 



THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



The Beginnings of Plants.— In one of his recent interesting lectures, 

 Professor Ray Lankester showed that the primal difference between plants and 



animals was based upon what each 



able to eat. The organisms which can 



only eat substances of no lower chemical elaborateness than starches, sugars, and 

 albumens are said to be holozoic ; and all the animals belong to this class. Those 

 which can eat oxygen and carbon and nitrogen, and have the power (with the help 

 of chlorophyll and sunlight) of separating oxygen, are called holophytic. But 

 between these two comes the anomalous class — the organisms which have a mouth 

 and eat animal's food, and yet have chlorophyll corpuscles to enable them to get 

 sustenance as the plants get it. These, we say, are saprophytic, and it is among 

 such organisms that we have to search for the point where the animal world and 

 the vegetable kingdom start. There is green plant called the Englena which has 



A Morning Mixture. 



Diluculo surfer e saluberrimum est. 



We have a little bit of fight in us, we of the Gardeners' Magazine. 



When there is anything lively coming on we make no preliminary fuss ; 

 we bide our time quietly ; but we are there or thereabouts when the 

 scrimmage begins. Our position for the present is " referred back." 

 What will happen subsequently we do not attempt to say, but we are in 

 a position to claim a preliminary victory, and an ultimate one is as safe as 

 — well, from want of a better simile, let us say safe as Lombard Street, 

 That decorous thoroughfare is not what it used to be, if we can believe 

 the foreign gentry who are good enough to supply us with apples and 

 plums, potatos and "unenumerated," but it is not quite on its last legs 

 yet, and is very likely a good deal stronger and a good deal healthier 



a mouth, and yet has the chlorophyll corpuscles which would class it as a plant ; than the foreign gentry thoughtfully suggest, 

 and there are among the tiny organisms of the $t flagellata," or whip swimmers, 



several we should class as animals, and yet which have the green corpuscles in An individual who has been privileged to read the foregoing, unkindly 



their minute structures. This is, therefore, one reason for believing that it was remarks that it is of atypical "Luxian" nature, because (1) it appropriates 

 among the " flagellata " that the vegetable kingdom first found its origin. Broadly cre f lt for what some one else has done (meaning the fighting, I suppose), 

 speaking, said the professor, one might say that if in the beginning a group of L'Kl^JSSS 

 M flagellata" joined themselves end to end so as to form a thread, they turned into 

 a plant ; whereas if they followed more complex courses and joined together in more 

 elaborate structures and households, they became animals. 



At the R.H.S. Gardens, Chiswick, the work of renewal and improve- 

 ment moves steadily on. The long peach house has been rebuilt, and is now a 

 useful structure, with a higher roof than formerly, thus giving the standard peaches 

 such additional head room as they needed. The wire-tension house, presented 

 some time ago by Messrs. Skinner, Board, and Co., has also been turned into a 

 peach house, a purpose for which it appears eminently adapted. Some borders of 

 sound material have been made up under Mr. Wright's superintendence, so that 

 the half-dozen thrifty peach trees presented by Messrs. H. Lane and Son, Berk- 

 hamstead, herein planted should soon make good headway. An interesting orchid, 

 and one that does not flower very freely as a rule, has produced a couple of good 

 spikes in a warm house ; this is Dendrobium speciosum, and Mr. Wright considers 

 that the large amount of sunshine it was subjected to last season has caused the 

 specimen to flower this year. 



Mr, Peter Barr, the originator of the firm of Barr and Sons, seedsmen 

 and nurserymen, of Covent Garden and Thames Ditton, has, as our readers are 

 aware, resigned the conduct of the business to his sons. This cour e allows Mr. 

 P. Barr leisure to indulge his desire to travel. Recently he renewed his acquaint- 

 ance with the highlands of Spain, where formerly he found many new and beautiful 

 daffodils. Now Mr. Barr proposes visiting the United States, Canada, Japan, 

 some parts of China, Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape of Good Hope. We 

 wish Mr. Barr bon voyage. 



Keeping Apples.— Mr. R. H. Taunton, of Brook Vale, Witton, reports 

 that he has for the second year kept his apples in excellent condition during the 

 winter in clamps. The apples were clamped in the same way as potatos in the 

 autumn when they were gathered, and when the clamp was opened the other day 

 were as fresh and sound as when picked. The varieties were 

 Improved Northern Greening, and Royal Russet. 



Wyk 



A Bacterial Fertiliser.— Under the name of "alinit " a new manure has 



teen recently introduced. The discoverer of this material is Herr Caron, of 

 Ellenbach ; and alinit in its present form is the outcome of four years' experi- 

 mental investigations on the bacterial flora of different soils, resulting in the 

 isolation of a particular bacillus, upon the presence of which would appear to 

 depend to an important extent the fertility of certain soils. Caron has, according 

 to Nature, already obtained striking results on an experimental scale with crops 

 rom soil treated with pure cultures of this bacillus— Elknbacf^nsis alpha, as he 

 lias called it. Alinit is sent out as a creamy-yellow powder, of which the 

 nitrogenous constituents have been ascertained to be 2-5 per cent. Its closer 

 investigation has been made the subject of memoirs by Stoklasa, of Prague and 

 also Messrs. Stutzer and Hartleb. The bacillus is contained in this powder in 

 tne form of spores, and on cultivation is found to belong to the well-known 

 aerobic group of bacteria known as the hay bacilli, resembling very closely the 

 bacillus mycoides so frequently found in soil, and the Bacillus megatherium. It 

 appears to grow easily upon all the usual culture media. Before its precise place 

 amon gst bacterial fertilisers can be determined, many more elaborate and carefully 

 conducted experiments must be carried out. 



Shirley Poppies appear to be finding much favour in America and a corre- 

 spondent of [American] Gardening writes as follows with reference to the effect 



bloLo^ i d u n a al ° ng thC fr ° nt ° f a shrubbe 'y- There were hundreds of 



lossoms, a labyrinth of bloom and colour. Glowing flowers of dark scarlet satin, 



and inT° WhhOUt a WFink,e 10 mar the shinin S surface of ^e rich petals, - 



others Centre a b ' aCk maItCSe Cr ° SS SUI m ° Umed by a Crown of black stamens ! USUaHy get ^ 

 aDrirot 0r c a o I I 8e, fl ' me ' pUre led ' r ° Sy red ' IOSe > rose P ink ' shrimp pink, 



white ? ' ° n Plnk ' bIUSh ' flesh coloured > mauve, pearl, and snowy 

 siiver'th T m P SOHd C ° ,OUrS ' ° therS bordered with white from the merest 

 Ii2htlv1^ l0ahalf * inchfcand ' and white ° neS tiD S ed on the *a&s as by a 

 XJitSf drag S ed Softly ° UlWard on each P^al. Some with, 



black or ^ t, 01 a * bile ma,teSC Cr ° SS iD the centre ' >' et olfc€JS the 



crown of H i ° U ^ ^° ° f the f ° Ur petalS * But a11 wearin S a *P lendid 



all black and ITT 6 " 1 ' dul1 blaGk ° r golden StamenS in which b « buml >le bees, 



both charges. Wherever there is a score to boast about it is an accepted 

 thing that every respectable journal shall become like the Revolution 

 Republic — one and indivisible. If there is blame accruing - , why then the 

 staff separates itself out, and merely exchanges the coldest of nods in 

 passing on the stairs, which is according to human nature, I believe. 

 As to the matter of ambiguity, there is only one topic of the moment, 

 and that is neither the Zola trial nor the County Council election. Each 

 of these events pales before the fierce blaze of interest aroused by the 

 fight for control of the National Chrysanthemum Society. What, after 

 all, are the puny bubbles of the outside world? Are they not all empty 

 scares ? One day it is the Near East and the next the Far East which is 

 troublesome. Then South and West Africa ring the changes. But it all 

 comes to the same thing in the end. The country keeps going and will 

 do so. Sensible men never worry about it, knowing that which ever 

 party is in power it is in safe hands. They pay their taxes and wash the 

 bad taste out of their mouths with the sweet waters of gardening. 



I am not, as I have said, going to play the part of prophet ; I am only 

 going to comment on current events. The moral of them is plain enough. 

 The mandate to the N. C. S. is — Put your house in order. I am not in 

 the war councils of the opposition, and therefore I do not know what the 

 next stage in the campaign will be. But the writing is on the wall, plain 

 for any man to see. The members of the N.C.S. do not mean to be 

 blinded any longer by brilliant but ephemeral successes. They demand 

 something more substantial. They want the finances of the society to be 

 put on a sounder basis and they mean to have it. The present current 

 of discontent will die down when the members see a prospect of a good 

 reserve fund being built up, and not before. They do not question the 

 energy which has been displayed in the management of the society's 

 affairs. They do not dispute the claim of a vast increase of popular 

 interest in the flower, but they want to see something solid as a result. 



It is cheerful to be able to record a triumph over the transatlantic 

 fruit shippers, considering how many they have been able to claim 

 against us. All the autumn and winter the prices for apples have been 

 abnormally high, yet American fruit was chiefly conspicuous by its 

 absence. "Why do they not send?" was the question heard everywhere, 

 and the wiseacre contemptuously responded, u Because they haven't got 

 it." Now, however, nearly at the fag end ot the season, there is quite a 

 little rush of fruit across the streak. What have the agents on this side 

 been about to keep it back so long ? Did they argue that the tempting 

 prices would go still higher when the best of the home fruit was gone ? 

 Probably that is the explanation, but it is a great mistake ever to let the 

 markets get slack, because, after a disappointment or two, consumers 

 give up asking for the article on the assumption that the season is over, 

 and turn to preserved or tinned fruit. It is for this reason, I believe, 

 that prices have broken, notwithstanding that there is no glut. 



Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, M.P., has been writing to the Field about the 

 fruit question in the West of England, and in this he makes a 

 Lament, an Eulogium, and a Suggestion. The first is at the absence of 

 skilled hands at pruning, grafting, and other cultural operations. The 

 second is a doubtless well-deserved testimonial to the technical instructor 

 in horticulture employed in Herefordshire. The third calls for an exten- 

 sion of the practical side of technical education. I do not myself wonder 

 at the lack of skilled hands on the farms. So long as farmers think the 

 wages of a common unskilled labourer suffice for providing all the 

 requirements of fruit trees, so long will the skilled man confine himself 

 to nurseries and private gardens, where better wages are paid. Those 

 few farmers who are sensible enough to see that it is worth while to pay 

 a little more than hedged v/ages for a good pruner and grafter can 



a 'l black H — ~***» VAU11 uj<u;k or goiaen aiainens in w 



rouGh^a^ty % tf themSelves > seem alwa ? s t0 be tumbling, mere was nearly as 



K»ts of m e as of colour ' Satin of heavy and ,ight ^ ualit y' several 



crinkled ciimnT* 2^ in %aii ° US ccnditions > a * smooth, fluted, 



*^ch mornin * cre P ed - The border presented seme new feature every day 



g it was a study and revealed variations from all previous aspects. 



Nevertheless, Mr. Radcliffe Cooke touches a weak point when he 

 refers to the paucity of trained men on the farms. I have often noticed 

 the same thing. If the Herefordshire instructor pursues his useful career 

 things will perhaps improve, for Mr. Cooke speaks of his climbing into 

 trees and showing good methods by demonstration. This is the right 

 sort of man. Plenty of instructors are 11 up a tree " in another sense. 

 They graft not, neither can they prune. But they can teach others. 

 Strange, isn't it ? When the Gardeners' Magazine gets the practical 

 examinations for which it has long been fighting, it would not be a bad 

 idea to specially invite all the technical instructors in the kingdom to 

 offer themselves for a test. I mentioned this idea of mine to Peter, who, 

 eyeing me with great favour, remarked with desperate meaning, " Yes, 

 sir, and just you a-argue for me to be one o' the judges. Pd test 'em ! * 



: Lux* 



