March i9» l8 9 8 - 



GA RDENERS' MA GA ZINE. 



179 



The Formation and Properties of Soils forms a question of the widest 



n Jest to horticulturists of every grade, consequently we may anticipate a large 

 f h p at the lecture on this subject to be delivered by Mr. J. J. Willis at the 

 attendanc Horticultural Society to be held on March 22. Mr. Willis has 



T 6 f cultv of placin- hard scientific facts before his audience in a most interesting 

 manner, and few have had more opportunities of observing the composition and 

 value of soils. 



Carnations and Picotees in the Midlands.— The Midland Carnation 



d Picotee Society sets an example which may be commended to the notice of 

 societies generally associated with floriculture as worthy of imitation. Instead 



A MOR 



3 Mix 



saluberri 



Why do not gardeners read gardening papers ? This is a question 

 which has often puzzled me. Perhaps someone may respond that 

 gardeners do read the papers, so there is an end of the matter. But I 

 venture to think that the number of regular readers is comparatively 

 limited, and the reason why I have come to this conclusion is that when, 

 in conversation, I have brought. up a topic under discussion in one or 

 other of the journals, neither chiefs nor staff were able to respond, because 

 they "haven't noticed what's been said." Understand me, I am not 

 referring to the leading gardens, which are few, but to medium 

 gardens, which are many. I daresay the principal explanation of this 

 fact is that reading is looked down upon with a certain amount of contempt 

 by u practical n men, forgetting, as they do, that it is usually the heads, or, 

 in other words, the most able and practical members of the profession, 

 who become teachers. 



f hiding* their light under the proverbial bushel, the committee very properly 

 take the steps necessary to show the world of floriculture that it is actively 

 engaged in the performance of the work for which it was founded, and that it is 

 fully justifying the views that were given expression to seven years since by those 

 to whom belongs the credit of establishing it. We have received the seventh 

 annual report, and from this we are pleased to learn that, notwithstanding the un- 



favourable weather experienced on each of the show days the society was able to I do not want to be prosy, and I have no present penchant for moral- 



increase the balance at the bankers'. The report contains a sketch of the work 

 during the past year; the list of the prizes offered for competition at the exhibition 

 to be held at the Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, on July 27 and 28 next, the 

 rules, a list of the finest exhibition varieties, and a paper by Mr. Robert Sydenham 

 on " Carnation Culture." Fifty-two classes are provided in the schedule, and the 

 prizes include a ten-guinea challenge cup for competition in the amateur's classes, 

 and a ten-guinea cup for trade growers. We are pleased to see that border 

 carnations, and arrangements of carnations for personal adornment and the 

 decoration of the house, receive liberal encouragement without there being any 

 diminution in the awards for florists' flowers. 



The San Jose Scale [Aspidioius pemiciosus) was the subject of some discus- 



lsing. Neither ever does much good. But common sense ought to tell a 

 man that if he has the chance of getting the experience of a dozen or more 

 first-class cultivators for two or three pence a week, he is as much an ass 

 as ever the law was if he does not take it. I thought this rather more 

 strongly than usual when, on the first Friday in March, an old friend 

 came along the drive in a new spring suit and tumbled himself with a 

 heavy thud into the letter-box, thence sprawling, by reason of his cor- 

 pulency, out on to the mat. To abandon this subtle allegory, let me say 

 at once that it was the Gardeners' Magazine Spring Number. What 

 though it contained food for differences of opinion on detail in its 

 numerous articles. Was it any the less valuable ? Not a bit. To my 

 mind, the man who finds food for the exercise of his critical faculty is the 



aonat the monthly meeting oAhe Entomological Society, owing to its reported one who gets the most enjoyment out of his gardening and out of his 



occurrence in Great Britain. Mr. R. Newstead stated that during nine years' work on rea( ^ # N °f m S gives me greater pleasure than to vigorously kick any 



. . - Al . . . . . . contributor whom I think I have cornered, unless it be to get an equally 



Coccid* he had never once met with this species among scale-insects taken m this yi s kicki in return . Learn? excellent young friends, to kick 



country and sent to him for identification. It was impossible even for an expert and tQ receive kickSj both with a kindIy hea rt. 



to distinguish it, without carelul microscopical preparation and examination, from 



among the thirty or more known species of Aspidiotus, and any attempt to identify I am going to wander through the forty well-packed pages of the 



it on imported fruit by naked-eye observation, or with a hand-lens, was therefore spring GARDENERS' MAGAZINE, deliberately, but not of malice afore- 



quite impracticable. The risk of its distribution by being imported on fruit was thought, in search of kicks. It is rather unlucky, though, that the first 



contributor with whom compliments have to be exchanged is Mr. Wythes, 

 for that portly professional is one of the heavy-weights. There is none ot 

 the light comedian or juvenile lead about the Syon chief. He is the 

 heavy man, and, as I have before remarked in these pages, enjoys the 

 rare distinction of Peter's approbation. There are, however, one or two 

 points in his communication on raspberry culture which are open to 

 criticism. In the first place, he appears to deprecate trenching in dealing 

 with light soils. It is just on such soils that trenching is most needed, 

 because the deepening and pulverisation of the ground secures more 

 moisture. The remark that deep trenching means putting the good soil 

 out of the reach of the roots has caused Peter to shake his head ; he 

 clearly expected something better from Mr. Wythes. We are believers 

 in trenching, and sustain our belief by solid work, but we take care to 

 so arrange our system as to put the good soil — no matter where it was 

 originally — where the roots are. There are many modifications of plain 



small. There was, however, much more likelihood of its introduction on plants. 

 At the same time, he saw no reason to suppose that it would be more injurious in 

 this country than the common Mytilaspis pomorum. In America the San Jose 

 scale had several generations in the year, sometimes as many as five, but in this 

 country it would probably conform with the habits of all other scale-insects at 

 present investigated, and become single-brooded. This may be somewhat reassur- 

 ing, but the probability of the pest not producing more than one brood annually 

 does not in any way render it less necessary to take steps to prevent its introduc- 

 tion into this country. 



The Structure of Cycads was discussed at a recent meeting of the 

 Linnean Society by Mr. W. C. Worsell. In the course of his address he pointed 

 out that in cycas the conduplicate vernation and arrangement of the bundles in the 

 fleshy hypogoeal cotyledons, the secondary extrafascicular rings, the concentric 

 cortical strands, and, in one species, the peculiar concentric structure of the leaf- trenching. 



traces, in the stem, and in the hypocotyl some curious concentric strands running 

 obliquely out from the cylinder, and, in a small seedling, the secondary vascular 

 cylinders lying outside the normal stele ; in the seedling of Stangeria paradoxa 



I should like, too, to say a word as to the advice given to cut out the 

 old canes directly the fruit has been gathered. As a matter of labour 



the small primary concentric bundles in the stalk common to the two cotyledons economics, to coin a phrase, this is, generally speaking, almost imprac- 

 which both higher up and lower down become collateral, and in the adult stem ticabI ?> because the . ™ rk ™ uld !> ave "> . be d ™ e when every available 



the occurrence of a secondary concentric strand in the periphery of the cortex, 

 which appeared to be the remnant of a once normal system of nude strands ; and 

 in Ceratozamia mexicana the vertical succession through the pith of a large stem 

 of effete peduncular cylinders, the peduncles which successively terminate the stem 

 being in turn pushed to one side and their basil region enclosed by a lateral shoot 

 which continues the main vegetative axis. In conclusion, Mr. Worsell 

 endeavoured to demonstrate that certain characters in the vegetative structure of 

 these plants showed them to be nearly allied to, or descended from, certain fossil 

 fern-like plants, notably the Medullosese, and these characters were: the 



hand is fully occupied with pressing duties. Mr. Wythes writes from 

 the point of view of the private gardener, into whose sphere those 

 worrying economics do not come. The man who is trying to make money 

 can find more fruitful work for his hands in August than raspberry 

 pruning. Nor do I quite look eye to eye with Mr. Wythes in respect to 

 the intrinsic merits of the process. Is it very far-fetched to suppose that 

 the highly elaborated sap of the older canes nourishes, in descending, the 

 basal buds which are the foundation of the following year's canes ? I am 

 more and more inclining to the view that it does, in a measure, serve that 

 purpose, and that October is a better month than July or August for 



of the flattened concentric strands in the stem of the Medullose*, the inner portion 



ot which has died out, and all the various concentric structures above mentioned. 

 For the type of structure prevailing in the ancestors of the cycads would have been 

 the concentric, whereas in their descendants it is the collateral. The significant 

 outcome of this study is to form, in the vegetative characters of these plants, a 

 connecting link, over and above that already afforded by the discovery of 

 spermatozoids in cycas and ginkgo, between "flowering" and " flowerless " 

 p ants. Dr. D. H. Scott, in criticising the address, referred to the importance of 



certain facts which had been elucidated by the author, which he himself was able 

 to confirm. 



Dr. Wilhelm Pfeffer, professor of botany at the Leipzig University, has 

 Deer l invited by the Royal Society to deliver the Croonian lecture. This lecture 

 nas tor lts subject "The Nature and Significance of Functional Metabolism in 

 e lant, and is being delivered, in German, as we go to press (March 17). 



r. rtetler is well known to botanists, especially for his researches in the physi- 

 ology of plant life. 



have b ti0naI Horticu,turaI Society of France.— The following gentlemen 

 florkult 611 eleCted by this societ y presidents of the undermentioned sections: 

 and sh T' 2r Savage ; fmits > M - Coulombier ; ornamental and useful trees 



rubs, M. Croux ; chrysanthemums, M. Lemaire j and roses, M. Maurice de 

 % ilmonn. 



It is not often that I read an article of Mr. Beckett's with dis- 

 appointment, but when, under the heading of " Vegetables for Exhi- 

 bition " I found two-thirds of his communication about early potatos deal- 

 ing with early forcing, I must confess to a slight tinge of it. There are 

 few of us probably, whose modest competitive efforts with the noble tuber 

 call for 'ten-inch pots and heated pits. Perhaps one of these days the 

 Luxian potatos {pace! Mr. Prinsep) and other forced produce will be 

 carrying off a gold medal at the Drill Hall, but the time is not yet. 

 However in the latter part of his communication, Mr. Beckett gives 

 we poor outsiders a little advice, and capital it is, as I can testify, 

 particularly the recommendation to use spent, crumbly manure and 

 leafmould in planting. It ought to be quite obvious that in the case 

 of such a vegetable as the potato, heavy dressings of damp, rank 

 manure must be of questionable value. The stuff may and does give a 

 heavy crop, but the tubers are not of the beautiful texture and speckless 

 skin which 'we covet I have never had a more even and clean lot of 

 tubers than when I have mixed leafmould and burnt rubbish, the latter 

 with its rich stores of potash, and spread in the drills. 



In the latest of his pleasant articles on " Ferns," Mr. Druery describes 

 himself as a fern " maniac," and hints at a leaning towards the giving 

 away of seedlings as souvenirs. This would support the view I have 

 always held, namely, that there is much method in his madness. And if 



