o8 



GARDENERS' MA GAZINE 



necessary mai *v».... & , •,, 



culture, for unless a material change is made without delay, the crops will 



^o^;i„ ,w„> a « and the industry cease to be a source of profit to the 



that something should be done to improve the system 



of 



steadily decrease, and the industry cease 



islanders. 



Chionodoxas continue to enjoy a high degree of 

 so, for they are so exquisitely beautiful that in the slJ™ f^ 7, and de >-r 



and at the present time they constitute a delightful feature 111 FT* nu,nf *» 



>• Lu «'i.'- form. ' 



no superiors. In the Royal Gardens, Kew, they are 



series of beautiful pictures on the slopes and ledges f th 



ta*** Orphan fmfM ** ?*«• ^ *** t^^J^^Sl^tS^ !" 



maston Court, Reading, under date of April, 1898, says: Having consented to occupy 

 thecfeir on April 20 at the annual Festival Dinner of the Royal Gardeners' Orphan 

 Fund, I wish to appeal to all lovers of gardens and gardening for a liberal response 

 towards this most deserving charity. The object of the fund is to make allowances 

 or grants of money to aid in the maintenance and education of the orphan children 

 of gardeners. At the present time, sixty-four children participate in the benefits 

 of the fund, by an allowance of 5s. per week until they attain the age of fourteen 

 years ; special grants are also made towards apprenticing or otherwise promoting 

 the start in life of any boy or girl who may be eligible for such assistance. The 

 principle on which the charity is conducted, is one which strongly recommends 

 itself to the benevolent : the granting of allowances to children in their homes, 

 thereby assisting the mother to maintain her family, is one of the best that can be 

 adopted. From what I have seen of the management of this charity, I can con- 

 fidently speak of the excellent work it is doing among a deserving class, and of the 

 economical way in which the work is carried out. There are no expensive 

 buildings or offices to maintain. Beyond the payment of necessary working 

 expenses, which are kept at the lowest limit, all monies received are directly 

 applied to the relief of the orphans. I strongly recommend this charity to your 

 benevolent consideration, and trust that you will use your great influence in its 

 topport We trust th it Mr. Keyser's appeal on behalf of this excellent charity 

 will meet with a liberal response. 



Societies Affiliated with the R.H.S. having expressed a wish that 



they may be allowed to use the parent society's badge, the Council, desiring to 

 meet this very legitimate wish for some outward symbol of affiliation, but con- 

 sidering it better that the badge should not be actually identical with that in 

 ordinary use by the parent society, have caused a new badge to be struck, which 

 may be used by affiliated societies, on letter paper, schedules, &c, as they may 

 think tit. A printing block of this badge will be presented to every affiliated 

 society (there are now over one hundred) on application to the secretary, and on 

 signing an undertaking to return the same if the affiliation should for any reason 

 be ended. 



irfece 



gave 



9th inst. 



we 



Hyacinth Culture for Exhibition has of late 



clined in the neighbourhood of the metropolis that it is n 



•naterially 

 occurrence 



ropo 



g 



hihiuoQ 



specimens exhibited by Messrs. W. Paul and Son a^thTm °' sp,cndid, y S'own 

 Botanic Society on Wednesday was of much interest, more »l2 £j* Uo * 

 who remember the time when a hyacinth show formed one of the m« i * 

 items in the society's programme. The specimens staged were <T,n **** 

 able for their short, .tout foliage and massive spikes' and r m SS' * 



pn 



pet 



urL 

 us of the 



e head of 



Early Herbals and Old Gardening Bjoks are steadily a na m 



portance, and the remarkable collection included in the important sal fll 

 by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge during the week ending r 

 ult. created an immense amount of interest among book lovers. The 1 \L 

 included a French MS. of some three hundred and fourteen pages, e^ded*^ 

 Livre des Simples Medecines," written in the fifteenth century. This irnDo ta7 

 manuscript contains besides the herbal several treatises on diseases and thSi 

 remedies, written partly on vellum and partly on paper, and is embellished Z 

 several hundred coloured drawings of plants, &c, and ten paintings of huadnJ 

 scenes and husbandry processes. The biddings were brisk, and soon reached /? 

 when the hammer fell, Mr. Quaritch being the purchaser. Not less spirited « 

 the competition for " Arbolayre cotenat la Qualitey et virtus Proprietez d 

 Herbs," a small folio, printed at Lyons by Husz, probably in 1485, and so exceed, 

 ingly rare that only one other copy is known to exist, and that is in the Bibliotheqne 

 National at Paris. It is atranslation of the German Herbal printed at Bale tod 

 contains numerous fine woodcuts, that at the back of the title being particularly 

 good. This was sold to Mr. Robson for £68. Several copies of the ■? Buch der 

 Natur," one of the finest of the woodcut books produced at Augsburg in the 



Horticulture at Manchester.-We are pleased to have evidence of f« enth " ntu 7. were offered, and they realised good prices, 

 renewal activity in horticultural circles at Manchester, more especially in the P at Axi & hm S b r Baml «"> WS, » ■ small folio, illustrated * 



work of the Royal Botanical and Horticultural Society of Manchester, which has 



uncu:, 



exercised an important influence for good upon horticultural progress in the ? the , ori g inaI Publisher's binding, and after a spirited bidding the hammer fcU 



I'nitcd Kingdom during tf.e past half century. Mr. ('. Weathers, the curator and 



at ^"ioi, the purchaser being Mr. Quaritch. 



llabuiut 



•tcretary of this society, sends us particulars of the arrangements for the current £!* ^i^T^ * qUait ° ° f 9 " hundred and sevent y- four '^ves, illustrated 



year, and from these we learn that a great horticultural exhibition is to be held ■ ° W hundred and fift y wood cuts of plants in contemporary colouring, and 



from May 27 to June 2 | a rose show on July 9 ; an exhibition of the produce of ' . fror " Sc ] hoeffer ' s P ress > sold for £25. There were three editions of - Iloctn 



the gardens of amateurs and cottagers, September 3 ; and an exhibition of chry- bamtatus Herbls et ^ntis," a small folio, illustrated with spirited woodcuti of 



santhemums, November 15 and 16. The first three exhibitions are to be held a r *. g arde " ,n g operations ; **" J L - n — ! ~ " 



Ukl IraMord, and the chrysanthemum show at the Town Hall. At the Whitsun 



realised 

 llingi 



exhibition orchids receive liberal encouragement, five classes being provided for T ° btained ^ L ° rd A hburnham ' s sold in Decem1 *' I* ; t 



collections and the prizes are such as to justify the anticipation of a brisk com- JINX'S « ^ a byh M u e > denbKh 



petition. The prizjs in «he amateurs' class for a miscellaneous collection are of ffi,fS S" J ^ °' d ^f, 6 ™?. 1 ? 0 ^ " , 5 C ° P - I. ^1 



the value of ^20, £12, and £8 respectively, and prizes of the same value are f StSTk T ^T^' P ubhshed ,n ^ ' ^T^- T hU °f ^ 



offered for groups of miscellaneous plants arranged for effect on an area not Z J 1 Y . ^ les IOS ->5 "Bussntos Guidmo di Agncoltui^ J 



exceeding two hundred square feet ; British and exotic ferns, stove and greenhouse " " » - w—j-- 1 • ^ 



plants in bloom, and remarkable for the beauty of their foliage, and hardy 

 herbaceous plants, with a host of other subjects proper to the season have ample 

 provisions made for them. The schedules of the rose and chrysanthemum shows 

 are comprehensive, and that of the cottagers' show is of much interest. 



a folio containing 

 (£2 2s.) ; "The 



fine 



gardening 

 vs of Kew Gardens, 

 published in 1763 



Liquid Air is not, perhaps, of such immediate importance to the gardener as 

 the mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid, which constitutes atmospheric 

 air under normal conditions, but the process of liquefaction is so highly interesting 

 as to justify some reference to it. Dr. Linde has invented an ingenious air- 

 liquefying machine, and this has recently been on exhibition at the rooms of the 

 Society of Arts. It is based on the fact that air, not being a " perfect gas," under- 

 goes a reduction of temperature when it is suddenly allowed to expand from a high 

 to a low pressure. This cooling effect is made cumulative by allowing each lot of 

 cooled air in turn to abstract heat from the air in the chamber previous to expan- 

 sion, so that the expanded air continually starts from a lower temperature. In 

 this way a temperature is obtained low enough to produce liquefaction, and allow 

 even of liquid air being drawn off by a tap— of course, under proper conditions to 

 prevent heat getting to it. The machine on exhibition gives off nine-tenths of a 



tk* ° f , hqmd air an hour « with a continuous expenditure of three horse power. 

 The reduction of pressure undergone by the air is from two hundred to sixteen 

 atmospheres. The liquefaction of the nitrogen and oxygen in the air is simul- 

 cw^'obtained mtTOgen eva P° rates firs t» so that in this way pure liquid oxygen 



«n^!, ,ei, r ^ ralns '- With what marvellous beauty Nature fashions even the 

 r" vlr BoLi" P r0duCtl0ns was Singly illustrated at the meeting of the 

 GeTt Mi ft? °l ,he u I9th UU - Undcr the chairmanship of Dr. St. 



nTu, anQ the deve. ^T' r 2* ° f the S,ideS were of a ™* Cresting 



tube and the fertilisation of the o u le v! TZ t 



great fc.auty of <*-^^^*£Z*? 



engravings of the gardens, 

 Countryman's Recreation," a fine copy of one of the 

 rarest of the old English books on gardening, and published in 1653 (£85*): 

 14 Danstall's Book of Flowers, Fruits, Beasts, Flys, and Worms/' four vol*, 

 fully illustrated, published in the years 1661-63, an interesting book(/l5>; 

 "Desgot's Parterres," a folio with illustrations of flower gardens, by U Notre 

 and others, published in 1730 (£3) ; r< Ferrari's Florum Cultura," a rare 

 with engravings of flowers and gardens, and published at Rome, 16 jj 

 "Flowers," a collection of thirty-two drawings, in water-colours, of flowers, Bp- 

 posed to be by Marie Joseph de Saxe, mother of Louis XVI. (£6) ; u Flow 

 Garden Displayed," an interesting and rare work published in 1732* and con T^! 

 some four hundred representations of the most beautiful flowers of the period [£* 



Wished in 1616, and tfr 



bdlished with numerous plates' (^5 2s. 6d.) ; " Lawson's A New Orchard and 

 Garden." an interest™ or^rL- ^f rt ; M mrr ^;^Haiiq for nlantinc orchards, gnmnf 



fine folio pa^ 



lished Paris in 1781, and containing forty finely-executed coloured pla'.es or 

 finest florists' tulips then in cultivation ; " Ehret's Plantce Selects," a rare J» 

 containing one hundred superbly coloured plates and mezzotint portraits 



Dimysius, D. Christophorus, Jacobus Trev/, and Joannes J acob ^/Tj 

 4t F.UKniu n*^- t> is _ , . n** m in book, publtfoea ■* 



There were mMDJ 



old German books of special interest, but space will not permit menu 



15s.); 



fruit trees as practised in the seventeenth century ; " Tulips," a 



Berlin towards the close of the seventeenth century 



London in 

 nlates. real 



73° 



iants f** 



At the British Association Meeting to be held at Bristol £e ^ 



of Section K, Botany, will be Professor F. O. Bower, F.R.S., P res "^, % 



fessor Marshall Ward, F.R.S., vice-president ; Mr. A. C. Seward, I rote- 

 Farmer, and Mr. J. W. White, secretaries, the former to act as re 



corde 



section. 



