GARDENERS' MAGAZINE 



AUGUST 13 



Circulars on 



horticultural, agricultural, and botanical subjects have been 



issued 



prizes 



_ Window Gardens.— Writing in advocacy of extending and improving 

 window gardening in the metropolis, Sir H. Maxwell, Bart, M.P., observes: 

 Nothing less than the precession of the equinoxes can ever render London an 

 open-air city. That * 1 Queen's weather," which made the Jubilee summers of 

 1887 and 1897 memorable among decades of fitful or adverse seasons, would enable 

 Ie us, could we count on it, to give ourselves al fresco airs, to line our pavements with 

 cafe chairs, to dine and sup under the stars, and use our houses only for work or 

 * u^f^itltnristfl -On the occasion of the distribution of slee P 8 bl *t, as things are, we have to pay the penalty of disregarding the obvious 



Honours ^rticuit ^ ^ ^ 



the department ; two o ^ ^ ^ determinedj but 



( Theobroma cm ^ ^ ^ §tems and rQots q{ the cacao- Camphor trees 



Hakgala 



ffieStaw respectively attained heights of nine and twelve feet. 



to the m 



G 7m A Tlo7gan7 professor of agricultural chemistry, received the decoration 

 "1 v If the Merit A-ricoie. By a decree dated July 25 fifteen gent.emen 

 ° l ' "St to he g^de of Officer and sixty-eight to the grade of Chevalier of 

 rJSn^r. gentlemen appointed to each crade were 



horticulturists. . . 



Bulgarian Tobacco. -Agriculture is the chief industry of the Bulgarian 



Principality, affording occupation to not less than 70 per cent, of the people. 

 About "3 per cent, of the land is occupied by cultivated gardens, vineyards, and 

 farms while a further 73 per cent, is composed of meadow and pasture lands and 

 forests. Next to cereals the chief production of Bulgaria is tobacco, chiefly 

 grown in the districts of Haskovo, Phillippopolis, Kustendil, and Silistria. It 

 resembles the well-known quality of Turkish tobacco known under the name of 

 Yeniie. The peasants are free to cultivate the plane, but the preparation and sale 

 of tobacco are controlled by the State, which, however, with the view of encourag- 

 ing exportation, returns all dues paid on tobacco which is afterwards exported. 

 An opportunity of testing Bulgarian tobacco was afforded us at the Antwerp 

 Exhibition of 1894, and we pronounced it good. In cereals, tobacco, and otto of 



roses 



duty to the best of its ability in encouraging and fostering them. 



Management of Epping Forest.— The cost- of the maintenance of 



Epping Forest is very clearly shown in the accounts relating to Epping Forest for 

 the year 1897, which have recently been published by the Corporation. The 

 receipts amounted to ,£6,832, including a contribution of £4,65° from the 



„ - least 



habitable, instead of putting off our work and amusement there till winter, when 



coal fires make the town comfortable. Ebbene ! if we can't end it we might surely 

 mend it, by importing summer finery in more liberal measure into our streets. 

 Window-boxes— why are they so few ? Partly because people who take a house 

 for a few weeks or months often grudge the expense of furnishing them. The mode 

 prescribes table decoration on a liberal and costly scale ; many a dinner table is 

 decorated at a price that would fill every window of the street front with flowers ; 

 flowers, too, that would give pleasure, not for a couple of hours to a score of in- 

 different guests, who care more for the plats th \n the parterre, but to every dweller 

 in the house and every passer-by in the street ; flowers that would not wither in 

 a night, and add to the morning's mass of decaying refuse, but living flowers that 

 would flourish till the autumn frosts, each green leaf doing its work in sweetening 

 the atmosphere for a million pairs of lungs. Be it far from any one to discourage 

 the flower trade ; may it long flourish, pretty and prosperous ! Only, if there is 

 money to spend on it, shall it all be on flowers for a night, and not part of it on 

 flowers for a season ? From my writing table I have across my flowerless sill a view 

 of twenty-four houses over the way, in some of which I have partaken of liberal 

 hospitality at tables. But only two out of these four-and-twenty houses display grow- 

 ing flowers in the windows. Fashion is conveniently impersonal ; let us lay the 

 blame on her, and reflect if we could not get more lasting enjoyment out of our 

 flower bills — for ourselves and, less selfishly, for the man in the street, 



Professor E. Ray Lankester has been appointed successor to Sir William 



Flower as director of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 



Scarcity of Summer Insects. 



this 



Corpo 



Rents brought in £$06 ; licences and year's ungenial spring is to be seen in the remarkable scarcity of many of the 



tolls, £456 ; marking cattle, ^89 ; sale of wood thinnings, ^643 ; contributions familiar summer insects. Wasps are less plentiful this season than they have been 



by residents and Leyton District Council towards improvements at the Hollow for many years, and the absence of butterflies is not less remarkable. One may 



Pond, Leytonstone, £431. The disbursements were in all ^7,069. Rents, rates, spend day after day in remote country places, where the summer air is generally 



ftfc, absorbed ^337 ; salaries to superintendent, keepers, reeves, and staff dancing with them, without seeing more than a very occasional specimen, even of 



£2,011; police services, ^58; cost of improvements at the Hollow Pond, 

 £1,228; artificers' work, ,£699 ; and cost of wood thinning, £68$. 



the most common varieties. The gorgeous autumn butterflies may yet come out 

 in their usual numbers, but the more familiar browns and exquisite little blues 

 and coppers, without which the midsummer meadows and hedgerows look 



UiiVi w»*k»-*w*»w ww *-mm m — — — — — ~~ 



July Rainfall.— July has long been considered one of the wettest months cur i ous ] y lifeless, have been greatly diminished in number. 



01 tne year, no one regarding a tall ot an inch or ram during a single good electrical 

 disturbance as anything very extraordinary. The present summer, however, has 

 departed from the usual course, and that instead of being a thundery, wet month, 

 July proved quiet and dry ; indeed, seldom has it been so universally dry, 

 for the returns show that in no locality within the bounds of the United Kingdom 

 bas the rainfall amounted to the average. Taking the country as a whole, July 

 ought to produce about three inches of rain, while last month yielded barely an 

 inch. Eighteen out of thirty representative stations had less than an inch, the 

 total quantity measured on Belfast Lough and the Mersey, and on the coasts of 

 l>evon and Kent, being under half an inch, and the Scilly Islands had to do the 

 best they could with just a quarter of an inch, which is only ten per cent, of the 

 ttual allowance for these islands. There were several other districts with 

 w than twenty-five per cent., the Hebrides, lying in the path of all the rain- 

 wanng disturbances from the Atlantic, alone boasting of as much as eighty per 

 «nt. of the normal. Over the greater part of the country rain was experienced 

 • only from three to ten days. The heavy deficiency thus indicated for the 

 month increased the loss which had been shown for the first half of the year, the 

 *W of Scotland and the southern half of England being from four to five inches 



AoTrT' l M ° St ° ther regi ° ns were at the endof J ul y from two to four inches 

 JJ^ but the north-west of England has had the average amount, and the north 



Und an excess of six inches. In London we had rriin nn cpvpn /love locf- 



Plant Exchanges.— The authorities of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 



month 

 inch, t 



botanic 



VIC X tJ.113 Ua * V* JO J UV>U Cft uji \jl «.»*w mam mm** j — £>" I ' 



gardens in exchange for plants which are required in the establishment. 



Italian Importation of Manures.— Through Genoa, its principal port, 

 Italy imported fifteen thousand tons of manure during 1897, this consisting chiefly 

 of phosphates and guano. Of this quantity America sent 7,735 tons, Germany 

 4,307 tons, and Austria 2,826 tons. The total importation was valued at .£95.738, 

 as against ^101,024 for 15,785 tons in 1896. 



A Cure for Corn Smut.— Mr. T. L. Jensen, of Copenhagen, has for a 

 considerable time carried out experiments with a view to effectively combating the 

 attacks of the various " smuts " or " rusts " that attack corn crops, and he now 

 claims to have discovered a suitable medium which is called "Ceres Powder." 

 Both grub and smut are combated successfully, the crop is increased, and weeds 

 decreased by its use. Notwithstanding that Mr. Jensen had made numerous . 

 experiments during former years upon crops raised from seed prepared with this 

 powder, he thought it would be best to have a large number of systematically 

 planned experiments carried out by practical farmers without his direct co-opera- 

 tion. These experiments, to the number of fifty-seven, were duly earned out, 

 each taking an average of four hundred and twenty English square yards, and the 

 l^d are Wisedlin the following main points : I. The number of 



t~v w WtUcr ucposKea aia nor aggregate three quarters of an «»ui» «* -~r - . . through the stee ping of oats 



rage being two and a-half inches. During the seven months ending smutted ears of corn was decreased to n« y one-fifth through p g 



■ches 



quarter has to be compared with the 



usual average of over 



thirteen' |J. compared with 



atenge t£ v° that We are at the P'esent moment nearly five inches below the « 

 fcllolbe dav! Jf*^,™ 08 ex P erience <l °«r a wide area on August 6 and the two 

 *«" tre« and th £0methin S towards restoring the balance, and assisting 



^ roots 6 Van ° US gaiden and farm cro P s in need of increased moisture at 



Long 



"""g Uitton i t t • — &y>w>, ^u\eiu uaraen ana 



for »«i. He' 1 " S r ° UnJ the world ' as our readers have already been in- 



~- iic was recent!™ of r\ _ • . .... 3 



American 

 t VT7 **enty 



a writer in an 



ft 



how 



P^ed. This 

 wherever 



1Jt 13 j, uun g enougn to begin a tour ot 

 expects to complete at the Paris Exposition of ioco, and that 

 is unnecessary, as his genial face will obtain him an M open 



and barley. 2. The weeds were decreased by about three hundred kilos, per 

 Ware (-2M7 acres). 3. The value of the crop was increased through the 

 steeXg oToai'and " on an average, of 23s. per hectare. It is therefore 



SS2 Cons, Jf*** ^^tZ^T^^ 

 s a Ze n din g CU t ^l^^^or, Danish agricuUure by 

 ^ffiS The Ceres powder can also be used with advance 

 iSt dieses which attack all roots, and materially mcreases we£ t 

 powder is not sufficiently effective against smut in wheat and rye, but to these 

 another material, called ' ' Ceres Steep, " is applied. 



The Manufacture of 5ugar from Beet goes on apace in the United 



States In the Portland district of Oregon, it having been proved that the soil 

 and climate are suitable for the culthation of sugar beets, arrangement have been 

 made to erect a refinery at La Grande, in Union County, by Utah capitalists 



interested in 



Los 



worth* , * pressed hlms elf towards Uncle Sam. It is many 

 1 which gentlemai \ climb ed the mountains of Spain in search of the 

 r - —ous tL^ 0 - 112 6 maDy ° ther welI -known bulbous plants, has 

 W° Whcn Mr.' Barr t W " remembers vis *s paid to the store in Covent 



*" * U *>w able to £f , Queen Bee ° f the ^ and congratulates him 



» en.oy the honey gathered there. 



000 



It is estimated to consume 350 tons of beets, and 



daffodi 

 him fern 



granulated sugar per day with a season of 100 days. 

 ProfessVshaw says the average for sugar beets is two per cent, more sugar in 

 iuice than in California. The factory has contracted with farmers to grow annually 

 for five years 3,000 acres at four dollars (16s.) per ton. This business might be 

 worthy of consideration by English capitalists, and is capable of great extension. 



