August t, 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
127 
But when Covvper wrote, not one household in a thou- 
sand had practical experience of the social pleasure 
he commemorated. With tea <tt ten shillings the 
pound, thd artisan and the ploughman naturally stuck 
to the ale-house and left his wife at home. Nowa- 
days Oowper's picture may he seen repeated in mil- 
lions of bumble homes in Europe, America and Aus- 
tralia. Tea may not have made history, but it has 
profoundly influenced communities. Is general ac- 
ceptance in India within the next thirty years would 
be no more marvellous than has been its spread in 
Europe. And that this would be unaccompanied 
by any change in social habits and manners is 
an incredible supposition. The great flaw in native life 
is its want of sociability. There are signs that Ihe bar- 
riers which pen womenkind within zenanas and shut up 
the men in their own households are beginning to 
break clown. The introduction of the " social cup," 
which cheers and not inebriates, which is acceptable to 
the Hindu and runs against no damnatory clause in the 
Koran, would act as a powerfu'. ajlvent on the 
churlish instincts of primitive manners. The theme is 
seductive, but space prevents us from pursuing it. We 
wish all success to the new Association in Calcutta, 
and congratulate it in having foutad a cordial ally in the 
Government of these Provinces. 
FLORAL. 
The London correspondent of the Nilgiri Express 
writes: — A striking feature of the markets and 
shops at the present season, is the huge quantities 
of roses offered for sale, both cut blooms, and plants 
in pots in full flower the large size, variety, and rich- 
ness of coloring of the flowers being very remarkable. 
Amongst Noisettes, or indeed amongst the whole tribe 
of roses, and their name is legion, Marechal Neil 
holds its own as first favourite, and obtains the highest 
price of any notwithst audiug the free blooming nature 
of the plant and the vast quantities of its blossoms 
exposed for sale from all parts of Englaud and sent 
to Londou by rail, road and Parcels Post. As an 
instance of the number of blooms of this rose that 
can be obtained from a given space, I visited a garden 
near London, a day or two ago, and saw a plant of 
the Marechal Neil variety planted inside an ordinary 
greenhouse and the shoots trained along the roof, 
on wires about 9 inches from the glass, these, were 
confined to a space" measuring 37 feet by 0 feet, and 
from this plant had been cut this season, i. c, from 
the 21st April to the 21st May 1,500 blooms, these 
were all sent to market realizing the sum of £22 or 
over 3/6d per dozen and the plant, at the time of 
my visit, was still blooming. Amongst tea roses 
Gloire Dijon with regard to yield of blooms gives even 
a better result than the Marechal, flowering in fact, 
as no other rose knows how to, but the blooms are 
not quite bo valuable. Both theso roses, in fact, the 
teas and Noisettes generally are very impatienl of 
pruning and are best left to themselves to grow as 
they liko, tho branches only being tied on the wires 
to ker-p them within bouuds. Many a fine plants 
has been weakened and killed by the use of the 
kuifo on its shouts, in fact it is beginning to be 
recognized that pruning even tho hybrid perpetual 
varieties is oftencr carried to excess than otherwise, 
weak and diseased plants and small flowers being 
the invariable result. It has taken a long time 
howevor to make the public believe this. I can re- 
memtr the pity and ridicule alternately extended 
to the late Mr. \Y. G. Mclvor for the non pruning 
system adopted by him on some of his Neilghcrry 
OOffee estates. Hut at such an elevation which his 
proved the most successful, the non pruning system, 
or the heavy annusl "handling" and knife pruning 
I saw a very neat style of flower vase tho other 
day in a shop in Covent Garden, it was made of 
colored willow ribs and rim iuttrwoven, with platted 
rushes in basket work fashion with wicker bottom 
and the whole varnished. The rushes were as 
green as when they left their oozy beds, tho varnish 
uot only producing this result, but assisting in their 
I reservation as well. Thoy can be had to fit any size 
of flower pot, and have the advantage of being very 
pretty and novel. The London florists are well up 
in the manipulation of coloured leaves and shoots in the 
making up of bouquets, wreathes, &c. Tho autumn 
tinted leaves of the Virginian creeper, ivy, and many 
of the commoner kinds of leaves from our woods are 
extensively used as the season comes round, and at 
this time of year the young and delicate shoots of 
such trees as the plum in which state they are of a 
beautiful bronze tint, are sold in bunches in large 
quantities to the people of London. If your Neilgherry 
Sholas were within easy reach of modern Babylon 
and as free to the public as they are to the residents 
of Ootacamund, a "nice thing" could be made out of 
them each succeeding spring. No one who has oncf 
seen displayed the glorious beauty of the mantle oe 
young leaves by thtse woods, during the month of 
May, can ever forget the sight. It can, I imagine, be 
seen in no other country. Let all who have never visited 
the Koondah Sholas do so at once and see for them- 
selves what nature can do in the way of leaf colour- 
ing and then tell me whether their time has been 
wasted. Spring is very beautiful in England and so 
are the tints of autumn, but nothing approaching 
the indescribable variety and beauty of the Neil- 
gherry woods, when arrayed iu their spring covering 
of new leaves, can be seen here. 
All through the spring mouths in London, delicate 
stove and greenhouse phots are hawked about the 
streets in immense quantities by costermongers and 
others on barrows and in donkey and pony cart 
loads. These plants are procured at Oovent Garden 
market and arc invariably well grown and splendidly 
flowered. And it is a strange sight indeed to see 
them being conveyed from street to street, without 
protection of any kind, exposed to every cold wind 
that blows and shower of rain and hail that falls. 
It is no uncommon thing for instance to see such 
plants as poinsettias, — that glory of Indian Gardens — 
Colens and many others equally tender being carried 
about and sold at wonderfully low prices. These are 
bought for the most part to adorn, for a brief space 
the drawing rooms of the purchasers and soon perish 
from the combined effects of change of temperature 
and gas. Millions of plants are reared annually by 
the Loudon and suburban florists only to perish in 
this way, and thus the great trade in plants is kept 
up. One thing in connection with this curious trade 
is that the plants are invariably so well developed 
with regard to size, strength of stems and leaves, 
aud number and splendour of their flowers. It is not 
unusual to see hundreds of plants of exquisite and 
newest varieties of pelargoniums, with heads 18 inches 
in diameter furnished «Uh large healthy foliage down 
to the rim of the small pot in which they are grown, 
and carrying from 18 to 21 large trusses of fully 
blown flowers and being sold for Is to l/6d each. 
These plants have no other root room than that con- 
tained iu a G inch pot, and the wonder is oftentimes 
expressed how and where the plants obtain food for 
such high development. This art would appear to be 
thoroughly understood by the London florists of to-day, 
and to have reached the utmost limit of its develop- 
ment from the apparent impossibility of obtaining 
higher results under such striugent conditions. The 
secret lies in potting the plants, in the first instance, 
in well prepared and nutritive soil and ramming the 
same as tightly into the pots as it is possible almost 
to make it, and subsequent feeding with some kind of 
ligquid inauure or fertilizer in the shape of powder. 
Many of the fertilizers sold at the preseut day are of 
wonderful power and produce marvellous results one of 
the best, I believe, being " OUy's Fertilizer." 
As a general rule the roots of plants loosely potted 
quickly find their way through the porous soil to the 
walls of the pots leaving the greater part of the ball 
of earth unworked upon, but when firm pottiim is 
ndopted the roots proceed slowly towards the Otltridea 
absorbing every nutritive particle in their progress, thus 
giving tho plant a more certain chance of luxuriant 
development, and preventing tho soil contained in tho 
pot from becoming sour by tho frequent application of 
liquids. Let those who aro doubtful on this poiut 
