August i, 2891.] THE TROPiOAL AQRJOULTtJRIST 
95 
FEUITS FEOM WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 
It would appear that we are soon to have impor- 
tations of various kinds oi fruit, Potatoes, and Maize 
from our youngest Australian Colony. The midland 
Railway Company iu that colony extends now some 
considerable distance from Perth, and the lands abut- 
ting on the line have in some places been brought 
under cultivation to some extent. A small collection 
of the products of these farms and gardens vfas exhi- 
bited at the oflBces of the railway company above- 
named at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, on 
Thursday and Friday last, v^rhich we had the pleasure 
of inspecting. 
The apples were a very well-grown lot, and showed 
in their fine smooth skin and freedom from specki- 
ness tlie genial climate in which they had been grown. 
Tiie kinds were apparently Blenheim Orange, Pott's 
Seedling, Tower of Glamis, Northern Greening and 
Yorkshire Greening. 
The only Pear shown was William's Bon Chretien, 
very large and highly coloured. Fine Quinces were 
also observed. 
The Grapes were a thin-skinned white variety, 
with a good deal of the iavour of the Muscat of 
Alexandria. These last-named fruits had travelled 
indifferently, owing to their not being properly packed. 
With so good a climate as that of Western Aus- 
tralia, the manufacture of raisins would be more 
profitable to the growers than exporting unprepared 
Grnpee, which are scarcely fitted for a journey occu- 
pyinff six to seven weeks. Bipe Grapes fetch in the 
colony abont Id. a ib. Wine making is, we believe, 
already an industry that is carried on in the colony. 
A sample was shown of the Giant Rocca, a nice 
Oniou of mild flavour, but ono that does not keep for 
any great leugth of time ; however, it had stood the 
warmth of the passage through the tropics very well. 
It was a surprise to find Pomegranates fully 4J inches 
in diameter. 
' Some of thefPotatos — kidneys — were of nice market- 
able size, whilst others were very large and deep- 
eyed. Evidently the merchants do not make good 
eeJections of these tubers for their colonial customers. 
The price of Potatos ranges from 20a. to 40s. per 
ton in the colony. The heads of Maize, both red and 
white varieties, were of fine size and thoroughly 
ripened. 
The land on which these varied productions were 
grown consists of a sort of ironstone sand mixed with 
something of the nature of peat, but in a very fine 
state, and intimately commingled with the sand, at 
least it was in the sample shown. It contains no 
stones. Most of it bad, previously to the railway being 
constructed, been covered with scrub or timber, and 
at present is in co need of manure, as the various 
products attest;. 
In the room were the fruit was laid out was shown 
the model of a nugget of gold that had been found 
at Shaw's Falls, which weighed 333 ounces. The winter 
olimato of much of the colony resembles a favourable 
winter in Cornwall or Devonshire, frost being very 
rare, and snow laying even inland only a few hours. Of 
course on the mountains, some of which reach a height 
•E 300O feet above the sea, i t, lays nearly the whole 
summer. — Gardeners' Chronicle, 
Kew Gaedenees on the Niger, — The last number 
of tho Keio Bulletin contains an account of the British 
protectorate on the Niger, and the efforts made to 
develop the natural resource of the district. To this 
end, two Kew men, George Woodruff and H. E. 
Bartlett, were appointed to take charge of the Bota- 
nical Station. Both men unhappily died, but amid 
the numerous formal and otfioial.letters which occupy 
BO much space in ih^ Bullelin are interesting extracts 
from private letters sent home by the two pioneerm 
above named, and which give a good idea of the state 
of affairs at Sierra Leone, and of the appearance of 
the country. The esprit <le corps manifest in these 
letters is very pleasant, and so are the hopefulness 
and sense of duty. These, however, were not suffi- 
cient to ward off remittent fever, to which both 
theee young men unfortunately succumbed.— /iu^. 
The Avocado Pear. — The Uevue Horticole states 
that a plant of this species, Persea gratissima (a 
true Laurel not a pear), has produced edible fruit in 
the open air, at Golfe Juan, near Nice. — Ihid. 
The Grape : an Oriental Leoend. — Four Travel- 
lers, an Arab, a Turk, a Greek, and a Persian, says 
The Canadian Horticulturist, met at a city's gate; it 
was deoidi'd that one of them should take the com- 
bined moneys of the four, and purchase for the com- 
mon stock the food which they needed ; but they 
differed each from the other as to what food should be 
chosen : the Arab icsisted that no food was so sweet 
and nourishing as the agub, while anghar was the 
food the Persian desired ; the Turk said that azum 
was the only thing which they should eat, while the 
Greek contended that symphalion was the choicest 
of all the foods which men could eat. As they thus quar- 
relled one with the other, before their eyes a gardener 
passed with grapes. " See, agub ! " cried the Arab. 
"No, it is anghar," said the Persian. "This isazum," 
said the Turk. " That is my symphalion," cried the 
Greek, and so they ate their Grapes in peace. — 
Ibid. 
Kew. — Fifty years ago, says Garden and Forest, th« 
British Government, principally at the solicitation of 
the then Duke of Be ford, a man famous in his 
time for his enlightened enthusiasm in gardening, 
which made Woburn Abbey one of the great gardens 
of England, determined to convert the old gardens 
and pleasure-grounds surrounding the royal palace 
at Kew into a public botanical establishment. Sir 
William Hooker was invited from Glasgow to 
manage it. He brought with him a European repu- 
tation as a botftnist, unflagging zeal, industry, and 
onthusiasra, a fund of sound Scotch common sense, 
the friendship and confidence of oil naturalists, and 
the largest botanical library and hertarium which 
had at that time been made. His reputation and 
the importance of his collections at once attracted 
botanists to Kew from all parts of the world. 
Their visits benefited the establisliment, and plants, 
specimens and books poured into it from all sides. 
The scientific character of Kew was thus established, 
and it is this high character that has given it the 
lead it has long held among the gardens of the world. 
Sir William Hooker gave the remainder of bis long 
life to Kew, and devoted alibis energies and resour- 
ces to its welfare. His son, a man more famous than 
the father , succeeded nim, and under his administra- 
tion Kew gained wonderfully in every direction, 
especially in populnr favour. The second Htoker 
retired from Kew a few years ago full of honours, 
handing down the administration of the garden and 
all the family traditions to a connection by marriage, 
under whose wise and broad management it is grow- 
ing now still more rapidly than ever before in use- 
fulness and beauty. In no other spot in the world 
can so many different plants be seen growing ; the 
museums of economic botany are unequalled, the 
herbarium is the most extensive that man have ever 
made, and the library is unsurpassed. This is the work 
of fifty years, carried on by men of extraordinary 
ability and world-wide reputation, working under the 
most exceptionally favourable circumstances, and 
with the whole British nation behind them. Kew has 
received many gifts of great value, and is receiving 
such gifts every week. It costs, however, to carry 
on the establishment, 75,000 or 80,000 dols, a-year. 
The cost of all sorts of garden labour in England is 
not more than half what is paid for such labour in 
the States, and everything connected with a garden 
costs less there than it does here. If, then, Kew 
furnishes the ideal at which the promoters or the 
projectors of the new garden aim, they must realise 
that this can be reached only by the expenditure of 
a great deal of money, and that even with all money 
needed, such results as the psople of New York 
have the right to expect, can only be brought about 
slowly, and with the aid of unusually favourable con- 
ditions. Something can be accomplished with 260,000 
dols, but this amount is only a beginning, it New 
York expects to rival London, or St. Louis, gr Boston 
in its Botauio Garden.— /J^'cf, 
