January 1, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
9 
Marple Station. This has been flourishing, though severed from the 
ground, for a dozen years within my knowledge, and is now very 
luxuriant. Mr. Grindon and a great many members of the Manchester 
Field Naturalists Society are familiar with this example, which they 
examined last year. It may be interesting to add that it was an old plant 
when the ground root was removed, and the main stem on the wall was 
very thick—say 3 inches in diameter—which thick stem serves, no doubt, 
as a sort of ground root for the plant. Plants of only a few years’ 
growth usually wither and die when so severed from the ground, which 
rather goes to show that the rootlet claws or * holdfasts ’ do not furnish 
the necessary succour to maintain life.” 
- The other instance is thus given :—“ I visited Kenilworth about 
forty years ago, the chief front of the castle was covered with Ivy which 
had spread from one common root ; but whether from injury or natura^ 
decay the main stem of the Ivy was severed from the original roots, at 
least it had no connection with the ground. Instead, a great wide flat 
trunk (I can call it nothing else) clung to the stone wall some 3 feet from 
the soil. Consequently the immense plant, with its 2-or-3-feet-wide stem 
must have held to the wall by its rootlets or suckers, and drawn its 
sustenance thence, or rather from the rains of heaven and the earthy 
matter deposited by the winds upon the slowly mouldering stone.” 
- The immense economical importance of Government botanic 
gardens, especially in young colonies, is well shown by the last report 
of the Curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Omitting the 
distribution of ornamental trees, shrubs, &c., to the gardens of public 
institutions, as well as that of ornamental pot plants, we find that 
economic plants have been distributed on a very large scale. The 
demand for these has been unprecedentedly large, and no application is 
ever refused so far as it can be supplied. About 3000 economic plants 
were sent out during the year ; these consisted chiefly of various kinds of 
Coffee, Tea, Cocoa (Theobroma Cacao), Cinchona, and Vanilla. Grafted 
Indian Mangoes and plants of the Brazilian Nut (Bertholletia excelsa) 
have been given to likely growers, and the demand for the latter is so 
great that application has been made to the universal feeder of these 
institutions, Kew, for more. Besides acting as a collecting and dis¬ 
tributing agency, the Brisbane Gardens do what is perhaps of even more 
value—viz., ascertain by experiment the conditions under which certain 
foreign plants will grow best in the colony. The most important trials 
recently have been with regard to Cinchona, which, Mr. Pink shows, may 
by care in its early stages be successfully cultivated in Queensland. The 
Hop plant has been tried, and appears a success, 10 cwt. being the 
produce per acre the first season, while in England under similar circum¬ 
stances it is only 4 cwt. Sugar is at present the staple of the colony, but 
no efforts are spared to discover new kinds elsewhere which may be 
better adapted to the place. One hundred tons of various kinds of cane, 
chiefly from Mauritius, were sent to planters during the year. Economic 
and valuable timbers also receive much attention, and the gardens have 
now ready for transplanting 20,000 trees of various kinds, including 
Cedars, Olives, Silky Oak, English Oak, English Ash, Poplars, and 
Chestnuts. The recent experiments have conclusively shown that 
Queensland can introduce among her staple produce crops such valu¬ 
able and remunerative products of the soil as Coffee, Hops, and Cinchona. 
As an example of the care and labour devoted to the work, it may be 
mentioned that every method of cultivating the Cinchona in Ceylon and 
outh America was tried in the gardens without much success; and 
finally Mr. Pink was compelled to devise a method of his own, which 
proved successful.— (Nature.) 
GARDENERS AND READING. 
' Gardeners are generally supposed to be a reading people, and doubt 
less much of the esteem they are held in as a body of intelligent men is 
based on taking this supposition to be correct. Some hard, if true, things 
have been written about members of the craft who do not read. But it 
Bhould not be forgotten in extenuation of what may seem to be a failing 
that on their side they can point to the testimony that “ much study is a 
weariness to the flesh.” I give them the greater credit for their strict 
adhesion to this teaching, inasmuch as I must confess that in my own case 
it has been very much the same. In the words of a very old writer, “ to 
me books are masters that instruct without rods and ferulas, without 
hard words and anger. If you approach them, they are not asleep ; if you 
interrogate them, they conceal nothing ; if yen mistake them, they never 
grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you.” For these 
reasons books are to ordinary people almost necessaries of existence. Of 
course, it must be conceded that things have altered considerably since the 
above quotation was first written, for we may investigate some books as 
diligently as we please, and in an altogether different sense from that 
contemplated by the author ; they conceal nothing, simply because they 
are mere sounding words. On the other hand, if we make mistakes and 
get grumbling in print it is not long before we have our ignorance ex¬ 
posed, and very possibly get well laughed at into the bargain. I make 
those concessions perfectly conscious of their fullest meaning. Well, 
but is it a fact, and what reason have we to suppose that many gardeners 
belong to the non-reading class ? The number of journals devoted to the 
requirements of gardeners should go far to show that a large number of 
them must at least purchase the material if they do not put it to use. 
It is now nearly thirty years since I first made acquaintance with the 
Cottage Gardener, and I do not think any one thing would show the 
wonderful amount of support given to its conductors from that time till 
now than would the presentation of a reprinted copy of thirty years ago 
to each reader of the Journal of to-day. I make bold to assume that it 
has been alone on account of the support given by readers of the Journal 
that it is the marvellous threepenny-worth we see it now, and that we may 
conclude if some gardeners are abstemious in reading many must indulge 
more freely. But at the same time the fact is patent, that outside the 
gardening fraternity altogether there is an immense constituency who, in 
one way or another, are sufficiently interested in gardening pursuits to 
make a gardening paper a necessity. Taking these facts into consideration 
we may very fairly hesitate before concluding that the gardening papers 
prove the case. 
Coming now to the evidence of gardeners themselves, it has over and 
over again been stated that where libraries are attached to gardens tho 
books are not read, and where gardening papers are bought for the young 
men it is no rare occurrence for them to be laid aside uncut. Judging 
from personal experience there would appear to be too much truth in these 
statements. I have known instances of men who were not even aware of 
the nature or the names of books placed at their disposal and for their sole 
benefit, and of gardening books lying for years on the shelves of their 
cases without having their pages cut. And it is not alone of young men 
this can be said, for I meet with head gardeners to whom the horticul¬ 
tural press is unknown. They jog on from year to year in the same 
smooth rut. What you saw amiss ten years ago you may find unchanged 
to-day, their entire stock of knowledge being as precise, as limited, and as 
unchangeable as the alphabet. If they forget nothing, neither, may we 
say that they ever learn anything. 
Although it would be of no use writing for either head or under gar¬ 
deners who do not read, their very act of abstention from books being its 
own punishment; still, to those who do read it may be possible to say 
something worth considering. Now, it is a very certain proposition that 
the more intelligent a young man is the greater is his likelihood of 
getting on. At the same time he must guard against relying on mere 
knowledge acquired by reading. It is, no doubt, a very laudable object 
for a young man to drill himself in the many phases of garden chemistry, 
but his master will rather look to his behaviour between the stilts of a 
wheelbarrow, or note whether he loads that vehicle in a way to escape 
littering walks, or in just an opposite manner. Nor will a gardener con¬ 
sider a young man’s accomplishments as a theoretical hot-water engineer, 
nor his knowledge of the principles of ventilation, of much account if, on 
the one hand, he fails as a stoker, or, on the other, damages a houseful of 
Grapes through inattention to airing. Thorough efficiency as a workman 
is the first thing he has to set himself the task of attaining, then let him 
look to the training of his intellect. 
Now comes the question of what to read. We will take that first, and 
then I may have something to say what to avoid in reading. Although 
this is written for a horticultural paper I do not hesitate on that account 
to say that these are not of unalloyed benefit to young men unable to 
judge from practical experience. But much may be left to the common 
sense of readers. Gardeners must keep themselves abreast of the times, 
and a study of the current literature of the craft is almost the only way open 
to them to do so. As to books, young men should make themselves ac¬ 
quainted with the various sciences connected with their calling, and in 
order to do this avoid any particular book which may profess to contain 
everything about every one of them, and rather purchase university text 
books, which may always be depended on as embodying the latest and 
most reliable views held on the several subjects. Biography, travel, and 
history should be taken as “ light ” reading, and a high-class daily news¬ 
paper yields much information. 
As to the literature that a young man should look doubtfully. I 
would place much of the ephemeral produce of the times. Novel-reading 
especially should be eschewed. I esteemed him a wise young man who 
told me that he had tried novel-reading, but finding them too seductive 
he had given them up altogether. It is a curious but certain fact that 
young people who go in for novel-reading become slaves to the habit, 
while people who give their brains a more stable diet can, as men, read a 
novel without getting intoxicated over it. Very much contained in 
popular magazines have the same defect as novels—they do not call for 
any brain effort. Useful they may be for passing a tedious hour, but 
young people may just as well have nothing to do with them. It i8 
strange that people fail to realise that the brain can no more be tampered 
with than any other organ of the body. Employ the hand, the eye, the 
foot in useful labour, and we educate these members. Let us pass our 
days in idleness or aimless drivelling work, and they are of slight use to 
ourselves or to anyone beside. So we can train the ear to music or the 
tongue to oratory, and just as surely may we train our brains to be useful 
thinking organs, packed with ideas new and old, ready for our use at any 
moment. Select reading is one of the most potent means at our command 
to increase brain power, while all literature that does not meet the wants 
