JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
254 
[ March 30,1882. 
above will do no harm occasionally if the airing is 
managed properly immediately before and during the 
rise, and a higher temperature than that given here 
will generally be harmless if it occurs after the venti¬ 
lators are all open. My temperatures for all sorts of 
Grapes are the same up to the commencement of the 
second swelling. That Muscats want more heat than 
Hamburghs is only true as regards the length of season 
it takes to grow and ripen them. They do not require 
a higher temperature, but they and all the late Grapes 
require a moderately high temperature to be continued 
for a longer season.— Wm. Taylor. 
(To be continued.) 
THE FUTURE OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 
Of the trial in the Court of Appeal (in which the judgment of Mr. 
Justice Fry, given on the 15th June last year in favour of the Society, 
was reversed) that terminated a few hours before we went to press 
last week we could only give a brief report, yet we were enabled to 
state all the grounds on which the verdict was founded. It is not 
unnatural that a feeling should be more or less widely entertained 
that the results of this trial must be calamitous to the Society, and 
that the order that the Gardens must be given up within four 
months should involve its utter and speedy collapse. It is on this 
assumption that some not over-elegant comments have appeared in 
one or two of the daily papers, in which the writers would appear 
to have indulged in the grim pleasure of giving what seems like the 
familiar “ parting kick.” It is under these circumstances desirable 
to state that the verdict of the Master of the Rolls will not necessarily 
have any such untoward result as that above indicated ; but, on the 
contrary, it is by no means improbable that the Society will be 
strengthened rather than weakened by what some assume is the 
termination of a long-pending dispute. 
So far as we understand the case there has been no real quarrel 
between the Commissioners and the Society—indeed one of them, 
Lord Aberdare, is its President; but the peculiar position of the 
debenture-holders, who have invested £50,000 in the Gardens, left 
the Council of the Society no honourable alternative than to resist 
the claims of the Commissioners for possession of the Gardens so long 
as the claims of the debenture-holders were unsettled. Even if the 
ruling of Mr. Justice Fry had been sustained, it is not at all certain 
that it would in the end have proved so advantageous to the Society 
as the late adverse verdict of the higher Court may prove to be. 
By the first ruling the Commissioners and the Society were jointly 
responsible to the debenture-holders for the sum named; by the 
latter verdict neither party is responsible. This is undoubtedly un¬ 
fortunate for those who have invested their money in the property ; 
but the moment it was decided by the Master of the Rolls that the 
case was one as between landlord and tenant the forfeiture in question 
was a necessary corollary. 
The former verdict appears to us to have been founded on equity, 
the latter on law. The result is, that while the Commissioners are 
undoubtedly great gainers, the Society has been relieved of a for¬ 
midable debenture debt. If the claims of the former arising from 
the action can be met—that is, if they are pressed, it cannot be 
supposed that the Commissioners will now, as landlords, be less 
willing than before to enter into an arrangement with the Society on 
reasonable terms, so that the objects for which it was established 
can be efficiently carried out. Before the decision of the questions 
at issue negotiations were practically impossible, whereas now the 
natural impediments are removed. With Commissioners not un¬ 
friendly, and a Council harmonious and above all things devoted to 
the advancement of practical and scientific horticulture, we are not 
without hope that the present crisis will be temporary, and that the 
cloud, however heavy, is but the precursor of a brighter day for the 
Royal Horticultural Society. 
ENGLISH v. FOREIGN VEGETABLES. 
We promised last week to submit for the entertainment or 
amusement of our readers a few paragraphs from an article en¬ 
titled “No Vegetables,” which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette. 
It is rare indeed that a writer in such a charmingly innocent 
manner is so successful in reversing the facts of the case. It is 
because of their novelty in this respect that we make the follow¬ 
ing citations— 
“ The reappearance upon our tables of Seakale and Asparagus—our 
only two eatable greenstuffs—naturally raises once more the peren¬ 
nial question, Why have we in England no vegetables ? To doubt 
the fact is impossible—at least to anybody who knows what real 
vegetables are like. ‘ Sir,’ said an American stranger at a restaurant 
in the Strand one day, 1 Sir, this is the one thing you can raise in 
your country and we can’t raise in ours—a mutton chop ; but then 
you never tasted Green Peas in all your life. ’ ” 
The credulity of our friend is very striking here, for he appears 
on the matter of having “ never tasted Green Peas ” to have taken 
the American at his word. To this there can be no objection ; it 
was, perhaps, only courteous under the circumstances, and we 
pass on. We flatter ourselves that we have amongst our readers 
some cultivators and judges who “ know what real vegetables are,” 
and we think they will not find it “ impossible ” to agree that our 
author has been slightly “ taken in,” and they will perceive also 
that his logic is not quite faultless. He goes on to say— 
“ It is impossible in the same country to have good meat and good 
vegetables. The same causes which give us good meat deny us in 
England the possibility of good fruit and vegetables. For while the 
herbage requires copious rain, the fruits, seeds, pods, flowers, buds, 
and other miscellaneous objects which we class from the culinary 
point of view as vegetables all require copious sunlight. That is 
why we have none of them. Our only good vegetables are such as 
very young Rhubarb, Seakale, Asparagus, and Celery, which are the 
blanched sprouting shoots of perennial plants. These mostly come 
in spring time ; and as they are none the worse, or even all the better, 
for a little wholesome soaking, they manage to survive our climate 
well enough in the long run.” 
The promulgation of this wonderful discovery must add to the 
fame of even the Pall Mall. We say nothing about the “ blanched 
sprouting shoots but if it is impossible for anyone who knows 
what real vegetables are to deny that “only two” are “ eatable,” 
a little explanation seems to be needed for including twice that 
number into the culinary list. The “ American ” had, perhaps, 
better be consulted on that point. We again pass on— 
“ As for pulse generally, our Beans are all stringy ; we have neither 
the variety nor the tenderness of the American Bean. Our Peas have 
some good points for English Peas ; but they are not half so large, 
or luscious, or melting as American Peas. They take too long grow¬ 
ing, and have got old and hard before they are big enough to pick. 
The delicious crinkly eatable-pod pea would be impossible here ; it 
would have got tough and sinewy a month before it was ready for 
cooking.” 
We find two or three subtleties involved in this paragraph, 
which we will not pretend to extricate, but simply observe that 
the “ American Beans ” are grown in England, and “ all ” are cer¬ 
tainly not stringy ; on the contrary, they are generally excellent. 
As to our miserable Peas, so much are experienced Americans im¬ 
pressed with the size and superior quality of the best varieties as 
grown in this c untry, that they purchase them largely at high 
prices, praise them in their press, and award prizes to them at 
their exhibitions. We were under the impression that such re¬ 
sults were indicative of good quality. The great vegetable critic 
does not appear to have been sufficiently posted up on the “ Pea 
question.” Then on the subject of “stringiness” of Beans and 
“ hardness ” of Peas. In England heat and drought always 
cause these ; in moist genial summers the produce is unfailingly 
crisp and tender. This is a little awkward for the new meat and 
vegetable theory. Either the facts are at fault or the inventor is ; 
without any disrespect we prefer the former, and dismiss the 
“ delicious impossible Peas here ” as delicious nonsense. But per¬ 
haps we had better allow the promulgator of the dogma “ im¬ 
possible to have good meat and good vegetables in the same 
country ” to show the fallacy of his own assertion— 
“ In the matter of leafy vegetables we can do a little better, but 
not enough to boast about. We are strong in salads ; our climate 
provides us with plenty of fresh green Lettuce, but Endive does not 
flourish in England. Our roots are good ; who will deny the British 
farmer the glory of his Turnips, his Beets, and his Mangold Wurtzel ? ” 
Without explaining to the sapient critic that roots are not meat 
but really vegetables, which it is “impossible to grow in the same 
country,” it may be useful for him to know that the same cli¬ 
matic conditions that are so favourable to the growth of the crops 
he praises are precisely and equally suitable for perfecting for 
culinary purposes those which he denounces, these not only being 
Peas and Beans, but “ Broccoli and Cauliflowers, which are not 
nearly so good as the American.” The truth is, the American 
cultivators of such crops envy us the climate that makes our 
grass so green, and green vegetables so fine. We think, too, we 
can grow Endive ; but the finest salads, perhaps, come from 
France ; and it is only fair to our neighbours, too, to observe that 
