474 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ November 24, 1881. 
granted only the other day, I returned to old varieties for garden 
croppers. Next year Myatt's Prolific Kidney will be grown in 
the greatest quantity. Next in quantity will be the Foityfold 
and Dons. There are no Potatoes, either new or old, to surpass 
these in flavour. The two last-named are not extra large croppers. 
The kidney when well grown has very large crops. The seed 
Potatoes ought to lie in single layers on shelves, and one single 
sprout alone allowed to grow. A soil rich in Potato food is 
another requisite. These conditions will insure a very large yield 
of fine kidneys.—E. S. 
CHRYSANTHEMUM GOLD BUTTON. 
Last spring I placed two plants of this variety in a border along 
with some others ; by the end of September, when they commenced 
blooming, they were 2 feet in diameter and densely covered with 
flower buds. About the middle of October they were taken up, 
potted, and placed in a cool house, and untd the present time we 
have leen cutting from them every day. For those who have 
little accommodation for growing flowers this is one of the easiest 
managed and useful plants we have for providing a supply of cut 
flowers during October and November. 
We have several other good varieties of small-flowering Chrys¬ 
anthemums here, but none that produce the same quantity of 
flowers ; and then the bright lively colour—clear bright yellow, 
shows to good advantage when associated with green Fern fronds 
—Jno. Short, Darlington. 
WHAT PLANTS USE. 
( Continued from page 372.) 
THE SOURCES OF PLANT FOOD—PHOSPHORIC ACID. 
A reference to the analytical table of farmyard manure will 
show that phosphoric acid is generally present in fair quantity. 
In stableyard manure, owing to the hard feeding of the horses, 
it is generally more abundant still. Animal excreta in almost all 
cases have, in addition to organic and other mineral matter, a 
large per-centage of phosphoric acid. The ash of horse droppings 
contains 10 per cent. The same analysis shows G2 of silica, so 
the 10 per cent, must be considered high. The great amount 
of silica is present in the hay, but is of small account to garden 
crops. It, therefore, serves merely to dilute the other matters, and 
of itself counts for little as a garden manure. Guanos are 
generally very rich in phosphoric acid and ammonia salts, but 
they vary much. Still, after the ammonia guanos owe very 
much of their value to the phosphoric acid they contain. A good 
guano should possess 20 to 25 per cent, of bone earth (phosphate 
of lime) and about the same of ammonia. It is not often that 
they are so rich, and often they are very deficient in both. 
Mineral phosphate of lime is found in many different districts 
in the form of apatite and coprolites—the last supposed to be 
the remains of animal excreta. These are to be had in the 
markets in a manufactured state, such as superphosphate of lime. 
Very often they are mixed with other ingredients, such as dis¬ 
solved bones, kainit, nitrate of soda, and guano, and sold as 
“special manures.” Some of these special manures are very 
good for the purposes for which they are offered, others worth 
very little. It is safe to buy only those manures sold by re¬ 
spectable firms, who have a reputation to lose and who issue 
guaranteed analyses. 
These manures are generally used and their value understood, 
therefore we will not take up space by any further reference to 
them. But we wish to draw the attention of gardeners to the 
value of night soil as a means of furnishing phosphoric acid to 
soils deficient in that necessary compound, or to crops which 
demand it largely. Were it possible to utilise all the sewage 
which is at present worse than wasted, there would be no need 
for the importation of phosphoric acid in any form. We con¬ 
tinually import food of all descriptions and export little. In 
that food we import potash and phosphoric acid, and all the other 
mineral elements which plants use, and these, in conjunction with 
what are derived from our own vegetable productions, would, if 
applied without waste to the soil, make that soil richer year by year, 
instead of allowing it, as in too many districts, to grow poor and 
less productive. How to profitably apply it is still an unsolved 
problem, but there can be no doubt that in many a country place 
the sewage from mansions, as well as drainage from farm and 
stable yards, are allowed to be wasted because of the ignorance 
which prevails regarding its value. There is no more powerful 
or more generally useful manure sold or bought than the sewage 
water with which we pollute our streams and rivers. Its value is 
not entirely owing to its phosphoric acid, but to the fact that it 
contains all the mineral matters required by plants in abundance. 
Moreover, it is rich in nitrogenous matters, which in the soil ( 
readily become ammonia salts, nitrates, &c. We append a table 
showing the per-centage of each compound in night soil:—Phos¬ 
phoric acid, 37T7 ; sulphuric acid, 210 ; potash, 10 40 ; soda, 2 83 ; 
lime, 14-98 ; magnesia, 13-48; salt (common), 1.59; oxide of 
iron, 4 6(i ; insoluble matter, 12-79.—Total 100. 
The reader on examining this table may be inclined, considering 
what we said on potash and comparing it with the list of culti¬ 
vated plants and the per-centage of potash found in their ashes, 
to think that potash is deficient ; and so it is when only the solid 
matters are taken, but when to these is added the urine, he will 
see that it supplies what the former wants. Ash of Urine (Human). 
—Phosphoric acid, 4 80; sulphuric acid, 1-68; potash, 6 (55 ; salt, 
55 87 ; lime, 15-GO; magnesia, 14 80 ; iron oxide, 0 24 ; insoluble 
matter, 0-36.—Total 100. Common salt is largely present, but 
leaving that—we shall say something on that further on—it will 
be seen that the potash is present in greater quantity than any 
other compound. 
As sewage comes from mansions it is very largely diluted with 
water. When gardens lie below the level of the house this can 
be economically applied by means of pipes and hose, or even by 
the water-barrow and can. In dry hot weather no better liquid 
manure can be had for ordinary garden crops, and even plants in 
pots, than water tainted with sewage. For Vines it is equal, we 
think surpasses, the best guano water. For all kinds of Cabbage 
crops it is first-class. Indeed there is nothing to which it may 
not be .applied with benefit. Melons supplied with no other 
manure will thrive well, set, and swell off large crops year after 
year for an indefinite period, if freely supplied with mixed sewage 
largely diluted with water. Trees and shrubs thrive on it, as we 
can prove. Some years ago plantations were made round this 
place, which up till two or three seasons ago made no progress. 
Sewage in large quantities being available, we covered the ground 
among the trees with it, and left it there for the grass to cover. 
The result is a magnificent growth, when only starvation was 
apparent before.— Single-handed. 
DEATH OF DR. DENNY. 
It is with unfeigned regret that we announce the death of Dr. 
Denny, whose name has been a household word in the horticultural 
world for some years past. A few months ago Dr. Denny had an 
attack of paralysis, which laid him aside and incapacitated him for 
the performance of his professional duties, buthisfriendshoped that 
a change of air to the bracmg climate of the east coast would have 
the effect of restoring him to a degree of convalescence which would 
enable him to recover sufficiently from the attack as to permit him 
to resume his former pursuits. He returned very much better in 
health; but the recovery was only temporary, for he succumbed 
on the 15th inst., at the age of sixty-two. 
Dr. John Denny was the only son of Mr. John Denny, surgeon, 
of Ipswich, and at the time of his death was resident physician 
of Stoke Newington Dispensary, an appointment he held for 
upwards of thirty years. But it was chiefly as a horticulturist 
that Dc. Denny made his mark. The speciality he took up was 
the race of Zonal Pelargoniums, which he set himself to im¬ 
prove, and which he did improve with marked success. The 
mantle of Donald Beaton appeared to have fallen upon him, for 
he carried out the cross-breeding principle of that remarkable 
man with great success, and thereby gave to the world some of 
the [Finest forms of the Zonal Pelargonium that have ever been 
produced. 
Dr. Denny was for many years, first a member and afterwards 
Chairman, of the Floral Committee of the Royal Horticultural 
Society, and for six years before his death was a member of the 
Council, while at the time of his death he was a Vice-President 
of the Society. None but those who were intimately acquainted 
with Dr. Denny knew the extent of his devotion to the interests of 
the Society, and the assiduity with which he threw himself into the 
minutest details of its working. He was most jealous of its honour, 
and he strove hard to make it the faithful representative of horti¬ 
culture in its highest and best sense. In the death of Dr. Denny 
horticulture has lost a brilliant ornament, and horticulturists a 
warm friend. 
TREE-LIFTING. 
r An invitation to Dunse Castle, near Dunse in Berwickshire, to 
see a novelty in tree-lifting, was duly taken advantage of, and 
when I arrived there I found several trees set up, while all around 
were others lying prostrate, and which were to be raised in due 
course. These trees had been overturned by the disastrous gale 
of October llth, some of them forming a portion of a Lime tree 
