82 
JOURNAL OF HORTiaULlURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 10, 1884. 
stand Mrs. Bishop, Mrs. Gilmore, and Miss Chard were awarded the prizes 
in that order. Buttonholes and bouquets were very numerous, no less than 
twenty-two of the former being entered, Mr. G. W. Piper, Miss K. R. Ware, 
and Mrs. Bishop securing the chief prizes ; while in the bouquet classes Mrs. 
Bishop and Miss Chard were the most successful. Messrs. Johnston, Bolton, 
and Turner won the prizes for collections of cut flowers with beautiful 
examples. 
Fruit .—The principal class in this section was that for a collection of 
fruit, Mr. A. Waterman winning chief honours with Black Hamburgh and 
Buckland Sweetwater Grapes, the former well coloured ; a neat Queen Pine, 
Frogmore Early Cherries, Strawberries, Peaches, and fine Elruge Nectarines. 
Mr. Hopgood took the second place, his Cherries, Grapes, Peaches, and Nec¬ 
tarines being good ; and Mr. Fennell was third with tine Peaches and well- 
coloured Grapes, There were eleven exhibitors of three bunches of black 
Grapes, Mr. Henderson leading with handsomely coloured Black Hamburgh, 
large in bunch and berry. Mr. Moorhouse and Mr. F. Morris followed with 
same variety. Capt. Taylor, Glenleigh, Hastings (gardener, Mr. Gore), had 
the best three bunches of white Grapes, Muscat of Alexandria large in 
bunch and berry, but not quite perfect in colour. Mr. Waterman was second 
with Buckland Sweetwater, and Mr. Fry third with Muscats. Mr. Gore also 
won chief honours with three varieties of Grapes, having Buckland Sweet¬ 
water, Madresfield Court, and Foster’s Seedling, all of good colour. Messrs. 
Allan and Bolton followed. Eight dishes of Peaches were staged, Mr. Bash- 
ford leading with Royal George, Mr. Fennell second with Noblesse, and Mr. 
J. Allan third. For a dish of Nectarines there were the same number of 
entries, Mr. Bashford being again first with Stanwick Elruge of fine colour ; 
Mr. S. Pope second with Humboldt, and Mr. Allan third. Melons, Cherries, 
and Cucumbers were finely represented, the exhibitors already named secur¬ 
ing most of the prizes. Mr. J. Rust, The Gardens, Eridge Castle, sent a 
collection of fruit not for competition, including four fine Pine Apples, 
Grapes, and Melons. 
Vegetables were not in strong force as regards numbers, but the two 
collections from Mr. Waterman and Mr. Johnston were both of great merit 
and very nearly equal, though the prizes were awarded in the order they are 
named. Cottagers’ productions had a tent devoted to them, and were of 
excellent quality. 
MANURES. 
[An abstract of an essay read before the Western New York Horti¬ 
cultural Society by Professor G. C. Caldwell.] 
We can force the unwilling nitrogen of the atmosphere about us into 
chemical combination, so that it can be made food for the crops ; we can 
thus supply you with all the ammonia you want, if you can afford to pay 
us a fair profit for our pains. We cannot, to be sure, make a particle of 
potash or of phosphoric acid ; but there are inexhaustible stores of these 
plant foods in the bowels of the earth, or even at its very surface ; of 
potash salts in the mines of Germany, and of phosphates everywhere ; 
and these we can serve up for your crops in any forms that you may 
desire to present to them, if you can find out what they want, and how 
they want it, and can make them pay for it. All this could be easily 
done ; and the chemists would rejoice over their prosperous factories 
and well-filled pockets, and the fruit-growers over their heavily laden 
Vines and orchards, and all be as happy as a marriage bell, were it not 
for those .• i/’you can find out just what your crops want and will 
pay for, and will pay for so well, and so unfailingly, that you can afford 
to pay the chemists their fair wages. 
Everybody wants more manure now, and the scramble for it is so 
lively around all the large towns and cities, that even those living close 
by cannot get enough, and those living in the country are left entirely 
out in the cold. Now, what can we do about this matter ? I am not a 
manufacturer of manures, and as I have no desire to engage in that 
business, it is fair for me to infer that I might, perhaps, be able to suggest 
some method which would enable you to provide yourselves with it, without 
ransacking all the city stables and scraping up eagerly the last portions 
of that mixture of much straw and little excrement that goes by the 
name of manure, but is often worth more for a mulch than for plant 
food. But all that I can really do is, perhaps, to help you to lay out 
some course of action, to be both based upon and tested by reason, expe¬ 
riment, and experience. My first step should be to find out whether 
there is any solid foundation of facts upon which to lay such a course of 
action. Let me state what appear to me to be such indisputable facts. 
As my first, bottom fact of all, I would give this. Supposing that a 
man sets out with the right kind of location, soil, markets, &c.; he can 
keep his fruit farm in a good condition, and make all the money that the 
case will admit of, provided that he can get all the stable manure that he 
wants, of a fair quality, and at a fair price. You will certainly admit 
this as a fundamental fact; if not, I might as well stop right here, for I 
must build the rest of my foundation on top of it. Supposing this to 
stand, let us inquire next. What are the materials contained in the stable 
manure that give it such a universal value ? They are, no doubt, its 
nitrogen in various forms of combination, its phosphoric acid in the 
form of phosphates, its potash and its lime, neither of them in the forms 
familiar to us in the potash from ashes and quicklime, but as entirely 
neutral or inactive compounds ; and its organic matter, as the chemists 
call that part of it which may be burned off by fire, and is burning up in 
every hot pile of fresh manure, that is becoming fire-fanged. There are 
other matters in the manure—sulphuric acids in the sulphates, silicic 
acid in the silicates, chlorine in the chlorides, and magnesia and iron in 
chemical combination ; and they undoubtedly take more or less part in 
the useful effect of the manure as a whole ; but there is not any accumu¬ 
lation of evidence, either in the results of experience or of experiment, to 
show that these substances take more than a very unimportant pait in 
the work ; and as we are after only well-established facts that hold good 
under all general conditions, we leave these substances out of the count. 
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, lime, and organic matter to make 
vegetable mould—these five materials, if furnished to the crops in suitable 
forms and in suitable quantities and in a suitable manner, would, for 
many years at least, in the case of any soil that is in a fair condition to 
start with, produce all the effects of a dressing in like amount of stable 
manure ; and to prolong the effect for a lifetime it would only be 
necessary to apply at intervals of a few years, or every year, a little salt 
for its chlorine, plaster for its sulphuric acid, and the German salt, kainit, 
for its magnesia, to make sure that these other necessary constituents of 
the food of plants do not entirely run out. Of the five materials above 
mentioned the lime also will, under ordinary conditions, need no looking 
after, partly because it is generally sufficiently abundant in the average 
soil to answer all the demands of the crops for many years, but more 
because it enters so largely into the composition of the phosphate that 
we should have to use more or less freely in any system of manuring 
without stable manure ; and we need give ourselves little trouble about 
it, also, because if needed in extra quantity it is so easily obtained and 
applied as quicklime, or as ground limestone, or in plaster. 
So we have, finally, only four substances that we need specially to 
look after—nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, and organic matter or 
vegetable or animal remains. If we can only manage the supply of these 
four rightly all the rest may be left to take care of themselves, at least 
for a long while. It seems as if it should be easy to manage so small a 
business as that. We have brands of phosphates without number, all 
claiming to be of superior excellence, and supplied to us almost at our 
very doors. Most of them contain some of the nitrogen that we also need 
to make up our combination ; and if they do not contain enough of this, 
there are nitrates or ammonia salts, sold for their nitrogen only, and of 
which we can have all we will buy. Of potash in suitable forms for plant 
food there is unlimited store in the German potash salts, where unleached 
wood ashes cannot be had at reasonable rates ; and of organic matters— 
vegetable and animal remains—which make up four-fifths of that which 
is left after you drive all the water out of stable manure, or four-fifths of 
the dry substance of the manure ; where can we buy that ? Echo 
answers. Where ? We may put a little on the soil in a dressing of super¬ 
phosphate containing dried blood, added to the superphosphate for its 
nitrogen, or if we manure with bone meal ; but the quantity so added is 
very small indeed compared with what is put on in an ordinary dressing 
of stable manure. Here we seem to meet our first difficulty, in the 
matter of getting supplies to take the place of stable manure ; and 
perhaps it is going to be no easy matter to overcome the obstacle. It 
may be well to ask and answer the question whether we cannot overcome 
the difficulty by paying no attention to it. Is this organic matter plant 
food 1 To the best of our knowledge it is not, except in so far as it 
contains nitrogen, which it always does ; but the nitrogen can easily be 
provided for otherwise ; therefore, as far as direct plant food is concerned 
we can get along without the organic matter of the stable manure. But 
what farmer or fruit-grower is there that would agree with me and be 
willing to follow my teaching if I should say to him that his manure will 
do just about as much good if he should burn it, and then to replace the 
nitrogen that would all be driven off in the burning, add to the hundred¬ 
weight of ashes that he would get from every ton of it twenty-five pounds 
of sulphate of ammonia, containing about five pounds of nitrogen, as 
much as there is that is really assimilable in a ton of fresh manure ; 
perhaps he could not tell why he would much rather have the whole 
manure. 
(To be continued.) 
HULL SHOW. 
July 2nd, 3th, and 5th. 
Horticultural exhibitions often advance very slowly in importance, 
and some of the leading shows of the present time made but moderate pro¬ 
gress for many years until they had attracted the attention and gained the 
confidence of horticulturists generally. Considerable perseverance and 
energy are therefore required in commencing an exhibition which it is 
desired to raise to a prominent position, and there must be unwavering 
liberal support for a few years to establish it firmly, and to give exhibitors 
the necessary encouragement by prompt payment of prize money. By such 
means, with practical officials and a readiness to work in combination, there 
should be little difficulty in instituting a show that would be both creditable 
and beneficial to the district. Thus it is that there is reason to expect that 
the Hull Show will under good management, and with a continuance of the 
patronage afforded by such distinguished townsmen as the Mayor (Dr. Rollit), 
become one of the leading exhibitions of the north of England. Any improve¬ 
ment is welcome evidence of future development, and the Show opened on 
Wednesday last was decidedly in advance of that held last year. Plants 
were much more numerous; cut flowers, bouquets, and buttonholes were 
capitally represented ; fruit and vegetables being also fairly shown, and 
though there is necessarily room for still further advance, the Exhibition 
wa-s satisfactory in all respects. 
Three large marquees, arranged in the form of three sides of a quadrangle, 
were devoted to the plants, groups, and flowers, two smaller tents being 
occupied with the fruit, vegetables, and cottagers’ productions. The tents 
were sufficiently wide to allow abundance of space for visitors, central tables 
bearing the smaller plants and dishes of fruits, the others being arranged 
upon the ground near the sides of the tent, in which position they were seen 
to much better advantage than would have been the case if placed upon side 
stages, such as are too frequently employed. Each evening the tents were 
illuminated by numerous electric lamps, and the effect was extremely good, 
the novelty ot the display attracting a large number of visitors. The 
Curator and Secretary, Mr. P. MacMahon, with his courteous coadjutors Mr. 
Edwin T. Sharp and Mr. James Dixon deserved much praise for their efforts 
