52 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 15, 1880. 
of Salisbury Green, has this year been as great and the cultivation 
as successful as in previous years. At Shirley Mr. G. Payne has 
some splendid Strawberry beds covering several acres of what, 
only a short time back, was little better than rough waste. By 
enterprise and industry he has been able to pick from these beds 
some hundreds of gallons of Strawberries daily during several 
weeks past. These have found a ready market in Southampton 
and London. It is said that something like twenty tons per 
day have been sent to London from Botley in the height of the 
season.” 
-- The attention of Cherry Growers is invited by the 
Secretaries of the South Chiltern Cottagers’ Horticultural Society 
—an association of a few villagers on the Chilterns—to the 
following notice. His Highness the Maharajah of Benares, being 
interested in the cultivation of the Cherry, has offered through 
one of his English friends resident in that part of the Chilterns 
some prizes for the encouragement of Cherry culture. These 
prizes are mainly limited to the locality; but one prize of £1 is 
offered for the two best dishes of Cherries of any description, 
thirty of each sort, without any restriction as to place of residence. 
The Committee would be very glad to receive for exhibition 
some good samples of this fruit, both because it would tend to 
improve the culture of Cherries in the district, and because it 
would be a gratification to them to report to the Maharajah that 
his offer had been responded to by persons outside the district. 
Growers who would not generally send_to a local show are invited 
to do so, in appreciation of the kindly feeling towards English¬ 
men which this Indian Prince has ever shown in little as well as 
in great matters. The Show is at Woodcote House near Beading, 
on Wednesday July 21st. The Secretaries, Kev. C. J. Abbey, 
Checkendon Rectory, near Reading, and Rev. H. G. Nird, Wood¬ 
cote House near Reading, will gladly take charge of any parcel 
directed to either of them upon information by post. Entrance 
fee Is. &d., which may enable a second prize to be given. 
- We have received from Mr. Fox, Banbury, flowers of the 
new Dwarf Double-flowering Trop^eolum Hermine 
Grasshoff ; the [original plants having been received from 
Mons. Grashoff of Quedlingburg. The flowers are very double, 
with broader petals than the old double scarlet Tropaeolum, and 
we think they are even brighter in colour. The plants of Her¬ 
mine Grashoff are described as very dwarf, only reaching 12 to 
15 inches in height, and bloom freely the whole of the winter 
months. This variety therefore promises to be of considerable 
value for decorative purposes, and affording brilliant flowers for 
cutting for vase decoration. 
- A Warrington correspondent writing to us on the 
weather and Roses states that he has not yet cut a good bloom, 
all being more or less blistered by bright sunshine suddenly fol¬ 
lowing frequent showers. We have seen many blooms at the 
shows that have been similarly injured, but those that have been 
protected are unusually brilliant in colour. 
- We are informed that the Potato disease is very bad 
in the low-lying parts of Essex, where heavy rains have prevailed 
and saturated the soil. The crops in the cottagers’ gardens are 
the most affected, especially the Early Shaws. In small confined 
gardens the soil is generally richer than in open fields, and the 
growth is more succulent and crowded, hence the liability to 
injury of Potatoes grown under such conditions. We may add 
that we have already seen Scotch Champion, Magnum Bonum, 
and Grampian, so called “disease-proof” varieties, affected with 
the murrain. 
- We have received from Mr. Stephen Castle, manager, The 
Vineyards, West Lynn, Norfolk, some fine specimens of Tomatoes. 
A bunch of Suttons’ Conqueror, a smooth medium-sized fruit of 
excellent quality, with twenty fruits. This variety is very pro¬ 
ductive, Mr. Castle having cut bunches 6 lbs. in weight. He 
has also sent specimens of his seedling, one of which weighs 
14J ozs. It is rather corrugated, and its chief merit consists in its 
firm flesh and excellent quality. Those—and the number is in¬ 
creasing—who enjoy Tomatoes in a raw state will find this one of 
the best. The smaller fruits are smooth and of suitable size for 
placing on the table. 
SCALDED GRAPES—RED SPIDER. 
One of the most frequent causes of “scalding” when late 
Grapes and Muscats are undergoing the critical process of stoning, 
is the result of allowing the temperature to fall too low at night, and 
then neglecting to admit air early in the morning to disperse the 
moisture condensed on the fruit. The best preventive of scalding 
is a night temperature of 65° to 70°, and abundance of air by day, 
under which treatment the occurrence is rare even with such 
kinds as Lady Downe’s, one of the most liable to it; indeed ao 
economy is so false as not continuing the fires as an auxiliary to 
solar heat, so as to ripen the Grapes whilst there is plenty of light, 
and external circumstances admit of free ventilation. Red spider 
is unusually abundant this season. The best remedy is to paint the 
hot-water pipes with sulphur, and the best preventive plenty of nu¬ 
triment both at the roots and in the atmosphere, affording copious 
waterings with liquid manure at the roots, and a moist atmosphere 
by frequently damping available surfaces, especially at closing 
time, with guano water, or sprinkling with guano in the house, 
and syringing over it. The ammonia given off by this is beneficial 
to the foliage and inimical to insect life.— AN Old Grower. 
THE REV. W. F. RADCLYFFE. 
I AM sure that there are no readers of the Journal (especially 
those who love the Rose) but will feel that both it and they have 
sustained an immense loss by the death of my dear old friend 
Mr. Radclyffe, and as far as I myself am concerned I cannot say 
how great a blank it has made. For upwards of twenty years we 
have enjoyed one another’s friendship, we have had the same 
sympathies and tastes ; and although we were separated far from 
one another, yet it made perhaps our meeting, which I always 
tried to arrange when practicable, the more enjoyable. 
I have so often described his residence, so often written of him¬ 
self, that I feel I have little now to add to those words I have 
already written ; but yet I cannot allow him to pass away with¬ 
out adding one more tribute to his worth. 
As a rosarian few equalled him in ardour and enthusiasm ; none 
excelled him in his love for the Rose. He loved it, not as an 
exhibitor loves it, but for itself alone. He did in former years 
exhibit both provincially and in London, and was successful ; but 
for the last fourteen or fifteen years his Roses were grown for his 
own special enjoyment, and that of his friends and neighbours, 
whom he was glad to admit to see his garden at all times. Fruit, 
too, he delighted to grow, and his Peach trees at Rushton were a 
marvel of beauty and culture. And yet he cared little for fruit 
itself. To send a dish of Strawberries to a sick neighbour, or 
baskets of his luscious Peaches to his friends, was a greater enjoy¬ 
ment to him than eating them himself. He liked to have the 
best of everything he grew, always saying that it took as little 
trouble to grow good things as indifferent ones; and hence— 
whether it was Potatoes, Peaches, or Roses—he would have 
nothing that he considered bad or indifferent. Of course his 
taste varied, as all tastes do ; people were not always able to 
agree with them, but as a rule his judgment was sound. 
I can add but little to my estimate, so often given of his 
character. He was, in a word, that highest type of man—a 
Christian gentleman ; a gentleman by birth and in feeling, in¬ 
capable of a mean or ungenerous action, open-hearted, and free¬ 
handed in every case of distress, and obeying strictly the mandate 
not to let his left hand know what his right did. Living a 
secluded life, and disliking society, he was no doubt in some 
respects peculiar, but in all respects to be honoured and loved. 
The friendship began with him at Rushton is now broken for ever 
here, to be renewed I hope in that better land whose flowers 
are undying and whose joys are unbroken. He has left but few 
like him, and all who knew him may well cherish his memory. 
He was seventy-five years of age.—D., Deal. t .. _ 
STRAWBERRY PAULINE. 
The truss of fruit represented in the annexed figure is shown as 
produced by a plant sent to us by Mr. George Paul of Cheshunt. 
