276 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
[ September 23, 1886. 
became broken at every point by the gaunt forms of ‘ whimseys ’ houses ; 
the landscape bristled with chimney stacks, and our new-born industrial 
life then quickened to the pulsating throbs of nodding and panling beam 
engines. The face of Nature broke out into eruptions like so many plague 
spots ; swags, subsidences, and ‘ crownings in ’ on the one hand, and 
rubbish heaps and pit mounds on the other, at once and for ever obliterated 
the natural levels of the entire district. The Black Country is charac¬ 
terised not only by an unevenness of surface, but by a desolateness and 
sterility of appearance. For this must be held responsible in a great 
measure the gross carelessness of colliery managers and the callous indif¬ 
ference of coal owners. It has always been the aim of mine owners to 
raise their mineral at the lowest possible cost, and it has always suited a 
manager’s interests, and at the same time benefited his pocket, to carry 
out this economic programme by ruthlessly ripping up the earth in the 
readiest and cheapest manner possible. The collier, in his daily struggle 
for bread, is perforce condemned to live in the midst of all that havoc 
and desolation which his labours have been made to create.” 
This forbidding and uninviting neighbourhood of thriving collieries by 
a natural law then exercises a magnetic influence over the surrounding 
locality. To such a centre as this there is an irresistible attraction for 
the workers and artificers in iron ; for in this twice-blessed country of 
England it is the decree of a bountiful Providence that where coal is there 
shall iron be also. And as these twin industries of coal and iron have 
brought into existence many teeming centres of population throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, not the least of which is the South 
Staffordshire coal field, these industries have caused quite half a million 
beings to be concentrated within the confines of the Black Country. The 
life of a collier is not a pleasant one to contemplate. The surroundings of 
his house are like the scenery which meets his eye—unlovely. Can it 
then be wondered at that his tastes are unrefined, or that his pursuits are 
sometimes brutal ? What is there in his daily life to elevate or to refine ? 
Let those who sneer at his drunkenness, his dog-fighting, and his many 
other traditional brutalities, remember this. From him the beauties of 
Nature have ever been shrouded in soot or buried in shale ; as he has 
been robbed of Nature’s elevating influence, so also has society and all its 
civilising tendencies been denied to him. Society has turned its back on 
the Black Country ; a Black Countryman is regarded by society as a sort 
of barbarian—as one who must not “ stand between the wind and its 
nobility.” Well, this is a truthful description of a long extensive track 
of desolated Nature, so ably written by Mr. Hackwood, who holds an 
important position in connection with the Board schools of Birmingham. 
The Midland Black Country extends from the outskirts of Birmingham to 
Wolverhampton, and takes in Smethwick, Old Hill, Darlaston, Wednes- 
bury, Oldbury, Bilston, West Bromwich, and a host of other places, each 
having a large population of its own ; and some idea of the extent of 
acreage occupied by the exhalations of shale and other excreta from coal 
pits and ironstone pits may be grasped by the following facts given by 
Mr. Hackwo d in the newspaper articles I have alluded to. 
“ It has been stated in the public Press that colliery wastes occupy 
many thousands of acres of the Black Country. It was with a view to 
test the accuracy of this statement that some information was sought as to 
the real extent of these wastes and their fitness for reclamation and 
cultivation. A circular was addressed to every town surveyor in the 
district asking for certain tabulated information and reliable statistics 
relating to the question.” 
Well, the result of information gained in this way gives us an 
approximate area of colliery waste lands in the district of Wednesbury 
alone of 246 acres. This is for one township only, and in this district a 
large number of small gardens have been reclaimed—that is, converted 
into gardens from the shale and other debris turned out of the coal and 
ironstone pits in the district. Wednesbury has not yet a horticultural 
society, but one is determined upon for next year. Darlaston, which 
started a horticultural society this year, and mo6t successfully, is a large 
township adjoining Wednesbury. Betwixt Wednesbury and Darlaston 
there is a large and well-populated district known as King’s Hill, where 
there is an enormous mass of pit-mounds, quite two acres in extent, under 
garden cultivation. These are known in the district as “ Knowell’s 
Mount,” and an immense amount of credit is due to Mr. John Hall, who 
is the foreman painter of the great mass of ironwork manufactured at 
the Old Park Iron Works, Wednesbury. This enormous mass of shale 
and other non-gardening deposits has been drawn from the coal and iron¬ 
stone pits underneath, and quite two acres of what formerly was good arable 
and cultivated land has been buried by the deposits from the pit. The 
immense mass rises from 25 feet to the greater height of 100 feet above 
the ordinary ground level, and has no shelter whatever, but is fully 
exposed in eve y direction to wind and smoke. The entire mass is com¬ 
posed of shale, ironstone deposits, and small coal, from which good 
garden soil is absent. This great mass has been levelled down to a 
certain extent, and night soil has been mixed with it, and although but 
about three years in cultivation excellent crops have been grown here. At 
the present time the area of two acres, exposed to all the winds which 
blow, and, as I before stated, without an atom of shelter, are now pro¬ 
ducing excellent and large crops of Cabbage, Cauliflower, both crops free 
from fly and caterpillar, and it is difficult to find these crops free from 
these pests generally in the Black Country. Savoys, French Beans, Little 
Gem and other dwarf Peas, Potatoes, Jerusalem Artichokes, good Celery, 
Carrots, Leeks, Oni >ns, Parsley, Rhubarb, Brussels Sprouts, &c. It is 
really a wonder how these crops are obtained with everything dead against 
a fair prospect of success; but there is in shale and its accompanying 
deposits a drought-resisting power which helps vegetation very consider¬ 
ably, and with the admixture of good stimulants, night 8 >il especially, 
good crops can be had when labour is expended on their production. 
The cultivation of crops on Knowell’s Mount is done under enormous 
difficulties, for, in addition to what we have written, a large galvanising 
ironworks exists on the south-west side, within 50 yards, and on the 
other side, and within a quarter of a mile, are the very extensive plant of 
the Old Park Hall Iron Works, and a host of other deleterious matter is 
being poured out from the numerous chimneys of other works close by, 
and the “ air we breathe ” there is not such as gardening plants thrive upon 
generally. The only manure applied to this large tract of garden is 
night soil carted there as it is taken from the closets, and is mixed with 
the shale preparatory to its being used on the soil. Some idea will be 
formed of the immense area of waste land from pit mounds when we 
state that in the townships of Wednesbury, Brown Mills, Wednesfield, 
Walsall, and Dudley, there are 2345 acres lying idle, and this is but a 
small proportion of the entire acreage of such lands in the Midland 
Black Country.—W. Dean. 
(To be continued.) 
SPATHOGLOTTIS AUGUSTORUM. 
At a meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on July 13th this 
year, Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart, M.P., exhibited from his celebrated 
Buiford Lodge collection of Orchids a plant of Spathoglottis augustorum, 
a little known bnt handsome species well worth attention. The genus 
Spathoglottis does not receive much attention now, though there are 
several pretty species, and it is somewhat remarkable that Mr. B. S. Wil 
Hams does not refer to any of them in the last edition of his “ Orchid 
Manual.” That represented in the illustration (fig. 41) is, however, 
stronger in habit and altogether of bolder appearance than most of the 
others. The flowers on the Sir Trevor Lawrence’s plant were about 
2 inches in diameter, but they are said to greatly exceed that size in a 
wild state. The sepals and petals are oval, pure white, or faintly tinged 
with rosy mauve ; the lip long, very much contracted towards the base, 
and two-lobed at the point, of a bright purple colour, a pretty contrast 
with the other portion of the flower. The flowers are clustered in racemes 
near the apex of a long peduncle, rising above the graceful arching bright 
green leaves. 
The species is a native of the Sunda Isles, where it was discovered by 
M. Auguste Linden and M. Auguste de Ronne, when collecting for the 
Compagnie Continentale d’Horticulture, and is said to occupy damp 
hollows or recesses in high regions. It is a terrestrial plant, and requires 
a compost of peat, loam, and crocks, a high temperature, and abundant 
supplies of water. 
MADRESFIELD COURT GRAPE. 
In reference to the remarks of your correspondent Mr. Udale, on 
Madresfield Court Grape, I wish to join issue with him as to heavy crop¬ 
ping preventing cracking. I have one Vine here planted in a mixed 
house. This Vine has two rods and is now carrying a very heavy crop, 
and not a single berry have I observed to be cracked. I may mention I 
keep plenty of ventilation both top and bottom, night and day, with a 
little fire heat. The border is outside and is very wet and cold, so as to 
cause some of the other sorts to shank. I therefore contend it is not 
necessary to treat this fine Grape, as a great many people seem to think 
is beneficial, by subjecting it to an injurious dry treatment at the roots to 
prevent cracking. I also agree with Mr. Cooke as to well thinning out 
the berries so as to give them room to swell, as the least cramping of this 
very thinskinned Grape would be a source of evil.— Alfked Bishop. 
VARIETIES OF VIOLETS. 
Sweet Violets may not be all referable to Viola odorata, yet it is 
difficult to otherwise account for the fact of our finding much the same 
form of Violet in many of the mountainous countries of Europe near the 
sea. We get from the Crimea a Violet very little different from that 
found in Britain’s hedgerows, from Greece a closer-growing and more 
diminutive form of Violet, and from Spain we have a variety not mate¬ 
rially dissimilar from V odorata, though it is distinguished as V. arbo- 
rescens through its forming stems by age. The colour of the flower is the 
same, or a bluish purple, and all except the Grecian have white forms, 
which is generally the first breaking up of species into varieties. Acting 
on this principle, which is only suggested by the cultivated selections, and 
not on any definite data, I would only further observe that the double 
purple Violets of the East, such as Patrie and Double Russian, are not 
very different from the double form of Viola odorata, only in Double 
Russian the flowers are imbricated much more than in Patrie, which seems 
to have the petals set-on-end against each other. In Viola odorata plena 
or Double Purple or Scotch, we have the petals imbricated as in Double 
Russian, but in both there is a strange leaning of the petals to the erect¬ 
ness that prevails in Patrie. In elegantissima plena, which is clearly of 
the Patrie type, we ascend to the coveted imbricated form, with a much 
decreased vigour and hardiness of plant. In the Neapolitan there is a 
