Januiry 7, 1892. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1 
B rightly opened the new year after a week of gloom in 
the metropolis such as our readers far away from the 
smoke-laden fog cm scarcely be expected to realise. It may be 
described as a dismal stifling night of more than a hundred 
consecutive hours ; most trying to debcate persons, fatal to many ; 
injurious to flowers ; perplexing to travellers, and seriously ob¬ 
structive to business; in fact, bad for everything and everybody, 
at least every honest body except oil-men, coal-men, and gas men, 
who profit by the sale of their wares. 
An enterprising newspaper man, with the object of gaining 
information about the fog and the gas supply, sought out the 
manager of the London Gas Light and Coke Company, and here 
is a small part of the dialogue :—“In former years we had fogs 
as thick and black as those of last week, but they only lasted a 
day or two; this fog lasted sis days. ‘Last Thursday’s con¬ 
sumption of gas (December 24th) was the greatest, for any single 
day, in the Company’s history—128,000,000 cubic feet. Can you 
realise that ? ’ I really could not, I should like to see the man 
who could ; 128,000,000 cubic feet of gas, it is like being lost in 
the ewigheii. Let me put it in my way. On that historic Thursday 
the Company manufactured as much gas as would form a column 
24,242 miles high and 1 foot across. The height of the column 
would be about equal to the circumference of the earth. Five 
millions of human beings creeping, crawling, blinking, coughing, 
feeling their way and missing it, underneath their brown-black, 
poisonous ‘ counterpane ’ of fog and smoke, upon the ‘ greasiest ’ 
and most crowded spot of its size in this world — and ordering 
from one of several companies 24,000 miles of gas for a single 
day’s necessities—such is the picture. Can the gentle reader rise 
to the level of the conception ? ” 
The fog vanished before the old year closed, and the new year 
opened balmy and clear. It was like a change to a new world, 
and the wheels of trade ran merrily round, and the spirits of the 
groping mass of humanity rose once more. Let us hope that the 
bright beginning may predicate a season more favourable, as a 
rule, to the gardener and amateur than the last, when the frost and 
snowstorm after the middle of May ruined a bright prospect of 
fruit, and subsequent rains spoiled flowers innumerable, brought 
out the Potato disease, and turned large tracts of country into lakes. 
Yet in many districts the rain was wanted for replenishing the 
springs and averting a water famine, while the growth of many 
trees was arrested through the abnormally dry state of the 
subsoil. The springs are now supplied, the soil moist. We will, 
then, as the Chaplain said last week, “ hope on,” and join in the 
wish, by him expressed, that all oar writers and readers will 
enjoy a bright and successful year. 
We were about to draw some further deductions from the 
experience of the year that is gone when what will follow came to 
hand. The excellent and comprehensive review last week was by 
the oldest of our regular contributors ; the communication we have 
now the pleasure to insert is from one of our newest writers. 
With the old hand of last week, so young and so free, still with 
us ; and this young hand, guided by a thoughtful head, to the fore, 
we have in these respects, and all our other able coadjutors happily 
with us too, what we regard as a “bright begiiming.” Our young 
No. 602.—VoL. XXIV., Third Series. 
friend’s homilyq entitled “ Lessens from the Past and Plans for 
the Future,” is as follows :— 
“ With the beginning of another year an epoch of great mental 
and physical activity will be opened to all gardeners who have the 
honour of their calling at heart, and who pursue it with that 
genuine earnestness for which Britishers have long been famed ; 
and so long as each successive generation of gardeners is animated 
by the laudable desire to fully uphold, and if possible enhance, the 
reputation gained by their predecessors, the dignity of their calling 
is not likely to suffer, or their own efforts to go unrewarded. 
There is, however, no denying the fact that in a vast number of 
cases gardeners are at present labouring under great difficulties, 
and in order to conduct in a satisfactory manner the gardens under 
their charge a mind quick to grapple with difficulties and ingenious 
in devising plans for future guidance are important factors, if not 
of paramount importance. There is always much to be learnt 
from failures, so that before arranging plans for the present year 
a revision of the past one is likely to be of immense service, and 
we can conceive no more useful way of spending a few evening 
hours at the present time than by employing them in taking 
a retrospective glance, and in forming definite plans for the 
future. 
“ Although the long, wet summer of the past year will not, let us 
trust, be repeated for a long time, yet it will doubtless have the 
effect of causing those who have suffered severely in any par¬ 
ticular direction to use their utrhost endeavours to avert a similar 
calamity on any future occasion. In the northern and midjand 
counties some of the sharpest lessons seem to have been learnt by 
extensive growers of late Grapes, who were reluctant to afford a 
little fire heat during the early stages of growth, and watched in 
vain for a lasting improvement in the weather. When too late they 
applied artificial heat with a vengeance, but without attaining the 
desired result of ripening a crop of Grapes, which in other respects 
were good. As these notes are being penned the mind dwells upon 
the widely different practice of two growers who each started the 
season with the promise of a fine crop. The result in one case 
exceeded the most sanguine expectation-!, and in the other was 
grievously disappointing. The successful cultivator paid great atten¬ 
tion to ventilation throughout the fickle season, utilising as 
much as possible the solar heat, which came so tardily. A little 
warmth was also kept in the hot-water pipes each evening 
throughout the summer months, and also on wet days, while the 
othersaved the fuel in the spring and early summer, and burntitwith 
a lavish hand when too late, the result being a crop of Grapes, the 
colour of which was a peculiar mixture of green and red, repulsive to 
the eyes of all gardeners, and by no means profitable to the 
grower. 
“ Then again in the flower garden many failures have been 
noticed in cases where plants only suited for hot summers have 
been employed. Dianthus Heddewigi, Begonias, Marguerites, 
and the majority of carpet bedding plants have all proved of great 
service during the past season. We might enumerate many 
subjects in each department of the garden from which useful 
lessons have been learnt, but enough to illustrate our meaning has 
been given. We will therefore now deal with plans for the 
future. 
“ There can be but little doubt that the gardener who lays 
down some definite course to pursue at the beginning of each 
season is far better able to take advantage of the weather and 
other varying circumstances than can be effected by those who 
work without a definite plan. Extra exertion at special times is 
j in the end a great saving of labour, and is also productive of 
superior results. The cold, wet, wintry days can be utilised in 
i making stakes, labels, brooms, pegs, cleaning and oiling machines, 
I sharpening tools, so that the fullest advantage may be taken of fine 
I weather when it comes. Frosty mornings are well employed in 
I wheeling manure on to vacant quarters, and in working among the 
' No. 2258.—Voii. LXXXVI., Old Series. 
