Jidy 20, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
47 
N OW that the rain has come and moistened the parched earth 
gardeners, farmers, and amateurs—indeed all who engage 
in the cultivation of the soil, will to a more or less considerable 
extent be relieved from the anxiety that in some cases was 
almost too heavy to be borne. Artificial watering has been 
indispensable in gardens over a long period in order to prevent 
the collapse of plants and crops ; but notwithstanding all the 
labour devoted to it, and it has absorbed most of the time of 
many workers, anything like satisfactory growth and a full 
supply of seasonable produce could not be produced. The earth 
might be moistened for short periods, but the parchingly dry 
atmosphere was a great counteracting force and uncontrollable 
obstacle to the progress of vegetation. 
Trying indeed the season has been even to persons engaged in 
gardens who have had a good water supply at hand ; but to obtain 
and distribute it has been almost heart-breaking work to many an 
earnest man, and such men envied those with water “ laid on ” and 
hose to conduct it where required. With the home water supply 
practically exhausted and only limited quantities obtainable from a 
distance, then did the position become almost unendurable, and it 
has been a case of “ all hands to the pumps ” except those engaged 
in carting or carrying the precious fluid nearly all the hours of day¬ 
light, with, unfortunately, very little to cheer them for their labour. 
We may use water as we may, by hand distribution, the return 
is disappointingly small during a season of protracted drought ; 
and only when the supply was full, and of the best character, with 
adequate mechanical means provided, could lawns be kept green 
and plants and crops in a flourishing state in the open air, during 
the exhausting period through which we have passed. Even when 
all that can be done is done—and we wish more could be 
accomplished in water storage—there is nothing like a supply 
direct from the clouds—the great restorer of languishing vegetation 
—“ sweet refreshing rain.” 
This has come at last, and brought relief to thousands of 
workers on the land, also in time to be of incalculable benefit, 
but too late xo save valuable crops that have been lost to the 
husbandman. The most energetic and best cultivators will make 
prompt efforts to obtain such compensation as they can in the 
form of subsidiary crops, and it is wonderful with what rapidity 
those sown or planted late, as referred to in another article, grow 
through the autumn months under the earth warmth, now so 
great, in combination with the moisture also, we hope, in most 
districts prevailing. But the rain, though it opens the land for 
working, and stimulates cultivators to make the best of it, may, if 
prolonged, summon into activity at least one enemy, the Potato 
disease ; and all who wish to avert it by the dressings that have in 
many cases proved effectual will do well to act in time. 
In the case of this and indeed all fungoid and insect enemies, 
nothing is so fatal as procrastination. Prompt action on the first 
and faintest symptoms of attack is potent in its influences. A 
waiting policy is always dangerous. Two insects are more easily 
destroyed than two thousand, and in the former case injury is 
averted, while in the latter it has been more or less disastrous. In 
dealing with fungoid attacks similar remarks apply, but with 
even greater force. Parasitic visitations can be checked and even 
destroyed in their infancy, but when deeply established in the 
No. 682. —VOL. XXVIL, Third Series. 
tissues of the host plants, no matter whether these are Potatoes, 
Tomatoes, Vines, or any others, they are practically ineradicable. 
In nine cases out of ten when well proved antidotes fail in 
accomplishing the desired purpose, it is not the fault of the articles, 
but of those who apply them, or who rather fail to do so until the 
time has passed for them to act with effect. Yet so much of 
perversity do we find in frail humanity that some persons who fail 
through their own inactivity are the first to decry the means as 
useless, and the moat ready to accuse of incapacity those who have 
endeavoured to help them. This has always been so, as all men 
of long experience know, and so it is likely to be to the end, 
for each generation appears to bring in turn men of similar 
idiosyncracies to those who have gone before, but we would fain 
hope the peculiars will be fewer year by year. 
After the rain, too, we may hope to hear less of under-glass 
difficulties—the scorching and scalding of Grapes, and the drying-up 
of Cucumbers and Melons, leaving the former bitter and the latter 
flavourless. Where the water supply is adequate, and not chilling 
in its coldness, such evils, with otherwise good management, are 
avertable. This statement, though hard to believe by the victims 
of such mishaps, is proved to demonstration by hundreds of 
cultivators who, by their skill, foresight, quick perception, and 
close attention fortify themselves against the contingencies, and 
have none of the troubles to deplore. Insufficiency of moisture, 
both in the atmosphere of plant and fruit houses, as well as in the 
soil in which Vines, Cucumbers, Melons, and various other plants, 
crops, and trees are grown, is one of the main causes of most 
of such evils as those indicated, and with which too many persons 
have to contend. 
We have lived long enough to note that the greater the heat 
and more protracted the drought the greater the number of 
complaints we hear of Cucumbers and Melons failing to give 
satisfaction, and of Grapes shrinking instead of swelling to 
maturity. This ought not to be so. All those crops should be 
better in bright and hot than in dull and cold seasons, and they 
would be with full support and a well-managed system of venti¬ 
lation and other cultural aids appropriate to the circumstances. 
The brighter and more continuous the sun the greater the quantity 
of water passes as vapour from the leaves of plants, and therefore 
the greater must be the supply for the roots to imbibe, with 
proportionate moisture in the atmosphere to counteract extreme 
transpiration. When the escape of moisture from the leaves of 
whatever may be grown is in excess of that supplied by the roots, 
collapse both of foliage and fruit must occur sooner or later. And 
with the weakening of the foliage in a too dry atmosphere come 
insects, for the conditions that are unfavourable to healthy growth 
are in almost the same proportion favourable to the increase of 
the foes of the gardener. With thorough health in plants, trees, 
and crops, the result of sound culture, and the prevention of checks 
and chills, there would be fewer difficulties to encounter, and less 
complaints to meet and explanations to make relative to the quality 
of the produce supplied. 
Why are there so many inferior Cucumbers this year and ill- 
flavoured Melons staged at exhibitions ? We have seen hundreds 
of both, and not one pair in ten of the former were anything like 
so fresh and tempting in appearance as are those grown by 
specialists in bulk for the market. In one case the plants have 
been comparatively starved and probably insect-infested, and in the 
other they have been well fed and kept clean. The half-exhausted 
plants may be expected to improve under moister surroundings, 
and it is hoped they will do so. 
In respect of Melons we are well within the bounds of strict 
accuracy in saying that at some, if not most, exhibitions it has 
been difficult to find three fruits worthy of the prizes provided for 
them. The majority have been distinctly inferior and not a few 
positively “nasty,” as many a judge knows too well. In some 
instances the result is, perhaps, attributable to the search for 
No. 2338.—VoL. LXXXIX., Old Series. 
