October 5, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
313 
- A Laeoe Pear.—A correspondent writing from Henfield, 
Sassex, says :—“ This week I gathered from a tree on a wall, with an 
east aspect, in my garden here, a Grosse Calebasse Pear of the following 
remarkable dimensions and weight. It has at the thick end a circum¬ 
ference of 12f inches and one of 18 inches lengthways. Its weight is 
rather more than If lb. There are a few more on the tree, these are 
very large though not equal to the one to which I refer.” 
- The Total Eainfall at Abbot’s Leigh, Hayward’s 
Heath, Sussex, for the past month was 3’05 inches, being 0'08 inches 
below the average; 2 inches of this fell during the last week. The 
heaviest fall was 0 88 inch on the 28th. Rain fell on sixteen days. 
Total fall for the nine months 16 08 inches, as against 20'27 inches. The 
average maximum temperature in the shade was 75° on 6th and 14th. 
Minimum temperature 33° on 24th; mean maximum 66‘05° ; mean 
minimum 46-17? ; mean temperature 5611°, being 1-05° above the 
average.—R. I. 
- Michaelmas Strawberries. —As an instance of the remark¬ 
able character of the season, a correspondent informs ns that a dish 
of ripe, good-sized Strawberries of excellent flavour were picked this 
week in the open garden at the residence of the Mayor of Newbury. 
Strawberries have also been picked in the open garden ot the Dundas 
Arms Hotel, at the neighbouring village of Kintbury, within the last 
few days. “ L. M.” writes from Hawkhurst :—“I have just picked a 
small dish of ripe Strawberries of good size and colour, the first time 
I ever had a second crop ripen. There are, too, many on the plants 
nearly ripe.” 
- The Weather in Hertfordshire. — Mr. B. Wallis, The 
Gardens, Hamels Park, Buntingford, Herts, writes :—The weather 
during the past month has been of a dry character with an abundance 
of sunshine. Wasps during the early part of the month were very 
abundant, doing much damage; but I was never less troubled with 
caterpillars. Rain fell upon nine days during the month. Maximum 
in any twenty-four hours was 0-54 on the 1st; minimum in any twenty- 
four hours was 0 03 on the 16th. Total during the past month was 
1-46 against 2 62 of 1892. By the end of September, 1892,1 had registered 
18-90 of rainfall ; end of September, 1893, I have only registered 13-38. 
In spite of the very dry season garden crops on the whole have done 
remarkable well. 
- Death op Mr. Frederick Lothrop Ames. — We regret to 
learn from the “Garden and Forest” of the death of Mr. Frederick 
Lothrop Ames, one of the founders and owners of that journal, who 
recently died suddenly during a journey from his home in Massachusetts 
to New York. Mr. Ames was one of the most liberal patrons of horti¬ 
culture America has produced, and his collection of Orchids was a great 
source of pride to everyone interested in the progress of the art in which 
he found his principal pleasure. Mr. Ames’ love of Nature was real 
and profound, and his exact and comprehensive knowledge of the plants 
in which he was particularly interested has given him an international 
reputation among orchidologists. Through his liberality the Arnold 
Arboretum, to which he has always given generous support, and the 
Botanical Department of Harvard College, in which he was specially 
interested, have been able to extend their usefulness. For nearly thirty 
years Mr. Ames was an active member of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society ; he has long been one of its Vice-Presidents, and as a member 
of the Finance Committee has rendered it invaluable service. 
- A Remarkable Bouquet.—A correspondent at Cork writes : 
—“ The composition of a small nosegay of fresh flowers gathered in 
County Cork will seem incredible even to those who have watched the 
progress of this remarkable summer. The bouquet consists of Bramble 
leaves dyed with the most gorgeous autumn tints—nothing unseason¬ 
able in that!—surrounding Apple blossom developed from buds which 
should have lain dormant until the awakening breath of next spring 
aroused them. The flowers are as dainty and perfect as the usual 
spring bloom, but appear strange in their setting of old leaves instead 
of the soft delicacy of the undeveloped foliage usually attending these 
precocious blossoms. Then there are wild Roses and buds gathered from a 
bush which bore similar blossoms on April 26th of the present year, and 
lastly groups of Strawberry blossom as jaunty and fresh as those of the 
early summer, and apparently unconscious at present of the rapid 
approach of cold frosts which have already spread their icy fingers over 
counties to the north of County Cork. Reports, too, from Killarney 
and other places tell of Laburnum trees in full bloom, while adjacent 
are bushes laden with fruits of deepening hues, and close by the 
Arbutus displays its richest of crimson-red berries.” 
- Veitch’s Autocrat Pea. — Mr. H. W. Ward writes: “This 
grand midseason Pea I have grown somewhat largely during the present 
year with most satisfactory results. It is an excellent grower and 
prodigious cropper, producing with great freedom large, straight, hand¬ 
some, dark green, well-filled pods, which contain on an average ten large 
deep green coloured Peas of excellent quality. I exhibited two dishes 
of Autocrat Pea early in August last at Southampton and Taunton 
Shows, which easily secured a first prize. I am still gathering Peas of 
this variety from sowings which were made the Ist of June. Sowings 
of Ne Plus Ultra and British Queen were made the same time in the 
same plot of ground, the rows beiag 10 feet asunder, running north and 
south, and heavily mulched on each side, the same as all my rows of 
Peas and Beans are served, but the yield from Autocrat as well as the 
quality of the produce is far in advance of that of those two well-tested 
varieties.” 
- The “ Kew Bulletin ” for September, a copy of which has 
come to hand, is wholly devoted to a description of the Flora of St. 
Vincent and adjacent islets. “ St. Vincent is one of the group of 
islands known in the West Indies as the Colony of the Windward 
Islands. The other members of this gioup are St. Lucia, twenty-one 
miles to the north, and Grenada, sixty-eight miles to the south-west. 
Barbadoes, under a separate Government, is 100 miles due east. St. 
Vincent was discovered by Columbus on the 22nd January, 1498. It is 
situated in 13° 10' north latitude and 60° 57' west longitude. It is 
eighteen miles in length and eleven in breadth, and contains, according 
to the Colonial Office List, nearly 85,000 acres of land, about half the 
area of Middlesex, with only 13,000 acres under permanent cultivation. 
The population in 1891 was 41,054. The majority of the adjoining 
islets, known as the Grenadines, are dependencies of St. Vincent.” 
- From the same source we learn that in the last century St. 
Vincent was remarkable for possessing the FIRST BOTANIC Garden 
(founded 1765), certainly in the West Indies, and perhaps in any 
tropical part of the world. An account of this garden is given in the 
“ Kew Bulletin ” for 1»92, pp. 92-100. It lingered on with a precarious 
existence till the end of the first quarter of the present century. In 
1890 it was revived as one of the system of botanical stations established 
in the West Indies. The scientific knowledge of the flora of St. Vincent 
-jvas limited to the present time to the species enumerated in Grisebach’s 
“ Flora of the British West India Islands” (1864). He relied upon a 
collection made by the Rev. Landsdown Guilding preserved in the 
Kew Herbarium. As will be seen the fact that these specimens were 
in every case actually derived from the island ia not free from doubt. 
Besides these Grisebach also worked up some other plants in the Kew 
Herbarium collected by Alexander Anderson, the second Superin¬ 
tendent of the old Botanic Garden, of whom some particulars are 
given in the “ Kew Bulletin ” for 1892 (pp. 94-5), also by George 
Caley, one of Anderson’s successors (AT. B. 1. c. p. 97). These data 
supplied at first a very imperfect idea of the total flora. It was 
obviously therefore desirable to take advantage of any opportunity 
for completing the botanical exploration of the island. In 1889 Mr. F. 
Ducane Godman, F.R.S., to whom the scientific world is indebted for 
the munificent investigation of the natural history of Central America, 
determined to send a zoological collector to St. Vincent. Mr. H. H. 
Smith, a native of the United States, and an expert of known skill and 
experience, was engaged. He was accompanied by his wife, and Mr. 
Godman, thinking that they might also do some useful work, for botany, 
persuaded them after a visit to Kew to undertake the task. On arriving 
at St. Vincent they ultimately engaged as assistant in botanical collect¬ 
ing, Mr. G. W. Smith (now Curator of the Botanical Garden, Grenada), 
a native of the Windward Islands. 
- The total number of SPECIES OF FLOWERING RlANTS col¬ 
lected in St. Vincent and the four adjacent islets—Bequia, Cannouan, 
Mustique, and Union—including naturalised plants and those inserted 
on the authority of the early collectors is about 1150. Of these Mr. 
Smith collected 977, whereof at least 131 are almost certainly colonists, 
leaving 846 indigenous species, belonging to 490 genera and 109 natural 
orders. The number of species of flowering plants collected in the small 
islands was respectively :—Bequia, 375 ; Mustique, 160 ; Union, 49 ; and 
Cannouan, 30. With regard to the general distribution of the indigenous 
plants, the principal points are the wide geographical range of the 
majority and the smallness of the endemic element, conditions that 
obtain throughout the whole chain of islands from Tobago to the 
Virgin group, which are in striking contrast to the proportions of the 
endemic element in Cuba and Jamaica. 
