May 25, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
417 
-Fruit as Food. —Now that the fresh fruit season is at hand, will 
you allow me to announce that all your readers wishing to study the 
subject of a fruit diet, and how to adopt it, can obtain a packet of 
literature by addressing a postal wrapper to the “ Natural Food Society,” 
78, Elm Park Road, S.W. ? I ask this favour on the grounds of health 
and temperance, as well as because by the more profitable occupation of 
the soil for fruit, is become a question second to none in its bearing upon 
the solution of the social problem. Fruit, besides, contains elements of 
nourishment, contains also enough liquid to make drinking needless. 
After three years’ personal trial, I can only add, “ The proof of the 
pudding is in the eating.”— W. S. Manning. 
- Early Peas. —Our first pods of Sutton’s Ringleader Peas were 
gathered on the 20th inst. from a sowing made on a south border 
February 25th, being exactly twelve weeks. They have not grown to 
more than half their usual height for want of root moisture, and the 
crop will consequently be a very short one. Sutton’s Early Champion 
■sown on the same date is only a few days later. American Wonder 
sown about the same time and forwarded under glass in boxes were 
ready a few days before Ringleader, but the quantity obtained scarcely 
repaid the trouble taken with them. No rain fell from the time of 
their being planted till they were ready for gathering. Unless Peas 
were sown at short intervals the supply cannot be easily maintained 
where demands are heavy.—W. Strugnell. 
- Electricity in Potato Culture.— In order to test the 
conclusions of M. Spechnew, a French horticulturist, M. E. Lagrange, 
has cultivated Potatoes in a field divided into three parts, all of the 
same soil and exposure. One section was cultivated after the manner 
of Spechnew, the Potatoes being planted between plates of zinc and 
copper connected above the soil by wires so as to form earth batteries, 
wdth a current through the ground where the Potatoes were growing. 
The second section was cultivated in the ordinary way, without elec¬ 
tricity. The third section was provided with small lightning rods thrust 
into the soil between the Potatoes until their ends were on a level with 
the tubers. The yield of the third section was much better than that 
of the other two sections, and was obtained fifteen days sooner. The 
ratio of the crops in the different sections were as 78, 80, and 103. The 
first section, although poor in roots, gave an exceptionally vigorous 
foliage.— (^MarJi Lane Ex 2 )ress.') 
- Horticulture in the North. —From a horticultural point 
of view the spring of 1893 is phenomenal, and the prospects for agricul¬ 
turalists and horticulturists are very encouraging, observed a northern 
daily contemporary recently. The land in Northumberland and Durham 
is looking remarkably well, and the farmers are all in good spirits. 
Grass and seeds are in a wonderfully forward condition, and, given rain 
in the present month, the opening agricultural year augurs a rich 
autumnal ingathering. On the Cth inst. outdoor-grown Cornwall 
Strawberries were sold in the Newcastle Green Market five or six weeks 
earlier than previous “ early ” years. Last year it was about a month 
or so later that new fruit appeared in Newcastle, but a fortnight ago 
Gooseberries were sold at the rate of 4s. per stone, while Jersey Potatoes 
were disposed of as low as 21s. per cwt.—Gs. or 7s. lower than the price 
at which they started last year. As an indication of the extremely 
forward state of fruit, it may be mentioned that Strawberries did not 
arrive in the Newcastle markets last year till June 18th. 
- Fruit Trees on Railway Embankments. —Many French 
horticultural societies have petitioned the Government during recent 
years to substitute fruit for forest trees in the plantations made along 
railway routes. To these petitions, remarks the “ Garden and Forest,” 
the Ministry of Public Works has now replied by saying that, some 
twelve years ago it recommended the employment of fruit trees for the 
purpose named, that extensive experiments had since been made, and 
that these experiments had shown the inferiority of fruit trees to forest 
trees. Either the fruit trees had not flourished, or they had been 
pillaged and mutilated by marauders; and, moreover, they cast too 
heavy a shade, thus causing dampness and deterioration in road-beds 
near which they stood. “ It is needful,” says the explanatory circular, 
“ that trees planted along tracks shall be capable of developing in 
isolation into tall slender forms, so that excessive shade may be avoided, 
and this requirement is best fulfilled by forest trees. Therefore the 
administration has renounced the attempt to p tpularise the plantation 
of fruit trees except in one or two departments, where a single species 
of nut-bearing trees will henceforth be admissible.” In Belgium the 
case is about the same, and, indeed a Member of Parliament remarked, 
when the question was recently under discussion, that the only “ trees” 
which should be planted along railway tracks were telegraph poles. 
- An Edelw'EISS Farm. —A German horticultural paper calls 
the attention of tourists to the fact that they may be grievously deceived 
in t’ainking that the objects which they buy in Switzerland, decorated 
with dried blossoms of the Edelweiss, are really mementoes of the Alps. 
An enterprising horticulturist near Dantiz, on the northern coast of 
Germany, has, the “ Garden and Forest” understands, established an 
Edelweiss farm, whence, last year, considerable quantities of the flowers 
were sent to a tradesman on the other side of the Alps, while this year 
the amount thus exported will be twice as large. The seeds are sown 
in tepid fertilised beds at the end of March or beginning of April, and 
are transplanted once before they are set out in the fields in July, after 
which it is only needful to weed the ground and loosen the soil around 
the plants. 
- Popular Names for Plants.— Good illustrations of the 
difficulty of determining plants or vegetable productions by popular or 
local names are given in a letter by Mr. B. B. Smyth, of the Kansas 
Academy of Science, published in the current Quarterly Record of the 
Royal Botanic Society of London. “ The name Nightshade,” he says, 
is applied here to Solanum nigrum and S. triflorum ; the name Woody 
Nightshade is applied to S. Dulcamara ; the name Bittersweet is applied 
to Celastrus scandens, a twining woody plant with clusters of showy 
scarlet berries ; the name Laurel is applied to the different species of 
Kalmia ; the names Mock Orange and Syringa are applied (of course 
misapplied) to Philadelphus ; the name Sarsaparilla is (mis)applied to 
Aralia ; the name Snakeroot is applied to a dozen different species in 
half as many different orders; the name Mouse-ear is applied to 
Gnaphalium, Antennaria, and Cerastium.” 
- The Fruit and Vegetable Market at Brentford.—T he 
new market, which has been laid out by the Brentford Local Board, was 
opened by the Lord Mayor of London on Wednesday, the 24th inst. The 
venture has been undertaken in consequence of the large proportions 
assumed by the market in the public thoroughfare near Kew Bridge, 
and the Board have received such support, not only from large growers 
in Middlesex and Surrey, but also from London salesmen and representa¬ 
tives of the northern English markets, that they regard success assured. 
It is intended for the wholesale and retail sale of market garden produce, 
flowers, and fruit, hay, straw, and general fodder. The whole of the 
stalls, it is stated, have been taken, and more than half the open stands 
have been allotted. Vegetables, fruit, and flowers will be on sale on 
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from four o’clock in the morning in 
summer and five o’clock in the winter. 
- Clianthus puniceus. —What more interesting plant for 
training under the rafters of any ordinary greenhouse could be found 
than Clianthus puniceus, or, .as it is commonly called, the “ Parrot’s 
Bill?” Introduced from New Zealand in 1832 this plant has had to 
give way in a great measure to the other species Clianthus Dampieri or 
“ Glory Pea.” The latter, although very beautiful, is not always easily 
cultivated, and to those who would perhaps like something less 
fastidious C. puniceus is worthy of being tried. Cuttings inserted in 
sandy soil in small pots and placed in a little bottom heat will soon 
root, and should be transferred to small pots, using a compost of good 
loam, leaf mould, charcoal, or red sandstone, and silver sand. After 
potting keep rather close, and use the syringe freely when the plants 
have become established in the new compost. When the small pots are 
filled with roots repot or plant out. In either case sufficient root room 
and good drainage should be given, and the syringe freely used. A 
little shortening back in the early season of the year is all the pruning 
it requires. A handsome plant, which covered the greater portion of 
the rafters of a span-roofed plant house, was recently in full flower at 
Walton Lea, Warrington, the residence of John Crosfield, Esq.—R. P. R 
- Transference of Material in Plants.—F rom recent 
researches on transference of material in plants (represented— e.g , by 
transference of starch in the Potato), Herr Brasse is led to present the 
following view of what goes on. The assimilation of carbon in the sun’s 
rays is manifested directly in deposition of starch in the chlorophyll 
grains. Through action of diastase in the leaves, and at a temperature 
lower than that of its formation, this starch is changed into reducing 
sugar, which spreads by diffusion from its place of formation into all 
the tissues of the plant. In certain parts, and especially in the tubers, 
the sugar is continuously transformed. The tubers, with regard to 
dissociation, act like the cold wall in vaporisation of a volatile liquid 
in an enclosed space. The sugar-content of all cells of the plant seeks 
to enter into equilibrium with that of the cells of the tubers, in which 
the content is less, because a change of sugar into starch takes place, 
and the co-efficient of this change is here less than that of the converse 
