880 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
t October 13, 1892. 
- The Late Mr. C. II. Sharman (Carter’s). —Had I been 
in London recently I might have been less surprised, as well as grieved, 
at seeing in your last issue the death of this much respected gentleman. 
Would you kindly allow a voice from Ireland to mingle with yours and 
that of the eminent firm (Carter’s), that I am personally aware he so 
strenuously endeavoured to ever and always place first on the road to 
success? He was a man of wonderful business capacity. Whenever I 
went to London I generally called to see what new improvements— 
what additional achievements—had been added to the establishment 
in Holborn. I often waited in the office and casually observed him 
giving orders to two shorthand clerks at once while superintending 
some dozens of others, and ever and anon giving telephone orders all 
over London. If he had any quality more than another it was 
punctuality—a specific that I am not ashamed to confess both the 
writer and his countrymen might learn many things from our English 
friends. I once made an appointment with him to go down to Essex 
to see the seed farms, and was delayed five minutes at the Arundel. 
I met him on the steps, but only to receive a lecture on my want of 
punctuality. He was a whole-hearted servant of his firm, its wants 
and appliances, so none need be surprised at their regret of his pre¬ 
mature demise. I am sure other voices will re-echo my regret to his 
bereaved family from the Green Isle.—W. J. Murphy, Clonmel. 
- Summer-pinching Fruit Trees. — Mr. Davis, the able 
gardener at Manresa House, Roehampton, is so excellent a fruit grower 
that all his opinions are entitled to respect. This being so it may not 
be without interest to mention that he is not a believer in the summer 
pinching of fruit trees, and is able to lend emphasis to his opinions by 
pointing to trees laden with fruit, and with hold fruit buds showing for 
another year. In looking over the trees, however, the secret of their 
success and of the non-necessity of summer pruning is quickly apparent- 
The branches are trained so widely apart that air and light have the 
freest access to them. The growth is annually matured, and good crops 
follow. The free-fruiting character of such trees is a natural check to 
exuberant growth, hence the necessity for summer pinching is obviated. 
Were trees to fall under Mr. Davis’s care of which the main branches 
were closely packed together by earlier mismanagement, it is well 
within the bounds of possibility that he might find a system of summer 
pruning desirable if not absolutely necessary. 
- Peach Salwey. —In the gardens at Manresa House, where 
fruit of all kinds, and particularly Vines, is so splendidly grown by 
Mr. Davis, a tree of this good Peach on a south wall is now carrying an 
excellent crop of very fine fruits. They will form a welcome supple¬ 
ment to the indoor crop.—P. 
- Potatoes at Earl’s Court. —Owing to our having to go to 
press a few hours after the great Show of Potatoes and fruit at the 
International Horticultural Exhibition opened last week, we could 
hardly do justice to the magnificent display of tubers made by Messrs. 
Sutton & Sons, of Reading, and other exhibitors. The collection of 
Potatoes shown by Messrs. Sutton & Sons was, perhaps, one of the 
finest ever brought together. It consisted of close upon 4500 tubers in 
222 varieties, the majority of the sorts having been introduced by the 
firm. The tubers were remarkably clean and bright, and of perfect 
symmetry, affording evidence of what can be done by judicious 
selection and careful cultivation. A large number of seedling 
Potatoes were also shown by Messrs. Sutton. Mr. R. Dean, Ealing, 
amongst others likewise staged a collection of Potatoes, for which a 
bronze medal was adjudged, a similar award going to Messrs. Harrison 
and Sons, Leicester, erroneously printed “ Davidson & Sons ” in our 
report last week. 
— — Evaporated Fruit. —By no means the least interesting of the 
exhibits at the International Horticultural Exhibition last week was a case 
of evaporated and conserved fruit from Mr. Trotter, gardener to F. Ricardo, 
Esq., Bromesberrow Place, Ledbury. The specimens were displayed in 
small divisions, and looked tempting in the extreme. The dried fruit 
comprised whole, ring, and cored Apples ; Green Gage, Victoria, Wash¬ 
ington, and Orleans Plums, Apricots and Damsons. They had been 
treated with Mayfarth’s evaporator, and judging by appearances were 
excellent. It would have been a wise step on Messrs. Mayfarth’s part 
to have supplemented the exhibit with a few piles of the fruit ready 
for eating, at all events during the time the Show was reserved for the 
Judges and Press. In all probability there is a great future before 
fruit evaporating in this country. I have tasted delicious Apples evapo¬ 
rated a year before being eaten, and in winter they form a most whole¬ 
some and agreeable dish for those who have not the key of a big fruit 
room in their pocket. Mr. Trotter’s conserved fruit comprised Pears 
Plums (Washington and Victoria), and Apricots. These looked to be 
delicious sweetmeats; but the treatment with sugar, from which fruit 
should be kept free whenever possible, impairs their value for ordinary 
culinary purposes. Presumably, Mr. Ricardo is experimenting in fruit 
evaporation, and a record of the results secured would be most valuable. 
It will be a great gain if we can in a large measure substitute evapo¬ 
rated fruit for jam, which is generally less wholesome, while it lacks 
the full fruit flavour.—W. P. W. 
- Autumn Mammoth Cauliflower. —This is a product of 
that keen observation and selection which enterprising seed growers 
show in relation to vegetables in particular. It is evolved from out 
of the Autumn Giant, and has its special merits in being some three 
weeks earlier from identical sowings and plantings, and has finer and 
whiter heads than has that variety. I saw this growing in Messrs. 
Sutton & Sons’ seed grounds at Reading several weeks since, when the 
earlier and finer character of the heads was most marked in what wa3 a 
capital trial of the leading varieties. At the Earl’s Court Show, where 
the Mammoth was found in splendid form in the leading competitive 
collections of vegetables, I invited the judgment of some of the leading 
growers, such as Messrs. Pope, Lye, and others, and they all agreed that 
the Mammoth was not only distinct from the Giant, but was an earlier 
and superior variety. Mr. Lye indeed said, ■' I can find no two better 
Cauliflowers in cultivation for summer and autumn use than are King 
of the Cauliflowers and the Autumn Mammoth.”—A. D. 
- Galtonia candicans. —Although this bulbous plant will not 
live through the winter in some soils out of doors, it possesses so much 
beauty and usefulness in the flower garden that any extra time and 
trouble spent are not wholly thrown away. Independently of its 
use in the herbaceous border this plant can be employed in a variety 
of ways in the flower beds, harmonising well with other things. A 
few years since, owing to the soil being heavy and wet during the 
winter, the bulbs decayed, Tailing to come up the following spring. 
My plan now is to take those up every year that are employed in the 
beds and put them into 5-inch pots. They are then started gradually 
into growth in a cold frame, and planted out afterwards where 
required. When new bulbs are required for the borders we pot them 
in the same way, and when they have made 6 inches of growth I 
dig out a hole in the border 18 inches deep and 1 foot wide, filling it 
entirely with prepared compost, such as refuse potting soil and leaf 
mould.—S. 
-- Woolton Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Society.— 
At the autumn conference of the Lancashire and Cheshire Association 
for the Extension of University Teaching held in the Temperance Insti¬ 
tute, Southport, Prof. G. H. Rendall, Principal of University College, 
Liverpool, delivered an important address on “ University Extension,” 
and, in speaking of the necessity of continuity of teaching, referred to 
the Woolton Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Society in the following 
terms :—There (Woolton) the original demand was of an entirely 
spontaneous nature, and one that arose from a desire of the gardeners 
for more insight and intellectual knowledge of the subject of their 
actual life. The demand was, as he had said, spontaneous and in touch 
with life, and if a subject were in actual touch with life and experience 
it had a more permanent hold upon them than one which they might 
take up out of mere curiosity. This demand had developed into a 
course of extension lectures, thanks more especially to the two H. G.’s— 
Mr. Holbrook Gaskell and Mr. Harvey Gibson, who he was glad to see 
precent ; and then into a permanent Mutual Improvement Society, 
which had been in existence for some years. They had now their 
microscopic study, their fortnightly meetings, their report upon practical 
horticulture, which stimulated and raised the whole tone of garden¬ 
ing, and of the gardeners’ interest in horticulture and botany. The 
University extension course, and that Mutual Improvement Society 
which had developed from it, had now become a personal and resident 
interest. The Society had been a courageous one, and had now, he was 
glad to see, disapproved of and declined to take a travelling library, 
preferring a permanent library of its own instead. An interesting 
discussion followed. On Thursday evening last the first of the winter 
meetings was held in the Parochial Hall, and took the form of a floral 
concert, the proceeds being in aid of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institu¬ 
tion and the Gardeners’ Orphan Fund. There was an excellent attend¬ 
ance, and a fair sum was realised. The Hon. Secretaries (Messrs. 
Disley and Waterman), and all those who so readily helped in many 
ways, are deserving of the highest possible praise. 
