72 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 24 , 1895. 
- Last Year’s Kainfall in Kildare —Mr. Bedford writes 
from Straffan Gardens that December gave 2 09 inches of rain, bringing 
up the total for the year of 33'56 inches, as against 23‘10 for 1893.—E. K. 
- Vegetables and Fruit in Covent Garden. — New 
Potatoes have been selling during the past few days at Is. per lb. 
Home-grown Asparagus realised Is. 3ci. per small bundle, and foreign 
supplies fetched 9d. per bundle. Cape Apricots, Canadian Apples and 
Pears, and Florida Oranges have been abundant and found a ready sale. 
-Lee, Blackheath, and Lewisham Horticultural 
Society. —The annual meeting of this Society was held at the Lee 
Institute on the 14th inst., Mr. M. N. Buttanshaw in the chair. There 
was a good attendance of members and the report was adopted. The 
balance sheet shows a deficiency of just over £2, but such does not exist, 
as £50 is invested as a reserve fund. 
- Forced Lilies of the Valley.— Mr. W. Iceton has sent us 
from Koehampton a pot of Lilies of the Valley which he forces so 
extensively. It is a 6-inch pot containing twenty-one plants bearing 
good foliage and fine spikes. Most of these contain fifteen large flowers, 
and are 14 inches high from the surface of the soil. Forcers of these 
delightful flowers may compare their own with this market sample. 
-Flowers and the Gardeners’ Charities. —On the 16th 
inst. Messrs. James Crispin & Song provided an exhibition of Orchids 
and other plants in their show room at Bristol. A charge for admission 
was made on two evenings. The amount realised was £11 13s., to be 
divided between the Royal Gardeners’ Orphan Fund and the Gardeners’ 
Royal Benevolent Institution. This is a form in which the inhabitants 
in populous towns may be afforded a treat, and great good be done at 
the same time. 
-Liverpool Horticultural Association. — On Saturday 
evening last the third paper of the season, entitled “ Horticulture in 
France,” was given by Mr. Frank Ker, of the Aigburth Nursery. Mr. Ker 
related in an interesting manner his impressions and experiences of 
gardening as carried out in the neighbourhood of Versailles, at which 
place he served a portion of his apprenticeship. He spoke of what 
appeared to him a scarcity of private gardens, and described nursery 
routine. Mention was also made of the great Riviera trade. The 
great taste displayed by the Parisian florists in decorating their shops, 
and the bold and graceful way in which the plants at flower shows are 
arranged, he considered a long way ahead of our own. He said very 
little fruit is grown under glass. Grapes, Apricots, Peaches, Nectarines, 
Pears, and others ripening well outside. Altogether he thought that we 
were quite able to hold our own in the matter of plant-growing. A 
vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Ker for his admirable paper. 
- Wakefield Paxton Society. —Considering the inclement 
state of the weather at the last meeting there was a good attendance of 
the members of the Paxton Society. Mr. B. Whiteley presided. The 
essayist was Mr. W. H. Vere, gardener to Mr. W. H. Stewart, J.P., of 
Milnthorp House. Mr. Vere, who has thrice previously delivered essays 
before his fellow Paxtonians, took as his subject on the present occasion 
“ The Fernery.” After remarking that no garden, large or small, was 
complete without a house devoted to Ferns, Mr. Vere proceeded to 
describe their usefulness, their beauty, and the pleasure to be derived 
from their cultivation, which is very easy. In the first place he said 
that the best kind of a house for the growth of Ferns is a lean-to erec¬ 
tion with a north aspect. Ferns could not grow freely under strong 
sunshine, but they require a good amount of light to bring them to their 
proper colour. In ventilating there should be no direct draught on the 
Ferns; air boxes should be fixed in the front wall of the house. The 
stage ought to have a flag or stone bottom covered with about 3 inches of 
ashes; the Ferns should have a moist atmosphere, and the heating 
must be carefully attended to. Cleanliness was another chief point 
to success in a fernery. In the middle of February or the first week in 
March all dead fronds should be cut away, and the plants repotted in a 
compost of loam, peat, leaf mould, silver sand, and charcoal. The pots 
should be perfectly clean, properly crocked so as to insure good drainage, 
and a little dried moss might with advantage be placed over the crocks. 
If the pots were new they ought to be soaked in water and dried before 
being used, and no cracked pots should be used. Overpotting was a 
mistake with Ferns ; they succeed best when the pot is full of roots. 
Firm potting was necessary, and space should be left at the top of the 
pot for water. The only plants he would recommend to grow in a 
fernery were a few cool Orchids. An interesting discussion ensued, and 
a very hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Vere for his excellent 
paper; 
- Rainfall in Shropshire. —Mr. C. A. Pearse, Oteley Park, 
Ellesmere, informs ns that the total rainfall there in 1894 was 
29 76J inches. August was the wettest month with 3*81 inchesr 
September the dryest with 0’70 inch. Rain fell on 219 days daring 
the year. We are unable to publish tabulated records. 
- Growth of Black Walnut Trees. —Mr. Robert Douglas 
writes that Black Walnut trees, when planted thinly in a plantation 
of Catalpa speciosa, made as rapid upright growth as the Catalpas until 
they reached a height of 30 feet, while in a small block planted of Black 
Walnut exclusively the trees at the same age were not 20 feet high. 
-“ The Garden Oracle.”—T he publishers of this useful 
annual publication have favoured us with a copy for 1896. It is as 
well printed and bound as usual, and contains, besides calendrical 
matter, a number of excellent illustrations and practical articles 
on Fruit Culture, Insects, and other subjects. It may be obtained from 
Messrs. W* H. & L. Collingridge, 148, Aldersgate Street, London. 
- Verbenas. —" H. T. M.” desires to know the names of the 
largest growers and exhibitors of Verbenas, going on to say that named 
collections of these plants are not seen in gardens now, as used to be 
the case in past years. The reason of this is that Verbenas as florists*^ 
flowers have gone out of fashion, and Begonias have come in. Most of 
the Verbenas now grown in gardens are, like Petunias, raised from 
seeds annually, but a few bedding varieties are grown under names. 
- Shirley Gardeners’ Improvement Association. —The 
monthly meeting was held at the Parish Room, Shirley, Southampton, 
on the 21st inst., Mr. B. Ladhams, F.R.H.S., presiding over a good 
attendance of members. The lecture was under the auspices of the 
Hants County Council, the subject, “ Hardy Fruit Culture, with Special 
Reference to Diseases,” being especially well dealt with by their 
lecturer, Mr. C. W. Herbert Greaves, F.R.H.S. A discussion followed, 
especially with reference to the lecturer’s remark that canker ia 
caused by the fungus, Nectria ditissima. A vote of thanks was 
accorded the lecturer on the proposition of Mr. E. Molyneux. Some 
excellent Orchids were exhibited by Mr. W. Peel, gardener to Miss Todd, 
Shirley. 
- The English Climate. — “What compensations,” says a 
writer in “ The Country Month by Month,” “ we find everywhere ! When 
in the tropics, surrounded by such luxuriance of vegetable life, and 
such a wealth of colouring that when, for instance, my eyes first rested 
on the Orange groves of Tahiti, and the Palm-clothed heights, their 
beautiful greens contrasted with the bright red tones of the soil, I felt 
my imagination had failed to ever picture such a scene as this ; but I 
missed and longed for the song of the blackbird and thrush, and the 
bracing air of our moorlands and hills, I have lived for five years in 
New Zealand, and nearly four in the Hawaiian Islands; have visited 
the beautiful State of California at four different periods, spent some 
little time in Colorado, been through the West Indies, across Panama, 
and have touched at some points on the Mexican coast. Yet, in spite 
of our cold, foggy climate, I say, give me England, with its woods, 
which, if less luxuriant than the forests of the tropics, are far more 
enjoyable. Even those days which we call ‘ grey ’ are more favourable 
to thought and mental effort than is that glaring, unbroken sunshine on 
which other nations pride themselves so much.” 
- Kingston Gardeners’ Association. — The first ordinary 
meeting of the second half of the winter session was held at the 
Albany Hall on Wednesday evening. Mr. Plumb of the Normansfield 
Gardens presided. Mr. A. Dean gave the opening address on “Plant 
' Life,” taking the seed in its dormant form, showing how committal 
to warmth and moisture softened the epidermis and caused the lobes or 
cotyledons to swell and open, thus liberating the germ or dormant plant. 
Then ensued root and stem growth, the root becoming at once the 
anchor to the plant, also its mouth or feeder. The uses of the seed 
lobes or cotyledons in furnishing food for the infant plant were shown, 
until it could find its own means of subsistence. The gradual evolution 
of stem, branches, leaves, and flowers in the form of cellular tissue 
was also pointed out, and specially the purposes leaves serve as 
breathing organs to the plant. Flowers, their forms and uses, also 
their fecundatory organs, were described, also the various methods 
of securing fertilisation through the agency of the proto-plasmic grains 
found in the anthers, called pollen. Some references to the influence 
of light, both natural and artificial, on plant growth were also made. 
A most interesting discussion followed, taken part in by the Chairman 
and Messrs. Cushon, Martin, Pitcher, and others, and at the close a very 
hearty vote of thanks was accorded to the lecturer. 
