340 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 29,1894 
- Lily of the Valley. —The remarks made by “ C.” (page 221) 
call to my mind having once seen, some ten years ago, large breadths of 
Lily of the Valley growing and blooming most luxuriantly in the 
King’s Woods near Leeds Castle, Hollingbourne, Kent. These plants 
form, indeed, a most pleasing and refreshing sight, the air round about 
being laden with their delicate perfume.—H. T. M. 
- A Clever Spider. —Professor Lloyd Morgan, of University 
College, Bristol, recently sent to “Nature” this interesting anecdote: 
“ Sitting by a little clear pool in the granite of Glen Sannox, in the 
island of Arran, last summer, I noticed a spider whose web was spun in 
the Heather which partly overhung the stream. On disturbing her, she 
dropped on to the granite a few inches above the water, and, running 
rapidly down, entered the pool and hid under a tuft of weed. After 
remaining thus hidden for two and a half minutes, she returned to the 
surface and, reeling herself up by her thread, regained the web. 
Disturbed again, she repeated the action, remaining under water one 
and three-quarter minute. A puff of tobacco smoke sent her down a 
third time, when she remained hidden for two and a quarter minutes. 
In each case she hid in the same place, and in each case regained the 
nest by her thread.” 
- Great Autumn Fruit Exhibition. —We are authoritatively 
informed that the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society have had 
it in contemplation (with the sanction and co-operation of the Directors 
of the Crystal Palace) to take up and revive the great Autumn Fruit 
Show, which the Directors of the Palace used to hold, but which for the 
two last years they have discontinued. The Council of the Society have 
agreed with the Directors on the basis of the Society holding the Show, 
the Directors placing the Palace at their disposal and contributing 
£100 towards the prizes. The total cost of the Show will be £300. The 
Council will contribute £100, and are prepared to go forward with the 
matter if the nurserymen on the one side, and amateurs on the other, 
interested in fruit culture are willing to provide the remaining £100. 
If by the time the Council next meet this £100 shall have been promised 
the Show will be held, but if not it will be abandoned. Messrs. 
Bnnyard & Co., Cheal & Sons, J. Fraser, Hurst & Son, Laing & Sons, 
6. Paul & Son, G. W. Prall, Pearson & Sons, Spooner & Sons, C. Turner, j 
and J. Watkins have offered donations. Other offers towards this fund 
should be sent at once to the Secretary R.H.S., 117, Victoria Street, S.W. 
- A Plea for the Primroses. —“ A Lover of Nature ” writes 
to the “ Times : ”—“ May I crave space at this season for a few lines 
on behalf of the Primroses ? These beautiful flowers are rapidly dis¬ 
appearing from our landscape. Throughout the season they are the 
prey of the professional root-grubber, and twice they are specially 
attacked—last week for church decoration, and next month as political 
emblems. Even in country districts forty miles from London they are 
fast disappearing. A few days ago, in an unfrequented part of Sussex, 
I was told that the diggers are constantly at w®rk, prominent amongst 
them being the emissaries of a religious organisation. May I appeal 
through your columns to those who could do so much to check this sad 
destruction of our choicest wild flowers 1 The politician does less harm, 
for in another month Primroses for buttonholes can easily be obtained 
without much injury to the roots; but now, when the flowers are scanty 
and the stems short, the plants are dragged up wholesale and left to die 
a lingering death in tins around the walls of gas-polluted churches.” 
- Daffodils. —Respecting Mr. Arnott’s note on the behaviour 
of Daffodils after the dry season, my experience, limited to about twenty 
varieties, is not a happy one, and I look along my narrow border with 
many sad reflections and much disappointment. The contrast with the 
magnificent foliage and flowers of last season is to some extent painful. 
Many bulbs have produced thin weak foliage, and are flowerless. 
Notably is this the case with the varieties Maximus, Sir Watkin, 
Princeps, Ard Righ, and some of the incomparabilis section, of which 
Sir Watkin, the most looked for, is the most wretched. Countess of 
Annesley is fairly good, now March 22nd at its best. Emperor, Empress, 
Horsefieldi, and Grandis promise to be fairly good, but will apparently 
be inferior in the quality and quantity of last year’s flowers. It is rather 
a surprise to me that they are fully as early as last year, as are also 
many spring flowers, accountable probably to the long rest, as the first 
half of March has been very ungenial. I hear from Straffan, Kildare, 
that the fine collection there is good, but early flowers have been 
crippled by frost. I should like to ask if the Narcissus family are 
partial to lime. In many places in Kildare princeps and Telemonius 
plenus are to be seen in quantity, growing au naturel on the lime- 
impregnated soil, but absent on the granite of this neighbourhood.— 
E. K., Dublin. 
-- Rule of Thumb Gardening. —The remarks of your corre¬ 
spondent “A. D.,” page 203, and “ C. P.,” 221, are, I think, as applied 
to the practical gardeners of the present day, without any foundation 
in fact. It is all very well in a lecture to cottagers in the rector’s back 
garden, with Hodge and Giles agape, or on a green baize covered table 
at the distribution of prizes at a cottagers’ show, amidst the smiles and 
applause of those who wish to give their humble neighbours a lift by 
the way, to ignore all that the gardening press and practical gardenera 
have done for the spread of horticultural knowledge, but to hash up 
the same and serve it in the front ranks of British gardening is, to 
state the case mildly, not in good taste. I have known gardeners, past 
threescore and ten, anxious to pick up a new fact, the result of 
practical knowledge, that I think it a very good rule with prolific 
writers not to write nonsense for the reading of those who know the 
truth.—R. M. 
- Wakefield Paxton Society.— At a recent meeting of the 
members of the above Society, Mr. J. W. D. Macpherson, B.A., one of 
the assistant masters at the Wakefield Grammar School, gave a very 
able and most interesting lecture, entitled “A Sketch of the History of 
Practical Botany.” Mr. Macpherson pointed out many of the chief 
epochs in the history of practical botany, commencing with the earliest 
ages, and tracing the various events down to the present day. He said 
the Medes and Persians were the first to reduce botany to a science and 
to cultivate edible things. He spoke of the gardening operations by 
Greeks, Romans, Turks, Italians, Russians, Chinese and others, and 
whilst doing so he remarked that the early Christians strongly objected^ 
for some reason or another, to flowers, but that is not so now, as flowers 
are greatly used in the decoration of places of worship. Since 1762 to 
the present time the English system of gardening had been general 
throughout the whole of the continent. 
- Bougainvillea glabra.—I was pleased to see Mr. Garner’s 
contribution on page 184, advocating this climber as being suitable for 
a greenhouse. Too many persons refrain from cultivating it through a 
mistaken notion that it can only be well grown in a stove and for 
exhibition purposes. I quite agree with your correspondent that for rich 
depth of colour there is no place so suitable for it as a greenhouse roof, 
and no method of growing it better than the spur system as adopted 
for Vines. The compost recommended is also a good one, but I would 
also add some good lime rabble. We have probably one of the oldest 
plants in the country, and which was some three years ago showing 
signs of distress by thin weakly wood and small flowers. This indicated 
that the roots were at fault, consequently they were almost laid bare, 
with the result that the greater portion in the soil were found in a very 
bad condition and almost fibreless, the only ones which were sustaining 
the plant being found clinging to a brick wall forming the outside of 
a cemented water tank, and had taken possession of every particle 
of mortar between the bricks. On finding this out a quantity of mortar 
rubble was mixed with a compost similar to that recommended by Mr. 
Garner, and the old plant is once more in admirable condition. Shading 
should be avoided.—R. P. R. 
- New Process for Making Citric Acid. —Dr. Carl Wehmer, 
a Hanoverian botanist, is said to have recently discovered that sugar 
solutions exposed to the action of certain microscopic fungi, the spores 
of which float in the atmosphere, become transformed into citric acid 
precisely identical with that extracted from the Lemon. The first 
experiments made to prepare citric acid artificially in this way are said 
to have given excellent results, 11 kilograms of sugar producing 
6 kilograms of crystallised citric acid. The new process has already 
been patented in several countries, including Italy ; and at the factory 
at Thann the distinguished chemist, Scheuren-Kestner, is now carrying 
on experiments with a view to applying the process on a large scale. 
Everything tends to show that this new process will assume great 
development, and will make it possible to supply the trade with citric 
acid at a much lower cost than that actually ruling, and will in all 
probability supersede in a few years the present method of producing 
Lemon juice and citrate of lime. Unmerchantable Lemons are turned 
to great account, in Sicily more particularly, by extracting the essence 
from the peel and by converting the juice into concentrated Lemon juice. 
Should this resource now be taken from the Sicilian Lemon grower, he 
will indeed sustain a heavy loss. While Florida and California Lemon 
growers will not be affected by this new discovery, should it ever prove 
all that is claimed for it, because their industry is still in its infancy, 
the question appears of sufficient interest to arrest attention. Some 
interesting correspondence on this subject appears in the current issue 
of the “ Kew Bulletin.” 
