April IJ, 1894 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
279 
Events op the Week —Several exhibitions of spring flowers will 
take place during the ensuing week. A Narcissus Show will be held on 
the 18th and 19th at Edgbaston, Birmingham, under the auspices of the 
Botanical and Horticultural Society, and on the same dates the 
Newcastle-on-Tyne Spring Flower Show will take place. The second 
Spring Exhibition will be held in the Royal Botanic Society’s Gardens, 
Regent’s Park, on Wednesday, the 18th. 
- The Weathek in London. —Bright and warm weather 
continues in the metropolis. On Sunday the shade maximum reading 
in London was as high as 76°, or just 20° in excess of the average for 
the month of April. To find an equally high reading we have, it is true, 
a very short way to go back ; for last April, a month which beat all 
the records, the thermometer in London on one occasion rose to 82°. 
In two other Aprils in the past twenty years the thermometer has risen 
to a higher point than it did on the 8th inst., but in all three instances 
the warmer weather occurred after the middle of the month. Monday, 
Tuesday, and Wednesday were equally fine, and at the time of going to 
press there does not appear to be any probability of a change. 
- The Weathek in the North.—T he last week has been 
dull throughout, with a persistent cold east wind. On Saturday and the 
two following days gentle showers of rain fell; Monday offered a little 
misty sunshine between the showers, and Tuesday morning, with a 
change of wind to south-east was dull but mild, the thermometer 
standing at 50° There is no decided intimation of change. The rain 
has told on pasture, and the hedges and woods show a perceptible tint 
of green.—B. D., S. Fertlishire. 
-The Roval Hoeticultdkal Society’s Fruit Show at 
the Crystal Palace. —We have pleasure in stating that it has 
been decided by the Council of the above Society to provide what is 
certain to be a great Exhibition of fruit at the Crystal Palace in the 
autumn of the present year. As has been previously intimated, a 
spectacular display is not the sole object, but proceedings will be 
instituted of an educational character in connection with the event. 
- The Royal Gardeners’ Orphan Fund.—A t the monthly 
meeting of the Committee which took place at the Horticultural Club, 
Hotel Windsor, on the 30th ult., the following special donations were 
announced:—The Market Harborough and District Chrysanthemum 
Society, per Mr. G. Green, Secretary, £l 153.; a friend, per Messrs. 
J. Laing & Sons, £1 Is.; the young men in the gardens of Harewood 
House, Leeds, per Mr. J. Jeffrey, lOs. ; Mr. A. H. Pearson, The Nurseries, 
Chilwell, Notts, 16i. ; Mr. J. T. Powell, Park Place, Henley-on-Thames, 
box, 14s. ; and the Chiswick Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Society, 
£2. The quarterly payments to children upon the Fund, amounting to 
£198, were ordered to be made. 
- Bulbs in the London Parks and Gardens.—T hese 
popular breathing spaces are now bright with Dutch bulbous flowers, 
such as Hyacinths, Tulips, and Daffodils. In the gardens round the 
Houses of Parliament the Hyacinths are particularly good. In all there 
are twenty-four large beds devoted to them, and amongst the varieties 
represented are Gigantea, Baron Van Tuyll, Gertrude, Mirandolina, Lord 
Derby, Robert Steiger, Chas. Dickens, and Alba superbissima. Many of 
the kinds are noticeable in the Temple Gardens and Hyde Park. The 
Tulips are not yet quite at their best, but the Daffodils are making a 
most charming display.—H. 
- Impney. — Mr. W. Davies, for several years gardener to 
H. Fisher, Esq., at Moxhull Hall, Erdington, has been appointed 
gardener to J. Corbett, Esq., M.P., Impney Hall, Droitwich, where we 
trust he will be as successful as he has been both at Moxhull and at 
Woolton Wood. He succeeds one of the best of British gardeners, 
Mr. Richard Parker, who it is hoped will soon obtain an appoint¬ 
ment commensurate with his admitted abilities. Mr. Parker has been 
nearly ten years at Impney as the worthy successor of Mr. Owen 
Thomas, Her Majesty’s accomplished gardener at Windsor and 
Ficgmore. 
- Recording Sunshine at the Royal Botanic Gardens.— 
In the Botanic Gardens, Regent’s Park, writes Mr. Sowerby, the Secretary, 
to a daily contemporary, among many other forms of scientific apparatus 
in use for meteorological observations, two for recording sunshine are 
the more pleasing, as being worked by Nature herself. One is a tabu¬ 
lated card marked by the action of the sun by aid of a burning glass. 
This records 211 hours of sunshine during sixty-seven days of the first 
three months of the present year 1894, against 168 hours and fifty-two 
days of the first three months of 1893, and 135 hours and forty-nine 
days of 1892. The other recording apparatus, which, although it does 
not write its notes in figures, is much more valuable and pleasing, is the 
opening of flowers, and already the blaze of colour now seen in the 
conservatory in the Gardens, the light of flowers of all climes, is the 
best evidence of the special amount of sunshine now blessing old 
England, and almost makes us fancy that we are living in the sunny 
south of balmy climes. 
- Wakefield Paxton Society. —At the recent meeting of the 
Wakefield Paxton Society Mr. W. Hudson, Sandal, gave a lecture on 
“ The Violet.” The lecturer, in a characteristic, though interesting way, 
brought poetry, mythology, and folk-lore to his aid in illustrating the 
popularity of this charming, odorous, yet simple flower. His practical 
recommendations in regard to its culture were comprehensive and to 
the point, and evoked a long discussion, at the conclusion of which 
Mr. Hudson was heartily thanked for his useful and opportune discourse. 
There was a large attendance, over which Mr. W. Tunnicliffe presided, 
with Mr. J. G. Brown as vice-chairman. 
- The Cuckoo—Early Asparagus.—M r. C. Orchard writes 
from Bembridge, Isle of Wight;—“ We are having exceptionally fine 
spring weather, bright sunshine all day and heavy dews at night ; 
vegetation in consequence advancing rapidly. Swallows were seen on 
the 4th, the cuckoo heard on the 6th, and the nightingale on the 7th 
of the month, a few days earlier than last year. I began cutting 
Asparagus out of doors on Saturday, March 3l8t, a week earlier than 
last year.” Mr. G. R. Allis, Oldwarden, Biggleswade, informs us that 
the cuckoo was first heard there on the Ist inst. A gentleman 
informs us that he cut the first dish of Asparagus from his garden in 
Sussex on the Ist inst. 
- Rule of Thumb Gardening.—I t was in no controversial 
spirit that I entered a protest against the term rule of thumb as 
applied to the gardening profession, but merely a vindication of the 
plain truth, and as a friendly hint from one of the reading public to 
let us have our mental food in a palatable and digestible form. Most 
middle-aged men have seen and followed a revolution in many gardening 
practices, and the horticultural press is a standing protest to the term as 
applied to the vocation. “ A. D.” (page 261) says that it is not enough 
that any practice in horticulture should be successful to justify that 
practice. I say that is quite enough, and that the successful horticulture 
duly recorded in the gardening journals is a complete refutation of 
the term rule of thumb as applied to gardening.—R. M. 
- The Year 2000.—M. Berthelot delivered a remarkable speech 
at the banquet of the Syndical Chamber of Chemical Product Manu¬ 
facturers at Paris last Friday night. M. Berthelot’s subject was “ The 
World in the Year 2000.” After saying that is if a spiritual chemistry 
could be discovered to change human nature as deeply as chemical 
science could modify the globe, he continued, says a “ Daily News ” 
correspondent:—“ This change will be greatly due to chemistry utilising 
the heat of the sun and the central heat of the globe. With such a 
source of heat all chemical transformation will be easy. The production 
of alimentary matters will be a consequence. This production is in 
principle resolved, and has been for forty years, by the syntheses of 
grease and oils. That of hydrates of carbon is going on, and that of 
nitrogenous substances is not far off. When energy can be cheaply 
obtained food can be made from carbon taken from carbonic acid, 
hydrogen taken from water, and nitrogen taken from the air. What 
work the vegetables have so far done science will soon be able to do 
better, and with far greater profusion, and independently of seasons or 
evil microbes or insects. There will then be no passion to own land, 
beasts need not be bred for slaughter, man will be milder and more 
moral, and barren regions may be preferable to fertile as habitable 
places, because they will not be pestiferous from ages of manuring, The 
reign of chemistry will beautify the planet. There will under it be no 
need to disfigure it with the geometrical works of the agriculturist, or 
with the grime of factories and chimneys. It will recover its verdure and 
flora. The earth will be a vast pleasure garden, and the human race will 
live in peace and plenty.” 
