426 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 17, 1887. 
and a proposition was made that a subscription should be given to the 
Gardeners’ Orphan Fund recently established, and which it was thought 
would secure the objects in view ; but after a fair discussion it was seen 
that the benefits to be derived from that source would necessarily be 
very limited in extent, not being available for the relief of any but the 
orphans of manag rs or departmental foremen in nursery and seed estab¬ 
lishments. An amendment was therefore proposed and carried unani¬ 
mously that the reserve fund should be charged to the extent of £10 per 
annum for that object when required. The officers and members of the 
Committee were re-elected iwith acclamation, and a hearty vote of 
thanks for the chairman brouglff the proceedings to a close. 
- Fertile Hybrids. —“It is perfectly amazing,” says the “Ameri¬ 
can Gardeners’ Monthly,” “ how much work is needed to drive the great 
error out of the world that hybrids are generally sterile, simply because 
that much-abused beast, the mule, happens to be commonly (though not 
absolutely) sterile. Instances of the reverse are continually before us. 
One of the most useful is the success of Mr. Carman of the Rural New 
Yorker, in getting a productive race of grain between Wheat and Kje. 
He has also been very successful in getting the Blackberry and Rasp¬ 
berry to unite, though Mr. Wm. Saunders of London, Canada, has 
occupied this part of the field before him. Latterly Mr. Carman has 
been successfully crossing different species of Roses, and has seedlings, 
hut we do not yet know that the hybrids are fertile or sterile.” 
- Grapes at Ipswich.— The following cutting from the Suffolk 
Chronicle has been forwarded to us, as referring to an old reader of this 
Journal :—“Mr. John 31ay and his gardener are to be congratulated 
upon their success as Grape growers. For five years in succession at 
Ipswich autumn Show 3Ir. May has beaten the district. In fact, he 
has never been beaten since he exhibited. His fruit is remarkably fine 
and we daresay the quality is no less unexceptional. The competition 
is on no limited scale. The country houses, whose vineries lack no means 
and appliances for perfect cultivation, enter the lists, only to take sub¬ 
ordinate position to 3Ir. 3Iay. We like to encourage generous rivalry 
in such peaceful contests. Other growers had better make up their 
minds to beat 3Ir. 3Iay-—if th^y can.” 
-A Colonial paper thus describes a Huge Grape Vine :— 
“ There is a Grape 3 r ine in Carpenteria, the property of Jacob Wilson, 
that exceeds the famous Montecito 3Gne that was forwarded in 1876 to 
the Centennial. At the butt it measures 5 feet 10 inches, and 5 feet 
from the ground 5 feet 2 inches. Is is of the Mission variety, and is 
reputed to be the largest Grape Vine in the world. It is supported by a 
trellis, covering an area of ground almost 100 feet square. Mr. Wilson 
•informs us that the 3 T ine, two years ago, produced four tons of Grapes.’ 
- Just as we are going to press we learn that at the Hudders¬ 
field Chrysanthemum Show, held on the 11th inst., the £10 prize 
for the best forty-eight cut blooms was won by Mr. A. R. Cox, gardener 
to W. II. Watts, Esq., Liverpool. For twenty-four varieties, twelve in¬ 
curved and twelve Japanese, Mr. J. P. Leadbetter, gardener to A. 
Wilson, Esq., Hull, won the premier priz°, other exhibitors being 
Messrs. Cox, Hargreaves, Daniels, Stokes, W. Smith, J. Bubb, and J. T- 
Sharp. Groups were also well shown by Mr. J. F. Brigg and Mrs. J. W. 
Taylor, who were first and second. The Show seems to have been very 
satisfactory. 
THE SOIL 
[4 paper read before the Puxton Society. Wakefield, October 29th, by Mr. 
D. Giimour jua ] 
When we gaze upon a for. st of trees in all the beauty of their full 
foliage, or pass by a well kept farm at harvest time, where we see the 
golden grain ripe for the sickle, or visit a iange of plant houses where 
are all the most lovely and interesting specimens of floral life collected 
together for man’s pleasure and gratification, it is difficult to imagine 
that at one period of its history the surface of this earth was nothing but 
a solid rock. I believe that some scientific men go so far as to say that 
at a still earlier date the whole of the ehments of this globe—air, land, 
and sea—were in a gaseous state, and simply consisted of vapours. 
However, we do not need to go back so far as that, but will content 
ourselves with making a commencement with the rocks. 
Most of us will have notic d that the surfaces of the stones used in 
our buildings, when these buildings have been erected some years, are 
subject to a kind of decay ; it is a very slow process, slow, but sure. It 
is this process going on in the world for countless ages which has pro¬ 
duced the soils which we cultivate at this present time. There is a 
certain element in the air we bivathe called oxygen, necessary to all 
vegetable and animal life, and it is this element which gives us life, to 
which most of, if not all, the decay and change in the world is due. If 
we examine the face of a cliff or crag which has been exposed for some 
time to the action of the weather, we find it gradually crumbling away. 
It may be very slowly, or it may be rapidly. This crumbling away 
naturally produces a quantity of loose material, in the more minute 
portions of which seeds become fixed and gradually form soil. So it 
was in the first instance. The rains and winds that beat upon the 
smooth face of the rocks gradually wore them away and formed a little 
soil in which the lower forms of vegetable life appeared. This oxygen 
I spoke of forms about one-fifth of the atmosphere ; it forms nearly the 
whole of water also, 9 lbs. of wateT containing 8 lbs. of oxygen. It is 
easy to see, therefore, that water assists change and decomposition very 
much. There is another element which is often present in both air and 
water, which much assists oxygen in its efforts to produce decay and 
decomposition, and this is carbonic acid gas, of which I may have to 
speak again. 
If a portion of soil be examined it will be found to consist of two 
parts, organic and inorganic, the organic parts consisting of remains, 
animal or vegetable—flesh or wood for example—and the inorganic 
being pi ces of stone, earth, or metal. 
The greater portion of all soils, except peat, consists either of sand, 
clay, or lime, and soils generally contain all three. The sand has been 
derived from the decay of sandstone rocks, the lime from limestone or 
marble, and the clay from slate. But a good garden soil contains other 
elements besides these three—the organic part before mentioned, con¬ 
sisting of animal matter, bits of wood, straw, hay, the roots of grasses, 
and the remains and dung of animals. If we go further and get a 
chemist to prepare an analysis of the soil, we find it generally contains all 
the following materials :—Organic matters, silica, alumina, lime, mag¬ 
nesia, oxide of iron, oxide of manganese, potash, soda, ammonia, chlorine, 
sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, carbonic acid. 
To enumerate all the things that man takes out of the soil would be 
to name everything on the face of the earth. The soil is the grand 
storehouse from which all life, animal and vegetable, draws its food. If 
we had a garden, and were to keep on growing vegetables in it, and 
removing the same year after year, there could be eventually only one 
result. No matter how rich the soil; no matter what efforts we made by 
digging and trenching, there would come a time when the garden would 
refuse to grow anything, the croj s would gradually dwindle away and 
diminish in quantity, and finally fail altogether. Why ? Simply because 
our successive crops go on removing certain constituents from ths soil ; 
and there being only a certain quantity of these constituents there to 
begin with, they must come to an end sooner or later. This will he 
news to some beginners, who imagine that with the purchase of the 
plants and shrubs they wish to cultivate, and planting them, their duties 
cease. Now were these persons to purchase a horse or a dog, it would 
hardly be necessary to point out to them the advisability of occasionally 
giving it a meal of some kind. So it is with plants and flowers, and it 
will be found that he who grows the finest flowers, fruits, and vegetables, 
generally has a goodly heap of manure and old turf somewhere on the 
premises. 
Wherever we kirn our ejes we see the improving hand of man, and 
we generally see chemistry going hand in hand with him in his improve¬ 
ments. Not very many years ago it w as the fashion to scoff at chemistry 
when applied to agriculture. Intelligent farmers and gardeners now, 
however, have abandoned this, and gladly welcome the assistance of 
science in the cultivation of the soil. Unfortunately for horticulturists, 
the efforts of agricultural chemists have been naturally almost entirely 
directed to agriculture ; and thus, although we can refer to probably 
more than a dozen analyses of Wheat and other farm crops, we cannot 
obtain one which gives us any information about flowers. In my own 
little experiments in Rose culture I am always brought to a standby 
my ignorance of the chemical constituents that go to make up the plant 
and flower. 
If we wish to get the best results from the soil, we must endeavour 
to arrange that it shall contain all the ingredients necessary to the 
growth of the crop. It is not enough to know that there is the quantity 
of each constituent present, there must be more ; and further, it must 
be in such a state that the roots can readily absorb it; the plant must 
not be kept waiting for food ; the food must be in readiness when re¬ 
quired. When we dress our soil with good stable manure, and plenty of 
it, we supply it with all the ingredients that a general crop requires— 
that is, supposing a soil to be fairly fertile, neither containing any 
injurious substance in such quantities as to be detrimental to vegetable 
life, nor wanting in anything not supplied in the manure, which is a 
necessity to the crcyi. But when we possess the knowledge that a certain 
crop requires an excess of some one constituent, it will greatly assist 
both crop and soil if we add it in addition to the manure. For instance, 
the ash of Potato contains 63 per cent, of potash and soda ; the ash of 
Wheat contains only 31 per cent, of these. But on the other hand the 
ash of Wheat contains 46 per cent, of phosphoric acid, and that of the 
Potato only 18 per cent. Now it is not difficult to see that the same 
amount of potash and phosphoric acid applied to fields where it was 
intended to grow these two crops side by side must result in a loss, for 
if we applied the greater amount of each in both cases the manure 
would be wasted, and if we applied only the smaller quantity the crops 
would suffer. 
A few words now as to how we can improve the soil. If there were 
no decay there would be no growth, for it is decay of matter in the soil 
which supplies food’to the plant. iOur object, then, must be to bring the 
and into such a state that the manures and other matters which we put 
