56C 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 
[ December 29, 1887. 
frost, snow, or rain come, it will not injure the plants, this slight 
protection to the roots being all that they need. They are ready at 
any moment to do their duty when forcing time comes.— Southern 
All-round Gardener. 
NOTES ON TOMATOES. 
1887 will always be remembered by me as a year when we had extra 
good Tomatoes, and plenty of them. I have grown Tomatoes for 
manyyears. Indeed, as a journeyman I had charge of some which were 
not grown for use or profit, but only as ornament, and by many they 
were looked upon as being as dangerous to eat as Toadstools ; but 
times have changed since then. It is a pleasing plant to grow, as the 
fruit is very beautiful when well and freely produced. I have had 
very extensive collections of Tomatoes ; but I am tired of them, 
and during 1887 I have tried a careful selection. This, I think, 
partly accounts for the abundance of fine fruit w r e possessed during 
the past season and so late as a fortnight ago. The variety which 
has served us remarkably well is Webb’s Sensation. In May last I 
noted-how exceedingly well it succeeded in pots for the early spring 
crop, and it has been excellent ever since. Its leading features are 
a robust compact growth with clusters of fruit at every joint, and 
every one of these are quite smooth and of a fine red colour. Some 
have been gathered as smooth as a cricket ball, and 18 ozs. in weight, 
and large quantities or the majority weighed 8 ozs., and the flavour 
is excellent. 
It is often said that large fruits may be good in the kitchen but 
inferior to use uncooked, and this may be so in some cases ; but I 
cannot understand a Tomato being first-rate cooked and inferior when 
uncooked. Small fruits may be more desirable for salad or dessert, 
and in that case Messrs. Sutton of Reading possess a little long 
clustering yellow one, which is sure to meet with the approval of 
all. Carter’s Greengage is also excellently flavoured, raw or cooked. 
In coming to remark on culture, I think a common mistake is 
made in giving Tomatoes too much soil to root in. It is astonish¬ 
ing how very little soil they will succeed in. The plants above 
referred to have not more than a peck each. This quantity was 
placed on a little mound on a stage in a low pit when the Tomatoes 
were planted at first, and they received no more until September, 
w r hen a surfacing of horse droppings was given them. This small 
quantity of soil prevented their making superfluous growth at any 
time, and this is an advantage, as when they make a great mass of 
wood they are not so much disposed to fruit as when only inclined 
to make one strong stem. They fruit more freely in a small quan¬ 
tity of soil, and it is an easy matter to feed them with liquid 
manure when it is noticed that they require this. Indeed, I would 
undertake to produce better Tomatoes and more of them in a hat- 
box full of soil than in a wheelbarrow-load. Those who allow their 
Tomatoes to ramble about and form an endless number of shoots 
and leaves will never secure a first-rate crop of fruit; hut if they 
are always kept to one stem the crop will invariably be a profit¬ 
able one. 
-^■ s ^ is impossible to have Tomatoes ready too early in spring 
I have no doubt there are many of your readers now anxious to 
cultivate their plants in such a manner as to get them to fruit in 
March and not later than Easter, and to produce a good crop at 
these times we have found cuttings rooted in autumn by far the 
best. . They may be rooted in small 3-inch pots, and they may be 
kept in these until about the new year ; but to secure early 
f-it they should be placed into 6-inch pots as soon as pos¬ 
sible, and after being grown in these for a few weeks they 
should be transferred into 8-inch or 9-inch pots for fruiting. If 
confined to either of these sizes, and placed in a temperature of 65° 
or 70 , and fully in the light under glass, they will begin to fruit 
almost at once, and ripe fr»*t will be gathered from them before 
winter can be said to be over.—A Kitchen Gardener. 
To our Headers. —We desire to acknowledge the receipt of many 
expressions of good will received during the week, with strong wishes 
for the continued prosperity of this Journal. We reciprocate the kind 
sentiments expressed towards us, and shall endeavour to present the 
Journal in a form that will fulfil the wishes of our friends and 
supporters. 
- Royal Horticultural Society.—A special general meeting 
of the Fellows will be held at twelve o’clock noon on Tuesday,. 
January 10th, in the conservatory, South Kensington, S.W., to confirm 
the resolutions passed at the meeting held on December 13th. 
- The following are the dates of the meetings of the Royal. 
Horticultural Society’s Council, and of the Scientific, Fruit,. 
and Floral Committees in 1888. All are to be held on Tuesdays : 
Council meetings—January 10th, February 14th, March 13th, March- 
27th, April 10th, April 24th, May 8th, May 22nd, June 12th, June 2Gth r 
July 10th, July 24th, October 9th, November 13th, December 11th- 
Scientific Committee—January 10th, February 14th, March 13th and 
27th, April 10th and 24th, May 8th and 22nd, June 12th and 2Gth, July 
10th and 24th, November 13th, December 11th. Fruit and Floral 
Committees—January 10th, February 14th, March 13th, March 27th,. 
April 10th, April 24th, May 8th, May 22nd, June 12th, June 2oth, 
July 10th, July 24th, August 14th, August 28th, September 11th, Sep¬ 
tember 25th, October 9th, October 23rd, November 13th, December- 
11 th. 
- A correspondent writes respecting the Weather in the- 
north as follows :—“ We have had in South Perthshire no wind, rain, or 
snow during the past week, but the weather has been as inconstant as- 
during the preceding one, frost and thaw alternating every twenty-four 
hours. On the night of the 21st we had 13° of frost, and 7° on the 
night of the 24th. Roads are very badly covered with ice. Christ-mas- 
Eve and Christmas Day were fine throughout.” In the neighbourhood, 
of London sharp frosts occurred on Sunday night, Monday, and Tues¬ 
day, ranging from 9° to 14°, the weather clear with little wind. At 
Dover and other places on the south coast jthere has been a heavy fall of 
snow, 2 or 3 feet deep ; but on Wednesday morning in London the 
ground w-as only just whitened, the temperature being much higher than, 
on the two preceding days. 
- Chiswick Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Associa¬ 
tion. —On January 25th, 1888, Mr. Lewis Castle, ( Journal of Horticul¬ 
ture) will deliver an address entitled “ A Gossip on Orchids,” and on. 
February 1st Mr. George Gordon ( Gardeners' Magazine) will discourse: 
on “ The Uses of- Flowers in Religious Services.” 
-We omitted to state in a previous issue that Messrs. Alexander 
Shanks & Son, Engineers and Lawn Mower manufacturers, of Dens- 
Iron Works, Arbroath, have changed their London office address from 
27, Leadenhall Street to 110, Cannon Street, E.C. Their warehouse and 
show room will be at 44, Tenter Street East, Goodman’s Fields, E. 
- The December number of the Botanical Magazine completes the 
forty-third volume of the present series, and is dedicated by Sir 
Joseph D. Hooker to Sir John Kirk in recognition of the services he has. 
rendered to science by extending our knowledge of the Natural History 
(especially the Botany) and the Geography of Eastern Tropical Africa,, 
and to mankind by the development of new industries (such as the india- 
rubber trade) in that country.” The plates included in that number 
represent the following :— T. 6968, Anthurium Veitchi, a handsome 
Aroid, now well known in gardens, and apparently the reason it is, 
figured is because the plant flowered at Kew this year. It has been in 
cultivation for eleven or twelve years, and was discovered in Columbia, 
by Mr. Waters when collecting for Messrs. Veitch & Sons. There are 
now many fine specimens in collections of stove plants, but probably the 
largest is that in the possession of Baron Schroder at The Dell, Egham r 
of which an illustration appeared in this Journal, page 357, May 5tb. 
18S*. 
- In t. 6969 is depicted another Aroid, Helicophyllum: 
Alberti, a native of Eastern Bokhara, where it seems to have been 
found by Dr. Albert Regel, who despatched it to St. Petersburg, and 
tubers were sent thence to Kew in 1884. The spathe is large, of a deep, 
maroon purple on the inner surface, and green on the outer. It is- 
hardy in this country, but possesses a fetid odour that is not likely to 
gain the plant many admirers. 
- T. 6970 represents an old but pretty plant, Rubus arcticus,, 
which was first described in 1791, and now possesses no less than a 
dozen names. It is a native of the Himalayas, Burma, Java, China, and 1 
Japan, though it has also been supposed, without sufficient evidence, to- 
be indigenous at the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena. The leaves 
are pinnate, sharply cut at the margin, and silvery on the lower surface 
