92 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f August 2, 1888- 
they are cut off close to the stem, the wound dried with a piece of 
sponge or some substitute, and then dressed with newly slaked 
lime, or, failing this, Portland cement, the dressing being renewed 
as often as found in a moist state, the wound soon heals. Any leaf¬ 
stalks allowed to become rotten close to the stem must be at once 
cut cleanly away, the wound dried and dressed with the lime. 
Sometimes it happens all the principal growths become suddenly 
diseased, and in a few hours the plants are a mass of decay. This 
usually happens to overgrown plants when there is a sudden change 
from hot to cold and sunless weather. It will also result from 
severe pruning or from a heavy watering. Plants thus affected are 
rarely, if ever, saved, and it must be prevented by an increase of 
fire heat and a drier atmosphere maintained. 
Canker at the collar, or that portion of the stem from which the 
first or seed leaves spring, is undoubtedly the worst enemy to 
Melons, hundreds or perhaps thousands of plants being annually 
ruined by it. As I have previously pointed out, the surest way to 
ward off this disease is to keep the soil near the stems perfectly dry, 
and this, as far as my experience goes, can best be done either by 
planting rather high or by enclosing the stems with the aid of 
earthenware collars and glass to fit, as used by Mr. Pettigrew at 
Cardiff Castle. The plan adopted by Mr. Payne at the Wells 
Palace Gardens is also worthy of a trial. In this case the collars 
are actually buried. Mr. Payne informs me he has never lost any 
plants since he first tried this preventive measure, and others who 
may have tried it will perhaps give their experience. This may 
again be referred to at a more seasonable date, and I will now sug¬ 
gest what should be done with plants already affected by canker. 
During such a season a3 we are now passing through, or at any 
time when there is a sudden change from hot to dull weather, the 
collars and stems of the Melon plants ought to be examined once or 
twice every day, as a few hours’ neglect may mar everything. 
Directly a wound is found with viscid matter oozing from it the 
latter should be cleanly scraped off, the sponge next applied, fol- 
1 )wed by repeated dressings with the quicklime or cement. It is 
quite useless to apply either silver sand or flowers of sulphur, as 
these are not at all caustic, and aggravate rather than remedy the 
disease. Nor is lime that has long been slaked or exposed to the 
atmosphere sufficiently effective. It must be either newly slaked 
or scraped from an unslaked lump. Half measures are quite use¬ 
less, and unless the wound is thoroughly scraped clean and all 
decayed portions of the stem cut away healing will be out of the 
question. One of our heaviest cropped plants suddenly flagged 
badly, and as this was the first symptom of canker seen this year it 
had gone almost too far to cure. I found it necessary to cut clean 
through the centre of the stem, the very pith being decayed. The 
wound was scraped clean, dried, and diessed with quicklime, the 
plant also being shaded overhead. Strange to say, the healing was 
complete, and we had a double stem, which served to perfect the 
crop. Affected plants ought to be lightly shaded from bright sun¬ 
shine, and also receive rather less moisture at the roots till such 
times as the cure has been accomplished. — "VV. Iggulden. 
A WEEK’S WANDERINGS. 
SWANMORE PARK. 
A good deal may be seen in a week when the weather is favourable, 
but as during the short period under notice every other day was rainy, 
we were about half the time dodging the showers or resting. Our first 
halt was at Swanmore Park, in respect to which we once heard the 
lucid remark, “ As Molyneux has nothing else to do but grow Chrysan¬ 
themums, and as somebody else grows them for him, he ou- lit to win 
prizes. If we attempt to analyse that sentence we find ourselves in¬ 
volved in a curiously mixed paradox, for if “ somebody else” finds all the 
knowledge and manipulation that produces the prize blooms, it is not 
Mr. Molyneux who ought to win prizes, but the mysterious man behind 
him ; and if Mr. Molyneux has nothing else to do but what another 
person does, his duties must amount to nothing at all. Mr. W. H. Myers 
is a great lover of his garden, and one of the best of masters to his men ; 
but he does not pay them for doing nothing. Judging by the appear- 
ance of his estate he is well served, and the good all-round work seen in 
his garden could not be done except by a competent and industrious 
man devoted to his charge. Mr. Molyneux was once in a “ single- 
handed place, and when there won one of the finest silver medals 
ever offered for a collection of Grapes at Manchester. So it would 
appear he could do something when he had nobody to help him, and he 
can do something still. Besides having a good grasp of the principles of 
gardening, and not lacking in the useful commodity of common sense, 
he possesses what the late Lord Beaconsfield considered one of the 
greatest elements of success in life—persistency of effort. Mr. Moly¬ 
neux is not the man to count hours, but early in the morning and late 
at night he is on the spot when anything requites to be done, and, as 
one who knows remarked, “ if he thought there was an earwig among 
his flowers in the autumn, he would not go to bed till he caught, it, and 
many a night in the showing season he has had no bed at all.” Proceed 
on right lines, then success is the outcome of attention to small details- 
and persistent work. 
The Swanmore Chrysanthemums are looking well this year, the 
majority of them perhaps better than usual, but there is a very in¬ 
structive minority not looking so well. It is an experimental year 
chiefly with various manures. Fifteen different kinds, or compounds, 
are on trial, a certain number of plants being devoted to each, and as- 
the varieties are grouped together the effects of the fertilisers are very 
apparent now. The trials will be carried out to the end let the results 
be what they may, and if there are good blooms at the right time they 
will probably find their way to some of the shows. Acquiring infor¬ 
mation, however, possibly for a future edition of the Chrysanthemum 
book, appears to be regarded as of more importance this year than con¬ 
centrating resources in the production of blooms for exhibition. Won¬ 
derfully sturdy and vigorous are rows of Edwin Molyneux and Avalanche,, 
the plants about 2 feet high, and stems as thick as a man’s thumb. The- 
tall growers, such as Belle Paule, Lord Wolseley, and others of the same 
habit, are from 6 to 8 feet high, and not frothy ; the Queen family are 
from 5 to 6 feet high, with stems thickening out at the base and foliage 
clothing them to the ground ; the leaves not “ black,” large, and flimsy 
in character, but stout in texture, and of a bronzy-green hue. “Not 
much the matter with them,” the grower thinks. The chalk water and 
dry atmosphere on the breezy hill on which Swanmore stands have in¬ 
duced premature wood-ripening during previous hot summers, and to- 
that is attributed the too narrow florets of several of the blooms ; but 
there was no mistaking their solidity, depth, and high finish. This year 
the growth is ripening more steadily, and if increased size is imparted 
to the blooms, and their other characters are maintained, they will, to- 
employ the showmen’s phrase, “take, some beating.” That is enough- 
on Chrysanthemums, and we will now step inside and see whether 
Mr. Molyneux has anything to do besides growing those plants. 
A gardener has only to be a moment in the vineries to be satisfied 
that the Grapes are as good as the Chrysanthemums, especially in the 
late and Muscat houses, the Black Hamburghs not appearing to have 
recovered so well from the lifting, though they are bearing fruit of good 
quality. The roots in the inside borders were raised last autumn in 
all the houses, and it is astonishing how well the Vines in the two first 
named have done. The crops are splendid, those of Gros Guillaume 
and some Muscats remarkable, while better bunches of Mrs. Pince have 
rarely been seen ; they resemble some fine examples I remember at Long- 
Ieat, and others at Abberley as grown by Mr. A. Young last year. But- 
the most imposing bunches at Swanmore are of Gros Guillaume. The 
Vine is pruned on the close-spur system, yet appears to bear as freely as- 
the Black Hamburgh. The bunches, weighing from 5 lbs. to 7 lbs. each,, 
hang at regular intervals from the bottom to the top of the Vine. How 
many cannot be remembered, but they will probably weigh in the 
aggregate 50 lbs. or 00 lbs. They are of excellent shape, and the berries, 
are as fine as the bunches. The Muscat bunches, in the house devoted 
to that prince of Grapes, are full, heavy, shapely, with berries large and 
uniform. It is noticeable in chose houses that the finest bunches hang- 
from the lower half of the roof, some of the largest being quite at the- 
base. This denotes good culture. “ Big bunches ” are frequently enough- 
seen near the top of Vines, but dwindle down as the base is approached. 
The Swanmore vineries are large and light, with hot-water pipes dis¬ 
tributed at 4 or 5 feet intervals from the front to the path at the back, 
not piled all together next the front wall. The plan is undoubtedly good, 
and the Vines show they are suited. The borders are mulched with 
manure, roots bristling through the soil, and are treated to a supply of 
“ Thomson’s,” which the Vines seem to relish. The laterals are thinly 
disposed, there being no crushing or crowding of the leaves, and they 
are allowed to extend as far as there is room for the development of the 
foliage and no farther—undoubtedly a common sense method of pro¬ 
cedure. There has been no mistake in ventilation, no inrush of cold air 
through the front sashes early in the season, as if that had been per¬ 
mitted no such Grapes would be seen near the base of the roof. Front, 
ventilation is indispensable at the right time, but is seriously abused in 
many houses to the detriment of the Vines and crops. Madresfield 
Court is well grown, the bunches not large, but berries good and well 
finished without cracking—an evil that can be averted by a proper- 
system of ventilation. It is an excess of atmospheric rather than root 
moisture that is the most active agent in the cracking of Grapes. The 
grower of the Vines referred to has quite as much reason to be satisfied 
with them as he has with the Chrysanthemums outside, for he really has- 
something to do with both, giving to them close personal attention. 
We pass on in the same fine range through a gay plant house, in 
which the good old Trachelium coeruleum is seen to advantage, also 
Brugmansias, then enter a stove full of specimen Crotons and other 
plants getting too large for the space, with Stephanotis growing 
luxuriantly overhead, and which flowers abundantly ; also pass in a 
vinery a number of Eucharises flowering for the third time this year ; 
then in another house come to a blaze of Tuberous Begonias, the plants- 
admirably grown, pausing in a Peach house to admire a Pine Apple 
Nectarine tree that can have few superiors. It nearly fills a house- 
30 feet long, the trellis being 13 feet wide, and i is carrying a crop of 
about 500 fruits, regulaily disposed from the base to extremity of the 
branches, and swelling to' a very large size. It is a young tree, and as 
an example of culture is equal to the best Chrysanthemums ever 
grown. Table and room decorative plants are grown extensively and 
well, these being more acceptable for their purpose by the “ surface 
plants,” such as Fittonias, Pileas, Panicums, and others that are suitable 
growing in the pots, these having a much better effect than moss packed 
