50 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENEH 
[ Jannary 19* 1888. 
Charles, are scarcely three acres together, and even these are closal at 
present, bnt it is hoped they may shortly be opened to the public. Both 
contain a few trees ; the most notable one in Charles Square is an old 
Lime with a forked trunk. About this square are saattered relics of 
ornamental stonework, which look like part of an ancient arch. Hoxton 
Square has two rather fine specimens of the 'Weeping Ash. This, unlike 
most squares about London, is higher than the roadway, so l)etter 
drained, but like its neighbour needs replanting. A little further 
north is the churchyard of St. John’s, Hoxton, surrounded by ITanes 
and Elms, and oj)ene<l a few years ago as an experiment, but owing to 
the injury done by some uncultured juveniles not much has been done 
yet towards a floral disjday. This is an acre in extent, literally, a 
“ God’s Acre.”—J. K. S. C. 
THE PROPAGATIOX OF SMALL FRUITS. 
Thebe are few operations connected with gardening which delight 
amateurs more than the art of propagating. Apples and Bears afford a 
grand field in this respect, but they are too difficult to graft or bud to 
be successfully aceomplished by all amateurs, and the next best fruit 
trees to them are Gooseberries, Currants, and small fruit bushes gene¬ 
rally. The present is the best of all times for attending to the matter, 
and in dealing with the most popular kinds I will begin with 
Goosebeeeies. —I need say nothing on the e.xcellency of this well- 
known fruit. It is a general favourite. It should be grown in every 
garden without exception, and it is in the most of them, but in many 
cases the old worn-out bushes might advantageously be supplanted by 
new young and vigorous bushes. Old bushes may bear profusely, but 
the fruit is invariably small and defieient in flavour. If the very best 
flavour is desired and fruit of the finest size required, strong healthy 
trees only will produce such. I would never approve of propagating or 
perpetuating an inferior variety. The best do not require any more 
space or culture, and those who grow only inferior varieties stand greatly 
in their own light. In selecting cuttings the young growths produced 
during the last summer are the best. They must be straight, or nearly 
so, and strong. Examine the bushes before pruning is commenced, and 
cut out the shoots which it is noticed will make the best cuttings. If 
the cuttings cannot be made and inserted properly at once do not keep 
them out of the ground, but tie them in a bundle and insert them 
several inches in the ground cut ends downwards. There is then no 
danger of their shrivelling. Allow all the spines to remain on, but take 
everjr bud out from the bottom half way up the stem or more. If the 
cutting is a foot in length, which is a good size, the buds may be taken 
out to a distance of 9 inches up the stem. This will allow 3 inches of 
stem to be put in the ground to root, 6 inches as a stem to the bush, and 
3 inches to branch out to form the head. If possible no cutting should 
be less than L foot in length, and they may be 15 inches or 18 inches, 
the extra length being added to the stem. 
A rather light sandy soil is the best to root them in. The ground 
should be dug and made very smooth on the surface, a line then being 
plac d across it and the cuttings dibbled in along this. A distance of 
6 inches or 8 inches between the cuttings and 15 inches between the 
rows will be found suitable, the soil being trodden firmly on each side 
of the rows after the cuttings have been inserted. Throughout the 
summer the Dutch hoe should be run between them occasionally to keep 
the weeds down. Apart from this they require no farther attention. 
Probably every one will not root, but if treated as here suggested I 
could guarantee nine to root out of every dozen. If they do well the 
first year every alternate one may have to be lifted from the cutting 
rows during the succeeding winter, and some will fruit in the second 
and all in the third year. 
Bed and White Cdebants. —If anything. Currants are more easily 
rooted than Gooseberries. They are certainly more comfortable to 
handle, and all the cuttings should be selected with the greatest care. 
In length they should be much the same as the Gooseberries, and the 
buds must be removed as in their case, as unless they are taken out on 
the part that goes underground and forms the stem they will shoot 
and form green twigs when growth begins, and this is not desirable. 
As a rule, we continue with our Currant cuttings after the Gooseberries, 
and the same soil and after treatment suits them all. 
Black Cueeants. —These are also treated like the above, but they 
are hardly so free in rooting, and where old bushes exist that have 
become a close mass of shoots from the ground they may be dug up, 
the young shoots with roots attached selected as new plants, and if 
placed in good soil they will bear some fruit the first year and a great 
deal the second. This is a quick way of raising a stock of Black Cur¬ 
rants, but it is a mistake to insert old divisions to become new plants, 
and where young growths cannot be secured with roots the cutting 
plan ought to be practised. 
Raspbeeeies. —Though not so generally grown as the Gooseberries, 
they should be seen in every garden. They have an advantage 
over all other small fruits in growing well and fruiting freely in cool 
shady spots, where other fruits would not be profitable, and*this is a 
point in their favour which should not be overlooked, I have seen many 
capital crops secured from them when growing against shady boundary 
walls in small gardens, and they also do wonderfully well under the 
partial shade of tall-growing Apple, Pear, and other fruit trees. When 
Raspberries are planted at first they are only small as a rule, with one 
or two stems, but after a year or two these throw out side suckers which 
grow up to young plants at a distance of C inches or more from the 
main root, and it is these which should be dug up and replanted to form 
young or new plantations. In this way there is no time lost in raising 
a new stock of Raspberries, because the young ones taken oS and re¬ 
planted now or at this season will bear a considerable quantity of fruit 
the first summer. This is the only way of propagating Raspberries I 
have practised, and I can assert it is easy and effective.—y. MuiEj 
Margavi Parh, Port Talbot. 
SHOWING—O'S^NERS’ CLAIMS. 
Many letters having lately appeared in your paper anent Chrysan¬ 
themum shows and prizewinning thereat, written from the gardeners’ 
standpoint, I venture to pen a few lines in the interest of a class now 
almost consigned to oblivion—to wit, the gardeners’ employers. I notice 
that a general feeling of regret, in which I heartily join, was expressed, 
that, on account of his employer’s decease, the gardener who staged the 
winning stands for the 1886 challenge cup at Hull was ineligible for the 
competition last year. I also notice that some of your correspondents, 
from whose views I emphatically dissent, stated that this gardener had 
a perfect right to exhibit in the class last year. It must be borne in 
mind that not the gardener but his employer is the owner, and therefore 
exhibitor, and that on the employer dying his ownership necessarily 
ceases, which would effectually prevent his late possessions being 
exhibited as still belonging to him, and most certainly they are not the 
property of the gardener. 
It is, I think, a pity that under the lead of, I believe, the National 
Chrysanthemum Society, the employers’ names should be now so 
generally eliminated from the prize list. In olden times the prize card 
used to run “ Exhibited by A. Blank, Esq.; gar .’ener, William Hobbs ; 
now, on the contrary, one reads, “ Exhibited by Mr. Williams Hobbs, 
gardener to A. Blank, Esq.” When the prize list appears in print Mi. 
Blank’s name has vanished utterly, and Mr. William Hobbs stands forth 
in solitary grandeur thus, “first prize W. Hobbs” (I refer to the 
official prize list of the National Chrysanthemum Society November 
Show, as it appeared in the form of an advertisement). This change, 
is spreading, two Chrj'santhemum Societies that I knovy of having 
altered the wording of their prize cards this year. The entry forms 
as a rule contain a stipulation that the exhibits must have been in 
the possession of the exhibitor for a certain time ; this is complacently 
signed by the gardener, heedless of the fact that he possesses not even a 
particle of the soil in which the intended exhibits are grown ; but having 
posed as the possessor of the exhibits, he also appears as the exhibitor, 
and eventually annexes the prize money, carefully avoiding, as appre¬ 
ciatively alluded to by one of your correspondents, any competition) 
where the prize happens to be a cup, for fear his employer may so far 
forget himself as to put in a claim to it. Now I venture to state that 
in no other species of competition is the owner such a nonenity as in a 
Chrysanthemum Show. If my thoroughbred wins the Derby neither 
my trainer nor jockey is alluded to as the owner ; if my yacht wins a 
Queen’s cup my captain is not singled out as the possessor of the fastest 
yacht afloat; if my hunters win prizes at a horse show, my Herefords at 
a cattle show, my retrievers at a dog show, my game cocks at a Poultry 
show, my name appears in the prize list as th-ir owner; but should my 
Chrysanthemums win a prize at a flower show, the prize list contains 
my gardener’s name and not my own ? This glorification of the gar¬ 
dener, who has done no more to deserve sueh honour than any of the 
othe)' “ heads of departments ” whose charges’ have competed with 
success, it is hard to justify. To neither the employers, whose millions- 
bring the highest honours within the reach of the head of his regiment 
of gardeners, nor to the exhibitor whose personal care and handiwork 
enable his one man to achieve success, can this state of things be 
gratifying ; it may be so to the gardener himself, but I should doubt if 
in the long run he does not find it bad fiolicy.— Weaith. 
CHALLENGE TROPHIES. 
My thanks arc due to “A Liverpudlian” for trying to correct my 
memory in reference to a trophy being offered at Liverpool on the same 
conditions as those at the other places. I was apprised of the error into 
whieh 1 had fallen by my friend Mr. Mease on Monday the 9th inst. 
At the time of writing I was under the impression that the first cup 
given by Messrs. J. Williams & Co., Mount Pleasant, was competed for 
on those conditions. 1 f I am not mi.staken it was first offered to the 
Committee on those terms with other conditions that need not be entered 
into here, and was finally given without restrictions. It was the discus¬ 
sion that took place over the matter that led me astrav. I 
should have corrected the matter when reverting to the subject of 
“ challenge vases,” which 1 intend doing. While I am anxious to bc) 
correct, the slight mistake matle does not alter in the least my argu¬ 
ments against the unpopularity of these large restricted vases. I observe 
with satisfaction “ Beverley’s” note, and hope exhibitors and others will 
pass their opinion on the subject. I wrote purposely to draw out the 
opinion of others, and the Secretary of the Hull Society has done the 
