72 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f January 26, 188S. 
previously open to all coiners they have reserved one class for gentle¬ 
men’s gardeners and amateurs only, and the Judges will have instructions 
on the day of the Show to strictly adhere to this rule and attend to 
other minor details.” 
- We are requested to announce that Mr. C. P. Kinnell (hitherto 
sole partner in the firm of Chas. P. Kinnell & Co.) has admitted into 
partnership his brother, Mr. John Kinnell. The style and title of the 
firm will remain as heretofore. Mr. John Kinnell has been actively 
associated with the business for the last ten years, and will continue to 
devote his entire services to the new firm. The offices are G5 a, South¬ 
wark Street, London, S.E. 
- BiRMiNGHAsr Gardeners’ Association.—A t the fortnightly 
meeting of the Association, January 17th, several new members were 
elected, and Mr. John Pope, nurseryman, Birmingham, read a paper on 
“ Florists and Florists’ Flowers,” the Auricula, Pansy, Tulip, Pink, 
Eanunculus, Carnation, and Picotee coming under review, and their 
properties pointed out. It was a very interesting paper and led to an 
animated discussion. On the 31st inst. Mr. W. Wildsmith of Hcckfield 
will read a paper on “ PMower Gardening.” 
- A FOURTH edition of Mr. Lewis Castle’s Orchids : their 
Structure, History, and Culture,” is being prepared, and the 
work is also being translated into French and German on the Continent. 
- Setting Grapes. —Mr. Stephen Castle writes—“In reply to 
Mr. Taylor I only wish to say that I very willingly accept his fuller 
explanations. I did not object so much to the starvation theory itself 
as to the evidence by which it was supposed to be supported. My 
Vines flower for the most part in May and not in April. ‘Proprietor’ 
rightly says that I followed in all respects Mr. Taylor’s own recommen¬ 
dations for applying lime, as given in ‘ Vines at Longleat.’ Mr. Taylor 
replies so too. In the case quoted from ‘ Vines at Longleat,’ an unusually 
heavy dressing of lime was given while the roots were active, but heavy 
feeding followed. So also at West Lynn.” 
- A MEETING of the Cornmittee of the Gardeners’ Orphan 
Fund was held on Friday night last at the Caledonian Hotel, Adelphi 
London. Present—Mr. G. Deal (in the chair), and Messrs. Barron 
Wynne, Woodbridge, Goldring, Williams, Bates, Herbst, Nicholson^ 
Wright, Eichards, Eoupell, Dean, Laing, Cannell, and Head. Gratify¬ 
ing progress was shown, as since the last meeting contributions were 
received from nearly 200 persons, through local secretaries, including 
£25 from Lord Eavelstoke, £10 each from the Baroness Burdett 
Coutts and Colonel Page, £5 each from the Leeds Paxton Society and 
the Bradford Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Society, with other 
sums that will be announced in our advertising columns. The total 
sum promised amounts to £1400, of which £1034 15s. have been 
received. A vote of thanks was recorded to the local secretaries for 
their effective co-operation. It was decided to hold the committee 
meetings on the last Friday in every month, at which any of the local 
secretaries who could make it convenient to attend would be cordially 
welcomed. Forms of applications for candidates, contract, and nomina¬ 
tion, as prepared by the sub-committee, were passed, and in due time 
may be had from the general or local secretaries, applications for the 
benefits of the Fund to reach Mr. Barron not later than April 23rd ; the 
annual general meeting and election to be held on Friday, July 13th, at 
the Cannon Street Hotel. A most hopeful tone pervaded the meeting^ 
and with the continued efforts of widely scattered friends in support of 
the Fund, it cannot fail to become a great and important institution 
fraught with much benefit to the children of misfortune for whose 
succour it is established. Through a clerical error a correspondent re¬ 
ferred to the Fund, in an article in the Journal last week, as the Gar¬ 
deners’ “ Orphanage,” which implies the erection of a building, and we 
are desired to state that there is no intention whatever to apply the 
money subscribed to any such purpose. 
- A London evening paper has the following note on Collect¬ 
ing Daffodils :—“ Lovers of Daffodils will bo pleased to know that, 
encouraged by the success of his visit to Bortugal last spring, Mr. Barr 
proposes to start early in February for a real Daffodil hunt through 
Northern Spain. He will ransack the mountains from San Sebastian to 
Vigo, and doubtless settle some vexed questions in regard to the Narcissi 
of the Peninsula. He may have some adventures too. Last year he 
was kept in view for some time by the Spanish police, and was within 
an ace of being arrested in mistake for the Eepublican chieftain, Don 
Euiz Zorilla, there being probably in all the world no two individuals 
more utterly different in tastes, manners, and appearance than the great 
revolutionary bourgeois and the distinguished British bulb-collector.” 
DESTROYING INSECTS. 
Messrs. Corry, Soper, Fowler k Co. have sent us samples of 
their new Lethorion or vapour cone that they are now advertising as a 
certain method of destroying insects without injuring the most delicate 
plants. The contrivance is quite new. A small bottle is enclosed in the 
cone, and when the top of this is lighted the fire gradually spreads 
downwards, till the heat is sufficient for diffusing the contents of the 
Fig. 13. 
bottle in the form of vapour. We lighted a cone in a basement of our 
■office, but the action of the fire was so slow that we felt a little disap¬ 
pointment and “ left it to go out.” Half an hour afterwards about 
fifty men were coughing and sneezing, for the vapour found its way 
everywhere, and there was a general expression of opinion that if there 
were any insects on the premises before none could be left alive after 
this experimental fumigating. The Lethorion appears worth trying for 
the purpose f@r which it has been devised. 
CERTIFICATING OLD FRUITS. 
I WISH you would dissuade members of the Fruit Committee of 
the E.H.S. from bringing forward for certificates stale subjects long in the 
hands of the public. I’he one good of certificates is to guide the public 
as to the merits (and then only as to appearance and tiavour) of sorts 
not yet distributed. When distributed the public can judge much 
better for themselves. On January 10th a first-class certificate was given 
for Royal Medlar. This was described in the catalogue of the late Mr. 
Thomas Rivers for 1850 as “ a new sort from France.” The same 
description remained in his catalogues till his death in 1877, and was 
continued afterwards. On August 0th, 1887, a first-class certificate was 
given for Pear Mdlle. Solange, which had been a considerable time in 
the hands of the public. The wonder is that a certificate was not also 
given to the universally grown Gooseberry, Red Champagne, exhibited 
by the same firm on the same day. Neither Meillar nor Pear was either 
raised or distributed by the firms which brought them before the 
meeting. 
The Committee of the 1883 Apple Congress, for some inscrutable 
reason, out of all the Apples exhibited selected Grenadier and Bramley’s 
Seedling for certificates. These had both been for a considerable time 
in commerce ,*in fact, of Grenadier I had at that time forty-three trees 
not less than ten years old planted out in an orchard. Royal Medlar, 
Mdlle. Solange, and Bramley’s Seedling I had, at the time they were 
certificated, grown for several years. Such being the case I think 1 
should be wron/ not to draw attention to the subject. If the certificate 
is accorded to the fruit onl}', and not given to the exhibitor, it would 
show backwardness on the part of the Royal Horticultural Society in 
finding out the merit of a first-class truit which has been not less than 
thirty-one years in the country.— Philo.melos. 
Trop-eolums. —AVhen these are used as climbers they should be 
renewed annually by j'oung plants. If old ones are retained they often 
become dirty, and are rendered unsightly nearly all the season by the old 
foliage turning yellow. Clean healthy plants may be retained for a time 
until young ones are ready to take their place. In a temperature of 45° 
to 50° they will not be long before they flower profusely, and where the 
flowers are appreciated they will be useful for cutting. If young plants 
were not raised in autumn and wintered in small pots, select healthy 
cuttings and inseit them in sandy soil in small pots and root them in a 
temperature of 60°. As soon as they are rooted subject them to cooler 
treatment, or they will grow weakly.—B. 
