Jnne 14, 1888. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
495 
secured the first prize of £.5 with a fine Lrelia purpurata against Messrs. 
Heath, who competed with a plant of Cattlcya Slossias, be.aring eighty- 
four blooms. This was a good variety and a m.agnificent specimen. We 
did not hear of Mr. Fowler receiving any award, but his group was 
undoubtedly highly meritorious. 
Being so early in the season the Kose classes were not filled so well 
as was anticipated, but some grand blooms, p.articnlarly of Mardchal 
Niel, were staged, Mr. T. B. Hall of Eockferry gained the £5 prize for 
eighteen blooms, all Teas, in fine condition. Plants sent in for exhi¬ 
bition made an imposing display. Mr. Pettigrew, gardener to the 
Marquis of Bute, Cardiff Castle, exhibited some finely grown Palms. 
Crotons, and other plants, and so did Mr. Eoderick, gardener to Lord 
Tredegar, Tredegar Park, Newport; Mr. Watson, Newport; Mr. Taggart, 
Mr. Derham, and Jlr. Parker, alt of Bristol. Messrs. John Laing and 
Sons, Forest Hill Nurseries, London, had a splendid group of Tuberous 
Begonias in pots and cut blooms of the same. They were unnamed 
seedlings, huge blooms, single and double, of exquisite colour. Messrs. 
Kichard Smith & Co., Worcester, hal a wonderfully fine collection 
of Clematises in pots. These were neatly trained, and bearing many 
grand flowers. The best were Sensation, Countess of Lovelace, Gloire 
de St. Julien, Lord Melville, Mrs. George Jackson, and Excelsior. 
Mr. F. Hooper of Bath exhibited numerous stands of Pansies ; Mr. 
Grindrod, Whitfield, Herefordshire, exhibited six bunches of Grapes, 
three being Black Hamburgh in fine condition, and three Muscat of 
Alexandria rather green. Amongst numerous stands in the field that 
of Messrs. Edward Webb & Sons, i^’'ordsley, Stourbridge, was most con¬ 
spicuous. It was the finest stand connected with horticulture in the 
Show, and contained large quantities of seeds and garden and field 
produce. The seeds were shown in endless variety; samples of Potatoes, 
new and old ; samples of lawns, dense and green; and the new Turnips, 
Carrots, Kadishes, Cabbage, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Rhubarb, and other 
vegetables were capital samples. Messrs. J. C. Wheeler & Sons, Glou¬ 
cester, had a stand on a much smaller scale. Messrs. Richardson & Co., 
Darlington, exhibited different kinds of glass houses, frames, boilers, itc., 
and Messrs. Foster & Pearson, Beeston, Notts, had greenhouses, boilers, 
frames, &c., showing the advantages of their well-known and valuable 
inventions. Messrs. Wright & Holmes, Birmingham, were also exhibitors 
in the same line, and Mr. C. G. Warne, Weston-super-Mare, and the 
Newport Pottery Company displayed a fine assortment of vases, pots, &c. 
Rustic seats and arbours were very attractive from Mr. 
Henry Inman, Stretford, Manchester, and the garden furni¬ 
ture generally appeared to be highly interesting to the 
numerous visitors. 
Upon Saturday the atmosphere assumed a very ugly tin-like colour, and' 
about midday hail and snow began to fall, continuing up to the present 
date. The snow upon the highest range of hills cannot be under 
2.^ feet deep. Down in the low grounds the depth is not under 9 or 
10 inches. The woods and shrubs wear a very weird and sad-like- 
appearance, and in many cases great destruction has been done to all 
sorts of bushes and trees from the densely packed quantity of snow 
falling upon the branches. The condition of the animal world may be 
better imagined than described. The cattle were, as a rule, all newly 
out upon the grass, and had a night of cold starvation upon the 
Saturday. Yesterday bundles of hay and straw were dispatched to the 
fields, but as the storm was still increasing towards evening, all the 
cattle had to be removed and housed up. Some were driven into 
sheltered woods where indoor accommodation could not be had. Shei - 
herds who were out all day upon Sunday looking after the sheep in the 
glens had their beards literally covered with tangles of ice. The state 
of the flocks is deplorable. In many cases the loss must be serious- 
among the lambs, where for the last three days the hill sheep have been 
isolated in sheltered corners to keep them from being smothered ; but as 
yet no information has come to hand whether or not any are sealed upi 
under the large snowdrifts, where in many cases the men on the look¬ 
out yesterday after the sheep were going through up to the shoulders. 
As to the feathered tribe, their condition is truly pitiable. Blackbirds 
lay dead in our garden ; and a robin redbreast has come to our doors 
with his young family, flying hither and thither, picking up fragments,, 
and giving them to the little ones. The curlew, plover, swallow, and 
all the other migratory birds are gone away again (the lapwing 
excepted). The young broods of grouse were in some cases seen coming 
up above the snow new fledged, and the shepherds put one or two- 
broods under Juniper bushes to give them shelter. The landscape, as. 
far as the eye can see, is one of pure white—not one black spot to be. 
seen.”— (JFeekli/ Scotsman, June 9th.') 
A SERVICEABLE HOUSEHOLD REQUISITE. 
Knives have to be cleaned in every household, but in the vast, 
majority of houses rotary machines cannot be used. Mr. Thomas Chad- 
born, the London Manager of the Chadborn & Coldwell JIanufacturing- 
SNOW IN JUNE. 
Dwbllees in the upland regions of Inverness and 
Moray shires had on Saturday and Sunday an experience 
such as has, fortunately, seldom been vouchsafed in mid¬ 
summer to the inhabitants of any pxu'tion of the British 
Isles. In the districts lying immediately north of the 
Grampian range of mountains, extending a distance of .''1;' 
about fifty miles from Blair Athole to Grantown, a snow- 
storm raged for many hours, dense, fierce, and all-pervading 
as if the season had teen midwinter instead of June. Snow 
began to fall in the Valley of Badenoch about four o’clock 
on Saturday afternoon, and for the next five hours the 
gale raged without intermission or abatement. About nine 
o’clock there was a temporary lull, and at that hour the 
landscape, from the distant peaks of the Cairngorms to the most 
sheltered hollow on Sir George Maepherson Grant’s Home Farm 
of Invereshie, was discovered to present an asj^ct such as has 
rarely, if ever, been witnessed in this country during the height of 
summer. The face of Nature was one vast expanse of dreary white, 
almost as unbroken as at any period of the prolonged winter from which 
it was thought the country had at length emerged. It was calculated 
that in the lowest part of the Badenoch valley at least two solid inches 
of snow fell during Saturday afternoon, and more than that quantity 
actually lay on the ground at Sir Charles Mordaunt’s shooting lodge, 
situat^ in a gully of the Grampians at the top of Glenfeshie. Of course 
most of the snow melted as it fell, but from sLx to eight o’clock there 
was everywhere on the low grounds a decided covering, the depths in 
most places being so great" that boisterous youths, and even vij,orous 
veterans, were enabled to engage in energetic encounters with snow¬ 
balls 1 This formed an incident of the midsummer weather of 1888 that 
will remain long treasured in the memory of the inhabitants of B.ade- 
noch. There is reason to fear that the storm will have a most injurious 
effect on the grouse nesting season. Many eggs are already deposited, 
but the hens do not yet lie closely, and a proportion of damage can 
hardly be avoided, but the extent cannot as yet be determined. Snow 
fell heavily in Ballater throughout Saturday afternoon, and yesterdiiy 
morning there was not less than half a foot on the surrounding hills, 
and it lay to the depth of 2 inches in the vill.age and over this part of 
the country throughout Sunday. Such a storm in June is not remem¬ 
bered by the oldest inhabitant here. Snow fell on Ben Nevis on Satur¬ 
day afternoon and rain yesterday, though the temperature was below 
the freezing point. 
A correspondent, writing from Corgarff, Strathdon, on the Ith, says : 
_“This is the third day of a snowstorm in the month of June, to 
which no living person in this countr}-has ever seen .any comparison. 
Up to Saturday the weather was for some days very cold and frosty. 
FIG. 63. 
Company, and proprietors of the excelsior lawn mow’ers and drills, ia 
introducing a knife cleaner entirely new in character. It is adapted to' 
the means and requirements of the m.ajority of readers, hence ve do not 
hesitate to direct attention to it. It is intende<l to supersede the dusty 
old knife board, and docs its work quickly and well. It is something like 
a double razor strop, to which a rest in the form of a vice is held on 
the table with one hand for holding the knife, while the cleaner is 
worked to and fro with the other for polishing the blade. The powder, 
is contained in a small box on the top, and falls as required by the 
movement of the cleaner. The contrivance is as useful as it is inge¬ 
niously constructed, and is workel with case, due to the springs at each-- 
end. It is called the Crown Knife Cleaner, and is represented in the 
engraving. 
BELGIAN WORK AND WAYS. 
AN AMATEUR’S GARDEN. 
“ What is an amateur ?” is a question that has been asked scores of 
times in print and answered in various ways, as it must be, because the 
term has different significations in different localities in connection with 
exhibitions of garden produce in England. At many local shows classes, 
are provided for nurserymen, gardeners, and amateurs. In such cases a 
reasonable interpretation of the term amateur is a person who does not 
employ a skilled gardener. He may have a man in occasionally to dig 
and do such like heavy work, but everything he shows should represent 
his own skill, and not that of someone else in the background. In 
shows of a national character in which high-class culture is represented 
such as those under the auspices of the Royal Horticultural and RopI 
Botanic Societies, only two sections of exhibitors are recognised 
