September 10,1891. J 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
221 
Cannas without learning their names, and here they are :—Antonin 
Chantin, Edouard Andr£, Felix Crousse, Louis Thibaud, Lutea Splendens, 
Madame Just, Petit Jeanne, Ulrich Brunner, Victor Hugo, and Simon 
Ddlaux. They are valuable alike for conservatory and garden decoration, 
and continue in beauty for a very long time. 
A rush was made through the Dahlias, which are extensively grown, 
hut only a few flowers were open, so late was the season. Varieties of 
great beauty have expanded since then, and been honoured at meetings 
and shows as described in reports. Mr. Canned was the introducer of 
the Cactus Dahlia Juarezi, and though not a few persons regarded it as 
FIG. 35.— MR. JAS. MCINDOE, HUTTON HALL. 
a sort of monstrosity and as violating all the rules of florists, it yet 
“ caught on,” and became the progenitor of a race that was evidently 
wanted by the great flower-loving public, or the demand for plants 
would not be so great, exceeding that for varieties in any other section. 
Many beautiful Cactus Dahlias are now grown over the length and 
breadth of the land, and one that is bound to spread far and wide is the 
new twisted, pointed, starlike, but double and softly rich form, Robert 
■Canned, a perfect Cactus Dah ia. 
Fruit Again. 
"We now leave them and everything else in the floral home and drive 
through a land of plenty—at least, p’enty of fruit, especially in planta¬ 
tions of young trees, for old Kentish orchards are like hundreds of others 
in various parts of the country, obsolete and comparatively worthless. 
They are relics of the past, and cultivated fruit plantations will in 
future supply produce for our markets. 
Our first stop was at a splendid young plantation of standard Plums 
not on very tad stems, the trees about 5 or G yards apart, and Gooseberry 
bushes between them, about 5 feet asunder. The crop of these was 
being gathered by a little army of women and girls who were filling 
■small deep narrow baskets quickly, swinging four of these over their 
shoulders and carrying them, two hanging in front and two behind, 
to the larger baskets at the end of the rows, and men were conveying 
the fruit to the factory in vanloads. Though these bushes were only 
planted three years ago last autumn, so wed had they grown in the 
deeply worked fertile soil, and so sensibly had they been pruned, that 
■they were bearing a remarkable crop of unusually fine fruit. The weight 
from each bush certainly exceeded 8 lbs., and 10 lbs. would be nearer the 
mark ; but put it at 7 lbs., and even at the low price of three farthings 
•a pound, or say, £7 a ton, the crop would be worth nearly £40 an acre, 
-and, as the whole cost of cultivation, gathering—everything, would not 
exceed £20, we have a very respectable profit from these thrifty young 
three-year-planted trees. But that is not ad. This was the second 
gathering, for the crop had been thinned when the berries were large 
enough for using green, the remainder left to ripen or nearly so, being 
the finer in consequence. On the name of the variety being 
.asked for, the reply was as laconic as a rep'y could well be—“Lads.” 
This meant Lancashire Lad—a large round dark red profitable market 
Gooseberry. Then there were the Plums above. The trees had been cut 
"back twice to give sturdiness. They had made wonderful growth, and 
many of them were clustered with fine fruit. The variety appeared to 
be the Victoria, at least, in the part of the plantation under notice, 
though others in the far distance might be different. This was as fine an 
-example of modern fruit culture as anyone could desire to see. The soil 
was wed worked and made fertile to a good depth, the subsoil broken, 
weeds prevented, and the trees and bushes not overcrowded with shoots. No 
•mere orchard planting on grass, or sticking trees in poor shadow ground 
and letting weeds make it poorer could approach the results attained. 
It was the best garden culture on a large scale, and that is the best and 
most profitable way of growing fruit. Some other plantations passed 
bad Apples as standards, and under crops of Raspberries and Black 
Currants as wed as Gooseberries, but the best Red Currants are grown 
in fields to themselves, with no large trees to shade them. 
With the exception of one field of 500 acres without a fence, belonging 
to Mr. Wood, and here and there a smaller field of Wheat, root crops, 
autumn Cauliflowers, or pasture, the eight or nine miles traversed was 
through a country of fruit. Speaking of Cauliflowers, one cultivator 
is said to have contracted to supply 500 tons to one firm for pickliDg, 
the heads to be cut up and tubbed on the ground. For miles we pass 
through avenues of Damsons, the trees growing almost close together 
in the fences. When they become old they are simply pollarded like 
Widows, and push up stronger growths again. Many of the trees were 
fruitless, while others were bearing good crops. Stretching away behind 
them, up hid and down dale, as far as the eye could see, were fields of 
Strawberries, Raspberries, and Currants in openings between plantations, 
not of tad forest but fruit trees. At every homestead were fruit baskets 
piled up wading to be filled ; but round several of the dwellings the old 
orchards were like jungles, and sirggested that they could not be very 
profitable. Some old orchard possessors are like farmers who laugh at 
fruit-growing and everything else but their own jog-trot ways, and will 
grub along to the end ; then the old order of things gives place to new 
methods—more intelligent routine, higher, cleaner culture, and greater 
productiveness. The change is coming steadily along, and is, in some 
districts, wed established. There is yet much land in Kent, as in other 
counties, good in staple, yet in a woefully neglected state ; the weed- 
infested, impoverished fields being blots on the face of Nature, that 
might be so fair and so satisfactory, if only men did their duty. 
Higher and higher we go steadily dragging along 111 we reach the 
summit of a lofty range, drink in the pure sweet air, and look around on 
a landscape as beautiful surely in its way of hid and dale, wood and 
water—green meads and waving cornfields on the one hand, fruit fields 
and plantations on the other—as could be found under the sun ; and far 
away in the distance and far down below us we see a shimmer of light, 
the reflection of the sun on the glass at Eynsford. We reach it at length 
after many a jerk and slide down the steep hid, glad enough to get to 
the bottom. 
An Eynsford Mixture. 
Mr. Canned has chosen a very delightful situation in which he can 
operate in raising flowers and seeds, and rusticate on the old farmstead 
down in the vale. In sheets of flowers and sleek horses, Potatoes, Peas, 
and partridges, fowls, fruit trees, and fatting pigs, geese and German 
Asters, rabbits and Roses, cows and Curly Borecole, and so on, he has a 
diversity of interests; and even if the combinations seem a little 
incongruous they suit him extremely wed ; and it is not in the least 
unlikely that he is even just a little proud of seeing inscribed on heavy 
carts “ Henry Canned, farmer.” That is what he is ; he is, in fact, 
farmer, florist, and seed grower, and has plenty of scope for his energy 
at Eynsford. * 
The “ farm ” is a long curving valley with a high slope eastward and 
northward to the upland, and one more gentle to the west and south. 
His new and commodious residence is on the higher ground and over¬ 
looks the park of Lullingstone Castle, the seat of Sir W. Hart Dyke, 
Bart, M.P. Mr. Robert Canned and his pretty young wife have plenty 
of room, and the former has plenty to do as general overlooker of ad 
that is going on, the head of the firm only driving over occasionally from 
Swanley to pat his horses, look at his pigs, and give a few general 
instructions. 
The soil is excellent, a good free working yet substantial loam on 
chalk. Seed crop3 of ad sorts of vegetables were filling out wed, and 
the Peas just in the right place on the steep hid side during the dull 
wet season, but the new English Wonder was lower down, and bearing 
heavily. It is a dee ded improvement on its American prototype, 
producing larger pods, and peas of the highest quality, quite equal 
to the best of the later sorts. Flowers of ad kinds, annuals, biennials, 
and perennials that will produce seed for raising others for flowering, 
no one knows where, male a lich and varied display. Seed as it 
became ready for gathering was secured daily, and spread out to dry in 
the long glass structures which are occupied with various plants during 
winter °and spring. Mr. Canned has already done much on this 
beautifully situate 1 and fertile farm, and what he will make of it in 
future is not easy to an icipate, but no doubt a great and productive 
garden. Roses grow splendidly in the soil, and budding was going on 
briskly ; indeed, everything appeared to be in a highly flourishing state. 
It is good for a district, this conversion of land from agricultural 
tillage into fields of fruit and flowers in affording employment to men 
and women who would otherwise have to wander far from their homes, 
many of them to possibly starve in towns or struggle for existence in 
distant lands, to which they are tempted by shipping and other agents, 
who seek to make capital out of them. There is not the least doubt that 
since Mr. Cannell took possession of the land at Swanley and Eynsford 
it affords employment to at least a hundred times more men than it 
ever did before. England is not worn out by a very long way—its lar.d 
is not worked out; but, on the contrary, vast tracts are comparatively 
worthless by want of working and well-applied labour, higher and 
cleaner culture would render them productive. 
Letters still ke -p coming in. A Yorkshireman writes : —“ My journey 
down to Swanley proved a great treat, in fact an eye opener ; ” and a 
Kentish man says Every one of the Journals (of August 27th) on 
the stalls up and down the line was bought up. There is only one 
error in the account—the printer put an “0” too many in the cost of 
the London factory. What has been done in the district is wonderful 
enough, apart from the London building.” 
I am greatly indebted to Mr. Cannell for guiding me through an 
interesting district, though so little time was left for inspecting his own 
establishments.—-J. Wright. 
