September 17, 1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
248 
dwarf and sturdy habit. Primulas, Calceolarias, and Cinerarias are 
flourishing in a young state in pits and frames. There is a splendid 
batch of the latter in G-inch pots that were sown in June. 
One of the most attractive houses in the nursery at the present time 
is that filled with Achimenes, which are grown for the tubers. The 
varieties are not numerous, but they are strikingly select. One of the 
most beautiful as grown there is A. splendens, five plants being flower¬ 
ing in a 5-inch pot. These make charming little examples a foot high 
•and nearly es much through, loaded with their vivid scarlet flowers. 
More pleasing ornaments for an amateurs' greenhouse it would be 
impossible to imagine. A. coccinea is another beautiful little variety, 
with brilliant scarlet flowers a trifle smaller than those of splendens, 
and even more freely produced. Margaretta, white, with much larger 
flowers ; Rosy Queen, a varitty with beautiful rose-coloured blooms sent 
out last year, dwarf, free, and exceptionally fine ; Lady Lyttleton, rosy 
■carmine, with fringed Primula-like flowers ; Ambrose Verschaffelt, 
white, splashed and veined with purple; Carl Wolfarth, purplish 
violet; and A. longiflora major, bluish mauve, with lovely, long-tubed 
flowers, are all eminently worthy of culture. 
Gesnera zebrina discolor, of which a batch is grow r n, is a distinct and 
handsome plant. It has large glossy leaves, green when young, but 
deepening to purple with age, and tubular fliwers of which the exterior 
is bright scarlet and the interior ye’low dotted with brown. Both leaves 
and flowers are eff ctive. The plant requires substantially the same 
treatment as Gloxinias. 
Out of doors, one of the principal features of interest, apart from the 
Begonias already mentioned, which are this year’s seedlings, is a large 
quarter of Stocks and Asters grown for trial. The former are now past 
their best, but the latter are coming into splendid bloom, and will be 
worthy of inspection by any visit ir. Nearly all of both Asters and 
Stocks were sown in the open ground where they are flowering. Seed¬ 
ling Carnations have been wonderfully full of bloom. A large b^d of 
Zinnias, dwarf and freely flowered, is very attractive, and Portulacas 
have only wanted a little sun to show their wonderful colours in per¬ 
fection. It is somewhat strange that these brilliant dwarf annuals are 
not more generally grown. As something a little out of the common 
may be mentioned a number of Egg Plants fruiting freely in the open 
■border. The varieties are white and purple, the former closely resembling 
the eggs of poultry. They were put out about the end of May. In 
another part of the establishment, too, were shown what is not often 
eeen, Freesia refracta alba flowering- at less than six months old from 
seed. The latter -was sown on the 13th of March this year, the plants 
grown in the open air until they showed flower, and then placed in a 
cold pit. This is interesting as showing that bulbs have not to be 
absolutely depended on when quick flowering is wanted. Fuchsias 
seven months old from seed are also blooming freely. 
Perhaps in such a season as the present it may be worth while to 
mention a really fine crop of Tomatoes in the open air. There is a large 
breadth of about 1500 plants in rows 3 ftet apart, and a foot from 
■each other in the rows. They are exceptionally healthy, not showing a 
trace of disease, and are bearing abundance of fruit. The ripening, of 
course, is somewhat backward, but the foliage has been well thinned to 
admit as much sun as possible, and if a warm month should come 
there will be nothing whatever to complain of. The pick of the varieties 
are Perfection, Earliest of All, Abundance, Golden Perfection, Maincrop, 
Golden Nugget, and Cluster, all of which are cropping splendidly. The 
plants are growing in unmanured land, but have recently been assisted 
by a good mulching.— Nondescript. 
FRUIT GROWING IN THE SOUTH OF IRELAND. 
At the Cork School of Art a Conference on fruit growing and 
market gardening, considered as a profitable industry for the South of 
Ireland, was held last week under the presidency of the Mayor. There 
were also present Sir George Colthurst, Captain L. Beamish, Dr. Colt- 
hurst, Colonel Hall, the Dean of Ross, Sir George Wycherley, Messrs. 
T. F. Rivers (Chairman British Fruit Growers’ Association), Bullock 
Hall, W. L. Cole (Dublin), James Byrne (Chairman County Cork 
Agricultural Society), and others. 
The Mayor having opened the Conference, 
Mr. Bullock Hall said he had made the land ques'ion a study in 
different parts of Europe, having travelled through Belgium, Germany, 
France, and Italy, and he was greatly struck at the great variety of 
crops that were grown in the small narrow strips of land in those places, 
especially on the south side of Paris. The English farmer rushing 
through these lands in a train generally got hold of the idea that they 
were worse farmed than the average farms would be in England, 
because he did not understand the principle on which they were 
worked. Farmers holding crops of 10 acres or under made a mistake 
if they farmed on the same principle as they would work a large farm. 
They should instead of growing cereal crops turn their attention to the 
cultivation of fruit on small holdings, and with such a market at hand 
as they had in Cork the change would pay well. With a view to 
encouraging this industry in England they had approached the Great 
Eastern Railway Company and obtained from them an agreement to 
carry 1 cwt. of the produce to London for 9d. and deliver it within an 
area of four miles. He had no doubt that would excite their railway 
companies of the south of Ireland. He had received before leaving 
home the prospectus of a society called the Cork and Waterford Farm 
and Garden Supply Society. That was the very society which he should 
like to see started, and he hoped the railways will be induced to give 
them the same facilities as the English railways gave the small 
growers. 
Mr. T. F. Rivers then read a valuable paper on the subject of the 
Conference, in the course of which he said the question of a continuous 
and abundant supply of fruit to the British markets grown on British 
soil was a matter of serious consideration, and public attention had 
rightly been aroused to the fact that a great industry had been in danger 
of passing away from those who ouaht to be the first to reap the profit 
arising from that industry—the fruit growers of Great Britain and 
Ireland. The capital required for this industry was very small compared 
with that required for business or manufactures, and the value of the 
produce increases year by year by the sole action of natural forces. Fruit 
shows had late’y been held in England, at which fruit from Ireland had 
been shown in excellent condition, which proved that British fruit is 
second to none in quality. 
In Ireland the orchards were too old and too much dependance was 
placed on the supply of fruit on these old trees. The idea that a fruit 
tree will last and produce fruit during three or four generations of men 
was entirely erroneous, the life productive power of an orchard at its 
best being not more than thirty years. In his opinion, the modern 
orchard should be planted on a totally different s.ystem. Instead of a 
standard 20 feet apart, giving 108 trees to the acre, it is possible to plant 
trees of Apples, Pears, and Plums at 12 by 12, and to keep them at the 
height of 9 to 10 feet high. This system can be most efficiently cirried 
out by planting trees of from two to three yeirs old, with fibrous roots 
and healthy and vigorous'stems, allowing a clear stem of 3 feet before 
branching, and removing all buds and shoots below this height. This 
clear stem is necessary for the free circulation of air, and also for the 
growth of bush fruit between the rows of the taller trees. He had 
hitherto been very successful in fruit growing, which was due to the 
way te had studied the soil. 
The Apple occupied the highest position as an industrial fruit, and 
was an article of diet of the greatest importance in Great Britain, 
owing to the very great importation of this fruit from America and 
Tasmania. The British grower should endeavour to give sorts that 
will be available before the foreign supp’y reaches our shores, as there 
is less competition in the summer months than in the winter. The 
culinary Apples now recommended for England are—Lord Grosvenor, 
Keswick Codlin, Duches3 of Oldenburg. Dessert Apples—Irish Peach, 
Quarrenden. Autumn culinary—Ecklinville, Stirling Castle, Warner’s 
King. Dessert—Worcester Pearmain, Kerry Pippio, &c. Winter— 
Hawthornden, Lord Derby, &c. Spring—Bramley’s Seedling, Lane’s 
Prince Albert, Braddick’s Nonpareil, Scarlet Nonpareil, &c. 
As an industrial fruit the Plum is next in importance to the Apple? 
and requires the same conditions of soil and position, although the fruit 
orchards of Germany and France supply a large proportion cf the fruit 
sent to the British markets. The earliest sort was the Early Rivers, 
which in soils containing a large per-centage of lime is a certain and 
abundant bearer. He had never known it to fail owing to the time the 
tree is a’lowed to recover strength between the gathering of the fruit 
and the bearing of the succeeding year being nearly eight months. 
With reference to French Pears, they brought such a good price that 
they should be grown wherever the climate suited. Grafted on the 
Quince 9tock the Pear will bear fruit in three years, and will bear fruit 
on this stock for fifteen years. They can be grown with great facility 
in many parts of the south of Ireland, and there was no reason why 
Pear-growing should not become an important industry (applause). 
Mr. Hartland then read a paper, in which he stated that they pos¬ 
sessed a rich store of true Irish Apples, quite unequalled in their respective 
seasons. He named a few in their order of ripening :—the Irish Eve, 
the Irish Peach, the Kerry Pippin, the Donoughmore, the Blackwater 
Pearmain, the Molly Gibbons, or Irish Russet, the Ross Nonpareil, the 
Scarlet Cluster, and the grand Belfast Apple, the Ecklinville, the last 
two being bakers, and the remainder table fruit. Our soil and climate 
offered early and special advantages, and the greater portion of first 
fruits found a ready and profitable sale in Dublin, while in Cork, where 
twenty years ago a basket of choice fruit had to be hawked through the 
city, and was often returned unsold, several firms now bought by the 
ton. As to employment, children were nimble bush fruit gatherers, and 
anyone who had visited the Continent at summer time must have been 
delighted to see whole families thus healthily and profitably emp’oyed. 
Some might have seen this in our own country fifty years ago, when 
the autumn drive along the Blackwater was one not soon forgotten. 
That valley was thickly covered with fruits. 
With regard to the question as to how they proposed starting and 
carrying on this work, anyone who had observed our market gardeners 
—who had made Cork vegetables famous—should see that these men 
were precisely the class most suitable for fruit growers. The day could 
not be far distant when fruit would form a part of every meal as it did 
in America. The Government, he was sure, would assist with small 
loans repayable during six years, and proper security could be given. 
With good instructors very few lessons would suffice, and that fine 
industry might be at once established—po-sibly in a small way at first, 
but the growth would be rapid and a good s’ice of those millions sent 
to America and to the Continent would find plenty of empty pockets at 
home. Mr. Hartland then quoted from several well-known pomoloeDts 
as to the possibilities of the soil of the South of Ireland as regards fruit 
growing. 
Sir George Colthurst, in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Hall and 
the gentlemen who had read papers, expressed it as his opinion that the 
reason for the disappearance of the orchards which used to line the 
