July 23, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
63 
subject under discussion, it is only necessary to record the significant fact 
that the expansive force is greater at a temperature of 22° than it is 
at 62°, and it is less at 52° than it is at 32°. On this matter your corre¬ 
spondent appears to have committed himself to a proposition without due 
reflection, and I have a very strong conviction that his dictum is abso¬ 
lutely unsupportable. 
Another difficulty with many persons is their inability to account for 
one variety of Grape splitting while others grown under the same con¬ 
ditions remain sound. This was first mentioned by Mr. Thomson on 
page 402, and it has been alluded to by others. Mr. Kirk (page 434), in 
adducing strong testimony of the efficacy of the gimlet in preventing the 
Duke cracking over a period of eight years in a house where a number of 
other varieties need no such assistance, asks, “ What about limiting the 
moisture in the atmosphere 1 ” Having regard to the condition of the 
other Grapes, I am not prepared to say that Mr. Kirk did not do what 
was right under the circumstances, but that is not the question. The 
question is, Is th» Duke of Buccleuch, the Frontignans, Muscadines, and 
Madresfield Court able to endure as much atmospheric moisture as Black 
Hamburghs and others without sustaining injury ? According to my 
experience and observation, which together are not inconsiderable, the 
question must be answered in the negative; and, in my opinion, the 
difference between the moisture-resisting Dature of varieties is due simply 
to the differing texture of their skins. Why does one variety of Plum or 
Cherry crack while other varieties near and at the same stage remain 
sound ? The injury can scarcely be attributed to the expansion of the 
fluids by heat, because this must act equally on all; there is the same 
moisture in the soil for the roots of all to imbibe, and cracking is no 
worse in moist than in drier soils, but the skins differ, and the action 
of endosmose is much quicker through thin than through stout mem¬ 
branes ; in fact it is influenced both by the membrane and the nature of 
the fluids. This anyone may test for himself. Take a thin glass tube, 
tie a piece of animal or vegetable membrane closely round the end, say a 
piece of bladder or the skin of a Grape, place thick syrup or brine in the 
tube, put it in water, and the action of endosmose will be seen by the 
fluid in the glass rising, the thinner passing through the membrane to the 
denser. If anyone accustomed to perform delicate chemical experiments 
should have the means of using, as a membraneous covering to the tube, 
the skins of different kinds and varieties of fruit, he will possibly solve 
the problem of some fruits splitting while others remain sound. On page 
478 Mr. Mclndoe gave an interesting example of the fruit of a Governor 
Wood Cherry cracking through early closing the house with too much 
moisture ; and he asked “ If the splitting was not caused by endosmose, 
then what caused it ? ” No one has answered him. 
I fully intended answering Mr. Henderson’s last and very interesting 
letter, but I have had such a wide field to traverse that I cannot presume 
to encroach on further space now. All the references apply to pages in 
the last volume.—A Thinker. 
[The publication of this article has been unavoidably delayed.] 
ROSE A. K. WILLIAMS. 
I HAVE been greatly disappointed in this Rose this season. Few 
Roses have been offered to the public with such strong recommendations 
as to general excellency. Every Rose-grower in the country was anxious 
to possess it. If one wrote to a nurseryman about being supplied with 
Roses, the strongest reply he could make was that A. K. Williams would 
be included, and here it is before it has been out more than a year or two 
turning out inferior everywhere. Some say it is notan A. K. Williams 
year. I do not believe in this, and hold that a Rose which has been so 
strongly recommended to us should not fail before it has established its 
reputation. If it had failed to come up to the standard in the hands of a 
cottager, amateur, or even a professional gardener, the fault might have 
been that of inferior cultivation ; but when such as Messrs. Paul, Cant, 
and others show blooms of all sorts and sizes, with hardly a good one 
amongst them, at such a show as the National, a mistake in culture cannot 
be raised in its favour. 
Having noted its inferior appearance at some provincial shows early in 
July I was determined to take particular notice of it at the National 
Show at South Kensington on July 7th, and I was as much disappointed 
with it as ever. The majority were small and badly formed ; indeed, I 
only saw two good blooms in the whole Show, and they were in the stands 
of Messrs. Cooling of Bath and Jefferies of Cirencester. I saw one good 
bloom from Mr. Griffith, Hereford, in his stand at Newport the other day. 
and out of the scores I have seen shown this season these three blooms 
were the only ones I could say were really up to a first-class prizewinning 
type. Those who buy it should, I think, have it as a Rose of ordinary 
merit, and not as a unique variety in its class, or amongst Roses generally. 
—J. Muir, Margam. 
WESTERN AUSTRALIA: 
. Correspondents are so frequently desiring information respecting 
suitable fields for emigrants that the following letter from a gentleman 
holding a high position in Perth, Western Australia, will be of especial 
interest to many readers. The manual referred to we shall be pleased to 
forward to anyone sending their name and address, with a stamp for 
postage :— 
“Perth, Western Australia, 5th June, 1885. 
“I send you some copies of Mr. Forrest’s manual of information about 
our colony, which I hope will prove of interest to you. The map will show 
you the vast extent of our territory, the manual the thermometrical range. 
“ It is positively heartrending to us colonists to see the accounts of 
labour, skilled and unskilled, running to waste in the mother country. 
The penny breakfasts furnished to dock labourers are a sad contrast to the 
abundance in which those dock labourers would revel here could they 
only be deported hither. The only classes who could not succeed here aro 
the maimed, the halt, the blind, and the dishonest. 
“Almost all the Irish peasants who were transported hither for 
agrarian outrages are now “ well-to-do” peasants, and it is a pity that 
honest English families should not have the same chance.” 
We may add that the manual gives a map of Western Australia, with 
full particulars concerning its climate, products, land regulation, rail¬ 
ways, and Government, with some interesting statistics for 1884, relating 
to the prices of provisions, the wages of artisans, with the imports and 
exports. 
THE BLUE PEA (Lathyrus sativus). 
Our sketch represents one of the prettiest and most distinct of all the 
annual Peas of ornamental character. It is an old plant in gardens, and 
Fig. 10.—The Blue Pea (Lathyrus eativus). 
yet we find many of our visitors have never seen it, although it is univer¬ 
sally admired by all who chance to see it covered with its clear blue 
blossoms. Its culture is of the easiest. Seeds sown in drills or clumps 
in March flower in July, and contiuue in bloom until late in the autumn. 
All the attention required after sowing is to stake each clump with a few 
brushy twigs about 2 feet in height. As shown in the engraving (fig. 10) 
the 3 to 4-seeded pods are curiously winged along the back. This species 
has long been grown in S. Europe as a forage plant, but its beauty ought 
to guarantee it a welcome in all good flower gardens.—F. W. B. 
INJURY TO FOLIAGE OF GROS COLMAN GRAPE. 
Many gardeners have been at a loss to understand the reason why 
the foliage of Gros Colman Grape should become curled and disfigured 
early in the season. I am not in a position to state whether it has 
this tendency in the north of England or in Scotland, but in the south 
it is an acknowledged fact. About Worthing Grapes are grown very 
largely for market, probably more so than in any other district in 
England, and whilst there a short time since I paid a visit to Mr. R. 
Piper’s Grape-growing establishment, where Gros Colman is grown very 
extensively in different houses and aspects, and it is only on one aspect 
that the foliage of this noble Grape is not affected—viz., on the north 
side of a span-roof running east and west with broadsides north and 
south. The length of the house is 350 feet, and width 20 feet. Only two 
varieties of Grapes are cultivated in the house, which are Gros Colman 
