August 20, 1888. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
155 
runners until we had finished gathering the fruit on August 1st.—S tephen 
Castle, West Lynn. 
NATIONAL PEAR CONFERENCE. 
I, WITH many others, have received the circular of the Committee of 
the forthcoming Pear Conference, and those who have not had a circular 
direct have no doubt seen the announcement of the Conference in the 
gardening papers. The Conference is to be. As I happen to be one who 
has a grievance carried over from the Apple Conference of 1883, I feel 
disposed to air it in order that similar mistakes may be avoided in the 
coming Conference. The Congress invitation circular of 1883 says that 
one of the objects of the Apple Congress is “ to correct their nomencla¬ 
ture.” “ Very good I said to myself,” “ I’ll send a few samples that I 
particularly want the correct names of.” I sent some six or seven varieties, 
and never beard a word about my Apples, not even that they were re¬ 
ceived, until the publication of “ British Apples ” in 1884, and in it, to 
my wide-eyed astonishment, on page 84 I found myself credited with 
sending up one variety, and to my greater surprise, the one vaiiety which 
I had put in almost haphazard, and about which I did not care two straws, 
it being a well-known local Apple. Not a word is said about those I had 
sent to have their nomenclature corrected, either good, bad, or indifferent, 
from that time until now. A paragraph of the report on page 5 of 
“British Apples ” says, “ The Committee met on several occasions, and, 
working in sections, made careful examination of the exhibits with a view 
to the correction of nomenclature, &c., these corrections having been sent 
to the various exhibitors. It has not been considered necessary to refer 
to them in the report.” All I can say is that I have not received my 
corrections up to the present date, August 14th, 1884,; and if others of 
the exhibitors have not received theirs, there is, I think, a substantial 
error or grievance to persons to be remedied in the forthcoming Pear 
Conference in October next. 
In the circular for the prospective Conference the correction of nomen¬ 
clature is again a prominent object of the Conference. If I send this 
time I hope I shall receive my corrections within some reasonable time. 
Would it be too much to ask that a post card, which could be easily pre¬ 
pared beforehand and printed, leaving open spaces for date and number 
of exhibits, &c., be sent to each sender of fruit ? It is a little bit too cool 
and negligent not to acknowledge in any way one’s consignments ; and I 
say again I had no intimation of mine having been received or not until 
the publication of “ British Apples ” a year after, save and except that I 
received from nurserymen who grow fruits largely, and with whom I had 
no previous acquaintance in the interval, copies of their catalogues.—N. H. 
Pownall, Lenton Mall Gardens , Nottingham. 
[The experience gained at the Apple Congress will enable the Council 
of the Royal Horticultural Society, under whose immediate direction the 
Pear Congress will be held, to make adequate arrangements for conduct¬ 
ing the business in a more systematic manner than was possible on the 
former occasion, when there was no past experience to guide in the matter. 
The officials were overwhelmed, and their duties were not lightened by the 
misdirection and late delivery of numbers of parcels and by the non- 
compliance of not a few senders of fruit and letters with the published 
conditions. We do not suggest that our correspondent was a delinquent 
in any way ; it is more probable that he was the victim of circumstances 
beyond his control, and which eould scarcely be foreseen and provided 
for. The officials laboured assiduously in discharge of their duties, and 
did all that was possible under the extreme pressure to which they were 
subjected to render the Congress generally satisfactory.] 
VIOLA PYROLiEFOLIA. 
This very beautiful dwarf, hardy herbaceous plant, was introduced 
from Patagonia thirty years ago by Messrs. Veitch, and grown by them 
and distributed under the name of Y. lutea. It produces a tuft of small, 
cordate-ovate, radical leaves, with ovate or linear-lanceolate fimbriate 
stipules, and produces very large, bright yellow blossoms, each elevated 
considerably above the foliage on a slender stalk. The flowers have a 
short blunt spur, and the petals are bearded inside with club-shaped hairs ; 
the lower petal is obcordate, streaked with red lines. It is found in Chili, 
as well as in the Straits of Magellan ; and has been known under the 
following names :—V. maculata, V. glandulosa, and Y. lutea megapbyllos. 
NOT ENOUGH MANURE. 
If there was any doubt about the great value of solid manure, and the 
excellent results attending its free use in the garden, this I should say 
would be effectually dispelled during the present hot summer, but before 
I treat upon manures I wish to touch upon trenching again. After the 
remarks anent trenching from my pen, published in these pages, I fully 
expected to be twitted upon the subject, and I have not been deceived, as 
several correspondents have recently pointed out good results attending 
the practice of trenching. It will be remembered that the tendency of 
my arguments was condemnatory of the general practice of trenching, 
and iu spite of the trying season of 1885 I am still prepared to argue on 
much the same lines, not, however, from a mere wish to be thought wiser 
or more consistent than my fellows, but from conviction. I still say the 
practice of trenching, or even bastard trenching, is not always judicious 
either for improvement of soils and the consequent increase in the value of 
the crops, or by way of preparation for a dry season. If I had not travelled 
out of this district and seen various other gardens, or even had not tried 
several experiments in trenching this season, I should not venture a 
repetition of my old assertions. Whenever I have been in conversation 
with an intelligent farmer, market grower, professional or amateui 
gardener, I have sounded them as to the state of their various crops, 
inquiring particu'arly as to the preparation of the soil, and the result of 
my investigations is that trenching is a doubtful practice, much more 
in fact depending upon a liberal use of manure and a proper surface 
preparation. 
In our garden, for instance, land trenched two spits deep has long 
been completely dried up, and the Roses, Peas, and Runner Beans which 
occupy it are now in a wretched plight. Ou the other hand, where the 
ground was freely manured and roughly dug early in January, this was 
thoroughly pulverised, admitting of its being properly broken down to a 
good depth, and subsequent surface stirrings have preserved the moisture 
Fig. 28.—Viola pyrolrcEolia. 
to a surprising extent. Thus without trenching and without any appre¬ 
ciable rainfall since the first week in June, we have not failed with one 
kind of vegetable. At the present time (August 11th) we have presentable 
Peas, Beans Broad, Kidney and Runners, Cauliflowers, Globe Artichokes, 
Spinach, &c., not up to exhibition form I admit, but quite good enough 
for a nobleman’s table. Watering any of the foregoing, with the 
exception of Peas, was out of the question, and the moisture to support 
them had to be derived from the fairly well-manured surface soil and the 
cool unbroken subsoil. E rrly Potatoes, again, are not so small as might 
have been expected, while the breadths of Magnum Bonum and Champions 
are still healthy and vigorous, and that, too, without the assistance of 
a particle of solid manure. The ground was well broken up to the full 
depth of the forks, and that is the secret of the success in this case. 
One of the largest farmers on this estate recently informed me that he 
has invested £2000 in machinery, but took care to point out that steam 
ploughs or cultivators were not included, nor would they be used under 
any consideration on his heavy clayey land. I hazarded the opinion that 
he would not be troubled with much straw this season, and the reply was 
