222 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
r March 14, 1889k 
parts of the town were in a panic, though it was believed that the 
danger had passed. In three hours the water had risen even yesterday 
morning 2 feet 6 inches, and, as we could plainly see from the carriage 
windows, the portions of the city bordering the river Avon were pretty 
• deep under water. The flood was, for example, rushing through the 
body of a big waggon upon one of the riverside wharves, and we saw a 
man wading across a piece of comparatively still water to reach some¬ 
thing from his garden wall. The flood reached to his armpits. Several 
of the side streets resembled canals, and in one of them a clothes line 
was stretched across from house to house. The children’s clothes had 
been pegged thereto as high as a woman could reach, but they were now 
dangling in the turbid current. Bath is liable to these visitations, for 
the Avon, though not a large river, drains a good deal of country. The 
lofty hills that make Bath the queen city of the west pour down their 
surplus drainage with much impetuosity at all times, but on Friday 
their burden seemed to be greater than they could bear. In the early 
part of the week there had been heavy snow, which had lain deep upon 
the ancient earthworks of the downs and filled the hollows of the many 
hills. Then came warm rains melting the snow suddenly, and the rapid 
rising of the overcharged river followed as a matter of course. The 
flood seems to have been almost as bad as that of 1882, and, with that 
exception, the severest known in Bath for 150 years. 
PADDLING AMONGST THE TREE TOPS. 
“ Beyond Bath the flood assumed the form of violence, and swept 
with hiss and roar through the narrow places; when it opened out again 
upon the level country it distributed debris of all kinds - balks of timber, 
odds and ends of fencing, heaps of hay torn from some exposed rick, 
faggots, and rubbish the loss of which no one will mourn. At one 
point there swirled against the post of a yard gate what looked remark¬ 
ably like a child’s perambulator, and further on the carcase of a calf 
gyrated grotesquely by the upper branches of a Hawthorn in which a 
birds’ nest was being slowly dislodged by the water. A pig was also 
seen sweeping through Bath city, and that is a strong evidence of the 
suddenness of the flood, for while sheep and cattle are often surprised 
the hog generally contrives to get out of danger. The houses, mostly 
those of artisan inhabitants, submerged in Bath and the suburbs must 
have been hundreds in number. The further one travelled in the 
direction of Bristol the worse it became. What was river, what meadow, 
what cornfield, what garden ground, no one could tell. The country 
was one vast expanse of water, with many a small cottage cut off and 
standing with the water lapping it around to the height of the window . 
sills. This, of course, had been the case in Bristol itself, and the inmates 
in the majority of cases had not-deserted their dwellings, but were seen 
very sad and anxious in the bedrooms waiting till the invader, which 
had driven them upstairs, left them free to remove the traces of the 
ravages made with very little warning. The bright day had apparently 
tempted some lads a mile or two east of Bristol to get out in boats and 
paddle about amongst the tree tops left above water. At Bristol the 
news met us that there were no trains running below Bridgwater, the 
line between that station and Taunton being submerged. The express 
service was, therefore, to all intents and purposes, turned upside down, 
and instead of proceeding we had to wait a while at Bristol. 
PUNTING AMONGST CURRANT BUSHES. 
“ Pursuing our journey by a slow train in the afternoon, we for a time 
lost sight of water, and found a clear line at parts where on Friday 
night the train ploughed its way through water a foot deep. By-and-by 
the now familiar lakes usurping the domains of the grazier and agricul¬ 
turist appeared on this side or that, or on both sides simultaneously. 
Further than the partial demolition of an occasional haystack, no great 
injury has been sustained in these parts. Flocks of seagulls and rooks 
wheeled about in the sun, settling eventually upon the mounds above 
the flood or upon its fast retiring margins. Near Weston-super-mare 
the water was still so high that while to the left a carrier’s cart was 
slowly moving up the road axle-deep in water, to the right a boy was 
punting amongst his father’s Currant bushes in a washing tub, little 
recking of the disgusting deposit of slime that will be left in the cottage, 
or of the unhealthy damp which always lingers as the unwelcome legacy 
of an inundation. After such scenes as those which passed under our 
review at Bath and Bristol we all, probably, were prone to forget the 
loss, the trouble, the risk caused by a flood like this in thousands of 
households ; and at Bristol I know benevolent persons, foieseeing this, 
were commendably busy yesterday in searching out and relieving distress. 
The river Brue, which courses through fat pasture from far beyond 
Glastonbury, had, as I perceived in passing the junction at which the 
Burnham passengers alight, behaved tolerably well, but the levels 
beyond were of water, and not as they should be of grass. At Bridg¬ 
water, too, I found the Parret reasonably within bounds, but the train 
stopped there. How long the traffic to Taunton and beyond would be 
delayed no one knew. When the next train would start was not fixed, 
and those of us who were bound to go to Taunton had to drive the 
journey along the excellent coach road of between eleven and twelve 
miles. The railway line, halfway between the two towns, is very liable 
to be submerged, and the trains often run through the water. On Friday, 
however, it rose so high that if the attempt had been made the fires of 
the locomotives would have been put out. 
BRISTOL—PITCHFORKING BREAD. 
“ Bad as the flood may have been at Bath, or in other parts of the 
west country, there is no doubt that Bristol has been the greatest 
sufferer. The damage done to property must have been immense. 
The papers, 1 found, were full of it. The people in the streets and the 
shops talked of nothing else. The waters had fallen a good deal, but 
there was still ample evidence of the dangerous character of the visita¬ 
tion. Had the rise of the flood continued another hour there musthave 
been great loss of life, and indeed at all parts the danger seems to have 
been mercifully turned aside at the moment when it had reached the 
limit beyond which it would have been beyond control. In addition to 
the Avon, which runs deep and strong at Bristol, there is the river 
Fromc, fed by countless rivulets. The rain here, as in other parts of 
Somersetshire and Devonshire, was continuously heavy on Thursday and 
Friday, and the already surcharged ground could absorb no more. The 
Frome, moreover, overruns with but little provocation, and its valley is 
as often flooded, perhaps, as that of any stream in the country. Even- 
on Thursday the flat fields about Stapleton were under water, and next 
day, when the Avon sent down a culminating flood from Wiltshire and 
Bath, the flood waters became altogether unmanageable. The people 
living in districts that are liable to inundations made ready to the best 
of their ability to meet the foe. Friday was a day of harassment and 
terror to thousands of them. Early in the afternoon streets were 
becoming running streams, basement floors were swamped, and lower 
rooms on the street levels were in turn entered by the water. At East- 
ville the water from the Union Brook, which hereabouts joins the River 
Frome, reached to the top of the bar windows, and all the houses and 
shops around were flooded. Tramcars and cabs plied through the water, 
the passengers of the former standing on boards stretched from seat to- 
seat, with flashing flood-water filling the body of the vehicles. Boats 
appearing upon the scene were rowed up and down the streets attend¬ 
ing upon the inhabitants driven to the upper regions. In one thorough¬ 
fare even to-day (Sunday) a baker’s cart stood axle-deep in the flood, 
the baker delivering his loaves to the customers at the bedroom windows 
on.the points of a pitchfork. 
TAUNTON—NARROW E -C APE3—RUINED GARDENS. 
“ At Taunton the flood had risen with really alarming rapidity on 
Friday evening, compelling the families inhabiting several • houses' 
to scamper for their lives. Taunton, like Bath, is environed, though 
at a greater distance, by a rampart of hills, and the snow of six days 
ago rested liberally upon the Quantock Hills to the north and Black- 
down Hills to the south. The river Tone is continually in receipt of 
tributary overflows, and this is not by any means the first time that 
Taunton has been flooded by it. The river rose gradually with the 
rainfall of Thursday, and on Friday evening it was bank full. Sud¬ 
denly the overflow rushed into the town from two directions, the im¬ 
petuosity being really due to the bursting of the banks in Weir Fields. 
Within two hours the united streams from the two points of overflow 
had laid half the town under water, rendered the approach to the station 
impassable by the tallest waggons, and filled street upon street of houses- 
with water to a depth of 5 feet. The current racing down Wood Street 
was so strong that a pair of sturdy draught horses in a waggon bound 
against stream on a mission of rescue were carried off their legs and drifted 
back with the vehicle to which they were harnessed to the causeway from 
which they had started. Fortunately by this time similar ventures had 
been successful, and numbers of people had been rescued by vehicles 
drawn under rather than through the water by horses, that in one or 
two cases took to swimming. Taunton is well lighted by electricity, 
and the inhabitants reaped the advantage of it in so dire a dilemma as 
that of Friday. In North Town a postman persevered in his round, but- 
was eventually forced to clasp one of the electric light posts to save 
himself from the strength of the flood galloping down one of the large 
thoroughfares. He was nearly exhausted by holding on when the 
driver of an hotel omnibus, floundering its way from the station, heard, 
his cries for help, and got near enough to throw him a sack by which 
to haul him up to the vehicle. After much trouble this was effected. 
There were many narrow escapes of this description, men finding them¬ 
selves in jeoparly from the strength rather than the depth of the 
current. One man shouting for help was being washed amidst whirling 
planks and odds and ends of timber down Wood Street, and was rescued 
after sinking once by a whip thong cast towards him from a van. At 
one time, between eight and nine o’clock, the water is calculated to have 
been sweeping down this narrow street at the rate of at least eight 
miles an hour. The marks left register a depth of nearly 0 feet. The 
omnibuses made their wonted journeys to the railway station until the 
passengers were reduced to standing on the seats and the vehicles began 
to sway with the current. The service was then abandoned. Soon 
after midnight the flood showed substantial signs of abating, and the 
peace of mind of many poor people was restored. By yesterday (Sunday) 
morning they returned to their homes or descended to floors fruin which 
they had been ejected. Walls have been laid low, railings smashed, and 
gardens ruined.” 
Such i3 the (abridged) record. Great damage has been done by 
floods in the Midlands, but the inundations appear to have been the. 
most serious in the Western counties. 
GLADIOLUS CULTURE. 
[ A paper read by Mr. 15. . J . Beckwith at the Gardeners’ I istitute, Darlington ] 
My remarks upon this flower will have more particular reference 
to the gandavensis section, the hybrids of which have received the 
florist’s attention for a much longer period than any of the other 
sections. They are also the most beautiful of any, and are more- 
