456 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Jane 6, 1889. 
Spinach or Lettuces. You see not only is something ready for 
planting immediately a crop is cleared, but the planting for a 
second crop is done before the first is off the ground. 
Deeply worked and well enriched ground is essential to this 
close continuous cropping, also after dressings of soot and chemical 
manures for inducing free growth. London market gardeners are 
great believers in soot, and they do not believe in what does not 
pay. There is, however, a great difference in soot, and a gentleman 
who was a large buyer of it once bribed a sweep to tell him how to 
know when it is pure and good. The test is very simple. If a 
handful cannot be grasped and kept, but flies out between the 
fingers, it is pure ; if it “ cakes ” in the hand it is not. Quite 
recently this was confirmed by a black professional with whom I 
fraternised for the purpose of gaining information on the subject. 
{To be continued.) 
UMS 
*”1 - 
CHISWICK CHRYSANTHEMUM CONFERENCE. 
A MEETING of the Executive Committee was hell in the band 
tent at the Summer Show of the Royal Horticultural Society in the 
Temple Gardens, on Friday, May 31st. There were present., T. B. 
Haywood, Esq., President of the Conference, in the chair, the Rev. W. 
Wilks, Messrs. H. J. Yeitch, A. F. Barron, Norman Davis, E. Wills, 
Shirley Hibberd, W. Mease, J. Wright, J. Laing, G. Paul and E. 
Molyneux. 
A representative schedule of classes was drawn up, consisting of 
thirteen for plants and twenty-two for cut blooms, embracing all 
sections and methods of cultivation, with a view to obtain competition 
to suit all classes of cultivators and lovers of Chrysanthemums. 
To make the Exhibition still more useful, a class was made for 
appliances best suited for growing and showing Chrysanthemums. 
The subjects of papers to be read at the Conference were selected, 
and readers suggested. Particulars will be announced as soon as the 
arrangements are completed. 
It was decided to issue papers to a large body of growers of the 
'Chrysanthemum for statistical returns of various subjects connected 
with the plant and its growth for future usefulness.—E. Molyneux, 
Hon. Secretary to the Conference Committee. 
SHOW FIXTURES. 
The fixing of the opening of the Birmingham Chrysanthemum 
Show for the day previous to that of the Provincial Show of the 
National Chrysanthemum Society at Hull is unfortunate, and I think, 
with Mr. Molyneux, might have been avoided. The date of the Hull 
Show was, however, fixed months ago, and announced in the issue of 
your Journal of 24th January last. Local circumstances must, to a 
large extent, influence the fixing of dates, but where it is prominently 
announced that the winner of the premier prize will be the champion 
of the season, other than local considerations should prevail. The Bir¬ 
mingham Society have doubtless fixed the date as most suitable for 
their district, but until growers can influence the climatic conditions 
under which they work there can be no champion exhibitor of all 
England.— Edw. Harland, Hull. 
The Finchley Chrysanthemum Society have just issued the schedule 
for their fourth Exhibition to be held at Woodside Hall, North Finchley, 
on November 5th and 6th. Hon. Secretary, Mr. Edward Linfield, 
19, Vernon Terrace, East Finchley. 
The Bolton and District Chrysanthemum Society have fixed 
November 15th and 16th as the dates of their third Exhibition, and 
entries should be sent to Mr. J. Hicks, Markland Hill, Heaton, the 
Hon. Secretary. 
LATE PEAS. 
Whatever advantage a southern district possesses over a 
northern one in the way of having certain crops a few days earlier 
fit for use, there are certainly some advantages which the less 
favoured one possesses which it would not be right to undervalue, 
and amongst such advantages is the production of a late crop of 
Peas in a good condition, which many places, possessing many 
excellent qualifications in other ways, are unable to do. The many 
failures that happen to crops which are intended for a late supply 
has been such as to deter some cultivators from attempting their 
growth, contenting themselves with furnishing this very popular 
article for only one-half the time that it is capable of being had 
in other places less favoured in many respects. 
The hardships of frost and snow seem less fatal to Peas than 
the mildew and other evils they have to encounter during summer, 
which evils, being more numerous in a warm climate than in a cold 
one, make their cultivation in the former a much more difficult and 
uncertain matter than in a district less genial in other respects. 
Now, as this arises from different causes, it may not be uninteresting 
here to no; ice them particularly. In the first place, if we compare 
the earliest variety of Pea with the cereals commonly grown, we 
see that it arrives at maturity before they do, and consequently 
Nature, that all-important instructor, has evidently intended to 
exempt the Pea from that scourge the mildew, which attacks it so 
unmercifully when it has to endure the dry air and parched ground 
of the dog days, for it is reasonable to suppose that the fluids neces¬ 
sary to their healthy existence may not be forthcoming at such a 
dry time. Even if we have a late season, it does not follow that 
ram alone possesses all the qualifications requisite to a sound 
healthy cultivation, hence the failures which often take place, as 
well in a moist season as a dry one, when other things do not 
favour their well-being. It is more in unison with the designs of 
Nature that the period noticed above should be dry rather than 
wet. It follows that a wet season may be fairly said to be an 
unhealthy one for vegetation in a general way, and it is vain to 
think that a shower in August or September will have the same 
beneficial results as one in April; consequently the Pea becomes 
unhealthy, and easily falls a prey to those diseases which are so 
ready to attack a disabled plant. As it is before observed that this 
tendency to succumb to the evils above exists in a greater degree 
in the south of England than in the north of it and Scotland, it 
follows that in the majority of seasons the prolonged period in 
which good useful Peas can be had for table in the latter district is 
more than will compensate for the few days earlier that the 
southern portion is favoured with. 
Having just observed that the Pea is more subject to misfortune 
when planted to come into use at a late period than when done 
sooner, it follows that the season— i.e., the atmosphere, and the state 
of the ground generally, are not suited to the wants of the Pea ; 
the former being charged with something favouring disease rather 
than vigour, while the latter is deficient of that qualification 
necessary to ward it off ; hence the liability to suffer. In order to 
preserve it against such a misfortune, we must take all the pains 
we can to secure the plant such an amount of good wholesome food 
that it will not suffer from the lack of proper nourishment. The 
state of the ground ought to be so regulated as to admit all this, 
which is accomplished by breaking it up to such a depth as to admit 
the roots of the Peas so far down as to be below the immediate 
action of the dry weather. The stiff ground must be mixed with 
such as consists of a finer texture, while the very light, hungry 
soils and gravels must have a corresponding addition made to them 
of a stiff and retentive nature, so as to ensure a healthy action to 
roots deep enough to be below the immediate range of an ordinary 
summer’s drought. The latter is a more difficult duty than the 
other, for the dry nature of a sandy, chalky, or gravelly subsoil is 
such as to suck out the moisture from any ordinary substance 
buried in it; consequently, the means of restoring that moisture 
must be made available. In other words, where a soil of the above 
description has to be operated on, it would be better if the subsoil 
was removed to at least ensure a depth of 18 inches of a good loamy 
soil of a kind that was sweet and well pulverised by its exposure to 
the atmosphere. If this cannot be had in sufficient quantity to do 
the whole plot, then let the rows be so done to the breadth and 
depth of at least 18 inches each way, and the Peas being sown at 
the proper time the moisture of this space must be kept up by 
repeated wateiings as wanted, not forgetting to supply liquid 
manure when the plants have advanced one-half their height and 
afterwards. By attending to this, and allowing them a free, open, 
airy situation, a tolerable crop of Peas may be depended on, which 
in an ordinary way might have fallen a prey to mildew when just 
brginning to form the pods. 
When land of an entirely opposite character has to be acted 
upon a contrary course must be adopted, for here we have the plant 
supplied with a superabundance of fluid matter, and that perhaps 
of a sour and improper kind. In cases of this kind, where the 
ground is wet, clayey, and unkind, what farmers would call a good 
fallow is necessary— i.e., it must be exposed to the vicissitudes of 
the elements for some time before sowing, and frequently turned 
over during that time. When the proper time arrives for sowing 
let a reverse way to the one noted above be adopted ; in fact, 
instead of sowing the seed in rows of earth that had been deepened 
to receive a better material, let the material in this case be heaped 
on the surface, and the seed sown in a sort of a ridge, more or less 
high, as the wetness of the ground may seem necessary. But 
observe, this plan is only necessary in extreme cases ; for though it 
is common enough to sow Peas and other things in that way in early 
spring, the ground must want draining very much which requires 
