Ms/ 5,1847. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
3G1 
ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
At the last monthly meeting of this Society, Mr. \V. Ellis, F.R.A.Sa 
President, in the chair, Mr. Robert Barnes M.D., F.R.C.P., and Mr. 
L. L. Latrobe-Bateman were ballotted for, and duly elected Fellows of 
the Society. 
The following papers were read :— 
(I.) “ The Storm and Low Barometer of December 8th and 9th, 
138(1," by Mr. C. Harding, F.R.Mct.Soc. This gale will lonj be remem¬ 
bered as the one in which twenty-seven lives were lost in the lifeboat 
disaster off Formby through the capsizing of the Southport and St. 
Anne’s lifeboats. The violence of the storm was felt over the whole of 
the British Islands, as well as over a great part of the Continent of 
Europe, the force of a gale blowing simultaneously from Norway to 
Spain. The strongest force of the gale in the United Kingdom was 
experienced in the west and south-west, and the highest wind force 
recorded by any anemometer over the country was a velocity of eighty 
miles in the hour, registered at Fleetwood, whilst at Valencia, Scilly, 
and Holyhead the velocity reached seventy miles in the hour. The 
most exceptional feature of the storm was the extraordinarily low read¬ 
ing of the barometer and the long time that the mercury remained at 
a low level. The absolutely lowest authentic reading was 27'38 inches 
at Relfast, and the barometer fell below 28 inches over a great part of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland. At Aberdeen the mercury was below 
23 inches for eighteen consecutive hours, and below 29 inches for more 
than sixty hours, whilst in the north of England ,hc barometer readings 
were equally exceptional. 
(2.) “ Report of the Wind Force Committee,” drawn up by Mr. G. 
Chatterton, M.A., F.R.Met.Soc. In this report, which is a preliminary 
one, the Committee have dealt mainly with that portion of the investi¬ 
gation relating to Beaufort’s Scale of Wind Force and the equivalent 
velocity in miles per hour. The Committee have compared the veloci¬ 
ties as recorded by the anemographs at Holyhead, Falmouth, and Yar¬ 
mouth, with the entries of Beaufort’s Scale in the logs of the neighbour¬ 
ing lightships and lighthouses for the year 1881, and they give the 
Tesults in a table. After a careful consideration of the whole of the 
Tesults of this investigation, the Committee are of opinion that the 
velocities shown by the Yarmouth anemograph, corresponding to Beau¬ 
fort’s Scale as recorded on board the lightships, are too high, and that 
the velocities shown by the Falmouth anemograph are probably too 
low. The Committee, however, have not yet had before them sufficient 
data to determine with any degree of certainty the relation between 
Beau fort’s Scale of Wind Force and the equivalent velocity in miles per 
hour ; neither are they able to recommend any existing scale that can 
be adopted or modified. 
3, “ A New Form of Velocity Anemometer,” by Mr. W. H. Dines, 
B.A. F.R.Met.Soc. In this instrument an attempt has been made to 
measure the velocity of the wind by the rotation of a small pair of 
windmill sails, the pitch of the sails being altered automatically, so that 
the rate may always bear the same ratio to that of the wind. The 
mechanical details are briefly as follows—A helicoid is fixed at the 
front, and a small pair of sails of variable pitch at the back of a steel 
rod, and just behind the helicoid a light fan, which can turn on the 
same axis, but is independent of the helicoid and sails. If the rotation 
l»e too rapid the fan turns in the same direction as the helicoid, and by 
its motion alters the pitch of the sails, so that their motion is retarded ; 
if, on the other hand, the friction is increased, or from any other cause 
the motion becomes too slow, the fan is turned in the other direction, 
and the rate is increased. The motion is communicated to a vertical 
rod which passes down the hollow pivot on which the instrument turns. 
It is kept facing the wind by a vane. It is convenient to connect the 
vertical shaft to the recording dial by a light flexible wire, all that 
is necessary being to place the dial approximately beneath the ane¬ 
mometer. By this means the trouble of ascending a high tower or 
ladder is avoided, except where oil is required. 
4, “ Description of Two New Maximum Pressure Registering 
Anemometers," by Mr. G. M. Whipple, R.Sc., F.R.Met.Soc. The 
simplest instrument is a modification of the Lind’s, Hagemann’s, or 
Pitot’s water pressure anemometers, provided with an apparatus for 
registering the maximum height the water attained during the period 
which elapsed since the last setting of the instrument. The second 
form of registering maximum pressure anemometer is derived from the 
ordinary pressure plate instrument. A circular metallic disc of 
9J inches diameter, exposing a surface of half a square foot is kept 
at right angles to the wind by means of a suitable vane. This disc 
is perforated by eight circular apertures, each of If inch in diameter. 
Behind each aperture a disc 1 £ inch in diameter is loosely held 
in jiitu by means of a bent lever loaded with a weight. These weights 
are arranged so as to press u|x>n the different discs with pressures 
proportionate to the values usually assigned to wind pressures measured 
by the various degrees of the Beaufort scale. 
FLOWER ROOTS FOR THE GARDEN. 
“ At length we seem to be getting a fair start for summer,” says a 
writer in the €aily Aetrx. “ Winds have become genial, sunbeams 
warm, and the mellifluent notes of the peripatetic nurseryman come 
swelling on the breeze with a pleasant suggestiveness of the time of 
year, and to the suburban gardener with a little loose cash in his pocket 
not altogether without a certain seductiveness. There is always a pos¬ 
sibility that the season may have something exceptionally good or 
attractively novel to offer, and as the flower merchant comes up with a 
fine Fuchsia or a handsome Pelargonium under each arm, and backs his 
donkey-barrow to the garden gate with a broad expanse of crimson 
Daisies, blue and yellow Pansies, and variegated Primulas and Polyan¬ 
thuses, the amateur gardener, satisfied though he may be that his 
borders are quite full and he has no need of anything, will, ten to one, 
allow himself to be wheedied out. He will go out of mere curiosity to 
see if there is anything new, and eventually will be very likely to part 
with his cash for something at least as old as himself. Some flower it 
will probably te, association with which he has brought along from his 
boyhood. People who take little or no personal interest in their flowers 
may change the fashion of their blossoms as often as they change the 
cut of their garments ; but it is very curious to observe how conserva¬ 
tive and unchanging arc the tastes of the cottage gardener—of those 
who tend their own gardens and grow their own flowers, and into 
whose lives they enter as part and parcel of their happiest and pleasantest 
experience. 
“ This will become apparent to anybody who will look over the dis¬ 
plays of the street barrows or the root stalls in Covent Garden, or will 
inquire into the staple growths of the ‘ root trade ’ as it is carried on 
around London. There arc scores, perhaps hundreds, of acres within a 
short radius of London devoted exclusively to flowers, almost every one 
of which is what we understand by an ‘ old-fashioned ’ flower, and 
which we can all remember as popular favourites from out earliest 
days, and for which the demand is every year on the increase, notwith¬ 
standing the immense developments of flower culture in entirely new 
directions of late years. One root-grower's ground comprises over 
20 acres, and it is almost entirely given up to the cultivation of old 
cottage garden favourites. 
“The ground we have alluded to is an open expanse of a tolerably 
free loam, without trees or buildings to intercept sunshine from morn¬ 
ing till night, or to screen it from winds from whatever quarter they 
may blow. It slopes gently down to the south, and is bounded at 
the bottom by the Edmonton brook, from which a good supply of 
water is always to be had. The land is ploughed and harrowed, and 
the cultivation looks to be like that of an ordinary farm, only instead 
of long stretches of Clover or Sainfoin or Turnips, here are almost 
interminable broad lines of Sweet Williams, Snapdragons, Pinks and 
Canterbury Bells, Pansies and Hollyhocks, and other equally familiar 
old friends, all of which, or nearly so, are grown for the London market. 
Amongst the largest crops on the ground is one of a plant which 
Londoners are wont to dignify as a garden flower, but which in many 
parts of the country is a weed out and out. This is the humble little 
* Creeping Jenny,’ though, by the way, nobody in the trade ever calls it 
‘ Creeping Jenny.’ It is always ‘Jenny ’ without the ‘ Creeping,’ just as 
‘ Sweet Williams ’ are always ‘ Williams,’ and ‘Wallflowers’ are always 
‘ Walls,’ and so on with a rigid economy of words really most exemplary 
and delightful in the days of agitation verbosity. ‘Jenny ’ is the little 
trailing plant with yellow blossoms which grows luxuriantly in the 
sedgy grass on the banks of the Thames and Chcrwell, and no doubt 
most other streams. About two acres of land is devoted to this plant 
alone, and one morning recently there were sent into market from this 
one ground a thousand dozens, and they were all sold before they got 
there. This plant is used largely for window boxes and vases, and is 
extremely pretty so long as it finds plenty of moisture, but probably out 
of the thousand dozens just referred to at least nine hundred dozens of 
the plant were doomed to a lingering death from drought. Of Pinks and 
Carnations there are several varieties grown here, and two or three acres 
of ground are devoted to these popular favourites alone. Canterbury 
Bells have a quarter of an acre devoted to them, and Sweet Williams 
half an acre. Thrift, Lupins, scarlet Lychnis, Daisies, and double Fever¬ 
few, Polyanthuses, Artirrhinums, Pansies, and Wallflowers, Stocks, and 
Dahlias, summer-flowering Chrysanthemums and Mignonette, Lavender, 
and .Southernwood divide between them pretty nearly the whole of the 
rest of the open ground. There is about an acre of glass, and under this 
there are enormous expanses of ‘ bedding-out stuff ’—Lobelias, Calceo¬ 
larias, white and scarlet Geraniums, and so forth. From twenty to 
thirty hands are employed, and one man is engaged all the year round 
in converting Orange boxes, egg-chests, and other receptacles of the kind 
into suitable forms for the conveyance of the produce to market, or in 
making the little boxes in which Lobelias, Feverfew, Calceolarias, and 
so forth are very commonly grown. Before the season commences these 
are built up in piles like huge haystacks, and afford rather an impressive 
idea of the magnitude of this, about the roughest and the humblest 
branch of fioricultural business. 
“ From such grounds as these and from innumerable small growers in 
all the outskirts of London enormous quantities of roots are every night 
at this time of year packed in vans and carts and come rumbling into 
Covent Garden, to be seized upon by the street hawkers, many of whom 
know at least as much of the trade in old clothes and worn-out boots 
and shoes as they do of the business in flowers. Some of these wandering 
merchants are to be dealt with very charily. Generally their flowers arc 
marvels of cheapness, and not infrequently are really first-rate. Large 
growers find it to their interest to propagate the very best of varieties, 
and they grow them in the manner best calculated to produce sturdy, 
vigorous plants. One may buy from a barrow for three-halfpence or 
twopence many a flower root such as five and twenty years ago could 
hardly be had at any price ; and the magnificent blooms of Pansies and 
Daisies, among other things which often at this time of year are brought 
round to our doors, are marvels of cultural development. This year, 
however, the show is exceptionally poor as far as blossoms are con¬ 
cerned. The season is a good month late, and trade during April has 
