December 13,1894 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
541 
It ‘was found (when very nearly too late) that the indigenous plant 
was far superior to the acclimatised. The first distinctly public, or 
■commercial, sale of Indian Tea was made in the Calcutta market on 
the 25th May, 1811. The total area under Tea in India is 334,845 acres. 
The exports in 1891-92 from India were 120,000,000 lbs. At the 
present day it may be said that Ceylon is now a more formidable 
rival to India than China. In 1885-86 Ceylon exported not quite 
8,000,000 lbs. of Tea. In 1891-92 Ceylon had increased its exports to 
nearly 68,000,000 lbs. 
- Catillac Pears. —When the story of the amount of fruit Im¬ 
ported into this country for the year is told some reference should be made 
to the large number of Catillac Pears sent over here from France in the 
well-known wooden crates. How good is the sample, and how neatly 
yet cheaply packed in layers with some paper shavings between them. 
These fruits are sold at 2Jd. per lb. in the grocers’ shops, and as shown 
in these light, neat crates, how attractive they look. And yet we see 
this large importation going on when we have had one of the heaviest 
of home-grown Pear crops. But is it in consequence of the British 
public having of late become familiar with the delicious nature of this 
Pear when baked or stewed, and find that at home we have no means to 
cater for it ? Surely there is no Pear grown so easily, and on the whole 
crops so regularly as does the hardy Catillac.—D. 
- Brtjnsviqia Josephine. — Writing about Brunsvigia 
Josephinas, an English correspondent in the “Garden and Forest” 
says :—“ If we could induce this plant to bloom every year it would 
take rank with the most select of South African bulbous plants. Under 
cultivation in this country, however, it rarely flowers ; consequently it 
is rarely grown. In some parts of South Africa it is most abundant on 
the open sandy plains, its large heads of red flowers standing erect 
among the short scrub, and when withered rolling about in the wind 
like gigantic Dandelion heads. There is a plant of it in bloom in the 
Cape house at Kew. It has a bulb about 4 inches in diameter and a 
stout semi-terete scape a foot high bearing an umbel of fourteen flowers, 
each flower being borne on a stiff pedicel 9 inches long, the flower itself 
being 3 inches long, and in shape and colour suggesting the Jacoboea 
Lily (Sprekelia). Sometimes there are fifty or sixty flowers in an 
umbel, according to Baker. The whole inflorescence is very suggestive 
of an elaborate chandelier.” 
-The Manure Heap. —For light soils well decayed stable manure 
and good farmyard manure is the best. If it has previously done service 
as a hotbed it had better be left in this solid state for some weeks longer, 
while if still comparatively fresh it should be thrown together into aheap 
to ferment and decay, an occasional turning preventing the centre 
becoming over-heated and dry, and expediting decay. Nor ought 
the manure intended for heavy soils to be left spread abroad for the 
rains to wash their virtues out of it. The proper course to pursue is to 
select a convenient site, and over this spread a layer 12 inches thick 
of loam or garden soil. On this to be stacked the manure solidly, 
wheeling or carting on to the heap doing good rather than otherwise, 
and when the heap is about 5 feet high spread another 12 inches or 
rather less of soil on the top. Thus treated the decay will be steady ; 
there will be no loss of ammonia, as the soil will absorb this, while that 
underneath will soak up all the juiees that reach it. Manure will keep 
good a long time when treated in that manner, and by mixing soil and 
manure together according as it is chopped down the bulk will be 
greatly increased.—A Reader. 
- The Poor Apple Crop. —I am surprised that there should 
seem to be room for discussing the reasons that led to the very poor 
Apple crop of the present year. The conditions favourable to the pro¬ 
duction of a very fine crop were exceptionally so, as we had well 
matured wood, stout plump buds, made all the stouter by the abundant 
autumn rains of the previous year, and, not least, a very fine bloom- 
There was not a shadow of reason to suppose that the Apple bloom 
was in any way defici nt of pollen, and no one dreamt of making such 
a suggestion until after the severe May rains had washed out the pollen 
or the later frosts had destroyed what of immature fruits had been set, 
or at least largely so. Then, as is always the case, critics cast about to 
find a cause of any nature but the right one. If trees had been so very 
much crippled by the previous year’s drought—and it is notorious they 
were not, for in spite of it wood growth was almost as good as ever on 
fruit trees—then Pears should have been a poor crop as well as Apples. 
There is no stability in such reasoning. Apples, oddly enough, though 
the latest to bloom, suffered most because the bloom was expanded at a 
singularly ungenial and wet time. No pollen, especially as found in 
open, erect, and cup-shaped flowers like those of the Apple, could with¬ 
stand such climatic conditions and yet be fertile. Comparisons between 
Vines and Apples do not run at all on all fours, for our treatment of 
both are so dissimilar. Again, a crop of Grapes is less dependent upon 
the wood growth of the previous year, which is, of course, all cut away 
in the pruning, but on the weather of the fruiting season. That is the 
Castle Coch experience, and just as last year gave a great crop the 
present season has given a very poor one.—A. D. 
- Canning Fruit.—O ne of the principal industries amongst 
the poorer classes in San Francisco, says a writer in a northern 
contemporary, is the fruit canning. The season is but a short one, 
from May to October at most, but while it lasts they make it a 
remunerative one. There are no fixed working hours ; it depends entirely 
on the amount of work to be done. Sometimes the work is all done 
by three in the afternoon ; on other occasions, as happened a day 
or two ago, it has gone on till two o’clock in the morning. That 
occurred at one of the largest canning factories in San Francisco. A 
load of Apricots, 33,812 lbs. in all, came in early in the morning, 
and he saw the result of the day’s work next morning in 29,000 cans 
of Apricots stored away and ready for exportation. The factory is 
close to the Italian quarter, and most of the people who work there 
are regular hands. They come back season after season. In the 
early morning, about five or six o’clock, they begin to cluster round 
the doors, so that when the fruit does arrive they may get first 
at the boxes. Sometimes as many as 27,000 packages, sacks, and 
boxes will arrive in a morning, and the rush to get first at them 
is very amusing. The women, though principally Italian, are 
of all nationalities, and they push, fight, and shove quite good 
naturedly for a front place. Being on piece work the women 
are remarkably active, and it is astonishing how much they can 
get through in a day. All the operations are conducted in a 
large stone-floored apartment, opening off the street. The boxes 
are brought direct there. Each woman seizes a certain quantity, 
carries it off to one of the long wooden tables, and in a moment 
stalks, stones, and peelings are flying round like hailstones. The 
mode of preparation depends, of course, on the fruit. Apricots are 
seldom peeled. Peaches are always, and afterwards thrown into 
clean water till they are ready to be canned. The cans, when filled 
are taken to the syruping machine—an ingenious contrivance—whereby 
forty-eight cans are filled at one time with the preserving liquid, the 
waste matter being drawn up from the tank into which it runs by 
means of a force pump, strained, and used again. From there they 
go to the capping machine, where the lids are soldered on, leaving 
only a tiny pin-hole in the centre for the evaporation of the steam. 
Afterwards they are plunged in a bath of boiling water, where they 
partially cook for a few minutes. The little holes are then closed 
completely, and the fruit receives its final cooking by dry steam in 
a retort. The cans are then taken to the warehouse, tapped and 
examined to see if there are any defects, then labelled ready for 
shipment. ___ 
DIFFICULTIES IN EXHIBITING — PROPOSED COURT 
OP APPEAL. 
Cannot you, in your powerful position, suggest a Court of Appeal 
to consider allegations of m'sjudging, say by proposing a half-guinea 
deposit, or something of that kind, until a matter in dispute can be 
authoritatively settled ? “The'Judge’s award to be final ” sounds very 
well ; but how can one tell, for instance, the difference between Chrys¬ 
anthemum blooms from crown buds of one variety and terminals of 
another in many cases?— Geo. Crabbe. 
[The suggestion of a deposit appears a good one—both sides, of 
course, depositing. Without some such provision a " Court of Appeal," 
if formed, would be inundated with applications to settle differences of 
opinion on matters of personal rather than public interest. The sugges¬ 
tion is commended to the attention of the Royal Horticultural Society 
for consideration in connection with the proposed code of judging. If 
the new proposal is entertained we think conditions could be formulated 
for carrying out a project that appears to be needed—uamely, an 
authoritative Court of Appeal for the adjustment of differences incident 
to exhibiting, and settling disputed points in connection therewith, the 
decision to be final. It should cover the whole scope of exhibiting, and 
by no means be limited to Chrysanthemums. The “ Court,” to command 
public confidence, should comprise Judges of wide experience (including 
specialists) in different branches of horticulture, and not less important 
would it be to have law and literature represented for interpreting and 
improving ambiguous phraseology in schedules. Possibly some of our 
' readers may have ideas to communicate on the subject in question.^ 
