1874. ] 
THE CEACKING OF FRUITS. 
123 
Council will assuredly find themselves—so much in the hands of Her Majesty’s 
Commissioners, that they were hardly free agents. Now, if you bring forward a 
man with his hands tied and tell him to fight, or hold your hand before his mouth 
and tell him to talk, if he be a wise man, he will use his hands and his tongue 
only so far as he sees the cause he has at heart will benefit by their use. 
The attacks on the late Secretary were, in my judgment, in bad taste, and 
much to be lamented on higher grounds ; they were not only personal, but un¬ 
merited and unjust. I do not hesitate to express the opinion that no living man 
has done so much as General Scott to obtain the higher and wider recognition of 
Horticulture which it deserves. If it should* be said that the rising importance of 
Horticulture offered him the opportunity which did not exist before, and that even 
more might have been done in this direction, I readily grant both propositions. But 
to do the right thing at the right time, is surely the highest evidence of admin¬ 
istrative wisdom, and if “ more might have been done,” I would ask who else 
has done so much ? While free to admit that, considering the position in which 
the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society stand to Her Majesty’s Commissioners, 
it would have been better that both secretaryships should not have been in the 
hands of one and the same individual, yet I maintain that the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society benefited largely by the Secretary’s administration. Gratitude 
is not looked for as a reward for public services, but justice should be done, 
irrespective of private or party views, and honour should be given where honour 
is due. 
Believing, as I do, that Horticulture is now fairly entitled to take a higher 
position than it actually takes among the arts and sciences, I deplore the fact 
that our Horticulturists do not show more public spirit with a view to this end. 
Every well-wisher of the Royal Horticultural Society should endeavour to promote 
a good understanding between the Council and Her Majesty’s Commissioners. 
The Royal Horticultural Society may he useful as a local institution, and to 
this I fear things are tending; but let us remember it has been national in the 
pcust, and to denationalize it now, though it might serve the interests of a few, 
would certainly prove a loss to the community at large.—W. P. 
THE CRACKING OF FRUITS. 
one values more than I do the results of the unwearying researches made 
72^ by physiologists, whether in regard to objects connected with my own imme¬ 
diate pursuits, or in fields of less importance to the gardener. I cannot, 
however, help thinking that their decisions are occasionally arrived at 
or based upon data which are erroneous, or to say the least, fallacious and mis¬ 
leading. For instance, M. Boussingault attributes the cracking of fruits to an 
accumulation of water in the tissues, the increased volume resulting from the 
introduction of water through the skins during rainy periods, by means of endos- 
mose. With us here in England, the cracking of fruits is too general to admit of 
this explanation alone, as, for example, in the case of Josling’s St, Alban’s Grape, 
M 2 
