296 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
January 8, 1887. 
VINE BORDERS. 
At p. 266, “A. B. C.” gives a passage from a paper 
written, in 1865, by Mr. David Mitchell, which to 
amateurs will he very misleading, and if followed out 
to the letter would cause great disappointment and 
almost certain failure. Two years is by tar too short a 
time to judge of the merits of any compost for a per¬ 
manent Vine border, no matter how well the Vines 
may do for that time. I have known them do splen¬ 
didly for three or four years, or as long as the fibre is 
not decomposed, and begin to shrink more and more 
every year. Lime-rubbish, which is the only opening 
material mentioned in Mr. Mitchell’s letter, is given at 
one part in thirteen for clayey loam. Of course, much 
depends on the composition of the loam itself; but, 
taking the term clayey loam as it is generally under¬ 
stood, we find one in four little enough, with sand and 
charcoal over and above ; we proved one in six to be 
quite insufficient to keep the border in a friable con¬ 
dition after the fibre was gone. 
Vines will not thrive in a stiff retentive border, and 
will both shank and colour badly, and it is impossible 
to keep such a border in good condition. "When wet it 
resembles paste, when dry it is like a brick ; this is 
what a clayey border will certainly come to immediately 
the fibre is decomposed, and the compost settled down. 
It would be interesting to have a report of Mr. Mitchell’s 
Vines after six or eight years, by anyone who knew 
them. 
Coming to underground ventilation, Mr. Mitchell 
says, “that eyes or little chimneys ought to be carried 
up to the surface of the borders at the ends of the north 
and south drains, to allow the warm air to descend and 
circulate.” This is a quite unnatural, if not an im¬ 
possible course for air to take. Cold air may come up 
the chimneys from the drains, fed from the main one, 
into the house ; but warm air will not descend to the 
drains unless by some artificial means, such as trapping 
the main drain, and connecting the others to a pipe 
with its outlet in a furnace. Most people will consider 
this trouble and expense unnecessary for all practical 
purposes. —A. Bell, Morton Hall, Midlothian. 
-- 
FERTILITY OF ADIANTUM 
FARLBYBNSB. 
The Mystery Solved. 
Having been for some considerable time anxious 
to procure spores for increasing the stock of what I 
call the queen of Ferns, I paid very frequent visits to 
the different plants in various positions, and searched 
the fronds anxiously ; but the result was always alike- 
fruitless. There are only four very healthy plants 
now under my care, having parted with two lately ; 
and the largest being in a tub, and in grand form, I 
had good hopes that I should find some there if any¬ 
where. Therefore, as the suggestive articles appeared 
in your paper, the plants were again and again in¬ 
spected ; and this morning, hope still holding on, a 
pinnule was discovered with three segments, at one 
corner curved back only, and those of a brownish cast. 
Providing a sheet of white paper, microscope, and 
the noted segments, I put them through the closest 
scrutiny, and could detect with ease the presence of 
sori, and even detached a case ; but could find no 
spores. However, my foreman being within call, I 
asked him to come and examine the little case. After 
looking a short while, he pulled his knife out and 
split up the little pocket, when, to our great surprise 
and intense pleasure, three spores were exposed to the 
naked eye, and looked at through the glass, corre¬ 
sponded in size to the seed of a Chinese Primula, only 
more transparent. They are quite double the size of 
Adiantum amabile spores. 
Believing the discovery to be of intrinsic value, and 
also worth proving, I called in my neighbour, Mr. 
"William Goldby, of Edgend Nurseries, who is quite 
an expert at the raising of Adiantums, and who 
has secured some of very considerable merit that will 
yet grace the exhibition tables as first-class varieties 
when stock is acquired. After a full inspection of all, 
he expressed the fullest satisfaction as to the genuine 
fact, and went off with the spores—six in all—highly 
pleased. I may further add that only one frond can 
be found with fertile pinnules, which are very leathery 
in texture, of large size, and also of perfect form, from 
which we will gather the spores, in the course of a week 
or two, for further experiment, and the result will reach 
you in due course.— James C. Durno, Edgend Hall, 
near Burnley, Lancashire. 
DEATH OF MR. THOMAS MOORE. 
"We deeply regret to have to announce to our readers 
the death, at the Botanic Gardens, Chelsea, in the early 
hours of New Year’s Day, of Mr. Thomas Moore, aged 
sixty-five years. The state of Mr. Moore’s health had 
been the cause of much concern among his private 
friends for some time, for it was seen only too plainly 
that his physical powers were on the wane ; yet his 
end came quite unexpectedly. He had been confined 
to his room for only three days, and passed peacefully 
away at a quarter-past six, on the morning of the 1st of 
January, leaving a widow and one son to mourn his 
loss, and creating a void in the horticultural world 
that cannot easily be filled. 
For a period of about forty years Mr. Moore has held 
a leading position among the horticulturists of this 
country, and in his death there are few of the older 
readers of gardening literature who will not recognise 
the loss of an esteemed friend. Personally, having 
had the pleasure and gratification of serving under 
him in journalistic work for some years, we can 
scarcely trust ourselves to speak of him as we would 
like to do ; but this much must be said, of the troops 
of friends which he had, none more enjoyed his kindly 
regard, more thoroughly appreciated his valuable 
teaching, counsel and advice, or more deeply regretted 
the fact that while few men in their day and generation 
did more than he in promoting the best interests of 
gardeners and gardening, there are few—very few— 
whose claim to honour and distinction have been less 
generously recognised. No doubt, to a great extent, this 
was due to his retiring disposition. All his life, it may 
be said, he was a silent worker ; but up to within the 
last few years he was an active man, and ever engaged 
in the pursuit of some object, by which horticul¬ 
ture or horticulturists were benefited. His knowledge 
of all matters appertaining to scientific and practical 
gardening was immense, and his vast store of useful 
information has been drawn upon by great numbers, 
and, we venture to say, to their lasting benefit. It 
was, however, only those who were intimately 
acquainted with Mr. Moore and his work, who could 
appreciate his remarkable talents, his extraordinary 
industry, his willingness, at all times, to communicate 
knowledge to others, or to assist in any useful way 
in promoting what he regarded as a good cause. His 
immediate friends recognised his great ability, and his 
inherent modesty and love of quiet repose only the 
more endeared him to them ; but none the less must it 
be said, that these were characteristics which kept the 
man and his work from the public gaze, and prevented 
him from attaining the position in the horticultural 
world which his undoubted ability entitled him to. 
In one of our earlier numbers (May 2nd, 1885) we 
gave a portrait of our friend, which to-day we repro¬ 
duce. Mr. Moore was born on the 29th of May, 1821, 
at Stoke-next-Guildford, Surrey, and commenced his 
gardening career in a private establishment in the same 
county. After serving as a journeyman in one or two 
other gardens in Surrey, Mr. Moore went to the Royal 
Botanic Society’s Garden, Regent’s Park. In 1844 he 
brought out his first work on gardening, The Cultiva¬ 
tion of the Cucumber and Melon ; and four years later, 
Majq 1848, on the late Mr. Robert Fortune leaving the 
Botanic Garden of the Society of Apothecaries atChelsea, 
to go to China for the old East India Company, Mr. 
Moore, on the recommendation of Dr. Lindley, became 
curator of that establishment, an office which he held 
to the day of his death. From his youth Mr. Moore 
had a strong penchant for the study of Ferns, of which 
he subsequently became the recognised historian. In 
1848 he published his Handbook of British Ferns, which 
became a popular work when the Fern-collecting craze 
was at its height about thirty years ago. Ferns and 
Allied Plants followed in 1851, and five years later was 
published The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland — 
Nature Printed. In the following year, 1857, his 
Index Filicum and Illustrations of Orchidaceous Plants 
made their appearance; and in 1859-60, Octavo Nature- 
printed Ferns, in two volumes, was issued from the 
press. From Ferns, Mr. Moore about this time turned 
his attention to other subjects, and The Field 
Botanist’s Companion : British Isles, was published in 
1862, and Elements of Botany in 1865. 
But while Mr. Moore had been busy at his books, 
his pen had also been busy in other directions ; thus 
during 1850-2 he was joint editor of The Gardeners’ 
Magazine of Botany, and for several years from 1861 
he edited The Floral Magazine, now defunct. He next 
became editor and proprietor of The Florist and 
Pornologist, which ceased to exist at the end of 18S4. 
In 1866, he edited, and Messrs. Longmans published, 
The Treasury of Botany, of which in 1873 a new 
edition was called for and issued in a revised form, 
with the addition of a supplement. In 1878 came out 
a new edition, revised and extended by Mr. Moore, of 
that most popular of all gardening books —Thomson’s 
Gardeners’ Assistant —and we next find him contributing 
the article “Horticulture” to the Encyclopaedia 
Britanniea, which was subsequently recast, extended 
and illustrated, and, with an introductory chapter on 
the principles of horticulture by Dr. (Masters, was issued 
in a separate form as The Epitome of Gardening. For 
a year or two previous to the death of Dr. Lindley, 
Mr. Moore assisted him in editing The Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, and on the demise of “ the Doctor ” in 1865 
he became co-editor of that journal with Dr. Masters, 
a position which he occupied until the end of 1881, 
when the severance of his connection with The Chronicle 
was taken advantage of by his personal friends to 
present him with a piece of plate and a substantial 
pecuniary gift. His latest literary work, we believe, 
was done in association with Mr. B. S. "Williams in the 
production of the Orchid Album. 
Mr. Moore carried out in the most successful manner 
the duties of Exhibition Secretary of the Great Inter¬ 
national Horticultural Exhibition held in 1866, and on 
the purchase of the Lindley Library with a portion of 
the surplus derived from that very successful venture, 
he was appointed one of the trustees. He was also one 
of the trustees, as well as secretary, of the Memorial 
Fund, which was raised a few years later to perpetuate 
the memory of the late Mr. James Yeitch. He was 
also, at various times, secretary or treasurer or member 
of the committee of many other movements ; and as 
honorary secretary and treasurer of the National Dahlia 
Show presided over a meeting but a few days before 
his death, as was recorded in our columns last week. 
He was, too, a member of the committee, for many 
years, of the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution, 
a member for many years of the Floral Committee, of 
which he was secretary from 1859 to 1S65, and for 
several years Floral Director of the Chiswick Gardens, 
besides having been, some years ago, Examiner in 
Floriculture to the Royal Horticultural Society, as well 
as to the Society of Arts. 
Mr. Moore possessed a knowledge of garden plants 
that was truly remarkable, and his sympathies 
leaning rather to practical horticulture and floriculture 
than to the scientific branch, his services as a judge, 
both at ordinary flower shows and the special exhibi¬ 
tions of the floricultural fraternity, were in great 
demand, while he was able to get about ; and among 
no class will he be more missed than by our friends the 
florists. 
The funeral took place at mid-day on Wednesday, 
at Brompton Cemetery, in the presence of several mem¬ 
bers of the family, and a few of his more immediate 
horticultural friends. 
-—>2:<-- 
PEARS.* 
I HAVE been asked to give some account of what I 
know about Pears. There is, of course, much to be 
said about a fruit which more than any other attracts 
the attention of the cultivated pornologist from the 
extraordinary development it has attained in our own 
time, the ancients having been contented with fruit 
certainly unequal in flavour to that which we enjoy. 
M. Andre Leroy, in his Dictionary of Pomology, has 
taken the trouble to make very learned researches into 
antique Pears, and enumerates four Greek and thirty- 
five sorts of ancient Rome ; but he does not fix the 
time when these ceased to be catalogued, and gives only 
twelve sorts of Italian Pears between the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, the varieties cultivated in France 
from Charlemagne to Louis XIII. numbering 260 
kinds. 
The Latin author, Pliny, names twenty kinds. 
Yarro, Palladius, Cato, Columnella and Virgil are also 
pomologists and amateurs of Pears. The latter is very 
urgent in the matter of grafting Pears, but seems to 
have been aware of the modern axiom that “ he who 
plants Pears, plants for his heirs”; his version being 
‘ 1 Insere, Daphni, piros, carpent tua poma repotes. ” 
Palladius recommends grafting the Apple on the Pear. 
V A lecture l>y T. Francis Rivers, Sawbridgeworth, delivered at 
a recent meeting of the Horticultural Club. 
