438 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
March 12, 1887. 
sunshine is abundant and fogs rare, there, 
indeed, are blest locations for gardens; but it 
will well be conceived that even fogs, obnoxious 
as they are, are much less to be dreaded than 
late frosts. ~We may well hope that the last- 
quoted proverb will prove false—to be as in¬ 
tangible as the fog itself, which may be seen, but 
cannot be felt. We have, in the present month of 
March, one or two elements of hope in spite of 
the proverbs ; the first is that the weather keeps 
cold, hence all forms of vegetation remain restful. 
As compared with what lias been seen in 
some preceding years, when even in February 
vegetation has been as forward as it promises 
to be even a month hence, we have much to be 
thankful for, and a continuation of the cold 
until the month is out will be welcome. Then 
the month, so far, has been dry ; and although 
a dry March recalls to mind another old and 
stupid proverb, yet we may pass that by, and 
be thankful that the ground universally never 
was in better working order, or more fitted to 
receive seeds and roots of all kinds, than now. 
How diverse is this from some preceding years, 
when the month of March found the soil 
saturated, and either clogged with moisture or 
baked by harsh winds. We can plant and sow 
with good hearts now—at least, as far as the 
soil is concerned—and a crop well got in almost 
always means good results later. If the heavy 
shadow of a possibly frosty May did not sit 
like black care on the minds of gardeners, we 
might look forward for the rest of the season 
with light and expectant hearts; but beyond 
May frosts, there is a dark spectre hanging over 
much of our garden work, in the shape of utterly 
unremunerative returns for produce. 
Gardening is not absolutely a luxurious 
vocation. A wonderful industry in this direc¬ 
tion has grown up in our midst, which is abso¬ 
lutely dependent upon market returns for its 
prosperity or failure. Wonderful competition 
at home and abroad, very unfavourable seasons, 
an apparent incapacity on the part of the masses 
to purchase freely, and a decided declension in 
the capacity of the richer part of the nation to 
indulge in those luxuries so largely as in the 
past to which gardening administers, have all 
tended to endanger the welfare of market gar¬ 
dening in all its branches. That much we 
know, because we are, from many quarters 
too, continually being reminded of it. We 
cannot say so much as to the prosperity, or 
otherwise, of our nursery and seed trades; 
these are very important ones, but those engaged 
in them keep' their own counsel, and wisely. 
We trust there is no lack of business—and 
good profitable business, too—in those quarters. 
These interests are as indissolubly bound up 
with good seasons as are those of general gar¬ 
dening ; and to all universally the coming 
season must be viewed with hope or fear, or 
with comparative satisfaction, just as it proffers 
elementary goodness or otherwise. There is 
one class to whom the spring should bring hope, 
and that is the large body of gardeners who 
just now—and, indeed, for several weeks pagt— 
have been so urgently seeking employment. 
They naturally look for openings in the spring 
which have been closed all the winter. Still, 
if there are several hundreds of gardeners 
wanting places, it is difficult to see how they 
are to find them, except by the displacement of 
other men. Whether the area of employment 
is expanding or decreasing is a question difficult 
to answer. In some directions there is un¬ 
doubted contraction —products of hard times— 
with many presumably, but not really, rich 
people. Then it is feared the supply of gar¬ 
deners is a little beyond the demand just now, 
so that many will be doomed to disappoint¬ 
ment. Gardening may, a little later, take a 
fresh upward leap ; and with the spring-time of 
the year with us, so may we well feel the 
spring-time of hope expanding and cheering us. 
At a meeting of the Liverpool Horticultural 
Association held on the 5th inst., Mr. Harrison, of 
Knowsley, read an excellent paper on Salad Plants 
and their. Culture, the substance of which we hope 
to publish in our next issue. 
At the monthly meeting of the Council of the Royal 
Botanical and Horticultural Society of Man¬ 
chester, held on Monday, the 7th inst, Mr. Joseph 
Broome was unanimously elected chairman of the 
Council, in place of the late Dr. John Watts. A plan, 
submitted by Mr. Samuel Deard, of Harlow, Essex, 
was adopted, for the erection of glass structures on the 
plot of land near the Old Trafford Railway Station, 
upon which will be held the Annual Whitsuntide 
Horticultural Exhibition of 1887. These erections will 
be 300 ft. long, and connected and heated so that 
tender plants will be quite safe. 
The general Committee of the National Chry¬ 
santhemum Society met on Monday evening last, at 
the “Old Four Swans,” Bishopsgate Street. The presi¬ 
dent, Mr. E. Sanderson, was in the chair, and after 
the transaction of some business of a routine character, 
but of no public interest, Mr. G. Stevens moved :—That 
the Society’s silver and bronze medals be offered for 
competition at each of the meetings of the Floral Com¬ 
mittees, for the best twelve new Chrysanthemums of 
1887, Pompons allowed. After some discussion, the 
motion was adopted. 
The number of Chrysanthemum Societies now 
affiliated to “The National” is twenty-seven. 
The North Lonsdale Rose Society, which is 
affiliated to the National Rose Society, will hold its 
annual exhibition at Ulverstone on July 22nd. 
At a meeting of the Chiswick Gardeners’ Mutual 
Improvement Association on Friday, the 4th inst., 
Mr. Richard Dean, of Ealing, read a very interesting and 
(to young gardeners especially) instructive paper on The 
Florist's Tulip. He described the derivation of the 
name, traced the history of the Tulip, and its intro¬ 
duction through Constantinople to the rest of Europe, 
and finally to Britain. He also traced its life history 
from a seed to the flowering stage, which occupied from 
four to seven years. 
Before us is a prospectus of the Horticultural 
Congress to be held at Paris in May 1887 by the 
National Horticultural Society of France. It 
contains the titles and purport of forty-two papers to 
be read, or as they are termed “questions proposed.” 
These embrace subjects relating to almost every branch 
of horticulture, and many of them will, doubtless, be 
productive of much good. One of these questions is to 
consider “In what measure and in what sense would 
it be convenient to develop the teaching of horticulture 
in the primary superior schools, and in the schools of 
agriculture ? ” Another, proposed by the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society of England, and Dr. Wittmaek, 
Professor of Botany at Berlin, is ‘ 1 Rules to follow for 
the nomenclature of plants in general, and Orchids in 
particular.” 
At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, last week, the 
Mean Temperature of the air was 35 ’9°, and 4 '5° 
below the average in the corresponding weeks of the 
twenty years ending 1868. The mean was below the 
average throughout the week. The coldest day was 
Friday, when the mean was only 33 ’2°, and showed a 
deficiency of 7 '3°. 
--=«£<-«- 
THE PROPOSED GARDENERS’ 
ORPHANAGE, 
I do not quite agree with the tone of your article in 
last week’s issue, in reference to the movement that has 
been started for raising a fund to render help and 
assistance to the orphan children of gardeners. It 
seems to me to be one of the best and most deserving 
propositions that has been brought forward for a long 
time, and as such it secures my sympathy and will 
receive my best support. Surely there is not a gardener 
in the country who can refuse to help in giving comfort 
to the poor little ones who may be left to the tender 
mercies of this cruel world. 
It cannot surely be necessary to prove by stern 
realities that such a thing is needful, or that it would 
not be beneficial. There are few amongst us who do 
not know of many sorrowful cases, and which at the 
present time there is no means of assisting. That the 
movement has the sympathy and will have the hearty 
support of the gardeners of this country I feel assured. 
In a letter received from Mr. Penny, he states that he 
has received nearly a hundred letters promising support. 
So far as I understand, it is not by any means to be 
assumed that because the word “orphanage” has been 
used by the promoters, that it must necessarily take 
that form. I should rather say not. I do not think 
Mr. Penny, or those who are working with him, have 
any intention of wasting the money in bricks and 
mortar. Everybody knows how the money is squan¬ 
dered in institutions of this kind—the greater part 
being sv'allowed up in management expenses. No! 
even were the money forthcoming, this kind of thing 
must not be. Many other ways suggest themselves, 
however ; the most feasible to my mind being that of 
raising a “fund,” and working it on the same lines, 
and in conjunction with the Gardeners’ Royal Bene¬ 
volent Institution, the children who may be elected 
being 11 farmed out —placed with relations it may be, 
or in some respectable household where they could be 
brought up with something of home comforts. There 
are many respectable people throughout the country who 
would be glad, for a few shillings per week, to undertake 
the custody of one or more children. In this way 
could the poor children be reared up and trained, not 
“ as machines,” but “ as loving human beings.” 
All these, however, are mere matters of detail, or 
suggestions which may be considered hereafter. Our 
duty now seems clear, and that is, to support the 
proposition made, and raise a fund for the benefit of 
the orphan children of -gardeners.— A. F. Barron, 
Chiswick. 
I have read your leader, at p. 421, with mingled 
feelings of surprise and pain, and I cannot but assume 
that you have overlooked the initial object of this 
charity—namely, to provide, not for men or women, 
but for little children who may be left, from one cir¬ 
cumstance or another, more or less unprovided for, and 
who, I am sure, it is not your desire to consider 
deserving of the severe moral censure your article con¬ 
tains. But beyond this, the article brings a very 
powerful argument to bear in favour of the charity 
when it says that “good sense urges that the aim of 
all charity should be to lift up and stimulate to self- 
respect and self-helpfulness all seemingly needing help.” 
Well, sir, unless I have very seriously misunderstood 
the intentions of Mr. Penny and others, this is the 
very object to be gained; for after being responsible 
for the existence of these “morsels of humanity,” the 
author cannot be better “ stimulated to self-respect and 
self-helpfulness ” than in making reasonable provision 
for his children in case he should be called away before 
they had reached an age enabling them to take care of 
themselves. 
If, on the other hand, he weathers the storm, and 
his children have no occasion to call upon the funds of 
such an institution as this proposed, he will again have 
earned his right to a claim of self-respect in having 
contributed his mite to save from poverty, and, 
perhaps, something worse, the children of his fellow- 
gardener who is less fortunate. There is probably a 
great deal of truth in the statement that many Institu¬ 
tions, already in existence, are finding it difficult to 
tide over the present period of universal depression 
which is, no doubt, affecting all and every Institution 
in the country ; but does not this very fact again 
support Mr. Penny’s suggestion inasmuch that the 
chances of orphans, or little children of gardeners, at 
present left unprovided for, obtaining help from any 
kindred Institution already in existence, is from these 
circumstances most remote, and it seems to me all the 
more necessary that some provision should be made of 
a definite nature to meet the requirements of a section 
of our common humanity, that has hitherto been 
totally unprovided for. 
That an orphanage for the children of gardeners is 
necessary nobody will doubt, and I am sure that once 
it is seen by the employers that gardeners are ready 
and willing to contribute, in a fair proportion to their 
means, to such a deserving object, the employers will 
not be backward in giving it liberal support; and as 
every prudent man cuts his coat according to his cloth, 
so I take it that in any plans that may be suggested as 
a commencement of this Institution, due regard will be 
taken by the promoters that the responsibilities con¬ 
tracted for shall not exceed the supplies. At any rate, 
I think another of your reasons for condemning the 
scheme, in my opinion, provides a powerful argument 
in support of the thorough thrashing out of the subject 
