676 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
June 25, 1887. 
soon put The P societyV finances in a healthy 
position ; and Avith the great attractions of the 
gardens, we are certain, that far more persons 
would attend the meetings, and by their 
presence give muchhieeded iife to the society’s 
proceedings. The moment is a grave one, and 
demands the exercise of wisdom and discretion, 
combined with prompt action. Wise counsels 
may save the society, hut foolishness will cer¬ 
tainly destroy it utterly. 
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"We venture to remind those of onr readers who are 
interested in the welfare of The Gardeners’ Royal 
Benevolent Institution, that the forty-fourth anni¬ 
versary festival takes place at the “Albion,” Alders- 
gate Street, on "Wednesday evening next. Baron 
Ferdinand de Rothschild, M.P., will preside, and we 
hope he will be supported by a large and influential 
company representing all branches of horticulture, and 
that the subscription list will also be larger than ever, 
in honour of the jubilee year, and to crown with 
success the strenuous efforts which have been made by 
the committee and their most energetic secretary, Mr. 
Cutler, on behalf of the Institution. 
A Strawberry F£:te, with band and promenade, 
will be held in the Royal Horticultural Society’s 
Gardens at Chiswick early in July, the date of which will 
be duly announced. - Admission as on ordinary days 
to Fellows and their orders, season ticket holders, and 
subscribers to the Chiswick Horticultural Society or 
hearers of their tickets. 
The Leeds Horticultural Society, whose exhi¬ 
bition was opened on Tuesday, sent H.M. The Queen a 
basket of Roses on Monday, which was graciously 
accepted, and its receipt acknowledged by telegram. 
We regret to hear of the death of Madame van 
Geert, wife of Mr. Charles P. van Geert, nurseryman, 
Antwerp. Madame van Geert was in the 70th year of 
her age, and had been a sufferer for some years from 
paralysis. 
There teas placed in the Jerusalem Chamber of 
Westminster Abbey, on Tuesday, a magnificent bouquet 
of Roses, in the form of a sphere, measuring about five 
feet in circumference. A neatly engrossed card, 
attached by a silken cord, bears the words: “Lan¬ 
cashire Roses. A Tribute of Loyalty emblematic of 
the beauty and charm of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's 
Life and Reign.” 
Lime and sulphate of copper have been found in 
France, when syringed over Grapes, to be a perfect cure 
for mildew. The solution is thus prepared: From 
30 lbs. to 50 lbs. of lime and sulphate ; each is dis¬ 
solved in a barrel containing about 100 gals, of water. 
The operator dips a small Heath broom in the liquid, 
and walking backwards sprinkles the vines. 
On the occasion of the marriage on the 8th inst. of 
Mr. Henry Low, second son of Mr. Stuart H. Low, to 
Miss Whiter, of Kenninghall Road, Clapton, the 
employes played a friendly game of cricket, in which 
the married beat the single men by one run, and 
subsequently all partook of an excellent cold collation, 
after which came a number of friendly and appropriate 
toasts, and with song and sentiment a pleasant evening 
was spent. 
An American exchange states that the once popular 
Flemish Beauty Pear —although by no means an 
old kind—is said to do well no longer anywhere. Ho 
one seems to know why. It would be worth knowing 
whether there is any locality in which it yet does well. 
We are informed that at the great Agricultural 
and Horticultural Exhibition, held in the City of 
Kandy during May last, three of Messrs. James Carter 
& Co. ’s customers were awarded the following medals for 
plants, &c., grown from their seed:—The Gold Medal for 
the best collection of plants and flowers ; Silver Medals 
for Victoria Prize Calceolaria, for Holborn Prize 
Primula, for Crown Jewels Begonia, for Marble Prize 
Gloxinia, for Fuchsias, for Geraniums and for Mont 
Blanc Cauliflower, and Bronze Medals for first prize 
Cyclamen and prize Achimenes. 
Professor Hilgard, of the University of California, 
experimenting with thirty-one kinds of European 
Grapes, finds the Gros Verdot the most prolific, seven 
Vines yielding 555 lbs. Forty Vines of the Black 
Hamburgh gave only 1,050 lbs. 
In the House of Commons on Monday, Dr. Tanner 
objected to the prohibition which prevented people 
from taking refreshment-baskets with them into Kew 
Gardens. Mr. Cremer also asked for a relaxation 
of the rules affecting Kew Gardens. Mr. Plunket said 
there was a very suitable place for picnicking outside 
the gardens, and the debris from picnickers within the 
grounds would be troublesome. Dr. Tanner said these 
difficulties did not occur in other countries, and he 
protested against Kew Gardens being kept for the 
aristocracy and the pseudo-aristocracy. Mr. Heaton 
and Mr. Isaacs held that the public ought to be 
admitted with refreshments, a portion of the grounds 
being set apart for the consumption of food. 
The Southern Weekly News states that reports to 
hand from the Hop Gardens of Sussex, Kent, and 
Surrey, show a general advance in the state of the bine, 
the growth having been very rapid. The visitation of 
fly is reported on all hands, and washing has had to be 
resorted to in many places, though in some districts it is 
found to be too expensive to undertake it, seeing the 
low marketable value of the Hops. 
At the late Sale of Plants at Fairlawn, Lytham, 
a magnificent specimen of Rhododendron, Countess of 
Sefton, was sold for the merely nominal sum of two 
guineas, and a fine example of R. Veitchianum went to 
the same purchaser, the Rev. Canon Taylor, for a 
similar amount. The plants all round seem to have 
gone for considerably less than their value. 
The degree of D. C.L. was conferred at Oxford, last 
Wednesday, on Dr. Asa Gray, the eminent Professor of 
Botany in the Harvard University, U.S.A. Dr. Asa 
Gray was described by the Regius Professor of Civil Law 
as a man who had worked longest and best on the 
botany and botanical history of the New World. He 
referred to his great collections of American plants, and 
his excellent manuals and philosophical discussions of 
large scientific questions in biology, and said he was 
now the father of American science, and was all the 
more valued and respected in his own country because 
he had been a single-minded follower of truth, and was 
always simple in life as well as genial in manner. 
The Post Office and Sunday’ Postal Labour.— 
On the 17th inst., Mr. Martin J. Sutton, the 
managing partner of the firm of Sutton & Sons, 
Reading, gave evidence before the Select Committee 
of the House of Commons on Sunday postal labour. 
He stated that for four months of the year they 
received from 1,200 to 1,500, and despatched about 
2,000 letters a-day, and during the rest of the year 
from 500 to 800 a-day. They sent out 150,000 
catalogues every year, and often as many as 200,000 
circulars besides, and their arrangements were made 
for the despatch of a ton weight of parcels by 
Parcels Post every day. Their expenditure during the 
last six months in stamps was £3,411 ; and during the 
same time they had used and posted in letters, as 
remittances, £1,948 worth of small postal orders and 
£520 worth of stamps, without a single order or stamp 
having been lost in the post. They had never received 
or despatched letters on Sundays, and they considered 
that to this entire restriction of the w r ork to six days 
of the week was largely due the success of their business, 
although the delay thus caused had occasionally lost 
them a customer. His firm had posted as little as 
possible on Saturdays, with the object of avoiding 
labour in the Post Office on Sundays. That was a 
serious inconvenience to them in this respect—that it 
restricted them to about four days a-week for posting 
their catalogues, because the Post Office required notice ; 
for as they were posted in batches of 20 tons to 30 
tons at a time, they could not be accepted by the Post 
Office without previous arrangement. If there were 
not a Sundaj’ delivery they could post on Friday and 
Saturday as on other days, without fear of throwing 
additional Sunday work on country postmen ; but the 
varying values of seed often made this premature 
posting of catalogues a great inconvenience and some¬ 
times a serious loss. 
The American Gardeners' Monthly remarks : “ It is 
said that the young hearts of the Sow Thistle (Sonchus 
oleracea) make a delicious vegetable when cooked like 
Spinach.” 
There would seem to be great variation in the 
colour of Passiflora Constance Eliott in different 
gardens, which might have arisen from seedlings 
raised at different times. The sepals and petals are 
white, hence the title of the white Passion Flower ; 
but in some instances the corona preserves the same 
blue colour as the parent, P. coerulea. 
EARTH-WORMS^, AND^ THEIR 
WORK.— II. 
Distribution of "Worms. 
The common earth-worm is most abundant in this 
country in moist ground, especially those rich in 
humus, vegetable mould or decaying organic matter. 
It is most common at low elevations : but also ascends 
mountains to a considerable height. There are many 
genera of earth-worms, some of which are found in all 
parts of the world, even in distant isolated islands 
where it is impossible to determine how they got there. 
Worms have been found on the Neilgherry Mountains 
12 ins. to 15 ins. in length, and Dr. King has also seen 
a worm in Ceylon 2 ft. long and \ in. in diameter. 
Physiology. 
Worms breed, feed, digest their food, enjoy health, 
and have sickness. In the latter case it may be 
mentioned that they are attacked by the larva of a fly 
that preys upon the worm parasitically. "When infested 
with larvae in this manner, they leave their burrows 
even during the day, wander about and die. After 
heavy rain they may be found lying dead on the 
surface in great numbers, and it is believed their death 
is merely hastened by the ground being flooded. 
They have no lungs or special organs for breathing, 
but respire through and by means of the skin over all 
parts of their body. For this reason, it is necessary 
that their skin be wet or moist at all times, and if 
kept exposed in the atmosphere of a dry room they 
soon get killed. 
Two methods of prehension are practised by worms 
in attacking or drawing away food or other material 
used by them. A leaf is seized between the projecting 
lips of their mouth, or if it is too broad or thick, the 
head and mouth are used as a disk or sucker, by which 
the animal attaches itself to the broad surface of a leaf 
for the purpose of dragging it away. Worms have no 
teeth, but manage to pull decaying leaves, and the 
parenchyma of soft leaves to pieces by suction. 
Previous to this, however, the leaves are softened by a 
digestive fluid ejected from their mouths. This is the 
only known instance of food being digested, or partly 
so, before being taken into the stomach. This secretion 
is alkaline, and it has been proved that the digestive 
fluid in the intestine of a worm is also alkaline, and to 
prevent the animal suffering from indigestion by the 
generation of the various acids (known as humus acids) 
from decaying leaves, it is furnished with a special set 
of ealeiferous glands that secrete carbonate of lime. 
This latter material neutralises the effect of these acids, 
and so the digestive system is enabled to perform its 
ordinary functions. The ealeiferous glands also per¬ 
form the purpose of excreting the superabundance of 
lime occurring in soils overlying the chalk. Further¬ 
more, the digestive fluid in worms corresponds to that 
produced by the pancreas in the higher animals, and 
acts in a similar manner on the food relished and 
devoured by worms.— J. F. 
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A FEW CHOICE HARDY 
PICTORIAL TREES. 
When looking through Mr. Noble’s nursery at 
Sunningdale a few days ago, I made a note of a few 
desirable hardy trees and shrubs that are valuable for 
decorative purposes. And here I may be permitted to 
sound a note of thankfulness that I am able to state 
that planters of trees in many forecourt gardens to villa 
residences are using higher class material than they 
did years ago, when Laurels, a Poplar or two, 
Mountain Ash, Acacia, Laburnum, &c., appeared to be 
their highest ideals. Now one sees the double Thorns, 
Almond, double-flowering Peach, variegated-leaved 
deciduous trees of a highly ornamental character, &c., 
and the small gardens are greatly improved thereby. 
A little more attention might sometimes be given the 
variegated-leaved trees with advantage, for they put 
forth at times vigorous green growths of the stock, and 
these are permitted to grow unchecked until they com¬ 
pletely overpower the variegated portions. This is to 
be regretted, but it is an evil that is too frequently to 
be noted in suburban gardens round London. 
There is the purple-leaved Beech, Betula purpurea, 
having a very distinct purple growth, and very con¬ 
stant. This is propagated by the process of inarching. 
Some straight-stemmed plants of the common Birch 
are planted in a circle round one of the purple-leaved 
variety growing in the open : the branches of the 
