July 2, 1887. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
693 
very fine combination of colours. Some of these double 
Tulips are most suitable for planting out in beds, owing 
to their short-growing habit and the very sharp and 
well-distinguished colours, which make them extremely 
suitable for what is called “ carpet bedding.” 
The following early varieties are very dwarf-growing, 
and together grow very uniform, all of the same height, 
and come into bloom at the same time. These are :— 
Eose Blanche, pure white ; La Candeur, white ; Agnes, 
brilliant scarlet; Eubra Maxima, deep red ; Eex Rubro- 
rum, dark red ; Queen Victoria, purplish red ; Murillo, 
rose; Tournesol, red and yellow; Lac van Haarlem, pure 
violet, and many more. 
When planted in beds all sorts of figures in distinct 
colours can be made of them after certain designs. Of 
the tall-growing 1 ‘ double late ” sorts, which are not so 
well adapted for carpet bedding, because of their tall 
growth, some are extremely beautiful, among which I 
may mention the Mariage de ma Fille, red striped with 
white ; La Belle Alliance, white striped with violet ; 
Yellow Rose, pure yellow, and so many more which, 
when planted in front of or between shrubberies, pro¬ 
duce a very fine effect. 
( To he continued). 
-- 
THE RATING OP NURSERIES. 
On Monday evening last a meeting of nurserymen 
and market gardeners was held, under the auspices of 
the Nursery and Seed Trade Association, in the rooms 
of The Horticultural Club, to take into consideration 
the excessive rating of nurseries, and to agree on a 
combined course of action with a view to the reduction 
of assessments. The chair was taken by Mr. J. Wood 
Ingram, of Huntingdon. The secretary, Mr. Goodchild, 
having read a number of letters of a representative 
character, and from different counties, all of which 
gave instances of unequal and excessive assessments. 
Mr. Ingram said that while he personally had not 
much to complain of, he was well aware that in other 
districts there were great irregularities in the mode of 
assessment, and much injustice which required re¬ 
dressing. He was pleased that the Nursery and Seed 
Trade Association had taken up the subject with a 
determination to go into it thoroughly, and he hoped 
that evening they would have a good and useful dis¬ 
cussion, and, at least, get one or more good cases to 
take into court as test actions. He mentioned several 
instances of irregular rating, showing that there was 
no fixed principle upon which nurseries were assessed, 
but considered that it ought not to be difficult to get a 
well-defined basis upon which their land and houses 
should be assessed. He concluded by moving the 
following resolution :—“That this meeting of nursery¬ 
men, representing the London and provincial trades, 
hereby protests against the excessive rating of nurseries 
and the absence of any basis upon which the assess¬ 
ments are founded, and is of opinion that the matter 
is one which calls for combined action with a view 
to taking such steps as may be necessary for placing 
the assessments on a well-defined basis, and pledges 
itself to do all in its power to effect this purpose.” 
Mr. C. H. Sharman (Messrs. James Carter & Co.) 
in seconding the resolution said that his firm had been 
badly treated by the committee, who had assessed 
their nursery and trial grounds at Forest Hill, and 
they had allowed the matter to go into the police 
court. They did not, however, get any satisfaction, 
and paid the rates under protest. The firm had stated 
their case to a leading counsel, and he thought it a 
good one, but he, Mr. Sharman, did not know how far 
the Metropolitan Consolidated Act overruled the Acts 
governing assessments outside the metropolitan area. 
The resolution was carried nem con. 
Mr. Henry Bennett, Shepperton, said he heartily 
sympathised with the objects of the movement, and 
would support it in every way. He had been a member 
of an assessment committee for seventeen years, and 
knew of many cases in which nurserymen had been 
badly treated, in being rated on their own improve¬ 
ments, or, in other words, on an increase in their stock- 
in-trade ; while he knew hundreds of cases of buildings 
being erected on agricultural land, on which there was 
no increase in the rateable value, unless there was an 
increase in rent. He was of opinion that the basis of 
assessment should be on the rental, and that only, 
because a nurserymen can remove his glass structures 
and other erections whenever he likes, they do not 
belong to the freehold, and that proves they are only 
chattels. When a nurseryman spends money in build- 
ing a glass house, the house should be considered and 
treated as industrial capital and should not be assessed 
for rating purposes. He would not advise the expendi¬ 
ture of any great amount of money in law costs, 
believing that they could gain their point easier by 
every nurseryman and market gardener refusing point 
blank to pay on anything but the freehold. It would, 
however, be advisable to raise a fund in order to give 
aid to anyone whose case was taken into court. 
Mr. Haynes, Penge, stated that he was bringing an 
action against his parish authorities for the recovery of 
a considerable sum of money, which they had wrongly 
obtained from him by assessing his land, during a 
period of twenty-four years, at a higher value than they 
were legally entitled to do, and he had every reason to 
believe that he would win his case. His contention 
that nursery land should only be assessed at one-fourth, 
had been upheld by a magistrate at Croydon, to whose 
court he had been summoned. He considered that 
nursery and market-garden ground, and nurserymen’s 
greenhouses should be treated on all fours with the 
shelves in a grocer’s shop, or the cellars of a publican, 
which were trade fixtures. 
Mr. Horsman, Ilkley, Yorkshire, who gave 
particulars of the modes of assessment adopted in three 
different Ridings in which he had nurseries, and which 
were all different, was of opinion that a strong 
Caeadium argyrites. 
committee should approach the Poor Law Board, with 
a view to getting a proper basis for assessing the Poor 
Rates, as that was the root of the mischief. 
Mr. Beer, Worthing (the actual plaintiff in the case 
of “ Purser v. The Worthing District Local Board ”), 
agreed with the previous speaker that what they 
wanted to ascertain was the proper legal mode of 
assessing the Poor Rates. He contended that what 
belonged to the freehold, and that only, should be 
rated for the poor ; but whatever the basis was, it 
should be applicable to all alike. At present the 
whole system of rating in most districts was an un¬ 
meaning hash. Mr. Cobb gave the details of the case 
which he had taken before Mr. Montagu Williams, the 
stipendiary magistrate at Greenwich. 
Mr. G. Bunyard, Maidstone, thought a strong 
horticultural Committee should be formed to approach 
the Local Government Board, and, if need be, to take 
up any cases that may be already in motion. He 
moved that a committee be formed to carry out the 
first resolution, and that the following gentlemen be 
appointed to serve on it—viz., Messrs. Wood Ingram, 
Sharman, Beer, Haynes, Pearson, Williams (Salis¬ 
bury), Horsman (Ilkley), Bennett, Bunyard, and Low 
(Uxbridge), with power to add to their number. Mr. 
Chitty, florist, Walthamstow, seconded the motion, 
and it was carried unanimously. 
On the motion of Mr. Haynes, seconded by Mr. 
Pearson, it was resolved that a guarantee fund be raised 
for the purpose of effectually carrying out the previous 
resolutions, the amount guaranteed by any firm or in¬ 
dividual not to exceed £10. Votes of thanks to the 
Horticultural Club for the use of the room, and to Mr. 
Wood Ingram for presiding, brought the proceedings to 
a close. 
-- 
CALADIUM ARGYRITES. 
This species is the dwarfest in cultivation, and one 
of the best for decorative effect in groups of plants 
where small specimens are required. Our illustration 
is an excellent representation of the habit of the plant 
when at its best, and in that condition most suitable 
for general decorative work. As a matter of course it 
cannot be compared with the magnificent grandeur of 
the numerous forms of C. bicolor now in cultivation ; 
but the two are not to be considered in the same light, 
nor brought into competition on similar grounds. 
The arrow-shaped leaves are handsomely marked with 
beautiful silvery white blotches of irregular size on a 
pale green ground. 
It is easily propagated by division of the young 
growths after the tubers have been started in February. 
The tubers should be inserted in small pots, using a 
compost of sandy fibrous peat, and then placed in a 
stove temperature. When fairly started into growth, 
and further division is unnecessary, shift them into 
larger size pots, employing a heavier compost of lumpy 
fibrous loam. House them where the temperature is 
kept at 65° to 70° Fahr. by night, and allow the 
temperature to run up considerably by sun-heat. 
Before using the plants for decorative purposes harden 
them somewhat, which will enable the leaves to remain 
much longer in perfection. 
-- 
EARTH-WORMS AND THEIR 
WORK. 
Apropos of this subject, it may not be either out of 
place or uninteresting to quote the opinion of one of 
nature’s noblest students, to wit, the Rev. Gilbert 
White. So long ago as 1777, the author of the 
Natural History of Selborne in one of his letters dated 
May 20th, writes thus 
“Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are 
always poor ; and probably the reason may be, because 
the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects 
and reptiles are of much more consequence, and have 
much more influence in the economy of nature, than 
the incurious are aware of, and are mighty in their 
effect from their minuteness, which renders them less 
an object of attention ; and from their numbers and 
fecundity, earth-worms, though in appearance a small 
and despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, 
would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say nothing 
of half the birds and some quadrupeds which are 
entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the 
great promoters of vegetation ; which would proceed 
but lamely without them, by boring, perforating and 
loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains 
and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks 
and of leaves and twigs into it, and, most of all, by 
throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth 
called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a 
fine manure for grain and grass. 
“Worms, probably, provide new soil for hills and 
slopes where the rain washes the earth away ; and they 
affect slopes probably to avoid being flooded. 
Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of 
worms ; the former because they render their walks 
unsightly, and make them much work ; and the latter 
because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. 
But these men would find that earth without worms 
would soon be cold, hard-bound, and void of fermen¬ 
tation, and, consequently sterile; and, besides, in 
favour of worms, it should be hinted that green corn, 
plants, and flowers, are not so much injured by them 
as by many species of Coleoptera (scarabs) and Tipulse, 
(long-legs), in their larva or grub state, and by 
unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called 
slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amazing 
havoc in the field and garden. Worms work most in 
the spring, but by no means lie torpid in the dead 
months ; they are out every mild night in the winter 
as any person may be convinced that will take the 
pains to examine his grass plots with a candle ; they 
are hermaphrodites, and very prolific. ” 
Is not this last statement somewhat curious ? Is 
there sexually no difference? [No.—E d.]— C. B. G. 
Acton, TV. 
