July 21, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
739 
OYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Patron : Her Majesty The Queen. 
President: Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P. 
Offices : 111, Victoria Street, S.W. 
1VTOTICE i The next meeting of the Fruit 
i* and Floral Committees will be held in the Drill Hall of 
the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers, James Street, S.W., on 
Tuesday, July 24th, when the special subjects invited for exhibi¬ 
tion will comprise Ferns and Selaginellas, Ivy-leaved and 
Zonal Pelargoniums. 
Exhibition of the National Carnation and Picotee Society. 
Open to Fellows at 12 o’clock, and to the public at 1 pan. 
For particulars respecting the election of Fellows apply to the 
Secretary, 111, Victoria Street, S.W. 
National Co operative Flower Show, Crystal 
Palace, August 18th, 1888. 
MEDALS in Prizes for 
cL (J VJ Flowers. Fruit, Vegetables, and Honey, open 
to members of Co-operative Societies throughout the Kingdom ; 
also for Skill of Workmen in all Trades for Amateur Work 
and Entomological and other specimens. 
Schedules of Prizes on application to 
WM. BROOMHALL, Secretary. 
1, Norfolk St., Strand, W.C. 
Liverpool Horticultural Association. 
T he ninth annual summer show 
of PLANTS,' FLOWERS, and VEGETABLES will be held 
in Sefton Park on Saturday and Monday, August 4th and 6th, 1SSS. 
Entries close July 2Sth. 
For Schedules of Prizes apply to 
EDMUND BRIDGE, Secretary. 
8, Cedar Terrace, Tarbock Road, Huyton, Liverpool. 
W ILTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
SALISBURY. 
Show on August 23rd, 188S. Schedules may be had on ap¬ 
plication to W. H. WILLIAMS, Hon. Secretary, the Nurseries, 
Salisbury. 
Abbey Park, Leicester. 
A GRAND FLOWER SHOW and GALA 
will be held on Tuesday, August 7th, 1SSS, under the 
patronage of the Mayor and Corporation. 
SCHEDULES will be sent upon application to the Secretary 
and Curator, Mr. JOHN BURN. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Monday, July 23rd. —Sale of Imported Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms. 
Tuesday, July 24th.—Royal Horticultural Society : Meeting of 
Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 a.in. National Carnation 
and Picotee Society's Show. Tibshelf Rose Show. Sale of 
the second portion of Mr. W. Lee’s collection of Orchids at 
Downside, Leatherhead, by Protheroe & Morris (4 days). 
Wednesday, July 25th.—Surrey Floricultural Society’s Show 
at Herne Hill (2 days). 
Thursday, July 26th.- Southwell Horticultural Society’s Show. 
Bemerton Flower and Vegetable Show. 
FOR INDEX TO CONTENTS, SEE P. 751. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1888. 
The Gardeners’ Orphan Fund. —The stars 
in their courses and the sun in his shining 
seem alike to have favoured the birth and 
infant progress of this most deserving insti¬ 
tution. For a few brief hours on the day of 
the first annual meeting the latter pushed 
aside the dreary underlapping half-and-half of 
fog and cloud, that have veiled his light and 
warmth from field and garden throughout this 
chilly summer, to gladden by his cheerful 
presence the most unique charity election of 
modern times, that ended in placing the whole 
of the applicants on the fund. A good many 
stars—metropolitan, local, and others—must 
have moved in their central sjnheres and local 
courses to good purpose to enable a society 
only a year old to meet for the election of six 
candidates, and, at the conclusion of its business 
proceedings, to unanimously resolve to put ten 
orphans of gardeners on its funds. Truly the 
infant has already become a useful youth, and 
gives promise of speedily growing into a strong 
man—perhaps a giant—in its truly benign 
and beneficent work of feeding the hungry 
and clothing the naked orphans of gardeners, 
and making widows’ hearts to leap for joy. 
There was a feeling and a promise of en¬ 
larged usefulness, and of proving a permanent 
success in the number of gardeners who at¬ 
tended the meeting, and their earnest devotion 
to and prompt dispatch of business. Fortu¬ 
nately, brevity of speech gave the happy 
dispatch to all formal and mere business 
matters, and left considerable time for free 
and social intercourse before the dinner, which, 
for the convenience of provincial friends,Avas 
appointed for five o’clock. Our report, printed 
in another column, gives a tolerably full and 
faithful account of the proceedings, but no 
report can reveal the spirit of unity of purpose 
and of power that rang like a clarion note 
through all the speeches, and amply justified 
the remark made by one of the speakers, that 
already the Gardeners’ Orphan Fund had 
succeeded in uniting the gardeners and the 
gardening press on behalf of its objects. 
Nothing could be better calculated to awaken 
and sustain the esprit cle corps than the able 
and heart-stirring speeches of our model Presi¬ 
dent, Messrs. Deal, Yeitch, Hibberd, Masters, 
Hogg, Sherwood, Fish, Wildsmith, and others. 
The yearnings for unity—the claims for the 
recognition of horticulture to a higher place in 
national regard as the first and most vital 
industry for feeding, educating, and refining 
the people—and the moulding of horticultu¬ 
rists into one great guild, based on friendship, 
culture, and benevolence, were never more 
vividly set forth nor more eloquently advocated. 
We have attended many other great gather¬ 
ings of gardeners, notably the memorable 
dinner at St. Martin’s Hall that wound up the 
series of meetings connected with the first 
International Exhibition held at South Ken¬ 
sington. Those meetings came and went and 
left neither any prominent marks on our horti¬ 
cultural history, or any fruits of beneficence 
behind them. But the dinner of Friday week’is 
over and has left as its legacy to the gardeners of 
Great Britain ten orphans to love and nurture 
into the strength and usefulness of manhood, or 
the beauty and sweetness of budding woman¬ 
hood. And these fruits, rich and precious as they 
are, are hut the first gatherings of a plentiful 
harvest of provident care, and a timely help 
that will gladden and enrich the lives of our 
future orphans, and lighten by many a feather’s 
weight the inevitable burden of care and 
sorrow that must oppress the hearts of our 
coming widows. 
Yes, as was most happily expressed by one 
of the speakers, the cry of the orphans has 
been heard by gardeners, as might readily 
have been anticipated by those most familiar 
with the craft, of all the better members of 
■which it may he said, “ their gentleness makes 
them great.” The cry of the helpless has 
touched our hearts, and we have found in this 
movement, as we all find in our daily life, 
that a little child may lead us. This was 
further illustrated by other speakers, who 
referred to the fact that while other societies 
devoted to the succour and relief of gardeners 
had had to fight hard for support, the Orphan 
Fund advanced by leaps and hounds to its 
present prosperity, because, as he explained, it 
provided absolutely nothing for ourselves, hut 
devoted the rvhole of its resources to those 
more helpless and in need. 
While the foundation of the Orphan Fund is 
thus rvell and truly laid on the solid, sure, and 
fruitful basis of self-denial, it owes much of 
its present, and still more of its future success 
to the shrewd business tact and broad generous 
principles on which it has been established 
and carried on. With a strong executive in 
the metropolis, and its local secretaries rami¬ 
fying into, and, it is to be hoped, fully 
occupying and drawing supplies from the wide 
area of the qirovinces, the permanent and 
expanding income of the Gardeners’ Orphan 
Fund is assured; provided ahvays that the 
grand impetus of the good start is maintained. 
Had it been possible to have packed a mere 
tithe of the 20,000 practical gardeners of tire 
country into the dining room of the Cannon 
Street Hotel, this consummation so devoutly 
to be wished would have been certain of 
attainment,—the cause is so good, the necessity 
for its existence so obvious. Such enthusiasm, 
such a rallying round a good cause as was then 
manifested is infectious, and the objects of 
the fund need only to he made more widely 
known to command success. 
Nevertheless, fresh from this most notable 
gathering of gardeners that did equal credit to 
their heads, hearts, and manners, we cordially 
invite every member of the gentle art to aid 
the cause by every means in their power. If 
the poorest would contribute their mites out of 
their poverty, and the rich and the noble their 
fat cheques and full measure pressed down 
and running over out of their abundance, a 
solid and perpetual barrier would be built up 
between the orphans of gardeners and the 
curse of bleak, unaided poverty, or the 
withering blight of physical, moral, and in¬ 
tellectual starvation. 
--— 
New Potatos.—Some 840 tons of this vegetable were 
recently shipped from Jersey, and despatched to the 
various markets on the same day by the G-. W. R. 
boats. This is reported to be the largest quantity ever 
shipped by one company in a single day. 
Mr. E. R. Cutler.—We are pleased to hear that Mr. 
Cutler is rapidly recovering from the results of his 
recent accident, and hopes to return to his office in 
about a week. 
The Harpendeu Horticultural Society.—The tenth 
annual exhibition of this society will be held in 
Rothamsted Park on Wednesday, August 29th. 
The St. Albans Flower Show will take place on 
August 15th. 
Gardening Engagement.—Mr. F. W. Beevers, for 
the last four and a half years foreman at Campsall Hall, 
Doncaster, as gardener to L. D. Hall, Esq., Farnham 
Chase, Slough. 
The Kilmurry Yellow-ground Carnations.—We 
understand that Mrs. Gyles, declining all personal 
advantage, has directed that her thirteen yellow-ground 
Carnation seedlings, which Mr. Dodwell has declared 
constituted as a whole the finest batch he had seen up to 
last year, shall be distributed solely for the benefit of the 
Carnation and Picotee Union. It is intended that the 
fund raised from their sale shall be devoted specifically 
to the yellow-ground section, by giving special prizes in 
1889 to the Kilmurry seedlings. 
Chrysanthemum Madame Desgrange. — There 
is a beautiful specimen of this white-flowering Chry¬ 
santhemum to be seen in bloom now at Shillemar, 
Ayr. Mr. Anderson, the gardener, has been trying 
an experiment with a plant four years old. It is in a 
15-in. pot, in soil well mixed with Thomson’s Vine and 
Plant Manure. The plant is fully 4 ft. high, and over 
5 ft. through, with upwards of 500 finely-developed 
blooms on it. Mr. Anderson deserves great credit for 
his success. 
Plague of Caterpillars, &c.—At the last meeting of 
the Scientific Committee, a further discussion took 
place on this subject, in the course of which Mr. 
O’Brien alluded to the abundance of earwigs (Forficula) 
this season. Mr. Wilson drew attention to the local 
distribution of the caterpillars. In one garden in his 
neighbourhood none of the pests were found, while 
in others there was scarcely a leaf left on the trees. 
At Wisley, Mr. Wilson had found that exposure to 
east wind was associated with the presence of the 
insects ; thus the trees in one line of Plums, fully 
exposed, were stripped of their foliage, while in another 
line of the same variety close by, on the same de¬ 
scription of soil, but where the trees were sheltered by 
a Furze fence, not a leaf was injured. 
A Conference of Fruit Growers will be held at the 
Crystal Palace, on September 7th and 8th, in con¬ 
junction with the great exhibition of fruit arranged for 
those days, for the purpose of discussing matters of 
pressing importance to those engaged in the fruit 
industry. As stated in the preliminary circular, “The 
object of the conference is to concentrate attention 
upon the importance of extending and improving the 
culture of fruit in this country, and to elucidate by 
means of papers read by practical men and by discussion 
the most profitable methods of developing this im- 
