November 29, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
197 
SILENE PENDULA COMPACTA. 
A fine display of this old-fashioned annual may be 
had in bloom over a lengthened period of the year from 
spring onwards by sowing at different times. It is 
perhaps most appreciated in spring, and for this 
purpose it should be sown early in autumn, or even 
in August, in order to procure plants of a fair size 
before the advent of winter. 
If the plants have been properly thinned out they 
should now form nice vigorous tufts which may be 
allowed to flower where they stand, or they may 
be transplanted now or at any time during open 
weather, but preferably before growth commences 
in spring. Those who were provident enough to 
sow a quantity in the autumn can, now that 
the flower-beds are empty, arrange some attractive 
designs with such commonplace material as Wall¬ 
flowers, Arabis, Forget-me-not, Daisies, Aubrietias, 
Silene pendula compacts, and similar spring-flowering 
subjects. 
Even where Hyacinths, Tulips, and Crocuses are 
planted in the beds a groundwork may be made 
with Silene, Myosotis sylvatica, or Aubrietias. After 
those bulbs are getting past their best the other 
subjects mentioned attain their best, and keep up a 
display till the beds are wanted for the summer 
occupants. The accompanying illustration represents 
Silene pendula compacta when at its best. 
NOVEMBER. 
Gloom and fog are the recognised accompaniments to 
the month of November ; but it can scarcely be said 
to have been a gloomy month, for during the first 
fortnight at least there were several bright sunny 
days of an exceedingly pleasant character. We have 
had rain—a welcome rain too, and with the exception 
of one terrible night of storm-rain, not in heavy showers, 
but a steady fall of small drops. After a good spell of 
drought, and a good deal of warmth for the season of 
the year, the welcome rain came, and the thirsty earth 
drank in the moisture with avidity, and the soil from 
being almost dust-dry is now saturated. The usual 
record of horticultural wonders has been noted. Pears 
have bloomed again. Strawberries have borne a second 
crop. Horse Chestnuts have flowered in autumn, with 
many other strange and modern instances, deviations 
from the ordinary course of vegetation. But these 
things always appear after a fine late dry warm summer, 
followed by warm autumnal rains. 
What will be the probable effect of our warm and late 
summer followed by the refreshing autumn rains ? 
Will it be favourable or the reverse to the prospects of 
next year’s crops ? These are questions to which time 
alone can give a satisfactory' answer ; but I think the 
effect will be beneficial than otherwise to fruit trees, by 
securing the thorough ripening of the wood and buds, 
whilst the rainfall, coming at a time when the leaves 
are almost off the trees, will sink into the earth about 
the roots to a depth which it would never reach in 
summer, when the leaves throw it off, or evaporate it 
almost as fast as it falls. 
The old writers on gardening considered that the 
gardener’s year of operations began in November ; and 
such was indeed the case in their day, when bedding 
plants were not cultivated, and when many new things 
had to engage the attention of the gardener. When 
bedding plants have to be propagated by the thousand 
in August, that month has some claim to be considered 
the beginning of the year in the floral department, for 
active operations in preparation for the embellishment 
of the flower garden in the following season are the 
first commenced. As regards the fruit and kitchen 
gardens, November is still the beginning of the year, 
and in both the useful and the ornamental departments 
of the garden it is then that anxieties begin to be 
multiplied—-anxieties which will continue with brief 
intermission till the same month comes round again. 
The near approach of winter has now to be contem¬ 
plated, and all sorts of contrivances have to be resorted 
to in not a few instances, in order to afford warmth and 
shelter to a multitude of plants, and for forwarding 
crops to produce before their natural season. The 
earth in this month is usually warmer than the air, and 
moisture rises from the surface, and is either condensed 
as rain, or remains suspended in the atmosphere as fog. 
Evaporation is checked from this moist condition of the 
air, as well as from its diminished temperature, and 
it therefore becomes the duty of the cultivator to guard 
against mildew and damping, which are almost the 
certain consequences of too much moisture in the soil or 
air of the places where plants are growing. The supply 
of water must therefore be greatly reduced, and as much 
ventilation given as possible, in order that the atmos¬ 
phere of frames and other structures may be in the most 
favourable condition for preserving the foliage in a 
healthy condition. Plants when in a damp soil or 
atmosphere are also much more liable to injury from 
frost then when kept dry.— R. D. 
-- 
PLANTS AS LIVING BEINGS. 
In a recent lecture delivered at Ipswich, Dr. Taylor 
said :—The old-fashioned notion was that plants were 
something to be eaten, and that that was what they 
lived for only. He need not tell them that the law of 
teleology applied to a pig, a sheep, or a bullock. He 
did not intend to take any side in this matter except 
that of the plants, which, as living beings, had to fight 
for existence, to die, to be infected, and practically to 
undergo diseases and deaths correspondent to those which 
the animal kingdom had to experience. This being so, 
he asked whether the same laws of natural selection and 
survival of the fittest must not necessarily be applied to 
the vegetable as well as to the animal kingdom. 
Dealing with living objects, he must claim the same 
laws and rules of life for the vegetable kingdom as 
those which Darwin and others had confined themselves 
to in the animal kingdom. His future lectures would 
be based on those lines. There could be no doubt in 
every geologist’s mind that the earliest forms of vege¬ 
table life, like those of animal life, were of humble 
structure, and he intended to show them how the 
highest form of existing vegetable life began from a 
simple, humble, cell-like structure. 
The one thing which he wished to particularly draw 
their attention to was the soil, which acted as the 
veneer of the earth’s older crusts. That crust was 
composed of rocks, which, collectively speaking, were 
twenty miles in thickness, ranging from the Laurentian 
to the latest Tertiary. The lecturer went on to 
describe how these rocks were crowded within and 
without with evidences of ancient animal and vegetable 
life in the shape of fossils, each of which had been as 
much alive as he and his audience were that night ; 
most of the types represented in these fossils were 
extinct. He showed how encrusting on the surface to 
a depth of a couple of feet or a little more, perhaps, was 
the veneer to which he had referred. His hearers 
would understand how thin that veneer was when they 
considered that the earth was 8,000 miles in diameter, 
and that the actual black soil of the world would 
possibly not average, if it were stretched all over the 
dry land surface of the globe, more than a thickness of 
three feet. The soil all over the world was black. 
Perhaps that very blackness — knowing as we did that 
the soil received within its bosom all dead creatures, 
both animal and plants alike, as it must have been 
doing for thousands of years, was the reason why 
black had become the badge of mourning among 
civilized countries. The black soil of the fields and 
woods, which had been termed humus by the early 
botanical chemists (whose function had been more or 
less neglected in recent years), was simply black 
because the dark soil received into its bosom, leaves, 
insects, birds, animals, men and women, everything—in 
short, of the recent but deceased life of the world. Dr. 
Taylor asked his hearers to imagine this thin veneer of 
a few feet, over whose six-foot sections rivers had often 
stood, receiving year by year as a tributary the death of 
the world. He pointed out that this black soil was 
what we called “mother earth.” We naturally spoke 
and thought of it as being dead, and yet it was the 
most thronged abode of life on the whole surface of our 
planet. 
Before they could think of plants, their doings and 
workings, they must think of their food and drink, 
because all this was necessary to understand before the 
mystery of plant life could be understood. It was 
taken for granted, and it was fairly true, that the 
difference between plant life and animal life was this, 
that whereas animals could not feed on any food unless 
it had been previously prepared by organisation for 
them, plant life could feed directly on mineral matter 
contained in the soil. He showed them that that was 
only partially true. The one principal idea which he 
wished to draw their attention to was that this veneer 
of black soil—the home of the earth-worms and of 
numerous creatures besides—was black because it repre¬ 
sented the decomposition of animal and vegetable 
matter, and was, perhaps, one of the most living parts 
of the whole of our planet. It was not a dead but a 
living earth. Within the last few years it had been 
discovered beyond doubt that crowding this black soil 
was a number of bacteria—the lowest form of vege¬ 
table life and the simplest structures that he could 
introduce his hearers to. And yet these simple 
structures had the marvellous power of nitrificating 
the soil, or, in other words, the dung or decomposing 
materials of animals or plants which we crowded into 
the soil, thinking thereby to enrich it, would be 
absolutely useless unless these simple organisms—the 
lowest in the lowest rung of the ladder of vegetable 
life—existed as they did in millions untold. They 
were the nitrificators of the soil, and if his hearers 
were to put all the manure into the soil they liked and 
then sterilise or calcine the earth, they would find 
that there would be no responsive life. 
-- 
HARDY KALES. 
IN severe winters everything of the nature of Cabbages 
and Savoys, as well as Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli, 
get killed, so that gardeners find themselves often in 
great difficulty as to how they can supply their 
employer’s table with vegetables during the early 
spring months. The Borecoles or Kales are much 
hardier than any of the above, and from the fact that 
they do not form a close head like the Cabbage proper 
and the Savoy, they are less liable to be destroyed by 
frost. The latter is not always the destroying agent, as 
suburban gardeners well know, who have to contend 
with the smoke nuisance and the impurities which a 
foggy and soot-laden atmosphere convey. Even here 
the much-neglected Borecoles might be put to a more 
practical account, including not only the finely-curled 
kinds, but also some of the sprouting sorts which 
come in handy late in spring. The curled Kale or 
“ Curlies” may be used at anytime during v inter after 
the leaves have been mellowed and made tender by a 
touch of frost. 
The other week we inspected a collection of Kales in 
the Chiswick trial grounds of Messrs. J. Yeitch & Sons, 
Chelsea. The varieties were not so numerous as we 
have seen on former occasions, but the residue consists 
of the more suitable sorts for garden purposes, as well 
