THE GARDENING WORLD. 
824 
respective competitions there is little rest 
for the Chrysanthemum grower. He needs 
to be perpetually watchful and on the alert. 
The plants have some enemies, although 
not so many as tender plants have, and 
perhaps the greatest enemy after all is 
found in the laxity of the grower, who may 
by a little neglect undo all that he has 
previously striven to accomplish. 
There must be no neglect in potting at 
the right time, in watering incessantly, in 
staking the plants securely, in disbudding 
at the proper moment, in housing ere the 
frost comes to harm the buds, or keeping 
down damp when the housing is accom¬ 
plished. These are but a few of the 
essentials in Chrysanthemum culture, and 
trifling as they may appear on paper they 
command the most earnest attention on 
the part of the growers who mean to be 
winners of prizes in the great November 
competitions. So far we hear excellent 
accounts of the appearance of the plants. 
Let us hope for a first-class exhibition 
season. 
ur Winter's Food.— That was a very 
genuine “ Cousin Jonathan ” who the 
other day thanked God that they had big 
crops of corn in America and bad ones in 
Europe. Perhaps some of our own farmers 
were a little while since anticipating higher 
prices for their somewhat abundant corn 
crops because of the necessities of other 
countries, as well as of our own. It would 
seem as if the recent wet weather had very 
much discounted the home farmers’ antici¬ 
pations, if not those of over the sea, for it 
has been almost as injurious to harvest 
prospects as it well could be. 
It is true that we may get a fine Septem¬ 
ber,and the partridge month may after all 
be generally the harvest month this year ; 
indeed must be even to the disgust of those 
who hoped on the ist to find stubbles 
where there must be for some time 
standing corn. The prospect of a spoilt 
harvest is indeed to us—a corn consuming 
nation—a serious outlook, and now that 
unpleasant prospect is. being further 
darkened by the rapid development of the 
Potato disease, which under such meteoro¬ 
logical conditions as prevailed during the 
last fortnight could hardly do other than 
spread amazingly. It is true there have 
been no grave complaints yet of disease in 
the tubers, neither, because of the greatly 
advanced condition of the crop, do we 
anticipate any serious disaster. Still there 
is the black spot in the tops now so exten¬ 
sively apparent that the recent prices of 
Potatos have been seriously discounted, 
and growers have been glad to sell at even 
^3 per ton, such unreasonable alarm does 
the appearance of the disease create. 
At from £\ to £5 per ton the crop pays 
very well, and soon we anticipate the 
prospects of a moderate home crop of corn 
with certain limited supplies from elsewhere 
will send the prices of Potatos up and thus 
make what is one of the best crops of the 
year, one of the most profitable. Already 
the excessive rain has done much harm to 
the Plums, especially those ripening early, 
therefore too much must not be anticipated 
in that direction. Doubtless we shall find 
plenty of everything presently, but some 
things will have to be well paid for. 
» _ 
♦ 
New Chrysanthemums. — We are informed that the 
new varieties for this year have been distributed in 
almost overwhelming numbers. About 125 new seed¬ 
lings of 1891 have been imported from the United 
States, while the French raisers have sent out 
Upwards of 300 supposed new sorts, of which fifty per 
cent, are said to belong to the early flowering section. 
To these must be added sports and seedlings raised 
in this country, thus bringing the total to about 450 
at the lowest computation. 
The Royal Gardens, Windsor. —We understand 
that Mr. Jones, who has entered on his twentieth 
year of service as gardener to Her Majesty the 
Queen, at Frogmore, has resigned his appointment, 
and that Her Majesty’s choice of a successor has 
fallen upon Mr. Owen Thomas, of Chatsworth. 
Mr. Thomas will enter upon his duty at Frogmore 
on the ist of October. 
Mr. John Pavey, of the Cotham Nursery, Redland, 
a gentleman well known in Bristol, where he was 
much respected, was thrown from a trap on the 
23rd of July, when about to alight, through the 
shying of his pony, and died on the 16th inst. from 
the injuries received. 
Death of Mrs. Miles. —We regret to record the 
death, on the 21st inst., of Sarah Clare, wife of Mr. 
George T. Miles, of Wycombe Abbey, aged 48 years. 
Mrs. Miles had suffered for a long time from a 
swollen larynx. 
Gardening Appointment.— Mr. John T. Lindsay, 
for the last five and a half years gardener to G. S. 
Seater, Esq., Bonnington Bank House, Edinburgh, 
as gardener to W. H. Wilson Esq., Stranmillis 
House, Belfast. 
Birmingham Gardeners’ Association. —At a special 
meeting held on August 19th, Mr. C. H. Herbert, of 
the Sparkhill Nurseries, read a paper on the Carna¬ 
tion and Picotee, giving full information as to culture, 
propagation, and his results of fertilizing. Seed was 
saved by him from " Germania,” Benary’s grand 
yellow self, and every seedling from it has proved to 
be entirely distinct from the parent, some being heavy 
red edged, rose edged and other Picotees, one a 
large yellow-ground fancy, another a distinct bizarre 
deep crimson-maroon Carnation. He also exhibited 
a collection of blooms of his fine seedlings and 
others, and Mr. Sydenham also sent a fine lot of 
blooms. A good discussion followed. 
The Kentish Fruit Season —The annual hard fruit 
sales in Kent have just finished, and the results (says 
the Daily Chronicle ) are certainly not satisfactory to 
growers. Plums and Pears are so plentiful that 
buyers declined to speculate, except in rare instances 
where fancy prices were obtained. Warned by the 
bitter experience of last year, when, after good prices 
had been accepted, the Plum crop proved a failure, 
buyers were exceedingly chary, and competition was 
decidedly slow. Pe^rs were similarly dealt in. In 
one case a reserve of £100 had been placed on a 
certain lot of Williams’s Bon Chretien Pears, but the 
highest bid only reached ^56. Other nice lots of 
fruit shared the same fate, and consequently growers 
will be obliged to market the fruit themselves or 
accept greatly reduced offers. 
Poisoning by Laburnum Seeds —At Birmingham 
seven children were recently taken to the Queen’s 
Hospital suffering from the effects of having eaten 
seeds taken from the pods of a Laburnum tree. They 
each showed symptons of poisoning, and emetics had 
to be administered. Two of them were so ill that 
they had to be detained. The children had been 
playing in the churchyard at St. James's Church, 
Edgbaston, and had picked the pods from a 
Laburnum tree and eaten them, not knowing that 
they were injurious. 
Death of Mr. J. F. Meston. —We regret to record 
the death at Brighton, on the 19th inst., of Mr. Joseph 
Fyfe Meston, of Branxholm, Beckenham, and 50, 
Parliament Street, S.W., aged 64. Mr. Meston, who 
was a native of Aberdeenshire, came to London in 
early life, and after gaining some horticultural 
experience in private places took to the nursery 
business, and at Addlestone, near Chertsey, for a few 
years grew hardy trees and shrubs in somewhat 
large numbers. The bent of his mind, however, lay 
i landscape gardening, and for many years he was 
engaged in carrying out landscape work under the 
late Mr. Nesfield and Mr. Robert Marnock, and for 
the Metropolitan Board of Works. Eventually the 
nursery was given up, and he became a general con¬ 
tractor, making roads, and laying down tramways, 
&c., at home and abroad. Since 1863 he had been a 
warm supporter of the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent 
Institution, and was a member of the committee and 
auditor for many years. Mr. Meston, who was 
greatly respected and esteemed in the horticultural 
world, was stricken down with paralysis at Brighton 
some months ago, and his loss will be deeply 
regretted by all who knew him 
August 29, 1891; 
Glanb3rv;e Hortus Club.—The annual exhibitio 11 
of this society was held within the policies of 
Glenbervie House, Fordoun, when a large concourse 
of the inhabitants of the surrounding country, 
favoured by the fine weather, assembled to inspect 
the exhibits. A large number of prizes were offered 
for fruits, flowers, and vegetables, which were 
arranged in a large marquee, while another was 
reserved for exhibits of industrial work. Although 
the competition was confined to the inhabitants of 
the parish, the number of exhibits showed that a 
lively interest is being maintained in the success of 
the society. This year, for the first time, prizes 
were offered for butter, eggs, oatmeal cakes, rabbits, 
pigeons, knitting, crotcheting, needlework, mats, hats, 
patchwork, Macrame work, hand-writing, essays, 
maps, and other work in which the younger members 
of the rural district are supposed to be engaged. 
Window boxes, miniature houses and gardens, and 
collections of leaves of trees and shrubs all served 
to make up a varied and extensive display, and the 
industrial work as a whole was so well represented 
as to constitute a feature of the exhibition, and gave 
room to hope that this section would increase year 
by year. The prizes offered by the club brought up 
a good display, but they were eclipsed by the extra 
prizes, which were reckoned good evidence of the 
progress being made by the society in the district. 
OUTDOOR STANDARD 
PEACHES. 
As you have kindly noticed my Outdoor Standard 
Peaches in your issue of last week, you may like to 
hear more about them. The crop is over now, for 
we gathered the last of them yesterday. The total 
number has been about 1,800 ; of which at least 500 
were spoiled by cracking (through the wetness of the 
season) and by swarms of drones, which nipped them 
at the crown. By the bye, some naturalist—who 
knows nature nominally—repeats ever year in one 
of your contemporaries that "Drones never touch 
fruit; whoever imagines that he has seen them do so 
cannot know a bee from a wasp.” That writer's 
imagination would be enlarged here throughout 
August and September. 
I never find any difficulty as to the ripening of 
Standard Peaches. It must be nearly thirty years 
since Dr. Hogg brought the late Mr. Thomas 
Rivers to see a row of “ Early York ” trees—pyra¬ 
mids, however, not standards—covered with deep-red 
fruit. And there has not been a summer since that 
year in which I could not show some few. I have 
ripened even “ Grosse Mignonne ” so, and all except 
the very late sorts, which are doubtful even 
against a wall. It is not the want of summer heat, 
but the white frosts of spring, that stop the way. 
In at least three years out of four these will ravage 
the rosy scene, and spare not one fruit in 10,000. 
And when we have got them, what are they worth ? 
Fine and beautifully ruddy as they are, and better 
than the same kind from a wall, they have been 
selling at no more than is. to is. gd. per dozen, 
second quality at 6d. This can never pay for twelve 
years of barren labour and long outlay. Next year 
perhaps there will be about half a dozen fruit on all 
those trees, as in 1890. 
The prices above quoted, and verified bj’ sales¬ 
man’s note herewith, will show you what hopeless 
work it is to grow fruit for profit in this country. I 
have been a fruit grower since 1857, and have never 
once covered the expenses of the year, and in some 
years have lost a clear £1,000. The prices in Covent 
Garden, as from salesman to producer, frequently do 
not pay for carriage, and are (as a rule) from one 
half to a quarter of those quoted by the sanguine 
lecturer. One of these stated a fortnight ago, that 
"good culinary Apples will generally fetch 7s. or Ss. 
per bushel in the London markets.” At that very time 
the best English cooking Apples, even thus earlyin the 
season, were fetching 3s. per bushel. Some years 
ago I sold Goo bushels of good and well sorted Apples 
at is. per bushel, and lost nearly half of the baskets, 
which cost me 25s. per dozen A shilling was 
deposited on each basket, according to the custom 
of the market, and no more. Let the theoretical 
fruit grower work out the profit of this transaction, 
and then he shall have a few more to consider. 
From bitter experience I say this—it is an evil 
day for any man when he plants trees in Britain, 
to supply the British market.— R. D. Blackmore 
