4 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
September 1, 1888. 
Sale or Consumption. —Whilst there can 
be no difference of opinion as to the suggestion 
made by Mr. Gladstone, that in order to ensure 
equitable transit rates for garden produce per 
rail, small growers should lay their heads to¬ 
gether and combine, it does seem as if just 
now a little too much stress was being laid on 
the marketing of such produce, and hardly 
enough on home consumption. Of course, 
in discussing the interesting subject of the 
profitable employment of the land and of 
labour, the marketing of produce must come 
uppermost; but there are myriads of small 
occupiers who should, and probably do, culti¬ 
vate their holdings — whether gardens or 
allotments—that they might have a healthful 
supply of fruits and vegetables for their 
domestic consumption. Blessed indeed are 
all such, for they are a long way favoured 
over their unfortunate brethren in towns who 
have no gardens, and who are, indeed, almost 
ignorant of all garden knowledge. 
With an ample supply of home - raised 
garden produce, there is no fear of ill-health, 
poverty, or starvation, The mere gathering 
of fruits and vegetables fresh from one’s own 
plot is a special delight, whilst the consumption 
in such case is trebly pleasing; but if there be 
some little outlay, perhaps, in rent, seeds, and 
manure—and with good management these 
expenses are not large—the labour, which 
after all forms the chief gardening capital, 
costs nothing, and its product is all profit. 
Yet even those whose business it is to produce 
for others—and that, perchance, largely—may 
well feel that the disposal of their produce 
profitably is not the be-all of existence. They, 
at least, may hope to find some pleasure in 
their garden surroundings, and, not least, in 
the enjoyment as food of what they have 
laboured to produce. The pleasures of gar¬ 
dening are not all bound up in the profit 
account or in market returns. 
Shilling Gardening Books. —Commenting 
o 
upon the excellent character of our recently- 
published book on The Tuberous Begonia — 
which, by the bye, we note has received 
pleasant commendation at the hands of some of 
our contemporaries—a worthy correspondent 
asks that more shilling books may be pub¬ 
lished. Whatever may be the ultimate outcome 
of our little venture, we join with our corre¬ 
spondent in regarding the shilling as the now 
popular figure for gardening books—really, if 
we may so term them, manuals—which, whilst 
accessible to all purses, shall yet be peculiarly 
fitted to encourage the ordinary grower and 
enlighten the amateur cultivator. The general 
public now demand shilling books of all kinds, 
and possibly the time may not be far distant 
when the popular requirements will have to be 
met by sixpenny ones. Should that be so, the 
gardening book trade must follow suit. -The 
days of costly works, which are as bulky and 
generally as frigidly dry and technical as they 
are costly, seem to be passing away. 
In any case, the reading public now is being 
found amongst the masses rather than of the 
classes, and the masses must be catered for. 
It is specially to the interest of every class of 
professional horticulturists to render gardening 
knowledge popular, because the wider gardening 
sentiment is diffused, the greater the area from 
which trade customers will be drawn. There 
is a wide difference between the owner of a 
garden, who likes to have it neat and tidy 
because that is the correct thing, and that 
owner who, through the agency of books and 
papers, has learnt to acquire a veritable love 
for gardening, and whose tastes soon convert 
him into a real amateur gardener. Probably, 
there is no “ fancy,” if it may be so termed, 
displayed by civilised man which is so per¬ 
manent and productive of real enjoyment as is 
this love for gardening, especially as age renders 
indulgence in more active modes of enjoyment 
very difficult. Clearly we must encourage this 
process of conversion. 
The Potato Disease.— Whilst the fruit 
growers are lamenting the sparse nature of 
their crops, their undoubted backwardness, 
and comparative lack of quality, the Potato 
growers are in far worse case, for their favourite 
product is being decimated right and left, and 
in rich soils, in the most terrible way. We 
seem to be carried back to the year 1845, 
when the appearance of this fell Potato disorder 
wrought such havoc in our gardens and fields ; 
but with this difference—that since then, and 
in spite of periodical attacks of the fungus in a 
very virulent form, we have almost, if not 
quite, trebled our Potato breadths. For a few 
years, when dry summers prevailed, there was 
such comparative immunity from the fungus 
that Potatos were wonderfully plentiful and 
cheap. They are cheap enough still, but that 
is because everyone is afraid to buy, whilst 
everybody who has Potatos is anxious to sell 
before they get worse. 
In many gardens great difficulty will be 
experienced in meeting the usual Potato re¬ 
quirements, whilst in cottage gardens and 
allotment plots the poor growers will have to 
lie content with from one-half to perhaps one- 
third of their usual produce ; and upon all such 
growers—and these are indeed legion—the loss 
incidental to the disease will fall heavily. To 
the nation at large the depreciation of the 
Potato crop must be estimated by millions of 
pounds’ value. Iso doubt, the reappearance of 
the Peronospora, in its worst and most destruc¬ 
tive aspects, will once more stimulate the 
attempted production of disease-resisting kinds 
of Potatos. The difficulty which raisers have 
to contend with is found in the grave un¬ 
certainty which exists as to the real action of 
the fungus, and what peculiar properties 
Potatos are required to possess which shall 
enable them to resist disease, if actual resist¬ 
ance be possible. So far, in the production of 
such resisting or assumedly resisting kinds, all 
progress has been of a haphazard character. 
Our Bean Crop. —That Jupiter Pluvius is 
no enemy to the Bean crop is just now pretty 
plainly evidenced. In common with all other 
vegetables, both runner and dwarf Beans were 
rather later than usual in blooming ; but still, 
that little lapse has been amply atoned for by a 
wonderful productiveness since. Dwarfs are 
more generally grown in private gardens than 
in market fields, where runners are the 
favourites. This year the breadths are won¬ 
derfully extensive, and though chiefly grown 
without sticks, and receiving, 'perhaps, one 
topping only through the summer, yet are pro¬ 
ducing such wonderful crops as to beat all 
previous records in productiveness. As a result, 
we see thousands of bushels disposed of daily 
in the market at about 2e. each—a miserable 
price indeed when it is remembered that the 
first cost of gathering ranges from 4c?. to 6c?. 
per bushel. Clearly a big produce is not always 
a blessing to growers, who look for some 3s. 6c?. 
to 4s. per bushel as a fair return. 
But whilst the fact of the enormous produce 
of runner and dwarf Beans is indisputable, it is 
worthy of record that such results should flow 
from wet, sunless, or comparatively sunless, 
weather. It is one of the scientific super¬ 
stitions that insects—and bees especially— 
are indispensable aids to Bean fertilisation. 
Curiously enough, we invariably find that in 
hot weather, when insects—and especially 
bees—can labour with freedom, Beans always 
set badly; whilst in such a season as the 
present, when insects have been checked in 
their operations by bad weather, Bean bloom 
has never set so readily. The very causes of 
Potato disease have been prolific, not only of 
Beans, but of nearly all other vegetables, so 
that nature has given us some compensation 
for heavy losses in other directions, if inadequate 
ones. We hope for a long mild autumn, and 
in such a case we shall have, other than 
Potatos, a wealth of delicious vegetables nearly 
to the end of the year. 
Conference of Fruit Growers at the Crystal 
Palace.—We understand that a meeting of the execu¬ 
tive committee of the above conference was held in 
“ Anderton’s Hotel,” Fleet Street, on Tuesday last, 
Mr. T. Francis Rivers in the chair. The principal 
business was the consideration of a number of com¬ 
munications received by the hon. secretaries, and the 
determination of the programme for the conference. 
The committee now comprises about seventy of the 
leading fruit growers, nurserymen, and amateurs 
throughout the kingdom, all of whom had expressed 
their hearty approval of the scheme, and their desire 
to assist in rendering the meeting both useful and 
interesting. After considerable discussion it was 
decided that the subjects should be taken in the 
following order, each paper to occupy about twenty 
minutes in reading, to allow ample time for discussion. 
The conference will be held in the Crystal Palace (the 
place will be notified on the morning of each day) on 
September 7th at 3 p.m., and September 8th at 2 p.m. 
On September 7th, the first subject will be “Fruit 
Culture for Profit,” by Mr. T. Francis Rivers, to be 
followed by Mr. Coleman, Eastnor Castle Gardens, and 
others. The second subject will be “The Packing, 
Carriage, and Marketing of Fruits,” by Mr. "Webber of 
Covent Garden and Mr. Samuel Rawson, of Birmingham. 
On September 8th, Mr. Tallerman will deal with 
“Fruit Distribution,” Mr. Manning with “Fruit as 
Food,” and Mr. Albert Bath with “Land Tenure in 
Relation to Fruit Cultivation.” All who intend taking 
part in the discussion will facilitate the arrangements 
if they send in their names at once to the hon. secs., 
Mr. Lewis Castle, Hotham House, Merton ; Mr. Wm. 
Earley, Ilford ; or to the chairman on the day of the 
meeting. 
Presentation to Mr. G. T. Miles, Jun.— On the 
occasion of the annual flower show, at High Wycombe, 
held on the 22nd ult., Mr. G. T. Miles, Jun., of 
Wycombe Abbey Gardens, the late secretary of 
the society, was presented with a gold watch, in 
recognition of the valuable honorary services he has 
rendered to the society during the past eight years. In 
making the presentation, Mr. D. Clarke remarked that 
very much of the success which had attended the 
operations of the society was due to the efficient way 
in which the duties of secretary had been discharged 
during the past eight years by Mr. Miles and those 
who had been his coadjutors. They were indebted 
very much not only to Mr. Miles, but also to his father, 
who, from the earliest formation of the society, had 
taken a very warm interest in its welfare ; and in all 
probability but for this fact the success which had 
attended the society would not have been attained. 
Bulbs for the Royal and Public Parks.—We are 
informed that the whole of the bulbs required by the 
First Commissioner of Works and also the Metropolitan 
Board of Works, for planting in the London parks, are 
being supplied by Messrs. James Carter & Co., High 
Holborn, W.C. 
Autumn Show at Manchester. —"We have received 
as we go to press a copy of the schedule of prizes issued 
by the Royal Botanical and Horticultural Society of 
Manchester, for a fruit, flower, and vegetable show, to 
be held in the gardens at Old Trafford on the 21st and 
22nd inst. It includes some forty-three classes, all of 
which are open, and apportioned as follows :—fruits, 21; 
vegetables, 7 ; and flowers, 15. The fruit classes 
provide for collections of eight and four dishes 
respectively, Grapes, Peaches, Nectarines, Pine Apples, 
Melons, Plums, Figs, Pears, Apples, &c. The vegetable 
section includes a collection of twelve dishes, and single 
dishes of Potatos, Tomatos, Onions, and Celery ; while 
the cut-flower classes are confined to Dahlias, Roses, 
herbaceous plants, Gladioli, Stocks, Asters, Paeonies.&c. 
Birmingham Horticulturists at Reading and 
Heckfield. —On Monday last the members of the 
Birmingham and District Gardeners’ Mutual Improve¬ 
ment Association, to the number of seventy, enjoyed a 
most successful excursion to Reading and Heckfield. 
The party left Snow Hill Station at 5.40 a.m., and 
on arriving at Reading were conducted over the nursery 
and trial grounds and then the seed warehouses of 
Messrs. Sutton & Sons, who entertained the party at 
luncheon. Breaks were subsequently called into 
requisition, and the party drove over to Heckfield, 
where they arrived at 21.5 p.m. Here they had the 
pleasure of inspecting a thoroughly well-managed 
garden in all departments, and especially of seeing the 
flower garden, which is, perhaps, the most perfect of 
its kind in the kingdom. After rambling for some time 
through the gardens and woods, by the kindness of Miss 
