230 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
December 12, 1891. 
year’s work. Until such time as the Cucum¬ 
bers and Tomatos are ready for planting the beds 
are supplied with fresh compost, and temporary 
shelves are fixed to the roofs on which young 
Chrysanthemums are placed ; these of course being 
taken away when the Cucumbers and Tomatos are 
set out, so that the latter may have the advantage of 
all the light possible. 
As we have remarked he has had difficulties as 
well as other people, but by working hard and giving 
a strict personal attention to his business he has 
overcome them. When first he started Black 
Hambugrh Grapes was the chief variety, but as 
these came in when the markets were pretty well 
overstocked with them, often only bringing him 
is. 6d. per lb., he decided to dispense with them and 
plant canes of the sorts named. In the early part of 
this year these brought him 3s. 6d. and 4s. per lb., 
and lasted until the end of March, yielding a much 
better interest (even though the coal bill last 
winter was a serious item) than the early Grapes 
did. 
Amongst our readers there are doubtless many to 
whom market gardening is familiar, and if these 
notes roughly penned as they are, will profit them in 
any way, The Gardening World will have proved a 
valuable medium.— Vesutrus. 
m 
UP THE NIGER WITH 
THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY. 
The following is the letter of March 16th, 1890, 
written by the late Mr. H. E. Bartlett, and alluded 
to at p. 210 :— 
“ I have got about 1,000 acres of land, which has 
to be all opened up and planted. The name of the 
plantation is the N’Kisi creek plantation, named 
after the N’Kisi river which runs through it. I have 
nearly 100 men at work on the estate, labourers from 
Lagos, very ignorant men who have to be shown 
everything. I am living in a house built under my 
own superintendence, and of native materials. It is 
situated on the top of a hill with a splendid view of 
the Niger, from which a breeze frequently blows. It 
is always cool in the house even under the fierce 
glare of the noonday sun. I am now enjoying very 
good health, and can pummel the recalcitrant 
members of my crowd with ease. They are an 
uncrupulous lot, and instantly take advantage of the 
‘ boss ' on opportunity given, so that it is necessary 
to keep the whip hand of them, and to be master. 
“ I am very busy just now, as some 20,000 Coffee 
and Cocoa plants and 130 pods of Cocoa seed have 
arrived from Lagos as a first consignment to the 
plantation. That means business, and we are going 
to do our level best to make the estate a big thing. 
The climate just now is comparatively cool as there 
are rains and tornados ; but until quite recently it 
has been very hot. The heat in the middle of the 
day is something intense. I never stray far from 
the house without nay pith helmet; and I have quite 
discarded European apparel, a singlet, socks, and 
pyjame trousers completes my attire. When I left 
England I did not smoke, but I have found since I 
landed here that smoking mitigates the plagues of 
Egypt, as represented by mosquitos, sandflys, etc. 
The plants I brought out here are doing very well; 
the Coffee plants at Abutshi are very promising, and 
Cocoa and Cotton also show up well. I have been 
looking after the two places lately, Woodruff being 
away after Coffee plants. 
“ In England the Mango is described as having the 
flavour of tow and turpentine, and there is certainly 
a decided flavour of these substances, but for all that 
the fruit is delicious. The suspicion of turpentine is 
only realised just as you are going to bite the fruit: 
when you have got a good grip of it the initial taste 
disappears at once. The Sour Sop is also a favourite 
fruit of mine, and the Pineapples here are very nice. 
“ The Niger region as represented by this district 
is not a gay place by any means. Nature wears a 
somewhat solemn face, and there are not many 
flowers wasting their sweetness on the desert air. 
There is a striking lack of both flowers and fruit. In 
out-of-the-way, shady, watered creeks and bush, 
many beautiful flowers have their home, but these 
require searching out; still I hope to send some of 
them to Kew after I have written my name on the 
plantation. You can have no idea how densely 
stupid the average African is, and how utterly 
incapable he is of reasoning from cause to effect. My 
plantation * boys ’ are all from Lagos, and they do 
not know the use of a single tool. It is most amus¬ 
ing to see them handle a spade for the first time. I 
have succeeded in getting some of them to turn over 
a piece of ground something near the mark. How¬ 
ever, like Mark Twain's jumping frog, they have 
their p'ints. 
“ It is curious to notice how quickly they succumb 
to slight sickness ; and it is not altogether skulking, 
as they get no pay when not at work. At ‘ tuming- 
to ’ time I generally find about half-a-dozen—some¬ 
times more—squatting on my verandah, for they 
all come to me when sick. I give them salts freely, 
on the principle that if they do not do much good, 
they will not do much harm. I have had a lot of 
African fever since my arrival in the country, but I 
have not had a really bad attack yet. About seven 
white men have been sent home sick since I came here, 
and two have pegged out, one of fever, the other of 
heart disease. The fever is quick in its action. You 
feel heavy and tired ; then you may or may not be 
taken with the cold stage, although the temperature is 
over go Q in the shade. This may last for an hour or 
several hours, and gradually passes off, leaving one 
in the hot stage, in which one is burning hot and 
dry with no perspiration. One falls into a semi¬ 
unconscious state and awakes to find oneself begin¬ 
ning to perspire. The whole business may be over 
in about four hours, but it leaves one very weak. 
Last week I had the fever as described, on three days 
following.” 
Two days later poor Bartlett died of the dreadful 
Blackwater fever. 
DINNER TABLE 
DECORATION. 
Perhaps a few remarks on this subject may prove 
useful to some young gardeners, who have a lot of 
this sort of work to carry out. They should have 
several small pans, from 4 in. to 6in. across, and about 
2 in. deep, these should be filled with a mixture of 
finely sifted loam, peat, leaf-soil and sand. In the 
centre of the smaller size place some small Ferns, 
such as Pteris elegans, P. serrulata, P. Argyrea, 
P. cretica, Adiantums, Gymnogrammes, &c., and in 
the centre of the larger ones a piece of round wood 
about 2 in. across, filling in with small pieces of Lyco¬ 
podium. This if placed in the propagatory pit will 
soon cover the soil. If they have some tins made 
about the same size as the pans, which should have 
some moss tied neatly round the outside, they could 
then turn the plants carefully out of the pans and 
place in the tins before using them for the table; 
those with the piece of wood in the centre should 
have the latter taken out, and small Coleuses which 
have been recently struck in small thumb pots turned 
out and put in its place. 
Tins large enough to hold plants in 3 in. or 4 in. 
pots are also necessary, as in these can be placed 
Dracaenas, Crotons, Aralias, Cocos Weddelliana, 
Grevillea robusta, Pandanus Veitchii, Ferns, Coleus, 
&c., covering the top of the pot over with moss. 
These, if nicely arranged with about three larger 
plants along the centre of the table, and the dishes 
or stands of fruit between, make a very pretty 
effect. If several Beetroots are potted in a 12 in. pot, 
and one inverted on the top and placed in the stove, 
in about three weeks they will have grown 5 or6 in.; 
these if part of the roots are cut away to fit in small 
glasses or vases packed in with damp moss, dotted 
about amongst the Ferns, lookvery pretty asa change. 
I have seen Peacock’s feathers and the everlasting 
flowers (Helichrysum) tied up in little bunches used 
occasionally; the feathers are laid on the table between 
the dishes, a bunch of the flowers being used to cover 
the quill end, about four or five flowers in each 
bunch would be quite sufficient. 
Fern fronds and the Mountain Ash and other leaves 
when dried make a good change from the plants 
when worked in some pretty design on the table, but 
flowers when tastefully arranged in small glasses or 
vases look very pretty. Have a few taller ones along 
the centre, from these should droop some of the 
delicate climbers, such as the young branches of the 
climbing Fern (Lygodium scandens), Selaginellas, 
Virginian Creeper, Cissus antarcticus, and similar 
graceful foliage ; and from the smaller vases should 
be seen occasionally a spike or blade of grass, or a 
spray of Gleichenia, or some other elegant and 
delicate Fern, peeping up as a relief to the eye, but 
without causing any obstruction to the view. With 
but few exceptions there should never be anything 
to interrupt the view across a dinner-table, tall stands 
of flowers should have slender stems, and none of 
their contents should droop or hang over to a lower 
point than 20 in. from the table. The line of sight 
will thus be free, and the general conversation be 
uninterrupted. The number of plants required would 
of course depend on the length of the table, but avoid 
overcrowding, some regard table decoration as the 
art of grouping the greatest possible quantity of fruit 
and flowers in the most showy manner; this is a 
great mistake. It is better to keep them off alto¬ 
gether, if table decoration is to be treated as a branch 
of the fine arts.— A. W., Chetton. 
WHAT IS A FRUIT? 
Mr. George Lunt, Curator of Stamford Park, 
Aston-under-Lyne, in a paper entitled “ What is a 
Fruit ? ” read recently before the members of the 
Manchester Horticultural Improvement Society, 
said a true fruit consists of one or more modified 
leaves, bearing ovules on their margins. In proof 
of this, the open capellary leaf of a cycadwas given, 
and compared with the closed carpel of a Pea. 
This closing of the carpels was said to be caused by 
the cells on the under side growing more rapidly 
than those of the upper, as is the case of the opening 
and closing of flowers. The achenes of the Buttercup, 
Strawberry, Rose, and Fig, were given as examples of 
indehiscent fruits, whose pericarps have to rot in 
the ground before germination can take place. It 
was pointed out that gardeners ought to know that 
such fruits do not split to liberate the seeds, and 
often require a long time to germinate. The various 
ways in which the carpels are joined together, in 
axile and parietal placentation, were described. 
Other true fruits were next described, and compared 
with false fruits, or pseudocarps. The ways in 
which false fruits are formed were shown. The 
edible portion of the apple was shown to be the 
succulent calyx tube, the five carpels being the true 
fruits. The Pine-apple was described as a large 
succulent inflorescence, bearing numerous flowers on 
the outside, the true fruits being embedded in the 
fleshy stalk and bracts. The tissues of the Peach and 
Plum were compared with the Cocoanut. Having 
treated of the morphology, Mr. Lunt gave an outline 
of the physiology of fruit, and showed that, in its 
young state, the fruit has the same chemical 
composition and performs the same functions as 
leaves, taking in carbonic acid gas and giving out 
oxygen. To the taste, it is first bitter, and then acid. 
The acid being neutralized by alkalies, it becomes 
sweet. By the gradual evaporation of water the cell 
sap becomes thickened by saccharine or other car¬ 
bonaceous compounds, until maturity is reached ; it 
then begins to absorb oxygen and give out CO.,. 
When decomposition begins, and the ovule upon the 
carpellary leaf has developed into a ripe seed, the 
life work of the fruit comes to an end. 
-- 
HEAVY RAINFALLS. 
We measure rain by catching it in a vessel called a 
rain-gauge, the area of whose mouth is accurately 
known, and then calculate how deep the layer of 
water would have been if all the rain that fell into the 
gauge had been spread out evenly on the surface of 
the side of its mouth. A gallon of water would only 
cover a space of two feet square if spread out in a 
la}’er an inch thick. Accordingly, an inch of rain 
falling on an acre of land amounts to 100 tons of 
water, and the same fall per square mile would give 
60,000 tons. Now an inch of rain falls not unfre- 
quently at stations on our west coast in the course 
of a day, so that we can easily see why two or three 
days’ heavy rain cause floods in most of our rivers. 
The area drained by the Thames is sixty-five square 
English miles, or five square geographical miles, as 
stated by Sir John Herschel; and accordingly an inch 
of rain falling on that district would give us 4,000,000 
tons of water, which must almost all of it drains off 
the high lands and flood those lying lower before it 
ultimately finds its way to the sea. However, the 
wettest weather with us is almost dry when compared 
with that experienced between the tropics in the 
rainy season. The wettest region on the earth is 
justly claimed by Cherra Ponjee, in the Cossia Hills, 
lying north-east of Calcutta. There, in June, 1S51, 
at an elevation of 4,500 feet, twelve feet three inches 
were measured, while the total annual rainfall is 
600 inches, or fifty feet! The average rainfall on our 
west coasts is about thirty inches, so that at Cherra 
Ponjee twenty times as much falls, and that within 
the space of six mouths. The reason of this unequal 
distribution of the fall is that when the monsoon 
changes, and the warm and moist south-west wind 
is blowing north-eastwards towards Central Asia, 
it meets a ridge of high land which it must pass over, 
and in its passage it is chilled, and deposits its bur¬ 
den of water on the western slopes of the hills.— 
Manchester City News. 
