March 26, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
465 
VEITCH’S 
Superb Slrain of 
" Veitch's strain of Gloxinia has long been cele¬ 
brated for its excellence, and each season new 
seedling varieties, eclipsing those of older date, 
are added to it."— The Garden, June 5. 
Seed saved from the magnificent collection 
grown at our Chelsea Nursery, embracing all the 
choicest, most brilliant and varied colours. 
Finest Mixed Colours, per packet, 2s. 6d. 
BRIGHT SCARLET and CRIMSON, 
Saved from our splendid collection of high- 
coloured sorts, 
Per Packet, 2s. 6d. 
For full descriptions of the above and other 
CHOICE FLOWER SEEDS, see SEED 
CATALOGUE for 1892, forwarded gratis and 
post free on application. 
JAMES VEITGH & SONS, 
ROYAL EXOTIC NURSERY, CHELSEA, S.W. 
ORCHIDS. 
THE 
Liverpool Horticultural Co. 
(JOHN COWAN) Ltd., 
Have an Immense Stock of 
ORCHIDS, 
Both Established and Semi-established, 
and they are constantly receiving 
IMPORTATIONS 
from various parts of the world. 
INSPECTION IS VERY EARNESTLY INVITED. 
The Company's Prices are all fixed, 
as low as possible with the view of 
inducing liberal orders. 
Priced and Descriptive Catalogue 
post free on application to the Co., 
The Vineyard and Nurseries, 
GARSTON n r . LIVERPOOL 
IMMEDIATE 
DESPATCH. 
SUTTON’S 
PARCEL POST 
COLLECTIONS OF 
Vegetable Seeds, 
SUTTONS 25/- COLLECTION, 
Containing 64 varieties, sent free by Parcel 
Post on receipt of a remittance for 23/g. 
SUTTON S 17/6 COLLECTION, 
Containing 51 varieties, sent free by Parcel 
Post on receipt of a remittance for 16/8. 
SUTTON’S 10/6 COLLECTION, 
Containing 41 varieties, sent free by Parcel 
Post on receipt of a remittance for 10/-. 
BUTTONS 7/6 COLLECTION, 
Containing 31 varieties, sent free by Parcel 
Post on receipt of a remittance for 7/6. 
SUTTON’S SEEDS 
GENUINE ONLY FROM SUTTON 5 SONS,READING. 
For Index to Contents see page 474. 
“ Gardening is the purest oi human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
NEXT WEEK’S ENGAGEMENTS. 
Monday, March 28.—Sale of Hardy Plants, &c., at Protheroe 
& Morris' Rooms. 
Tui-sday, March 29.—Brighton and Sussex Horticultural 
Association Show (2 days). Sale of imported Odontoglossum 
crispum at Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Wednesday, March 30.— Sale of Lily Bulbs, Roses, Hardy 
Plants, &c., at Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Friday, April 1.—Sale of established Orchids, &c., at 
Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
f (|g $a^4tt»10 ifWltt, 
Edited by BRIAN WYNNE, F.R.H.S. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 26 th, 1892. 
Horticulture in Schools. —We learn 
that at length the Education Depart¬ 
ment of the Government has arranged for 
the teaching of elementary hoi ticulture in 
the rural schools of the kingdom, as a spe 
cific subject. There is now hope that ere 
long we shall see some knowledge of the 
first principles of gardening a product of 
popular education. Of course there is yet 
much to be done in relation to the produc¬ 
tion of teachers who have some knowledge 
of the subject, but just as it has been found 
needful to insist upon a general knowledge 
of drawing by all elementary teachers, so 
will it become imperative that they should 
obtain some knowledge of elementary gar¬ 
dening. 
It by no means follows that only those 
who have practical knowledge make the best 
teachers. Too many of these have neither 
training nor aptitude and cannot teach at 
all. Teachin g is a special vocation, and the 
trained teacher possesses a faculty for seiz¬ 
ing upon the salient points of a subject, 
then mastering them, and finally impressing 
them upon the minds of the children, 
hollowing the theoretical course in the 
schools must presently come practice gar¬ 
dens, which should be easily furnished in 
rural districts when the schools come, as 
presently fhey no doubt will, under the con¬ 
trol of parish or district councils. 
In the meantime children may learn 
much respecting the nature of soils, 
methods of working them beneficially, 
something as to manures, their forms and 
constituents, seeds, plants, trees, sowing 
and planting, distribution of weeds ; also 
the habits and natures of weeds, of insects, 
etc.; indeed there is a very wide as well as 
an attractive field open to children in con¬ 
nection with gardening, which would form 
for them a delightful variation from their 
ordinary academic courses of stud}', which 
are too often dry and uninteresting. 
/JErafting. —We are near to the usual 
period of the year when the process of 
grafting trees, etc., especially of fruit trees, 
must be applied. We may bud plants or 
trees at different periods of the year, but 
ordinarily the grafting of all hard-wooded 
things must be done in the spring. Chry¬ 
santhemums and zonal Pelargoniums have 
been grafted during the summer, with 
varying degrees of success, but we can only 
hope to succeed with most things when 
grafting is performed in spring. April is 
the favoured month for the operation, and 
anyone contemplating woik of this very in¬ 
teresting nature, should lose no time in 
securing grafts or scions, raffia for ties, and 
clay for enclosing the grafts until the need¬ 
ful union has been effected. 
It is a matter of comparative necessity 
that the grafts should be a little behind the 
stock in regard to the flow of the sap, and 
it is easy to have such diversity by having 
the scions cut early and laid in by the heels 
in soil, ready for use at the right moment. 
Grafting is a very ancient art, for it was 
well understood by the old Roman gar¬ 
deners, and Pliny described it some 1800 
years ago. In the same way what has 
recently been regarded by plant physiolo¬ 
gists as a new discovery, namely that 
leguminous or pod-bearing plants can as it 
were abstract nitrogen from the atmosphere 
and manufacture it in the soil through the 
agency of the nodules on the roots,is referred 
to by Virgil, one of the most ancient 
writers on agriculture. 
No old writer has, however, more 
pleasingly described the art of grafting 
trees than has our great dramatist, Shake¬ 
speare, who in the “Winter’s Tale,” puts 
into the mouth of Polixenes, “ You see, 
sweet maid,we marry a gentler scion to the 
wildest stock, and make conceive a bark of 
baser kind by bud of nobler race; this is 
an art which does mend nature : change 
it rather ; but the art itself is nature.” 
P otato Exhibiting. —It is a matter for 
congratulation so far as our famous 
esculent the Potato is concerned, that we 
may look forward to one good exhibition 
of the noble tuber at least during the 
present year. The promoters of the series 
of Great Horticultural Exhibitions atEarl's 
Court have promised us a big Potato Show 
next October, and we may hope to see the 
old glories of the International Potato 
Shows at the Crystal Palace revived. 
Whether, remembering how long a period 
it took from the origination of these exhi¬ 
bitions to create that high conception of 
