514 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 16, 1892. 
The trade from time to time shows so 
liberally at the society’s meetings, and in 
that way do so much to maintain them in 
interest and in excellence, that it would 
have been but a proper compliment to give 
trade growers just a “ look in ” in some of 
these classes. As at present arranged if 
trade growers exhibit they must look to the 
gardening press for their reward, not to the 
society which profits so much by their help. 
So far as the Ferns are concerned there is 
some fear that so far as some of the classes 
are concerned they have been so conceived 
that few growers will be in a position to 
compete at all, as the requirements of varie¬ 
ties are exceedingly restricted. Hence the 
Fern show may degenerate into one of fan¬ 
ciers or faddists, and hardly be of material 
interest to the general public. So far as 
the Begonias are concerned, so beautiful 
are all the flowering varieties that they 
will assuredly attract ample attention. 
It would much enhance the beauty of the 
show could the Ferns and Begonias be 
somewhat intermixed. If set up in differ¬ 
ent tents we shall see ten persons admir¬ 
ing the latter to one Fern worshipper. 
What a few trade growers of Begonias 
can do in the direction of making a display 
we have seen at the Temple shows, but 
even these displays fall short a long way of 
what these growers present at home. 
Some good prizes might have encouraged 
them to have sent to the show in due 
season really representative collections of 
all sections of the Begonia. 
K orticultural Classes. —An admirable 
suggestion has been made that with a 
view to assist during the summer the 
further development of horticultural taste 
and information which the County Councils 
have striven to impart in the form of 
lectures during the winter, the various 
classes should have opportunities offered 
during the summer and autumn to visit 
good gardens, nurseries, etc., where they 
might have ocular demonstration afforded 
as to the theoretical worth of the instruc¬ 
tion imparted during the winter. That 
opportunities would be, if offered, seized 
upon with avidity there can be- no doubt, 
especially if the County Councils will 
furnish competent guides. 
Professional gardeners as a class are 
always most eager to visit places which 
have, horticulturally, good reputations, and 
it is very certain that less practical learners 
would be as anxious to avail themselves of 
the same privilege. It has also been 
suggested that much that is helpful might 
be done during the summer by sending 
competent judges and instructors to visit 
allotment and cottage garden areas, and 
whilst making to these some small awards, 
at the same time pointing to a gathering 
of the workers the merits and demerits of 
their practice as shown in the cropping and 
general cultivation displayed. 
It would be a pity were the work so 
admirably begun to be entirely suspended 
during the summer. The season for the 
expounding of theory is now over, and that 
for the display of practice is at hand. 
In a few months the practice will bear 
fruit according to its merits, and then is 
the time to correct or approve the results. 
National Chrysanthemum Society.—We are re¬ 
quested to state that Sir Edwin Saunders, Fairlawn, 
Wimbledon, has accepted the position of president 
of the society for the present year. 
Mr, William Ferniehas been engaged as gardener to 
Viscount Strathallan, Strathallan Castle, Perth¬ 
shire, N.B. 
Mr. David Baxter, lately gardener at Tollcross 
House, Glasgow, has been engaged as gardener and 
estate manager to Lord Cardross, Shortgrove, 
Essex. 
Utricularia Humboldtii.—This rareand lovely bluish 
purple bladder-wort is now flowering for the first 
time in this country in Baron Schroder’s garden at 
The Dell, Egham. Some flowers were shown at the 
Floral Committee on Tuesday, and a First-class 
Certificate was unanimously awarded to it. 
The Beckenham (Kent) Horticultural Society has 
lately been re-organized, and under the new manage¬ 
ment the summer show will be held on July 27th. 
Trowbridge Chrysanthemum Society. — The leading 
nurserymen and gardeners of the Trowbridge district 
have combined together to establish an annual 
exhibition of chrysanthemums and fruit. 
Fluctuations of Temperature. — Mr. Dodwell, 
writing from Oxford on Tuesday, states that in his 
cold houses on Monday at 7 a.m., the thermometer 
registered 35 0 , and at 1 p.m. 81°; on Tuesday at 
7 a.m. the temperature was again 35°, but at 1 
o'clock it had only risen to 44 0 . We fear this 
experience was general. 
The Hyacinths at Haarlem are reported to be in 
fine bloom just now, and will be at their best during 
the Easter Holidays. The public sales will begin on 
April 19th, and will go oir every- day till the beginning 
of May. The show beds of Hyacinths and Tulips at 
Messrs. Krelage's Nursery will be opened to public 
inspection on Easter Sunday, and will probably be 
on view to the middle of May. 
United Horticultural Benefit and Provident Society.— 
The usual quarterly meeting of this society was held 
at the Caledonian Hotel, on Monday evening last, Mr. 
G. W. Cummins in the chair. Ten new members 
were added to the roll; and cheques were drawn in 
favour of the nominees of two deceased members, 
viz., Mr. Benjamin Coombe, who died at Victoria, 
Texas, and Mr. William Rosier, late of Putney. 
The secretary reported that the sick list had been a 
very heavy one during the first two months of the 
quarter, but at that time there was no one on the 
funds. 
Lord Aberdeen's Fruit Ranching Enterprise. —Mr. 
Conkling, who has taken charge of Lord Aberdeen's 
fruit-growing venture in the Okanagan Valley, 
British Columbia, has recently visited Victoria to 
obtain information regarding Hop culture, for which 
purpose fifty acres will this spring be broken up on 
the Aberdeen estate. He says that the fruit 
throughout the Okanagan district is magnificent, 
and he sees no reason why the three hundred acres 
with which his lordship has started as an experiment 
should not prove a lucrative investment. The trees, 
including varieties of all the small fruits, have been 
ordered from Toronto, and are all between two 
and three years old. One hundred and fifty acres 
are to be planted at the Mission, and at the same 
area at Vernon. A fruit cannery will be built at 
the Mission this year. 
Moseley Rose Show. —The Botanical Gardens 
and College grounds, some twenty acres in extent, 
at Moseley, near Birmingham, have been purchased 
by a gentleman with a view to opening them as a 
place of public resort, where concerts, fetes, flower 
shows, &c., will be held at intervals with vocal and 
instrumental music daily. The horticultural 
exhibitions will be under the management of Mr. 
W. Dean, and a schedule of prizes for a Rose show 
to take place on July 19th and 20th, has just been 
issued. There are some fourteen classes for Roses, 
eight of them being open, and for the seventy-two 
dissimilar, ^25 are offered in four prizes. Two 
others are limited to amateurs residing within six 
miles of the Birmingham Post Office ; and three for 
Bouquets are open to ladies only. 
The Howick House Sale of Orchids. —We under¬ 
stand that the late Mr. E. G. Wrigley’s collection 
sold by Messrs. Protheroe & Morris last week realised 
about /3,ooo. The highest price realised for a 
single specimen was iooguineas, given by Mr. George 
Hardy for the hybrid Lselia callistoglossa. Mr. 
Hardy among other purchases also secured another 
hybrid — Laelia bella for 85 guineas, and a Cattleya 
mossiae alba for 40 guineas. Other notable prices 
were Cattleya Schroder® alba, 38 guineas ; Odonto- 
glossum crispum Wrigleyanum, 36 guineas; 
Phalaenopsis Schilleriana vestalis, 30 guineas: 
Cattleya Massaiana, 95 guineas, and 45 guineas ; 
Cattleya Wagneri, 35guineas; Laelia anceps Amesiana 
21 guineas; Cattleya Reineckiana, 45 guineas; 
Laelia grandis tenebrosus, 16 guineas ; Dendrobium 
nobile Cooksoni, 10 guineas, &c. 
A Cold March. —With the exception of the unu¬ 
sually inclement March of 1883, last month was the 
coldest March we have had for at least 20 years past. 
In some parts of our eastern and midland counties it 
was, in fact, the coldest of the whole 20, and had it not 
been for the transient bursts of warmth experienced 
in many places towards the close of the month, there 
can be no doubt that this remark would have applied 
to the whole of England and Ireland. In the London 
district there were just as many cold days last month 
as there were nine years ago, but in 1883 there wa s 
only one day on which the thermometer reached 55°, 
while in the period which has just elapsed there were 
five days with a maximum temperature at or above 
that level, and two days with a maximum reaching or 
exceeding 60°. The number of frosty nights last 
month was also rather less than in 1883, the actual 
numbers being respectively 18 and 20. The ungenial 
weather of last month was due, as in 1883, to an ab¬ 
normal prevalence of winds from the northward or 
eastward. In London no less than 68 per cent, of 
our winds came last month from points lying between 
north-west and east, the average prevalence of such 
winds in March being only 40 per cent.— Daily News. 
Sevenoaks Gardeners and Amateurs’ Mutual Improve¬ 
ment Society. —The quarterly meeting of this society 
took place on JTuesday, April 5th, the chair being 
taken by Mr. J. Westcott, who was supported by 
between thirty and forty members. There w r ere 
some splendid exhibits placed on the table. Mr. 
Farmer contributed three exceedingly well grown 
Cinerarias, which for size of bloom and good foliage 
it would be hard to match—a First-class Certificate 
was awarded. Mr. Hilton showed two well grown 
and beautifully flow-ered Cyclamen, which received 
an Award of Merit; as did Mr. Westcott for a box 
of Tea Roses. The secretary, in submiting the 
quarterly report, stated that nine new members had 
been elected, making the number on the books about 
sixty. The secretary was requested to invite the 
Tonbridge Society to join them on Tuesday, April 
19th, when Mr. J. Hughes, Edenhurst Gardens, will 
will read a paper on Hardy Fruit Culture. The 
business of the society having been disposed of 
somewhat earlier than usual, Mr. Searing read a paper 
on the Azalea, which was followed by a discussion, 
in which Messrs. Hoadley, Fox, Westcott, Buckland, 
Hughes, and Cook took part. 
A National Emblem for America. —The national 
flower craze in the U.S.A. has broken out in a new 
form. A " Star Pansy Union ” is being formed, 
having for its purpose the gaining of recognition for 
the Pansy as a national flower, and proposing to 
secure “ a more graceful, elastic, and emblematic 
union for the United States flag,” by placing the 
cluster of stars representing the states in the form of 
petals in a conventionalized Pansy. For the head 
of the staff an Acorn is to be used —“ the emblem of 
greatness in littleness, of strength in weakness, of 
life in death.” An attempt will be made to secure 
the adoption by Congress of this design in 1893.— 
American Gardening. ~ ■ 
Flowering of the Sugar Cane.—Mr. J. F. Duthie, 
the well-known botanist, writes to the Pioneer from 
Saharunpore :—-"The periodical flowering of certain 
kinds of Bamboos is an event which attracts the at¬ 
tention of many people in the same way as they are 
interested in total eclipses, the appearance of comets, 
and such-like obvious phenonema. Those who are 
unable to regard the event from a scientific point of 
view are apt to hold superstitious opinions, especially 
the Indian cultivator, who, for instance, invariably 
looks on the periodical flowering of the ' Kattang 
bans’ (Bambusa arundinacea) as directly connected 
with an approaching famine. This season should be 
recorded as a memorable one on account of the flow¬ 
ering of the Sugar Cane. I have not yet been able 
to ascertain to what extent this is taking place in 
other parts of India ; but it is sufficient at present to 
notice the fact of its flowering freely in the district, 
after an interval of about twenty years. The par¬ 
ticular point to which I wish now to draw attention 
is the possible opportunity of obtaining ripe seed. It 
has been supposed, and with reason, that crops like 
Sugar Cane, which have to be propagated year after 
year by cuttings, will after a time begin to deteriorate 
either by reason of the want of fresh blood, or— 
and perhaps in consequence of this—their liability 
to various diseases. Hence all who are interested in 
the future cultivation of Sugar Cane should at once 
endeavour to have as much seed collected as possible 
before it is all carried away by the wind.” 
