4 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
September 2, 1893. 
smaller, if having qualit}’, is by far prefer¬ 
able. then should vegetables be 
judged on a basis that is entirely contrary 
to common sense estimates ? 
IMany exhibitors, puzzled to know how 
to meet the varying tastes of judges in this 
matter, are asking for some standard of 
judgment. That is very difficult to furnish, 
5?et should not be impracticable. But the 
other day a competitor at one show was 
placed first for his large, though handsome, 
exhibits, but found at another show, not far 
away, that he was low down in the awards 
because his produce was too big. No 
wonder he is puzzled what to do. We urge 
all judges of vegetables henceforth to make 
reasonable table size and high quality only 
their basis of awards, and for all exhi¬ 
bitors to cater for such an estimate and 
leave their big stuff at home. 
- ^ - 
The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Bill passed 
through Committee, and was read a third time in 
the House of Commons on Tuesday. 
Death of a Jersey Nurseryman.— We regret to learn 
of the death, on August ist, of Mr. C. B. Saunders, 
who for nearly fifty years carried on an extensive 
nursery and fruit-growing business in Jersey. 
Mr. E. F. Hawes, of Stock Grove Park, Leighton 
Buzzard, has been engaged as gardener by Sir 
A. K. B. Osborn, Chicksands Priory, Shefford, 
Beds., and is succeeded at Stock Grove Park by Mr. 
C. Austin. 
Wholesale Slaughter of Wasps.— During the past 
three or four weeks Mr. E. Wallis, head gardener at 
Hamels Park, Braughing, Herts, has destroyed no 
fewer than 450 wasps’ nests, and in the same period 
has caught twenty quarts of wasps in a prepared 
syrup. The amount of damage done by these pests 
in the Hamels Park gardens is enormous. 
The Potato and Hop Acreage. —The summary of 
Agricultural returns of Great Britain for the year 
1893, shows that the acreage under Potatos amounts 
to 527,821 acres, being an increase of 2,460 acres 
as compared with last year's returns. The acreage 
under Hops amounts to 57,576 acres or an increase 
of 1,317 acres. 
Primroses in Bloom since Christmas. —A Penzance 
correspondent writes :—“ I have now in my garden in 
bloom the common primrose. Several plants have 
been flowering through June and July, and one has 
had three blooms on it this month. Is this not very 
unusual ? I may say I have had Primroses from 
Christmas up till now, this place being so very mild 
in winter.” 
The Royal Terrace Gardens at Torquay are pro¬ 
nounced as progressing most favourably. The Rock 
Walk has been opened. It is beautifully laid out 
with plants and flowers of a sub-tropical character, 
including Banana trees, the American Aloe, which 
is in bloom, the New Zealand Flax, Lemon trees. 
Castor Oil plants. Palms and Yuccas. The garden 
walk is 260 yards in length, which, with the terrace, 
brings the entire extent to 380 yards. Rustic seats 
are in abundance, and, altogether, too much praise 
cannot be given to the borough surveyor and his co¬ 
adjutors for the manner in which the work has been 
carried out. It is, indeed, a credit to Torquay and 
the Town Council. 
What they are doing in the West of England.— 
However rumours may have gained ground to the 
contrary (writes our Cornish correspondent), there 
is no doubt that after all the market gardeners of the 
far West have reaped a fair harvest from fruit and 
vegetables this year. As regards the latter, Potatos 
have turned out well, and more especially the early 
ones. Broccoli are coming on in a remarkable way, 
but Turnips and Mangel are not so good as could be 
wished. There is a wonderful crop of Tomatos this 
year, and a ready market for them since the public 
appear to have slowly but surely acquired a taste for 
them, and the prejudice that once existed has been 
removed by the highest medical authority. Mangel, 
it may be remarked, has been much injured by the 
grub and wireworm. The harvest is finished in 
Cornwall, and even in the northern parishes, where 
corn has not been garnered in some seasons till 
October, the ingathering is over. Sloes and Haws 
have never been so plentiful in Cornwall as they are 
now. Vineries are in simple perfection, and the 
fruit is the grandest in every sense of the word that 
recent years have produced. At the Scilly Islands 
planting of the Narcissus is progressing apace, and 
there is but little doubt about the flowers this year 
being very early in the market. Around Penzance 
the cutting and saving of a second crop of hay is 
from to tons to the acre. 
Wakefield Paxton Society.—A goodly number of 
members assembled on Saturday last the 26th ult., 
the subject for discussion being that very popular 
fruit, the Tomato. Mr. Alderman Milnes occupied 
the chair, and Mr. Whitby, the vice-chair. After 
several little preliminaries, the chairman called on 
Mr. Wardman of St. John’s Garden’s, Wakefield, 
who gave a short, though most interesting and 
practical, paper. Several good exhibits of fruit were 
on the table, one dish shown by the essayist being 
remarkable for size and appearance, and was named 
‘‘ Prizetaker.” At the conclusion of the paper, the 
amateur gardeners present plied Mr. Wardman with 
questions, his replies to wLich were ready and to the 
point, proving that he had a full grasp of his subject. 
A most animated discussion followed on the questions 
of dealing with the tomato disease ; the value, or not, 
of cutting the foliage, and the setting of the flowers, 
in which Messrs. Maher, Parkin, Corder, Thomas, 
Burton, and Blackburn took part. On the motion of 
Mr. Whitely, the meeting accorded Mr. Wardman 
their hearty thanks for his most instructive essay. 
As usual, the specimens exhibited w-ere sold, and the 
proceeds will be presented to the Royal Gardeners’ 
Orphan Fund. 
The Table in America.—Prof. Long writes in Land 
and Water: —“At the most expensive hotels in the 
land the fare is passable, elsewhere it is abominable. 
Never in my travels through half a score Europeau 
countries have I found such wretched provision for 
the inner man as exists in the buffets of the great 
lines of rail, the refre.shment bars of the Chicago 
Show, and the rank and file of the hotels of the 
country. America is a great producer, but the beef 
and mutton is not only badly cooked, it is of most 
inferior quality—mutton in particular—whereas the 
prices charged for provisions of all kinds are 
infinitely in excess of European prices, in spite of the 
fact that the raw material in Europe is far higher. 
Cream, as we understand it, is unknown ; new milk 
serves for cream, and skim milk for new ; and yet in 
some States skimmed milk is a forbidden article of 
merchandise. Good batter is almost unknown— 
American butter is, in a word, uniformly salt and 
strong. In New York a few hotels are striving to 
obtain the correct article. Fish, unless on the coast, 
is very general ; but it is maudlin and tasteless 
Lake fish does not satisfy the traveller who has been 
used to British sole, turbot, or even plaice. F'ruit— 
well, what can we say to express our surprise at its 
quality ? The American Orange costs three times as 
much as the Orange in England ; it is of similar 
quality, but it is the only competitor. Grapes, 
Peaches, and Pears are similar to those hawked 
about the streets of English cities on costermongers’ 
barrows High-class fruits, as we understand them, 
are almost unknown. Strawberries, Raspberries, 
Currants, and Gooseberries are infinitely inferior to 
those grown in England. The popular fruits of the 
people are whortleberries and blackberries, which 
are plentiful enough. Vegetables of all kinds are 
brought to much less perfection than with us, and 
our national beverage, beer, largely drunk as it is is 
ruinous in price.” 
Lotus Jacobaeus, —The bulk of the species ■ of 
Lotus have yellow flowers, but there are some 
striking exceptions. It is a native of Cape Verde 
Islands, and requires the temperature of a greenhouse 
to preserve it during the winter. Seeds sown in a 
heated pit in spring, and the seedlings planted out as 
the weather becomes suitable will develop into free 
flowering plants during the summer months. The 
stems are slender and graceful and the leaves cut up 
into narrow leaflets. The standard of the flowers is 
of a rich velvety brown, while the wings are blackish 
brown. Under glass they may be paler ; but in any 
case they are very distinct and unusual, so that the 
plant is deserving of more extended cultivation for 
greenhouse decoration, or for open air culture with 
the intention of growing them for mixing with cut 
flowers. 
COLOUR IN GRAPES. 
Respecting the conditicns which secure a perfect 
finish for Grapes, Black Hamburghs in particular, I 
have repeatedly observed that the theory held by 
some growers, viz., that a season in which a ma.ximum 
of sunshine prevails is unfavourable to the process 
in questicn, is not invariably found in practice to be 
correct. It will not, of course, be disputed that 
moderate shade constitutes not a little in preserving 
the bloom of bunches for a considerable time after 
they are ripe, but many fine examples of Hamburghs 
have also been exhibited in an autumn following a 
continuously cloudy summer. It is noteworthy, how¬ 
ever, that the cultivators of such produce have staged 
equally as fine, if not superior, bunches, as regards 
density in colour at the close of a season of the 
opposite description—such as the past summer has 
been. But although the different points, colour 
especially,, depends partly in Grape culture, on the 
weather conditions wnich may obtain during any 
season, it is well to keep in view other cultural details 
of equal importance. 
It is said that of two evils, one Should always choose 
the least; but it not infrequently occurs that it is re¬ 
served for experience to apply the principle in its true 
light, as the following facts bearing on the subject in 
hand may sufl&ce to illustrate. In order to make the 
most of an early Vinery until a set of young vines in 
another house comes into full bearing, the rods in 
the former are trained somewhat closely together 
more especially at one end of the house where a few of 
the supers are still retained. Here the fruit is very 
indifferently coloured, notably on the lower half of 
the roof of the house. At the other end, where 
there is more light, the bunches show a considerable 
improvement .in colour, although they are not satis¬ 
factory. In the house of younger vines referred to, 
the colouring process has been perfect, but the 
bunches were reduced to about one third of a crop at 
thinning time, the rods being 5 ft. apart. At the end 
of a third house, where there is also abundance of 
light, there is a vine of Black Hamburgh, which has 
also produced perfectly finished bunches in common 
with the Black Alicante beside them, which have 
coloured extra well and quickly this season. 
The chief lesson to be learned from the facts stated 
is, not that a maximum of light is unfavourable to the 
perfect colouring of Grapes, including the black 
varieties—but that in the attempt which was I may say 
forced upon me, to provide such a weight of fruit as 
involved a severe strain upon the vines, together with 
overcrowding the lateral growths, that the 
admission of an adequate amount of light could not 
be secured. 
Now that a house of younger vines is fairly well 
established, we hope next season to get partly rid of 
the difficulty of recent years, viz.: that of maintain¬ 
ing the requisite supply of fruit from a too restricted 
space. The disabled vines will be renovated by re¬ 
moving the remaining supers, applying g.iod top- 
dressings of suitable materials to the roots, and 
cropping more lightly in the future.— M., Ayrshire. 
-- 
AMONG THE ROSES. 
June and August have been by far the two best 
months for Roses this season. July is generally the 
Rose month, but with the exception of a few favoured 
localities in the north, it has been the worst July for 
Roses we have had for many seasons. Early in June, 
Roses on walls were very plentiful and good, but 
during the end of the month an excessively hot and 
dry spring told its tale, and many blooms were 
completely baked up. Most of the Rose Shows 
were, comparatively speaking, failures, the competi¬ 
tion being limited to one or two fortunate growers 
from districts that had been blessed with the much- 
needed rain. All through the following month, my 
Roses were completely parched up, and not until the 
middle of August did I get any quantity of good 
blooms. This was upon what would usually hav^e 
been September growth, and which was, owing to the 
drought and earliness of the season, the first autumn 
growth, usually so floriferous among the Teas and 
Noisettes. 
Now, again, (August 28th) this crop is gone, and 
the plants are perverting to a semi-ripened state. 
Either this means a good and thorough ripening early, 
or else they will push into new growth just in time 
to be cut back by early frosts. However, such a 
phenomenal season as the present may culminate in 
a grand and late autumn, in which case these growths 
