THE GARDENING WORLD. 
March 24, 1894. 
4t)6 
imported of similar kinds. The chance 
offered is a great one, and it is hoped the 
executive of the show will rise to the 
occasion. Let everything be done 
liberall}% and in that way may the Society 
well secure the highest praise. A miser¬ 
able niggling policy will only result in dis¬ 
content. 
ARCH Rain.— Those of our readers who 
may have faith in ancient meteoro-' 
logical traditions will, we fear, find little to 
gratify them in the nature of the weather 
the present month is furnishing. Even 
the proverbial peck of March dust, little 
enough certainly, seems to be lacking, for 
the rain it falleth almost every day. It is 
idle to attempt to minimise the harm to 
cultivation that results from a wet March. 
Those who have what are always even 
after heavy rains, light, porous, free-work¬ 
ing soils, may not find cause for concern ; 
but those who have stiff soils to contend 
with are finding the continuous rainfall to 
be most deterring, rendering the soil wet 
as clay and utterly unfit for sowing or 
planting. 
We are really paying just now the 
penalty invariably attached to a mild open 
winter. Above all things a wet March is 
most to be dreaded, for all the good effects 
of previous frosts or exposure to the 
elements are discounted by the rain. Air 
pores are filled up, the surface becomes 
close and pasty, the process of pulverisa¬ 
tion is not only arrested, but the previous 
crumbling is made the vehicle of renewed 
stickiness, and in the case of all previously 
dug or trenched heavy ground the later 
condition is worse than the first. Of course, 
we most heartily desire to see a change for 
the better. 
Last March was as notoriously and 
disastrously dry as the present month 
seems so far to be harmfully wet. There 
is much need now for sunshine, warmth, 
and dryness. The time for the getting in 
of crops of many important kinds is with 
us, and the condition of the soil is an 
element of the first importance. There is 
just now so magnificent a promise of bloom 
on all hardy fruit trees that these will 
doubtless benefit from the moisture, which 
it IS but right to admit has not been a drop 
too much for all descriptions of trees, and 
especially those which may have to carry 
heavy fruit crops. For vegetables, how¬ 
ever, we earnestly desire more favourable 
weather conditions than have generally 
prevailed. 
^^HAT IS Rhubarb ?—If the story told 
us be true, the Scientific Committee 
of the Royal Horticultural Society, a very 
learned, distinguished, and august body, 
has had submitted to it for decision the 
tremendous problem—What is Rhubarb ? 
A daring inquirer actually asked of the 
Fruit Committee the other day whether 
Rhubarb was a vegetable or a fruit, and 
that body, altogether too practical as to its 
knowledge, passed so abstruse and scientific 
an inquiry on to its fellow Committee for a 
reply. We wait with bated breath and in¬ 
tense anxiousness for the rejoinder. Once 
that decision be given, the matter in 
debate will be for ever determined, and any 
wretched creature venturing to question 
the decree may suffer all sorts of pains and 
penalties. 
To us the question of what status the 
Rhubarb should have in gardening is one 
of less moment than is the act of getting it 
in plenty just now. It is a case—and we 
mention it with due humility—in which 
the physical man, as represented by the 
palate, triumphs over the intellectual man, 
as represented by the mind. We have a 
strong penchant for Rhubarb tart, an ex¬ 
ceeding fondness for the stems of this 
excellent plant—we studiously avoid saying 
whether vegetable or fruit—when pleasantly 
served after stewing. Happily our enjoy¬ 
ment of it in any of these forms has never 
yet been diluted by any such abstruse con¬ 
sideration as this daring querist of the 
Fruit Committee has raised. 
Whether fruit or vegetable it is all the 
same to us, and we believe will continue to 
be so. Indeed, when even partaking of the 
delicious product, we don’t care whether it 
be either. It is enough for us to know that 
it is Rhubarb, and that it is a grand 
product of which we rarely tire, and 
which we rejoice to find is such a popular 
article of consumption. Long may it 
be so, for what we should now do with¬ 
out it appals us to realise. And yet, in 
spite of this seeming indifference, this dis¬ 
tressing obtuseness, we shall look for the 
solution of the great problem set with some 
interest. If the Scientific Committee can 
but solve it permanently, then will that 
body have at last earned some title to 
immortality. 
-- 
The Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution. —We 
understand that Sir Julian Goldsmid, Bart., M.P., 
has kindly undertaken to preside at the 55th Anni¬ 
versary Festival Dinner, in aid of the funds of this 
Institution, at the Hotel Metropole on June 21st 
next. 
Mr. John Bluok, late gardener to W. P'. Lyndon, 
Esq., Moseley, Birmingham, has been engaged as 
gardener to Baron Henry de Worms, M.P., Henley 
Park, Guildford, Surrey. 
The Council of the Durham, Northumberland and 
Newcastle-on-Tyne Botanical and Horticultural 
Society has decided to change the venue of their 
Spring Show, which has been held in the Town 
Hall for many years. It will be held this year in 
the New Olympia, on Wednesday and Thursday, 
April i8th and 19th, and we understand that the 
general arrangement of the Show will be on a more 
artistic scale than formerly. 
Death of Mr. H. Evershed.— We regret to hear of 
the death on the loth inst., at P'orest Hill, of Mr. 
Henry Evershed, a well-known writer on agriculture 
in various journals, and Agricultural Editor of The 
Field. Mr. Evershed, whose estimable character 
endeared him to all who knew him, besides being 
an able contributor to the Agricultural Press, had an 
Archaeological turn of mind, and above the initials 
"H.E.” was a frequent contributor of extremely 
interesting articles mainly descriptive of “the 
stately homes of England’’ from a gardening point 
of view, to our contemporary The Gardeners' 
Chronicle. 
Children and Flower Shows.— The Committee of the 
Birmingham C'nrysanthemum and Spring Flower 
Show Society have for a few years past allowed a 
great number of the school children to be admitted 
free on the second morning of each exhibition, and on 
the occasion of the spring flower show, on March 
13th and 14th, nearly 4,000 children from fifty-two 
of the Board and other schools, including those from 
the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, visited the exhibition 
under the superintendence of several ladies and 
gentlemen. 
Lindley Library. —We are authorised to announce 
that the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society 
will be pleased to subscribe £2^ towards the expense 
of preparing and printing a catalogue of the Lindley 
Library, if the remainder can be otherwise raised. 
The trustees, we may add, have not sufficient means 
at their disposal to do more than keep up the current 
periodicals and purchase a small number of new 
books each year, but they will most gladly receive 
any donations that may be entrusted to them, either 
in the way of books, or of funds for the preparation 
and publication of that catalogue, the want of which 
seriously hampers the utility of the library. 
Root Galls. —At the meeting of the Scientific 
Committee, on the 13th inst., Mr. MacLachlan, 
F.R.S., alluded to the existence of Biorhiza (Cynips) 
aptera on the roots of the Plum, Oak, Deodar, 
Beech, and Birch, and stated that it had now been 
proved repsatedly that the insect producing the 
root gall is exclusively female, and is always destitute 
of wings. The male form of the same species pro¬ 
duces the spongy galls on the leaves of the Oak 
known as Oak-apples. The only true Cynips is 
Cynips Kollari, that which makes the round galls 
on the Oak. This insect has been introduced within 
the last thirty or forty years. Other galls, supposed 
to be the work of difierent genera of insects, are 
now known to be the work of two stages or genera¬ 
tions of one and the same species, Teras Biorhiza 
terminalis. 
Ivies and the Frost.—At the same meeting Dr. 
Masters also showed shoots of numerous varieties of 
Ivy growing on a wall facing the west, to show the 
very different way in which they, though all belong¬ 
ing to one species, suffered from the effects of frost. 
In some the leaves were quite killed, in others 
wholly uninjured, with every intermediate degree of 
injury. Mr. Jenner Weir pointed out that the 
variety himalaica was notoriously more tender than 
many others. Dr. Masters thought it most probable 
that the whole of the varieties now grown in gardens 
originated from home-grown plants of Hedera Helix. 
He had himself seen two or three forms growing on 
the same plant. Hedera Helix is noted by Mr. C. 
B. Clarke, in Hooker's “ Flora of British India,’’ ii., 
P- 739 (1879). as growing throughout the Himalayas 
at attitudes of from 6,000 to 10.000 ft., and in the 
Khasya mountains at elevations of from 4,000 to 
6,000 ft. 
Native Guano.—This substance is, as well known, 
the product of deodorizing sewage, securing the 
solids contained in it, and after drying them, in a 
powdered form, selling as a manure. Opinions 
greatly differ as to its value as plant food, the 
patentees of the process, who are their own manu¬ 
facturers, declining to give any guaranteed analysis, 
while some chemists have not hesitated to do so, 
and based upon that analysis it would be fair to 
infer that the article had little manurial value. But 
there seem to be occasions when practice is found 
to be in its results the converse of scientific advice. 
Thus, speaking on “ Peas and getting a good supply 
over a long season,’’ at the Kingston Gardeners’ 
Association the other evening, Mr. Cox, of Hoch, 
stated that he found the sowing of Native Guano in 
the drills with Peas to be productive of the very 
best results, and strongly advised its use in that 
way. He had also found it a first-rate manure for 
grass. That fact may well induce some others to 
test this manure. It is very unwise to sow strong 
patent manures in the drills with Peas ; these should 
be dug in previously. 
“Cedar” of Goa.—At the last meeting of the 
Scientific Committee Dr. Masters, F'.R.S., contri¬ 
buted the substance of a paper on the history of this 
tree, which will be inserted in the Journal of the 
Society. The tree in question is a Cypress, the only 
known large examples of which exist at Bussaco in 
Portugal, where they have been known since the 
beginning or middle of the seventeenth centur)-. 
They are supposed to have been introduced from 
Goa, but no such Cypress grows wild in that region. 
C. lusitanica, alias C. glauca, is now commonly 
planted in India and in south Europe. In some 
parts of the British Isles it thrives, but is in most 
places tender. The tree mentioned in the Conifer 
Conference Report as having attained a height of 
39 ft. at Ross Dhu, in Dumbartonshire, was errone¬ 
ously called Lusitanica. as shown by specimens now 
received from Ross Dhu and exhibited to the com¬ 
mittee, and which were clearly referable to C. 
Lawsoniana. 
Quarantine for Imported Orchids.—At the 
last meeting of the Scientific Committee, Mr. 
Blandford stated that he had received specimens of 
the pseudo-bulbs of a Dendrobium perforated by a 
blunt-headed beetle, Xyleborus morigerus (Blanford), 
and described by him in Insect Life. This led to a 
discussion as to the increasing necessity of putting 
imported Orchids into quarantine before introducing 
them into the Orchid houses, lest those structures 
should be overrun with exotic insects. Bisulphide 
of carbon was recommended as useful for this pur¬ 
pose. Its highly inflammable nature must, however, 
be borne in mind. Mr. Michael, speaking of the 
presence of Acari in dust-sweepings, alluded to the 
immunity which these creatures possess against 
poisonous substances, such as bisulphide of carbon. 
Desiccation is the only method of killing these 
creatures, but this cannot be always carried out to 
a sufficient extent without injuring the plants. 
