5*28 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
April 21, 1894. 
how grown or produced. We have vast 
quantities of flowers imported into thi.s 
country from abroad. The original vendor 
knows they are of foreign production, so 
also do the trade purchasers ; but as to the 
final purchaser, he or she troubles or cares 
not one whit where they come from. But 
assuming that to enable the final purchaser 
to know whether a few Narcissi or Violets 
were grown in France it be compulsory 
to indicate such, how on earth is it to be 
done ?—surely not by marking the cases 
“ top, bottom and sides,” in which they are 
sent to our markets. The thing is so 
absurb that it has only to be thought of to ' 
be ridiculed. 
Our own horticultural trade will never be 
benefited one iota by any of these wild 
proposals, indeed, any attempt to put them 
in force would inevitably lead to such 
strong resentment on the part of the public 
that in very anger home-grown products 
would be ruthlessly boycotted until so 
annoying a regulation was rescinded, and 
everything in trade was left free and un¬ 
restricted. The protectionist bogey of 
foreign competition is nothing to our 
skilled growers of fruit, flowers and vege¬ 
tables for market ; their grievances lay in 
the want of more equitable laws governing 
the tenure of land, less burdensome taxa¬ 
tion, open markets and more of them, and 
more consideration than their important 
industry is favoured with at the hands of 
the great monopolist carrying-companies. 
These are the things that trouble our home 
growers, and relief in this direction would 
be a real boon to them, yet is what they 
are looking for in vain from Parlia¬ 
ment. Protection against foreign competi¬ 
tion is but as a herring drawn across the 
trail. 
HE Fruit Prospects. —There can be no 
doubt whatever but that the bloom on 
all descriptions of fruit trees this season 
furnishes a record in abundance, and the 
spring of 1894 will not only long be 
memorable for the luxuriance of fruit 
florescence, but also because of the remark¬ 
able fineness of the weather which up to 
the time of writing has been exceedingly 
favourable to setting. That may be seen 
already on Pears, Plums, and Cherries, 
which, so far as all human judgment can 
at present discern, are laden with the germs 
of future fruits. 
Of course, we fully understand that all 
this luxuriance may sometime be seriously 
discounted by one or two late sharp frosts, 
or by a great natural thinning, and if the 
latter should occur it will be good rather 
than otherwise, because then we shall 
obtain finer samples and less of a glut of 
inferior fruit in our markets. The Apple 
bloom, always so rich in colour and so 
beautiful, is just now to be seen in rich 
profusion. The recent change of wind to 
milder quarters, accompanied as it has 
been by pleasant genial showers, has done 
wonders, not only in perfecting the blooms, 
but also in relieving growers’ minds of 
concern for their looked for crops, for such 
concern must be considerable so long as 
the wind is in the East. 
The springs of the past and the present 
year, so warm and so early with the 
absence of frost, have done much to 
restore human confidence in the weather. 
We do not just now think that the British 
climate has changed for the worse. So far 
from that being the case, more beautiful 
or enjoyable weather for the time of year 
has rarely been experienced than has 
marked the springs of 1893-94. there 
is such a promise of fruit this season, the 
proposal to hold a great fruit show in the 
autumn seems to be particularly appro¬ 
priate, and it is hoped that some effort 
may be made to show then, examples not 
of specific culture only, but also the 
general fruit crop of the entire kingdom. 
Whe Oak and the Ash.— A good many 
foolish notions have been dissipated 
during the past 50 years but many more 
still remain, and amongst others there is 
that ancient prognostication respecting the 
leafing of the Oak and the Ash, and its influ¬ 
ence or otherwise on the nature of the weather 
during the ensuingsummer,that is occasion¬ 
ally cropping up in the general press. It has 
been resuscitated again recently, and 
there would seem to be believers in the 
moral of the quotations, invariably of a 
versified order, that are published. 
But, oddly enough, no two correspon¬ 
dents seem to agree as to the actual 
wording of this ancient prophecy. Some¬ 
times hot, dry weather is to follow upon 
the Ash leafing before the Oak, sometimes 
it is the reverse. Of course it is all infinitely 
silly. No one outside the horticultural 
profession seems to understand that we 
have various kinds of the Oak and of the 
Ash, and that these vary according to kind. 
If, however, we take the common British 
Oak, Quercus pedunculata, and the 
Common Ash, Fraxinus excelsa, there can 
be no difficulty whatever in comparing 
their annual habits, and perhaps some of 
our readers may be able to help us to a 
right decision in the matter. 
Our own observations lead to the 
opinion that the Ash never does leaf before 
the Oak ; indeed, we have often found them 
separated in leafing by periods ranging 
from ten to twenty da3^s. But then there 
have been found not infrequently cases 
in which Ash near water have broken into 
leaf fully ten days later than other trees 
on dry soils, and probably the same dis¬ 
crepancy may be found in Oaks diversely 
situated. Whilst it is undoubtedly the 
case that the recent hot, dry weather has 
created much concern lest we should have 
another dry summer, and with it conse¬ 
quent injur}? to crops, and that these tree 
prognostications have grown out of that 
concern, still it is annoying to find these 
silly things cropping up yearly. It is 
almost time that they w'ere scotched, and 
buried in journalistic oblivion. 
-- 
Mr. W. Davies, late gardener at Moxhull Hall, 
Erdington, Birmingham, has succeeded Mr. Richard 
Parker as gardener to J. Corbett, Esq., M.P., at 
Impney Hall, Droitwich. 
Early Nesting of Wasps.—We learn from Mr. C. 
D. Eagleton, the postmaster at Penshurst, Kent, 
that a wasp’s nest, with a few of this year's eggs in 
it, was taken in an Irish Yew tree near that village 
on the loth inst. 
Southern Tulip Show.—We understand that in 
consequence of the earliness of the season, the Tulip 
show that is being organised under the auspices of 
the Royal National Tulip Society will be held at the 
Drill Hall on May 8th. The northern show of 
the same Society will probably be held at York this 
year, under the wing of the Ancient Society of York 
Florists. 
Royal Horticultural Society.—The next meeting 
of the Royal Horticultural Society will take place in 
the Drill Hall, Westminster, on Tuesday next, when 
the National Auricula and Primula Society will also 
hold their annual exhibition. At 3 o’clock, Mr. F. 
W. Burbidge, M. A., Curator of the Trinity College 
Botanic Gardens, Dublin, will give a lecture on 
Botanical Exploration in Borneo. 
Destruction of Slugs.—The Revtie Horticoh adds 
another to the many recipes for destroying slugs and 
snails. The advice given, is to place on the ground, 
around anything sown or planted, a thick cord 
impregnated with sulphate of copper. Simple 
contact with the cord so treated causes the death of 
all insects with a soft or slimy body. 
Hardy Fruit Culture in the Liverpool District.—The 
essay on this subject, which gained for Mr. R. G. 
Waterman the first prize offered by the Woolton 
Gardeners’ Improvement Association in February 
last, has been printed at the request of the Society, 
and is now published at the modest price of 3d. So 
practical a man as Mr. Waterman could hardly help 
dealing with the subject in a practical and useful 
way, and we could wish, in the interests of hardy 
fruit culture, that the subject might be treated in 
the same way in other districts, especially those 
which are not of the most favourable character for 
high-class fruit production. The selected list of 
varieties that have been found to do best in the 
district should prove of the greatest value locally. 
The Halewood Plum, which is said to be “ preferred 
by some to the Orleans,” is, we presume, a purely 
local variety, as we have not met with the name 
before. 
What they do in Jersey —Major Ross, a large land- 
owner in Cornwall, speaking at a recent meeting of 
the Penzance Market Gardeners' Association, said 
he spent some time in /ers ey last year, and the 
whole island seemed to be one great potato garden. 
Potatos mature a fortnight earlier than in West 
Cornwall, but when in the full swing of the season, 
the producers get an advantage over Cornwall by 
employing a large number of Bretons who are very 
dirty, have ridiculously small wages, and seem to live 
on almost nothing. In garden produce, he said, 
Cornwall has to compete with Malta and Madeira, 
the latter journey being made in three day's instead 
of, as formerly, three weeks, and may soon have 
further to compete with the Cape of Good Hope, if 
the distance is traversed in five or six days. 
Gardening at Scilly and in Cornwall.—Matters are 
looking altogether brighter at Scilly than was the 
case at this time last year. During the last week or 
so some genial showers have had the effect of greatly 
mproving the grass |and Potato crops on the islands, 
to say nothing of the benefit to the Narcissus crop, 
assisting the bulbs to mature their growth for 
another year’s flowering. In Cornwall, the Potato 
crop is very advanced; hoeing is general. Very 
little Broccoli remains. Much of the early Cabbage 
has run to seed, which will be a great loss on this 
usually valuable and welcome crop. Grass, corn, 
and plants have generally revived throughout the 
west, and are rapidly springing up. Farmers, as 
well as market gardeners, have every cause to believe 
that there is now a chance for them to retrieve their 
fallen fortunes of the last few years. 
Origin of the Purple Beech.—A writer in the 
Bulletin d’Arboriculture says that he believes, and has 
always believed, that the black or purple Beech 
came from a wood in the possession of the family of 
Merode. The most ancient dendrologists of our 
country have always shared that view. Again, at 
Westerloo some black Beeches are pointed out more 
than two centuries old, whose admirable branching 
and dark purple foliage contrast with the neigh¬ 
bouring trees. That appears to be a legend. The 
American Garden and Florist relates that, in a village 
of the canton of Zurich, of the name ofBuch, which 
means Beech, five Beeches with red foliage grew up 
on the night when five men were slain, or massacred 
one another. It can be seen, according to the same 
journal, that those trees come from a specimen which 
turns up in a forest near Sonderhausen, in Thuringia, 
and which is about 200 years old. Where, then, is 
the legend, or where will the truth be ? 
The Bermuda Juniper.—Dr. Masters made some 
comments at the last meeting of the Scientific Com¬ 
mittee on fresh specimens received from Bermuda, 
through the kindness of Arthur Haycock, Esq., of 
the only tree of any size in the island of Bermuda, 
where it is still abundant. Juniperus bermudiana is 
quite distinct from the Red Cedar (Juniperus 
virginiana) of the United States, though it may have 
descended from a common ancestor. The wood, a 
specimen of which was also exhibited, is very like 
that of the Virginian Juniper, and is used for con¬ 
structional purposes, being hard and durable. The 
special interest attaching to the tree is the fact that 
it is peculiar to the island, and the questions 
naturally arise whether it originated there spontane¬ 
ously, a hypothesis now considered untenable, or 
whether it was imported, and, if so, from whence ? 
In any case, there is evidence of its presence ages 
before the present time in soil now much below the 
surface of the sea. The most probable explanation 
