560 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
May 5, 1894. 
and promising disappointment. What is to 
be done? Our advice is to make dates and 
seasons so far as practicable somewhat 
accord by having Show fixtures for Roses 
movable. A tentative date may be all very 
well, but it should be fixed on the under¬ 
standing that should circumstances render 
it desirable the dates may be brought 
forward or be put back just as may suit 
growers requirements, in the case of all 
general shows it is found that certain fixed 
dates usually suit them best; but they are 
not all of eggs in one basket, as is the case 
with Roses, Carnations, Auriculas or other 
special shows, for their great variety of pro¬ 
ductions invariably gives plenty of material 
for exhibition. A fixed Rose Show, how¬ 
ever, with no good flowers present, would be 
an absurdity. 
Of course, we may yet have cold chilling 
weather that will offer a severe check to 
Rose development; that check, however, 
would be as unfortunate for Roses generally 
as it would be for anything else in gardens, 
and therefore for the sake of fixed show 
dates only, we have no wish whatever to see 
it. Apart from the shows that thus may be 
too late, at least there is every prospect that 
we shall have a glorious Rose season, one in 
which the flowers will be as clear and bright 
as they will be fine and perfect. That is 
after all the chief consideration, and we 
commend it to notice for the especial grati¬ 
fication of distressed Rose exhibitors. 
HiNNiNG Vegetable Crops. —In our 
early days in the garden it was the 
common practice of our experienced seniors 
to enforce by example the precept they 
taught their young men, always to “ sow 
thickly and thin early.” But times and 
circumstances have materially changed 
since those days, and the injunction to sow 
thickly at least is no longer held to be good 
practice. In the early da3'S to which we 
refer the very high standard of excellence 
in seeds of all classes which cultivators can 
now rely upon did not obtain. There was 
the nefarious seed doctors to reckon with, 
and the retail seedsman could not, if he 
would, get everything he wanted free from 
adulteration with killed seeds, hence the 
soundness of the advice to sow thickly if 
one would make sure of a crop. The Seed 
Adulteration Act of 1869, however, killed 
that detestable trade so effectually, we be¬ 
lieve, that such terms as “ nett seed ” and 
“trio ” or “ 000 ” are unknown to the 
younger generation of seedsmen, and all 
good gardeners rejoice accordingly. 
But it is necessary still tokeep pointingout 
to amateurs and cottage gardeners, and even 
to some so-called professional gardeners, the 
folly of thick sowing at first and of non, or 
imperfect thinning afterwards. There is, 
perhaps, hardly a greater sin committed in 
some gardens against vegetation than is 
found in thick sowing. Peas, as our 
esteemed correspondent “ Kitchen Gar¬ 
dener ” pointed out last week, are specially a 
case in point. Few vegetables are indeed 
worse treated. The seedis often sown four 
times thicker than should be the case, and 
when the plants are three inches in height 
the grower points with exultation to the 
splendid row he has: but when four or five 
feet in height, smothered with mildew, and 
the bulk of the flowers blind, the exulta¬ 
tion gives place to distressing disappoint¬ 
ment. And what is true of Peas is true of 
most other vegetables. We hardly hold, 
however, with “ Kitchen Gardener,” in 
advocating so much room being given to 
Turnips in the garden as farmers give to 
theirs in the field. The farmer has two 
aims in view in sowing his rows wide apart; 
he must have room to use the horse hoe, 
and he wants big tubers. For the table 
we do not want such huge roots, and can 
easily produce six that will suit our purpose 
on the same area that the farmer gives to 
one. The Snowball, one of the very best 
of garden Turnips, will bulb well at some 
three or four inches apart, and the earliest 
pulled leave ample room for the swelling of 
the later ones. Roots from three to four 
inches in diameter are full large for domestic 
uses. The Short-topped French breakfast 
Turnip rooted and Long Salmon Radishes 
also may be sown fairly thick, because the 
earliest of them pulled leave room for the 
- rest to finish. These are, however, very 
precocious and fugitive garden crops—in to¬ 
day and gone to-'morrow. When dealing 
with crops that have to stand on the ground 
several months there can be no doubt but 
that liberal thinning is a great virtue. 
Whe Auricula Show. —The Florists, or as 
some prefer to term them, the Floral 
Specialists, had their first innings of the 
season at the Drill Hall last week, and 
scored well. Later, when the Pink, Pansy, 
Carnation, Rose, Dahlia, and Chrysanthe¬ 
mum fanciers have their little or big 
matches, there can be no doubt but that all 
will worthilj' follow up the success achieved 
the other day. We may smile, or scoff as 
is sometimes the case, at the earnest efforts 
and devoted attentiveness and patience of 
these florists, but they leave no room for 
scoffing when their products are seen as we 
now so commonly see them, and seeing 
derive from them exceeding satisfaction. 
That the pure florist, whilst perhaps 
limiting the range of his labours to but one 
or two flowers, is all the same helping to 
develop and inspire higher thoughts and 
aims in floriculture generally, there can be 
no doubt; hence his apparently unpre¬ 
tentious labours are creating higher floral 
tastes in all directions. Object as some 
may, the natural tendency of the flower 
producer or raiser of ever}^ description is to 
secure finer form, more substance, richer 
and more varied colours and workings in 
literally everything that can be improved. 
To that higher taste the 'Auricula florists 
have so far given their meed of help, and 
they have done it well. 
It was a surprise, in spite of some almost 
unlooked-for successes last year, to see the 
way the Reading growers carried off the 
leading prizes. Here are men who were but 
a few years ago, and are even now, almost 
boys as compared with the veteran ex¬ 
hibitors, yet they saw the flowers, they 
learnt to cultivate them, and so well 
have they acted under the teachings of 
their mentors that now the old ones are 
quite beaten. The honours that once rested 
so regularly with Yorkshire, with Ilford, 
and with Slough, in turns are now trans¬ 
ferred to Reading. Whilst wishing them 
all further success, we should like to see 
from some other centre other florists arise, 
and thus contend even with the champions 
of the celebrated seed and biscuit town in 
Auricula competitions. 
-- 
Mr. James Mills, lately foreman at Dalzell Gar¬ 
dens. Motherwell, has been engaged as gardener to 
Lord Belhaven, Wishaw House, Wishaw, N.B. 
St. Ives Flower Show.—The nineteenth Annual 
Show of the St. Ives Horticultural Society will be 
held on July 26th. 
Honours to a Horticulturist.—M. Victor Lemoine, 
the eminent French Nurseryman of Nancy, has 
lately been promoted to the rank of officer of the 
Legion of Honour. 
Dupplin Castle Gardens.—The valuable collection 
of stove and greenhouse plants, belonging to the 
Earl of Kinnoull, will be sold at Dupplin Castle, 
Forteviot, Perthshire, on Tuesday next, by Messrs. 
Brady & Sons, of Perth. 
Royal Horticultural Society.—In consequence of the 
earliness of the season it is expected that Tulip 
growers will appear in force at the Drill Hall, 
James Street, Victoria Street, Westminster, on 
Tuesday next, instead of at the Temple Show. 
We learn that, to his very great regret, Sir 
Trevor Lawrence is unavoidably prevented from 
giving the lecture on Orchids announced for next 
Tuesday. In consequence of the shortness of the 
notice there may probably, therefore, be no lecture 
on that afternoon. 
Royal Gardeners' Orphan Fund.—We may remind 
those of our readers who are interested in this charity 
that the annual dinner will take place at the White¬ 
hall Rooms of the Hotel Metropole, on Thursday 
evening next, under the Presidency of the Rt. Hon. 
the Lord Mayor of London. Gentlemen who desire 
to be present on this occasion will greatly oblige by 
communicating at once with the Honorary Secretary^ 
Mr. Barron, Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden, 
Chiswick. 
Calypso borealis.—At the weekly meeting of the 
Royal Botanic Society on Saturday it was 
announced that the donations included living plants 
of Calypso borealis, presented by Mr. C. W. 
Sowerby, from British Columbia. Unlike most of 
its order, this Orchid flourishes in the extreme 
north, within the arctic circle. It was first 
recorded from Lapland more than a hundred years 
ago, though Linnaeus, during his travels in that 
country, searched in vain for a specimen; it was 
afterwards found in Nova Scotia. 
Garden Boys at Chelsea.—On Thursday, the 26th 
ult., a party of the boys belonging to the gardening 
class at the School of Handicrafts, Chertsey, paid a 
visit to the nurseries of Messrs. James Veitch & 
Sons, at Southfields, Fulham, and King's Road. 
Chelsea, accompanied by the gardener in charge, 
Mr. A. J. Brown. They were shown everything of 
interest in both establishments, and showed an 
intelligent interest in the business on hand. After 
partaking of refreshments at Chelsea, the party, 
much pleased with what they had seen, left for St. 
James’s Hall, Piccadilly, to join the other boys from 
the school, who were taking part in a concert there. 
The Royal Vineya'’d Nur.ery, Hammersmith.—Tnis 
old historical nursery establishment, so long the 
home of Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, and subsequently 
of the Messrs. Lee alone, whereat standard Roses 
were first seen in this country and from whence 
emanated the first Fuchsia introduced into 
commerce, to mention two only of the remarkable 
horticultural events connected with its history, may 
be said with the present week to have com¬ 
pletely passed out of existence, the last remaining 
strip of ground adjoining the Addison Road Railway 
Station at Kensington, reserved to the last of the 
Lee’s in the business, the son of the late Mr. 
Charles Lee, having been absorbed by Olympia and 
completely dismantled. 
Tne Marlon Oak.-A correspondent of The Morning 
Post writes:—'In the village of Marton, near 
Congleton, there stands an oak which I know well. 
Earwaker, in his ‘ History of East Cheshire,’ men¬ 
tions it as follows The Marton Oak, said to be 
the largest in England, being several feet more in 
circumference than the Cowthorpe Oak, near 
Wetherby, in Yorkshire, hitherto considered the 
finest specimen of its class. It stands in a farmyard, 
and has been used of late years as a tethering-place 
for cattle ; its circumference 4 ft. from the base 
43 ft., longest diameter 15 ft. 6 in. Twenty years 
ago its measurements were given as 58 ft. in circum¬ 
ference at the base, 3 ft. from the ground 47 ft., 5 ft. 
from the ground 42 ft., girth of largest limb ii ft. 
6 in. Curiously enough, a similar oak stood at 
Siddington, one mile away.’ Old residents say this 
tree was nearly, if not quite, as large as the Marton 
Oak.” 
The Hawkesyard Park Collection of Planti.—The 
late Mr. Josiah Spode’s collection of specimen stove 
and greenhouse plants was sold by auction at the 
gardens at 3 lawkesyard, near Rugeley, on the 24th 
ult., by Messrs. Pope & Sons, of Birmingham, and 
although taken altogether it was a fairly good sale 
the prices realised even for good things showed that 
the demand for specimen plants is anything but 
brisk. The Azaleas made all they were worth, and 
