May' 19, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
597 
loss over it. As these are very perishable commodi¬ 
ties there will be little help for the same thing occur- 
ing again, unless growers take to jam making largely 
on their own account. 
As to many kinds of Apples and Pears and, in a 
lesser degree. Plums, something better might, we 
think, be done than rushing them all into market 
as soon as they are gathered. The waste and loss 
accruing to the growers during the last summer must 
have been enormous. V/e had it on the personal 
testimony of one of the highest authorities in the 
horticultural world that Ribston Pippins, really fine 
fruit, were allowed to lie on the ground to be de¬ 
voured by pigs, because of the low price offered at 
the time ; the farmer having no storage for 
them, must either let them spoil or take a price 
which would not pay the cost of gathering and 
marketing. 
Now if much of the fruit which, in plentiful 
seasons, is either wasted or worse than given away 
by rushing it into the market was stored up for a 
time till more matured, and sold at such times when 
there was less on sale better prices would be secured. 
Are we going to have our fruit growers placed in 
thej same position as the corn growers ? It really 
begins to look somewhat like it, for how¬ 
ever plentiful and good our own Apples 
are, most of which are really wasted, 
we have immense importations of 
these from all quarters, which reduces 
the price of our own, and since the 
Tasmanian Apples have come to us just 
as the Gooseberries are fit to gather for 
tarts it has made a reduction in the 
demand for these. As regards Plums, 
the large importations of these coming 
over before our own are ripe and 
being sold at a cheap rate, the thrifty 
house wife secures her supplies for 
preserving before our own grown fruit 
is ripe, so lessening the demand for it 
that there otherwise would be. 
Peaches from the Cape and else¬ 
where seem destined to curtail, to a very 
considerable extent, the culture of these 
under glass; but for all this the 
English grower keeps a stout heart, and 
by indomitable energy tries to surmount 
the difficulties of his position. We 
have sometimes thought that it 
might be well to impose a small pro¬ 
tective duty on some of these things, 
which, although so largely consumed, 
are not absolute necessities to the extent 
that Corn is, and which, in view of the 
fact that we cannot grow in sufficient 
plenty to feed our population, it would 
be criminal to place an impost upon ; 
but a duty placed upon much of the fruit 
we import would, by enhancing the price 
of it, enable our own growers to secure 
a better return for theirs, and with¬ 
out any serious loss to the consumer. 
— W. B. G. 
Bennett, Rangemore, Mr W. G. Head, Mr. 
Balderson, Mr. Jesse Willard, Mr. G. Norman, Mr. 
James Smith, Mr. J. Douglas, Mr. J. Hudson, Mr. 
W. Lowe, Mr. E. Gilbert, Mr. W. Pope, Mr. R. 
Lye, and the Honorary Secretary, Mr. A. F. 
Barron. 
The usual loyal toasts having been duly honoured, 
the Lord Mayor next gave the toast of the evening, 
" Continued Success to the Royal Gardeners’ 
Orphan Fund," which, he said, was founded in 1887 
by the gardeners of the United Kingdom in com¬ 
memoration of the jubilee of the Queen, and which, 
from its first conception, had met with the cordial 
support of the horticultural community. The head¬ 
quarters of the fund were located at the Royal 
Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Chiswick, many 
of the council and fellows of that Society being 
numbered among its most generous and constant 
supporters. The success achieved was due in a 
great measure to Mr. Barron, the able and pains¬ 
takingsecretary, whose high character and long con¬ 
nection with the Royal Horticultural Society inspired 
confidence amongst gardeners in all parts of the 
country. The objects of the fund were to make 
allowances of money to aid in the maintenance of 
THE ROYAL GARDENERS’ ORPHAN 
FUND. 
The annual dinner in aid of this most estimable 
charity took place in the Whitehall Rooms of the 
Hotel Metropole on the loth inst., the Rt. Hon. the 
Lord Mayor of .London presiding. Over 100 sub¬ 
scribers and friends sat down, among the company 
being Sir Edwin Saunders, Mr. N. N. Sherwood, 
Mr. H. J. Veitch, Professor Michael Foster, 
F.R.S., Mr. E. Frankland, F.R S , Mr. Herbert 
J. Adams, Mr. Arnold Mos.s, Mr. D. T. 
Fish, Bury St. Edmunds, Mr. William Robinson, 
Mr. Philip Crowley, Mr. George Bunyard, 
Mr. W. L. Corry, Mr. R. P. Glendinning, Mr. J. 
Melady, Mr. H. J. Cutbush, Mr. A. W. G. Weeks, 
Mr. John Harrison, Leicester, Mr. J. Burn, 
Leicester, Mr. John Laing, Mr. C. E. Osman, 
Mr. W. Y. Baker, Mr. Lynch White, Mr. H. B. 
May, Mr. G. J. Ingram, Mr. S. M. Seeger, Mr. J. H. 
Wimsett, Mr. B. Wynne, Mr. H. Herbst, Mr. R. 
Dean, Mr. George Gordon, Mr, J. Assbee, Mr, R. 
Greenfield, Leamington, Messrs. T., J. and E. 
Rochford, Mr. George Monro, Mr. J. Webber, 
Mr. J. Sweet, Mr. P. E. Kay, Mr. J. Walker, Mr. J. 
Kinnell, Mr. W. Poupart, Mr. G. May, Mr. P. 
Garcia, Mr. T. W. Sanders, Messrs. R. and G. Barr, 
Mr. G. Fennell, Mr. W. G. Cummins, Mr. W. 
Mr. ARCHiB.aLD I'. Barron. 
orphans of gardeners of all classes. At the present 
time the fund was the means of distributing assist¬ 
ance at the rate of 5s. per week to sixty-one father¬ 
less children who lived at home with their mothers 
or other duly appointed guardians. Thus the 
children received all the moral and material advan¬ 
tages of a useful home training, which was a very 
solid advantage indeed as compared with the less 
satisfactory and more costly orphanage system. 
The charity was supported entirely by voluntary 
contributions, the annual income being derived 
partly from subscriptions, which were put as low as 
5s., so that every gardener might be able to support 
the cause, and partly from donations from employers 
and others interested in gardening pursuits, the 
amount thus received and invested being £7,070, 
yielding an income of about £200 per annum. Local 
secretaries were also at work in various parts of the 
country collecting funds, a fact that showed the 
warm interest which the gardeners themselves took 
in the charity. Having mentioned that last year a 
sum of £261 was obtained from collecting boxes and 
entertainments organised by gardeners, his Lordship 
said the amount of money which the gardeners were 
able to raise among themselves was totally inade¬ 
quate to supply the needs of the large number of 
orphans left in a state of poverty ; for gardeners, 
however thrifty they might have been, were rarely 
able to leave more than a small pittance for their 
widows and children, and that was soon exhausted. 
No charity, he contended, could be more economi¬ 
cally conducted. It possessed no grand office, had 
no expensive orphanage with high-paid officials to 
maintain—some/'5o a year only was paid for clerical 
work, everything else being done voluntarily and 
gratuitously by a carefully-selected committee and 
officers, to whom the greatest credit was due for 
their careful and scrupulous management. As 
almost everyone who enjoyed the fruits and flowers 
of the earth derived pleasure from the labours of 
skilled gardeners, he felt sure it was only necessary 
for the urgent need of these helpless orphans to be 
made known for the sympathy end generous support 
of the public to be obtained on behalf of the excel¬ 
lent and exceptionally well-managed charity whose 
cause it afforded him so much pleasure to plead. 
Mr. D. T. Fish,who responded,expressed regret at 
the fact that some of the orphans were not present 
'• to open the hearts and the purses ’’ of his hearers. 
He said the committee had not attempted to build 
palaces for their orphans, because they did not want 
palaces, but homes. Gardeners, as a body, could 
not do very much in the way of supporting the insti¬ 
tution financially, but they appealed to all who were 
the friends of gardeners and who loved 
horticulture to support the orphans of 
gardeners. At present there were sixty- 
one orphans on the books of the 
institution, but a dozen or a score were 
waiting outside to see if the committee 
could not take them in. It rested with 
the company to say whether or not any 
one of those helpless children should be 
left outside. 
The toast of " Gardeners and Gar¬ 
dening ’’ was submitted by Sir Edwin 
Saunders, who observed that there was 
no keener or purer pleasure in life than 
that which was associated with flowers, 
and there was no country in the world 
where fruits and flowers were produced 
in such perfection as in our own 
country. It was, therefore, only proper 
that they should see to it that those who 
were engaged in the production should 
have provision made for their orphans if 
misfortune and death overtook them. 
Mr. John Harrison responded, remarking 
that gardeners, as a class, were exceed¬ 
ingly industrious : and while they were 
not the class of men to take advantage 
of trade unions, they had a union of 
hearts, and felt for the orphans of their 
brother gardeners. 
Mr. Sherwood proposed “ The health 
of the Lord Mayor ’’ in eulogistic terms, 
and the civic chief assured the company, 
in reply, that he regarded it as an honour 
to have been allowed to preside. The 
next toast given was “ The Visitors,” 
proposed by Mr. Arnold Moss and re¬ 
sponded to by Professor Michael Foster. 
During the evening Mr. Barron announced sub¬ 
scriptions and donations to the amount of £^>2^ i6s, 
on which the Lord Mayor remarked that he did not 
like odd figures, and suggested that the amount 
should be made up to /550, promising an additional 
donation of ;f5 5s. from the Lady Mayoress. There¬ 
upon a number of additional donations were immedi¬ 
ately handed in, bringing up the total amount sub¬ 
scribed in connection with the festival to over £600. 
The health of Mr. Barron, proposed in graceful 
and generous terms by Mr. Harry J. Veitch, was 
enthusiastically received, and the toast of the 
Press, proposed by Mr. J. Assbee, and acknowledged 
by Mr. George Gordon, brought the proceedings to 
a close. 
We have very great pleasure in supplementing 
our report of the proceedings at the annual dinner 
of this most excellent charity, with a portrait of the 
honorary secretary, Mr. A. F. Barron, to whom the 
community of gardeners owe a debt of lasting 
gratitude for the invaluable services which he has 
rendered in establishing the fund on such a sound 
E,nd healthy basis. And with this meed of praise it 
is only right and proper that the names of Mrs. and 
the Misses Barron should be associated, for it is no 
secret that since the establishment of the fund both 
Mr. Barron and his wife and daughters have in the 
most unselfish manner devoted a very large amount 
