Feb. 21st, 1885, 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
387 
SEEDSMEN BY ROYAL WARRANT. 
SUTTON’S 
CHOICE 
NEW MARROW PEA. 
'SUTTON’S “ SATISFACTION.” 
B 
13 By far the most robust medium-cropping Pea in cultiva¬ 
tion, and in productiveness is unsurpassed. The pods are 
produced in pairs, and are thickly set on the haulm. The 
JPeas are remarkably large, and sometimes as many as 
ten are contained in a pod. When brought to table they 
are of a beautiful green colour, and even when quite old 
they retain their sweet and delicate flavour. The haulm 
is very stout, resists drought and mildew, and is easily 
distinguished from that of all other Peas. Height 3 feet. 
Per Quart, 3s. 6d. 
OBSERVE 
THIS TRADE MARK 
ON 
EVERY PACKET. 
For full particulars of Sutton’s choice varieties of 
Vegetables, Flowers, and Potatos, see 
SUTTON’S 
SPECIAL LIST of NOVELTIES, 
Gratis and Post Free on application. 
Royal Berks Seed Establishment, 
READING-. 
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”—BACON. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21st, 1885. 
Garden Allotments. —We fear discussion 
relating to the land and the people is a matter 
that will ring in our ears for many a long day. 
As a subject for political strife and contention, 
we have nothing to do with it; there is no space 
in these columns for topics which breed strife 
and anger. We have to deal with the land and 
its attributes solely, as it is concerned with 
gardening, and that connection is after all a wide 
one. Land is the first element of gardening, of 
course, for we cannot plant and cultivate the air, 
the sea, nor the bowels of the earth. We have 
its surface only on which to sow and to plant, and 
that surface remains about the same in extent 
now that it was one thousand years ago. Man, 
however is an expansive element in creation, and 
increases almost as the sand on the seashore, 
so that to one being in existence a thousand years 
since we now have myriads, for population has 
increased so vastly as to be almost beyond 
computation. 
With the increase of humanity there has also 
come increase in civilizing influences, and with 
these have grown the wants of man to an illimit¬ 
able extent. Certainly, individual man in these 
days does not need the same expanse of earth 
for his sustenance which his primeval projenitor 
did, or even his pastoral forefathers. The chase 
yielded scanty means of sustenance, and the 
greatest development of pastoral life in bygone 
days would have been wretchedly incapable of 
supporting that vast accumulation of humanity 
the earth now holds. If we have increased so 
enormously, so also have our wants, and equally 
have our means of satisfying them ; indeed, just 
in proportion as we call human toil into opera¬ 
tion, so do we satisfy the wants of humanity. 
Man has no more imperative want than food, and 
that the land alone can furnish, and in no form 
more fitting for the sustenance of life than as 
cereals,"vegetables, and fruits. Cereals we leave 
to agriculture, because less needing in their 
production that high cultivation which fruits and 
vegetables demand; and cereals, if not raised at 
home in sufficient abundance, will come to us 
from all the points of the hemisphere, so bounteous 
is mother earth to her children. 
With those other food products we have 
referred to, however, our chief reliance must 
always he placed upon the productive powers 
of the soil at home, and whatsoever plan or 
method may be in operation which enhances its 
productiveness, must commend itself to our 
notice and approval. Gardeners themselves are 
very familiar with the productive capacities of 
gardening, and how, through its instrumentality, 
an acre of land may be made to produce many 
times the quantity of vegetables it did when 
under ordinary farm cultivation. The basis of 
all present discussions on the land question is 
found in the need for such changes in its holding 
and cultivation as shall render it more productive 
and capable of administering to the wants of the 
public. It may be true that there are vast 
breadths of land not yet under cultivation, hut 
the chief portion of that land is poor and sterile 
and may, perhaps, bring to the labourer more 
aching hearts than Cabbages and Potatos. 
But we have vast breadths of land which now 
is only most imperfectly cultivated, is but 
miserably productive, and yet might be made 
fruitful and profitable were it to feel the full 
force of human labour. But the other day, a 
noble lord who is a large Buckinghamshire land- 
owner, Lord Carrington, described the wonderful 
addition made to some 80 acres of land on his 
Wycombe estate, let out to 690 working-class 
tenants as allotments, and calculated that the 
increase of productiveness as compared with that 
under farm cultivation was six times. Now here 
is evidence that is unquestioned as to the pro¬ 
ductive powers of human cultivation when applied 
to the land in the shape of gardening, and it is 
easy to imagine not only how great a blessing 
must those 690 allotment gardens carry into 
hundreds of poor homes, hut also how much the 
more must that beneficient landowner, Lord 
Carrington, be esteemed by his poorer neigh¬ 
bours. 
It is to be deplored that working men, who will, 
as above shown, thus by their labour increase 
the productiveness of land six times, should be 
so largely deprived of the opportunity to put that 
labour to the best uses. Why cannot every land- 
owner do what Lord Carrington has so well 
done, and thus bestow blessings wholesale upon 
myriads anxious to benefit themselves. Allotment 
gardens where practicable and cottage gardens of 
good dimensions should he within reach of all 
our rural working people, and also of a large 
portion of our urban population, and it seems 
strange that a proposition to enable local 
authorities to purchase convenient sites of land 
and let the same to working men as allotment 
gardens can be termed revolutionary. Some 
exception may be taken to tbe investing of these 
local authorities with compulsory powers, but it 
must not he forgotten the principle is so far 
admitted, that not only public bodies but private 
companies can take tbe land if they need it, in 
all directions, and do so constantly; therefore, 
tbe expansion of these powers to the taking of 
land for allotment purposes or even for the 
purpose of establishing peasant proprietors on 
the soil can hardly he deemed unpopular or 
offensive. 
Our object is clear enough. We want to see a 
great expansion of gardening, not only because it 
is a delightful and intelligent recreation, hut also 
because it is the most productive form of culti¬ 
vation of the land with which humanity is 
acquainted. We believe wheresoever gardening 
is developed, there does it carry blessings and 
prosperity in its train. The earth hunger which 
the poor man displays is not of that form too 
often seen which consists solely in hugging it as 
a miser would his gold. He wants to employ it, 
to cultivate it, to lay out upon it his only capital- 
labour—and to reap the fruits of that labour in 
good time, not only for his own benefit, but also 
for tbe good of bis family and his neighbours. 
We truly believe that one of the chief agents in 
solving a pressing social problem will be found in 
a wide expansion of allotment gardens and cottage 
holdings. 
-►*-,- 
The National Chrysanthemum Society.— 
Now that this national venture has got fairly 
under weigh, it must be admitted that it is being 
worked with activity and zeal. That on such, a 
wet evening as Monday last fully two-thirds of 
a large committee journeyed from different 
parts of London to the meeting at the Four 
Swans, Bishopsgate Street, proves the interest 
taken in the business of the Society. After the 
reading of the minutes of the last meeting, the 
