Feb. 28th, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
403 
SUTTON’S 
CHOICE 
NOVELTIES. 
The Finest Scarlet-fleshed Melon. 
SUTTON’S 
MICHAELMAS WHITE BROCCOLI. 
Comes in about Michaelmas day, and deserves a place in 
every garden. Heads firm, of fine texture, snowy white, 
massive, and of excellent quality. 
Per packet, 2s. 6d., post free. 
“Tour Michaelmas White is a splendid autumn Broccoli; 
comes in about the second week of September. I find it 
remarkably level and compact in growth, very firm, solid, 
white heads, and cooks particularly tender.”—Mr. J. \Y. 
Bunn, Gardener to E. M. Price, Esq., The philberds. 
“ The Broccoli I had from yon this season is now (the middle 
of September) a perfect wonder; very large and good in 
quality.”—Mr. J. Hall, Gardener to Mrs. Hammond, Kilver- 
stone Hall. 
SUTTON’S SCARLET INVINCIBLE. 
Introduced by us last year, and has acquired a reputation 
unequalled by any other Melon known. Form somewhat 
globular; skin orange-red, finely and evenly netted; flesh 
thick, bright scarlet, and of exquisite flavour. On June 26, 
1883, it was awarded a 
First-class Certificate by the Fruit Committee 
of the Royal Horticultural Society; 
and in every competition we are acquainted with it has taken 
1st Prize. 
Per packet Is. 6d. and 2s. 6d. post free. 
“A scarlet-fleshed variety of the most distinct character and 
highest excellence.”— Gardeners’ Magazine , June 30, 1883. 
SUTTON & SONS, 
ROYAL BERKS SEED ESTABLISHMENT, 
READING. 
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
t\t durkntng Morlb. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28th, 1885. 
Gaedenebs’ Benefit Societies. —The publi¬ 
cation of the report of the proceedings of the 
United Horticultural Benefit and Provident 
Society, in these columns a fortnight ago,naturally 
serves to attract attention to the general question 
of gardeners’ duties in relation to Benefit Socie¬ 
ties, and the best form in which that relationship 
should be displayed. We put aside from present 
consideration all Societies that are essentially 
charitable or benevolent in character, because 
whilst such beneficently administered, may do 
good work in cases of sheer misfortune or 
pressing need, the real purpose now to be served 
is to induce gardeners and young ones especially, 
to consider how far they may become associated 
with some kind of Society for beneficial and not 
benevolent objects. 
The Society whose report we refer to above, 
seems to be an admirable institution, and to be 
also in good hands, but it is of its kind far too 
modest. Its light is permitted to shine forth 
only on such occasions as is the present, when 
its annual report is published; then it seems to 
be forgotten for another year, except by those 
few who constitute its members. But there 
seems to be no reason why this Society or some 
other established on a broader basis should not 
exist for gardeners all over the kingdom. We 
want an United Kingdom Gardeners’ Benefit 
Society, with local lodges or courts all over Great 
Britain and Ireland; not that we wish to see 
those ceremonies and formulas which characterize 
certain popular Friendly Societies introduced, 
but simply that the universality which is the 
very basis of those bodies, should exist also in 
the proposed Gardeners’ Society. 
It is to be feared that owing to the peculiar 
nature of the gardener’s occupation keeping him 
rather remote from populous centres his chances 
of joining some sound Friendly Society are few, 
and his inducements are less. To tell the truth, 
he is so little brought into contact with his 
fellows, as workers iu many other vocations are, 
that he thinks less of the duties devolving upon 
him to provide for a rainy day than he ought. 
But gardeners have some advantages which other 
bodies have not, and specially are they favoured 
with a professional press which is not matched 
by any other vocation. That press is always at 
the gardener’s service, and can be made to form 
a means of inter-communion between gardeners 
all over the kingdom. Here at once is a means 
of promoting concerted action for any professional 
object such as cannot be too highly valued. 
Then gardeners have what is esteemed to be 
essentially a highly healthy occupation. Were 
membership in any established or newly formed 
Gardeners’ Benefit Society limited exclusively to 
gardeners, it should be easy to give a high rate of 
benefit, because sickness and mortality should be 
low. Without doubt, as is found in all the 
vocations of life, sobriety and steadiness of life 
are promotive of health, as the reverse features 
are provocative of sickness and death. Still 
gardeners are in these respects specially favoured, 
for their vocations place them less within reach 
of temptation to irregular living than is the case 
with many other workers ; indeed it may well be 
believed actuarial returns would show that the 
gardener’s life is a capital investment, both in 
relation to sickness and mortality. In such case 
any Benefit Society, composed of gardeners, 
should not only be financially healthy but should 
also be financially attractive. Gardeners ought 
to take special pride in attaching themselves to 
and strengthening their own society. They ought 
to be amongst the very first of working men, 
especially by reason of their experience and 
superior advantages, to provide for a rainy day; 
for a period of sickness or the grip of death may 
come to us all at any moment, even though our 
vocation be so healthy and inspiring. 
We are not writing in the interests of any 
society. Hay, there may be hundreds of gardeners 
in the kingdom who have already associated them¬ 
selves with some Benefit Society. Still that does 
not alter the fact that there is both ample room 
for and an actual need for a National Gardeners’ 
Benefit Society. Gardeners ought to feel that 
any society devoted to members of the loved 
craft has the first claim upon them. They may in 
response to supporting it, hope to find it in active 
operation all over the country, and with the 
leading gardeners of each locality amongst its 
warmest supporters and its most efficient officers. 
Such a society would help to give a tone to 
gardening, and in return it would receive a high 
status because of its association with the profes¬ 
sion. The man who can proudly show that he is 
the recipient of self-help is a thousand times more 
worthy than is he who, omitting provision for old 
age, becomes the object of charity. 
A Potato Congeess. —We live in an age of 
Congresses, and the fever of talk has settled 
heavily upon the world of horticulture, so that in 
various ways it is found needful to furnish safety 
valves for the escape of so much bottled-up 
eloquence. The cacoethes lingua sits heavily 
upon us, and like murder it will out, though in a 
much less dreaded form. We have already had 
an Apple Congress, then followed a Daffodil 
Congress. An Orchid Congress is at hand, and 
we are threatened with a Potato Congress. 
Happily, amidst a good deal of chaff thus blown 
about, there is found some residual corn, so that 
all is not waste. Happily, also, some very useful 
“ copy ” is found in these loquaceous gatherings, for 
which the papers have some reason to be thankful; 
therefore if no great good results, at least some few 
benefit. But the poor Potato seems to be specially 
designed to set pens and jaws to work, in the 
latter case less as an article of food than of 
controversy. Surely never has plant had all its 
virtues and its vices, its good points and its ills, 
so thoroughly canvassed as has the Potato. It 
has been beaten to a mummy, pounded to pulp in 
the mortar of contention, stripped of its coat 
and even of its under-clothing and exposed by 
scientists over and over again to the world in a 
state of deplorable nakedness. What more can 
be said about the Potato, in or out of a Congress, 
that is new or novel, or reliable, it is hard to say, 
for at the present all that is urged one day is 
denied point-blank the next. A little egotism 
may be aired, it is true, at a Potato Congress, 
but if that only is to be the product, the 
gathering may as well never become a fact, and 
if nothing new is to be told or learned, why 
trouble any farther about it. 
Notes feoh Ceylon. —An obliging reader has 
favoured us with the perusal of a letter received 
from a friend in the spicy isle, and which is dated 
January 17th. We gather from its contents that 
the coffee crop is a poor one on the average, and 
