596 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
May 23rd, 1883. 
that respect we cannot choose our visitations, 
though preferring rains of a more pleasant kind. 
In any case a day or two of warm sunshine soon 
puts all right, and if the ground has been unduly 
chilled with the cold rainfall, it is soon again 
heated to its wonted temperature. Such rains 
as marked the beginning of this month were not 
only very substantial in character, but they were 
general, and the whole of the country seems to 
have benefited by them. We now enter upon 
the summer with its probable heat under very 
diverse conditions from those which faced us last 
year, when at this season the ground was already 
singularly dry. As a result of present moisture 
we see pastures rich in verdure, and the promise 
of the hay-crop as fine as could be desired. The 
field-crops look as well as can be hoped for, and 
the fruit-trees of all kinds, laden with blossom 
and fruit-germs, have had such a cleansing as 
cannot fail to be of the greatest value to the 
welfare of the coming crops. 
The Land and the People. —The promotion 
of a company by various large landowners, the 
object of which is to enable small plots, holdings, 
or farms to be brought within the reach of real 
workers, such as labourers and men who desire 
to live from but of the land, marks an important 
phase in our social history. A. scheme of this 
kind, promoted by men of purely visionary ideas 
and actuated solely by humanitarian motives, may 
well have been regarded with doubt and suspicion, 
but when the owners of land themselves, having 
found out how injurious to their welfare, as also 
to that of the land and the community at large, 
large farms have proved, desire to re-introduce 
the class of small owners and holders, in fact, to 
re-create the ancient yeomen of our rural life, it 
becomes obvious that something of a truly com¬ 
mercial nature is purposed, and that the basis of 
the proposed Land Company is essentially of a 
practical nature. 
We regard the objects of the Company, viz., 
the purchase of large breadths of land in suitable 
places, and the re-sale or letting of these breadths 
subdivided into small holdings of some three or 
four acres up to thirty acres as calculated to accom¬ 
plish a national good. We look from out of this 
proposal for much popularity for good gardening, 
because it is obvious that only cultivation on 
purely garden principles can render the holding 
and working of small plots profitable. The 
man who trenches his ground, digs and forks 
it deeply, employs the hoe liberally to keep his 
soil clean, and thus utilizes his own strength and 
labour to the very best advantage, becomes not 
only a benefactor to himself, he is a benefactor to 
humanity. Such garden farming as he engages 
in, allied as it must be to the production of eggs, 
milk, and probably fruit, will assist to develop 
his intellect and his energies, and make of 
him and his fellow cultivators a reading and 
educated race of men. Our farming has been 
of far too mechanical a kind, and too depen¬ 
dent upon horses and machinery. Gardening, on 
the other hand, calls out the full powers of the 
cultivator, mental and physical; hence the hope 
of better things when the operations of the new 
Land Company shall have become almost uni¬ 
versal. 
New Azaleas. —At the last meeting of the Floral 
Committee, M. Louis Van Houtte, Ghent, exhibited 
some fine new Indian Azaleas, two of which were 
selected for the award of First-Class Certificates. 
These were Princess Victoria, a beautiful flesh- 
coloured double flower, with crimson spots, and 
Princess Baudin, a very striking single variety of a 
bright crimson colour. Among the other sorts staged, 
Miss E. Jarrett, a very fine white with conspicuous 
lemon spots; John Lyall, semi-double, deep salmon- 
red in colour; and Louis Lubbers, bright crimson 
with carmine blotch, may be mentioned as being of 
excellent quality. 
(Sartremirg Ipistellam 
Flower Shows for Next Week.— From Monday till 
Friday the Great Exhibition in the Botanical Gardens 
at Old Trafford, Manchester, will be open. — On 
Tuesday there will be an exhibition of Pot Roses and 
Azaleas, &c., at South Kensington, in conjunction 
with the meetings of the Fruit and Floral Committees. 
To afford a signal commemoration of the success 
which has attended the effort to increase the pensions 
of the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution, a 
strong representative committee has been formed, 
with Mr. John Lee, in London, and Mr. Bruce Findley, 
in Manchester, as Honorary Secretaries, to raise a 
substantial testimonial to Mr. Cutler, who for forty- 
four years has been the indefatigable Secretary of the 
Institution, and to whose zeal and energy its present 
satisfactory condition is undoubtedly in a large 
measure due. Through good and evil report, Mr. 
Cutler has served the Institution with a fidelity that 
should meet with substantial recognition. 
Messrs. F. Sander & Co.’s fine specimen of Cattleya 
Skinneri alba changed hands at the late Orchid Con¬ 
ference, the purchaser, a well-known Cheshire grower, 
giving, we hear, 215 guineas for it. 
The Ramsbottom Floral and Horticultural 
Society will hold its second Chrysanthemum Show 
on November 14th. The Society had the satisfactory 
balance of £19 16s. 6 d. in hand at the end of its first 
year’s work, and for its second show offers £30 
instead of £25 in prizes. 
We hear that Mr. J. Batten, one of the pensioners of 
the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution, died last 
week at Dalston. Some thirty years ago deceased 
carried on the business of a florist in Brook Street, 
Clapton, and was well known as a successful grower 
of Fuchias, Verbenas, Tulips, and Dahlias. His Clap¬ 
ton Hero Fuchsia will doubtless be remembered by 
many old florists. 
At the last meeting of the Chambre Syndicale des 
Horticulteurs held at Ghent, certificates of merit were 
awarded to the Compagnie Continentale d’Horticul- 
ture for Vriesia hieroglyphica, Ladia purpurata alba, 
Alocasia imperialis, Gymnogramma sehizophylla var. 
gloriosa, and Cattleya nobilior ; and to Mr. Aug. Van 
Geert, sen., for Laslia purpurata var. 
Mr. W. H. Massie, who for some years past has 
been connected with the firm of Messrs. Little & 
Ballantyne, of Carlisle, will shortly join the old- 
established firm of Messrs. Dickson & Co., nursery¬ 
men, of Edinburgh. 
Mr. James Bridger, proprietor of the famous 
Lavender grounds at Mitcham, Surrey, died on 
the 4th inst., at his residence, the Manor House, 
Mitcham. 
The floral decorations at the new Hotel Metropole 
on Monday evening last, on the occasion of the Royal 
Military Concert in aid of the Egyptian War Fund, 
were entrusted to Mr. T. A. Dickson, of Covent 
Garden, and the manner in which the work was 
carried out elicited the warmest admiration. The 
cut flower arrangements proved especially attractive, 
and exceedingly so in the oak saloon in which 
supper was laid for the Royal visitors. 
Mr. James Don, seedsman, 20, Chapel Bar, Notting¬ 
ham, died on the 6th inst., aged thirty-five years. 
Mr. Don, who was with Messrs. Barron & Son, 
Elvaston, for several years, was widely known and 
much respected, and especially among the members 
of the Notts Horticultural and Botanical Society, 
of which he was one of the founders, and also one 
of the honorary secretaries. 
Mr. Garnet, St. John’s, Wakefield, read an able 
and interesting paper on “ How Plants Grow,” before 
the Sheffield and Hallamshire Gardeners’ Mutual 
Improvement Society, on Wednesday evening, the 
13th instant. 
It may interest our bothy friends in those estab¬ 
lishments, trade and private, where cricketing is 
encouraged—and we are aware that there are many 
of them—to know of the publication of a new 
penny weekly paper devoted to cricket and football 
lore, and which makes a strong point of inclusion in 
its pages of a complete weekly record of matches 
played. The new venture has a terrible title, but 
here it is —The Cricket and Football Challenge and 
Club Notice Gazette, and its publisher is Mr. R. 
Sumner, 145, Fleet Street, E.C. 
SARRACENIA COURTII. 
Among the novelties of the season now being sent 
out by Messrs. James Veitch & Sons, this handsome 
hybrid side-saddle plant takes a prominent position 
It was raise! in the Chelsea Nursery from those well- 
known species S. purpurea and S. psitacina, the 
former being the seed-bearing parent, and receive! 
a First-Class Certificate from the Floral Committee 
when first shown in 1831. It partakes of the charac¬ 
teristics of both parents, of which it is nearly inter¬ 
mediate in form, but with the pitchers more regularly 
disposed than in either. It has the deep wing of S. 
purpurea, and the concave, cowl-like fid peculiar to 
S. psitacina, while the colour, a rich crimson-purple 
from the middle upwards, in the young pitchers 
changes to deep red with age. It is veined an! 
reticulated in a very handsome manner, and the 
whole contour of the plant is of a very ornamental 
character. We are indebted to the Messrs. Veitch 
for the opportunity of illustrating this sterling novelty 
in our pages. 
HERONSGATE. 
A large and influential meeting was held a few 
weeks ago at Willis’s Rooms, with a view of launching 
the National Land Company. The names of the 
Committee—a body of gentlemen of all shades of 
political opinion—furnish abundant proof of its bond 
fides. It is thirty-eight years ago since Fergus 
O’Connor, M.P. for Nottingham, attempted to estab¬ 
lish in various parts of England his scheme of a 
peasant proprietary. One of the localities chosen was 
Heronsgate. Perhaps a brief sketch of the settlement 
may be of interest to the reader. The Company 
owing to bad management and probably somethin* 
worse, soon collapsed, the estates were thrown into 
Chancery, and all except the fortunate few who 
succeeded in the early ballot, lost the money they 
had invested in the Company’s shares. 
The scene of Mr. Fergus O’Connor’s first experiment 
lies two miles south-west of Rickmansworth. The 
estate comprises 103 acres, and is divided into thirty- 
six plots, varying in area from two to four acres. 
Each holding has a semi-detached cottage with from 
three to five rooms. The rentcharge is £6 10s. for 
the two acres and cottage, £8 8s. for three, and 
£10 10s. for four acres.. The original allotment was 
by ballot, the shares being 25s., each representing an 
acre. The little estates are all occupied, and they 
not unfrequently change hands, the purchase-money 
varying from £250 for the smaller to £500 for the 
four-acre plots. There are several estates, some 
more extensive than Heronsgate, in Lancashire, 
Yorkshire, Worcester, Gloucester, and Oxford. 
My informant is one of the two first tenants at 
Heronsgate, and was successful in the first ballot out of 
70,000 shareholders. He and. his wife rode up in a car¬ 
riage with the redoubted Fergus to take possession 
The estate lies along the crown of a hill on the west 
side of Rickmansworth and Mill End, the village 
adjoining it. A narrow belt of woodland, Lady Wood 
protects it from the east winds. The soil varies 
considerably, poor and hungry where the gravel sub¬ 
soil overlies the chalk several feet, but better where the 
latter is nearer the surface. A chalk-pit adjoins the 
estate, and is frequently resorted to for dressing the 
light lands. Towards the middle of the estate the 
land is tolerably good, but the greater part seems to 
be of a poor, light quality, capable of appropriating 
an unlimited supply of manure, an expensive article 
on account of the cost of cartage from Rickmans¬ 
worth, 5 s. a load. Nearly all the tenants, however, 
keep a little stock on this account. Several keep a 
cow and pigs, and most of them fowls. 
About half a score out of the thirty-six tenants are 
entirely dependent upon manual labour for their 
support; and of these all have occasional employment, 
either among their co-tenants or on neighbouring 
fauns. The greater part of the remainder are retired 
tradesmen or persons of small means who live at a 
cheap rate, and find in the occupation of gardening 
or the care of a little live-stock, just the recreation 
they desire. A few of the cottages and plots are the 
properties of tradesmen who send their families to 
reside there during the summer months. The site is a 
remarkably healthy one. There is a post office with 
daily delivery, a grocer’s shop, a chapel of ease, and 
