September 17, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
35 
THE FLORA OF GREAT 
BRITAIN. 
Lovers of rural England are aware that changes 
are taking place in the fauna and flora of the country. 
In too many cases these changes possess a melan¬ 
choly interest, for they savour of extinction. Birds 
and other animals have forsaken haunts which were 
once familiar to them, and plants of divers species 
have been exterminated in localities where they were 
once known to abound. Many and varied are the 
causes which have been in operation, but whilst 
some of them were inevitable, others it is equally 
certain are preventible. For five years a committee 
of the British Association has been collecting inform¬ 
ation as to the disappearance of native plants from 
their local habitats, and year after year it has re¬ 
ported the same story of suppression or extermina¬ 
tion. This year it is the west of Scotland which has 
been the special area of observation, and about fifty 
species of native plants are recorded as having dis¬ 
appeared from places which not long since were in¬ 
cluded amongst their regular haunts. The graceful 
Meadow Rue has vanished from a spot on the banks 
of the Clyde owing to some unascertained cause. 
The Celery-leaved Crowfoot has disappeared from a 
locality in Dumbartonshire, owing to the reclama¬ 
tion of a marsh. The superb Mountain Globe Flower 
has become extinct at a place in Ayrshire. The 
quaint Yellow-horned Poppy has been swept away by 
summer visitors on the coast of Argyllshire, between 
Dunoon and Toward. The burnet-leaved Sweetbriar 
has been washed away by a high tide at Seamill, 
on the coast of Ayrshire. The island of Cumbrae, 
Buteshire, has been almost entirely bereft of its Prim¬ 
roses by fair depredators who should know better, 
" being carried off in basket loads by lady visitors.” 
The very rare smooth Gromwell is rapidly disappear¬ 
ing from the Argyll shore," being probably all gath¬ 
ered by collectors and summer visitors.” 
At Stevenston, Ayrshire, the Viper's Bugloss, with 
its many-coloured flowers, has fallen a victim to 
drifting sand. At Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, the 
exigencies of a new railway have led to the extinction 
of the Lesser Skullcao. The fragrant Sweet-gale, or 
Bog-myrtle, has forsaken West Kilbride, Ayrshire, 
after the draining of a bog. At Kilwinning, in the 
same county, the quaint Bird’s-nest Orchid has been 
rooted out by school-children, whilst that sweet 
Orchid, the Helleborine, has been cleared out of the 
Isle of Arran for removal to gardens, where, in un- 
genial environments, it will probably perish. At 
Gourock Burn, Ayrshire, the Daffodil has met with 
a similar fate. At Crosbie Glen, another locality in 
Ayrshire, the native Snowdrop was threatened in like 
manner, but luckily the proprietor intervened. Of 
Ferns, the Black Spleenwort, the Sea Spleenwort, the 
Green Spleenwort, and the Maidenhair Spleenwort 
are being cleared out of the Western Isles and the 
Argyllshire hills, their roots being offered for sale in 
large numbers in the streets of Glasgow. Near 
Paisley the Ceterach has fallen a victim to a Fern- 
dealer. At Portincross Woods and at Hindog Glen, 
in Ayrshire, the Hart's-tongue has almost disappeared. 
In the Island of Cumbrae the same Fern was grow¬ 
ing abundantly fifty years ago, whilst now it is 
difficult to find a single specimen. " In summer the 
lady visitors were seldom seen leaving the island 
without a basket of Ferns, a practice carried on year 
after year, till now, when the Ferns are nearly ex¬ 
hausted, the gathering mania is passing from Ferns 
to Primroses,” as intimated above. The Royal Fern, 
Osmunda regalis, is vanishing, or has gone, from 
numbers of localities in the Isle of Arran, "having 
been carried away by cartload and boatload.” 
The Fir Club-Moss is disappearing from Mons, 
Ayrshire, owing to drainage, and from the Western 
Isles on account of the demand for sale in Glasgow. 
Cases such as these can unfortunately be paralleled 
in all districts of our island, and our towns are not, 
as a rule, so noted for their loveliness that we can 
afford to sacrifice without a protest any part of the 
wild Britain that still remains. The rarer a species 
happens to be, the greater is the mania amongst 
so-called "collectors” to exterminate it. At the 
present time the beautiful coral-seeded Paeony has 
been driven to its last foothold of British soil in one 
of the islands of the Bristol Channel. Those who 
know where the Snake’s-Heads dot the greensward 
in Oxfordshire, where the lovely Pasque flower revels 
in the soil of the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, 
where the Lily of the Valley sheds its fragrance upon 
the air in the deep woods of Kent, or where the lurid 
Asarabacca lurks in the lanes of Wiltshire, render 
the best service by keeping their discoveries to them¬ 
selves.— Prof. Frcam, in the " Morning Post." 
-- 
CALIFORNIAN FRUIT 
TRADE. 
As much interest is being taken in the experiment of 
sending fresh Californian fruit to the London market, 
some of which has already made its way into the 
shops, 1 thought it might interest your readers to 
learn something about the way the thing is done, 
and having just received the enclosed cuttings from 
English friends engaged in this industry and living in 
the heart of the California fruit district, I send them 
on for your information.—IF. G. E. S., Acton, IF. 
" Five carloads of fresh California fruit arrived in 
New York yesterday, July 26th, in transit for Europe. 
The shipment consists of 1,000 boxes of Peaches, 
Plums, and Apricots, and 500 boxes of Pears. Ihe cars 
in which the fruit is transported across the continent 
were built on the refrigerator plan expressly for this 
service, and the White Star Steamship Company has 
had four of its steamships fitted up, each with a 
200-ton space, on the same refrigerator plan. If the 
experiment is successful there will be a weekly ex¬ 
portation of California fruit for the Liverpool market. 
The company which is undertaking this enterprise 
declares that the improved refrigerator plan will 
enable the people of England to get California fruit 
as ripe, fresh, and good as can the people of Chicago 
or New York. Considering the decayed state in 
which California and southern fruit is arriving in 
New York in the present hot wave, if the first ship¬ 
ment reaches Liverpool in good condition, the system 
will be amply tested, and Britishers may consider 
themselves in rare luck. 
"The main difficulty in shipping our fine fruits 
across the continent unquestionably comes from the 
cars in which it is shipped. The car, when iced, 
carries too much dead weight, and the methods of 
ventilation have not yet reached perfection. 
" These defects will shortly be removed. Some of 
the brightest minds in California are busily engaged 
in solving the problem of equable and low tempera¬ 
ture as well as good ventilation and dry air. The 
latter is a sine qua non, and has not been attained. 
But it soon will be, and a gigantic fortune awaits the 
lucky and patient investigator. When, with dry air 
and the proper low temperature, we can have a car 
with only one-half the extra dead weight to be carried, 
the problem is solved, and markets will be opened up 
for California fresh fruits."— New Haven Paladium. 
California Fruit in New York. 
"This bringing of fruits across the continent is 
essentially an end of the century idea. The magni¬ 
tude of the enterprise is not imagined by the ordinary 
man. Notwithstanding the fact that the California 
crop is very late this year, and is less than half its 
normal size, nearly 10,000 packages of Peaches, 
Bartlett Pears, Prunes and Tragedy Plums reach 
New York every day from the Golden State. 
" Every night two special trains leave Sacramento 
at midnight for the fastest freight run ever planned 
in this country or any other. From Sacramento to 
Ogden, 900 miles, over roadbeds peculiar to the far, 
far west, is passed in forty-two hours ; thence over 
the Union Pacific to Chicago the 1400 mile journey 
is rattled off in eighty hours. The third stage of the 
route, from Chicago to New York, is about 1,000 
miles long, and is done in precisely thirty-six hours, 
making a total for the jaunt across the continent of 
158 hours, or six days and fourteen hours. Not very 
long ago that would have been phenomenal time for 
a passenger train to make. 
" The refrigerator cars which make up these trains 
have been especially designed for this remarkable 
traffic. Four thousand pounds of ice are packed 
about the ends and top of each one at Sacramento. 
This lasts until Chicago is reached, where the supply 
is quickly renewed. It is seldom seriously exhausted 
when the train pulls into New York. The longest 
train on record started for New York last week and 
consisted of twenty-seven cars. 
“ Mr. E. L. Goodcell, a young Yale man who has 
built up this enormous business alone, speaks with 
unbounded enthusiasm of its future. ' Within a few 
years,’ he says, ‘ the California average will be so 
large that the crop will be ample to supply the entire 
people of the United States.’ ”— New York Press. 
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. 
Notes on Peas. 
The season for Peas is now nearly over, in fact with 
the exception of private establishments we may say 
quite over. We are still gathering good dishes of 
Ne Plus Ultra, some from the late sowings made in 
the end of June and beginning of July, and others 
from the sowings that gave us good crops in July. 
These, if well watered and in fairly good soil, 
make a second growth, and give some very good 
dishes when Peas are useful and scarce. This is a 
good point in favour of Ne Plus Ultra. A new Pea 
which seems to be specially adapted for late sowing 
is Veitch’s Success, which was shown at the last 
meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society by Mr. 
Wythes, of Syon House, and was awarded a First- 
class Certificate. This is a long podded variety, 
very full of Peas of a dark green colour, and what is 
of most importance they are of good flavour, in fact 
the nearest approach to the flavour of Ne Plus 
Ultra of any new Pea I have seen this season. 
New Peas we have seen in plenty, with fine pods 
full of large green Peas, but I am sorry to say very 
few of them possess the flavour they must have 
if they are to supersede our old and well-tried varie¬ 
ties. One very good point in most of the new 
varieties is their dwarfness, one or two of the best I 
have seen being about 2J to 3 ft. in height ; this is a 
great point in many gardens where a lot of Peas are 
grown. The question of gettingPea sticks is a difficulty, 
but however short they may be they will never 
make a very large place for themselves in our gardens 
unless they possess the greatest of all points for home 
use, which is good flavour.— G. H. S. 
Pea Veitch’s Success. 
Ne Plus Ultra was one of the parents of this Pea, 
after which it takes, but the pods are longer, more 
curved, and the stems only 2 ft. to 3 ft. high, a fact 
of great importance, as it enables the grower to sow 
two or three lines of it, instead of one of Ne Plus 
Ultra, which grows 6 ft. to 8 ft. high. The new 
variety also, like the parent, continues growing and 
bearing in succession for a month at a time. The 
pod is long, narrow, flattened, of a dark glaucous 
green, and is well filled with six to eight seeds. It 
was sown early in June. A First-class Certificate 
was awarded it when shown by Mr. Geo. Wythes, 
Syon House, at a meeting of the Fruit Committee of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, on the 6th inst. 
-■-*»- 
THE HAMPTON COURT 
VINE. 
Although this octogenarian Vine is far from being 
the best or even largest of the giant Vines of the 
country, yet is it by reason of the fact that it is 
found at so popular a place of public resort as is 
Hampton Court, by far the best known. What is very 
easy to see however in relation to the old tree is that 
unless some very drastic form of treatment is devised 
it will soon become a mere curiosity, and be no 
longer a fruit producer. The bunches taken off this 
year perhaps averaged half a pound each, but of the 
berries one third seemed to be so red or shanked that 
the scissors had to be employed largely, and thus 
the bunches were reduced to almost contemptible 
dimensions. 
Practically as Grapes go they represented a 
sample of the market value of 6d. the pound. It is 
not generally known that the Vine and some of the 
surrounding gardens are under the control of Mr. 
Thomas, of the Royal Gardens, Frogmore, and 
presumably under the Board of Green Cloth, whilst 
all the public gardens arc under the Board of Works 
and the garden superinLendent. That is such a 
ridiculous arrangement that we are not surprised to 
learn it is proposed to place the Vine and entire 
gardens under Mr. Graham now. But the Vine will 
need some severe handling all the same, for the wood 
is a thicket of long gaunt main branches and thin 
pipy laterals. 
Dealing with the roots is out of the question, they 
are goodness knows where, perhaps feeding on 
Thames mud. The only course open seems to be to 
sacrifice the fruit crop for one year, to cut hard back 
or clean out the bulk of the branches and compel 
the Vine to form entirely new rods. That course 
would perhaps bring about material recuperation, and 
would add something to the life and usefulness of 
what is undoubtedly a very interesting old veteran. 
— A. D. 
