June 3, 1893. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
625 
Smithsonian Institution offers the following prizes 
to be awarded on or after July 1894 :—1. A prize of 
$xo,ooo for a treatise embodying some new and im¬ 
portant discovery in regard to the nature or proper¬ 
ties of atmospheric air. 2. A prize of $2,000 for an 
essay upon (a) The known properties of atmospheric 
air considered in their relationships to research in 
every department of natural science, and the impor¬ 
tance of a study of the atmosphere considered in 
view ot these relationships, (b) The proper direction 
of future research in connection with the imper¬ 
fections of our knowledge of atmospheric air, and of 
the connections of that knowledge with other 
sciences. 3. A prize of $1,000 for a popular treatise 
upon atmospheric air, its properties and relationships 
(including those to hygiene, physical, and mental). 
The Forests cf Macedonia. —The French Consul at 
Salonica, in a recent report, says that the forests of 
Macedonia are of great importance, by reason of 
their extent, and the variety of the woods, and 
although the felling of the trees increases from day 
to day to such an extent that the districts of the 
littoral will soon be completely denuded, the area 
under forests in Macedonia is still very considerable. 
It is estimated at about 200,000 hectares (hectare = 
2 47 acres) in the sandjak of Salonica, 140,000 hec¬ 
tares in Monastir, and 200,000 hectares in Kossovo, 
and this immense extent of forest-land, which might 
prove a source of great wealth to the country, is 
allowed to remain practically unworked. The State 
owns three-quarters of the forest area, the remainder 
belonging to the various communes and to private 
persons. It is only those districts which are situated 
near the sea and the railway from Salonica 
to Mitrovitza, that are at all utilised, and 
these furnish planks, timber for building purposes, 
railway sleepers, and particularly charcoal.— Society 
of Arts Journal. 
Leaves and their Functions. — At the Royal Botanic 
Society’s Gardens, on the 27th ult., Professor S. H. 
Vines, of Oxford University, gave the first of a 
course of three lectures on " Leaves and their 
Functions.” Taking the ordinary green foliage leaf 
as a type, he gave a brief review of its work, and 
the means by which it was accomplished ; showing 
how, under the influence of sunlight, the leaf was 
able to change and combine the carbon it took from 
the air, and with the water drawn up from the soil 
to make a third substance from which it built up its 
tissues, carrying on a series of complex chemical 
changes, which no chemist in his laboratory could 
imitate, by means of the chlorophyll or green 
colouring matter contained in its cells. This sub¬ 
stance, though so abundant in nature, had hitherto 
defied all the efforts made to isolate it; all that was 
known for certain about it was that, desolved in a 
solution of alcohol, it had the power to absorb certain 
light rays of the spectrum, and it was by virtue of 
that property, possessed by the living chlorophyll in 
the leaves, that plants were enabled to develope the 
energy necessary for their work. 
- - i — —- 
THE NEW ROSE. 
The new Rose, Turner’s Crimson Rambler, which 
has been shown so grandly this season, and which 
proves to be one of the very finest garden plants that 
has been introduced for some years, was last week 
awarded a Gold Medal at the Paris Exhibition of 
the Royal Botanical and Horticultural Society of 
France. It is a wonderfully free grower, branches 
most freely, and bears a marvellous profusion of 
dense red, semi-double blossoms, which remind one 
much of the old monthly Rose, but it is quite distinct, 
and belongs to the Polyantha section. 
It was brought home a few years ago from Japan 
by the engineer of a trading vessel, and passed into 
the hands of a gentleman at Edinburgh, Mr. Jenner, 
who subsequently parted with to Mr. John T. 
Gilbert, Anemone Nurseries, Djke, Bourne, who 
named it The Engineer, and received an Award of 
Merit for it at the Drill Hall, on July 8th, 1890. It 
was then regarded with much favour by all who saw 
it, but not until this season have we learnt what a 
grand plant it is, Mr. Turner having acquired the 
stock, and proved it to some purpose in the fine Rose 
soil at Slough. We do not often get a Rose that 
every grower will want, but this is one of them, and 
our friends at Slough will be busy with it next 
autumn, when it is to be sent out. 
REGULATIONS AT THE 
TEMPLE SHOW. 
I should like to trespass on your space briefly to 
comment on the unfortunate arrangements made 
with respect to exhibitors’ assistants at the recent 
Temple Show. Of course all is over now, and it is 
no use crying over spilt milk, but it is of use to 
endeavour to prevent any similar annoyance being 
repeated. The council should realise—and with some 
exhibitors on that body it is all the more a surprise 
it was not fully realised—-that to place obstacles in 
the way of the comfort and convenience of the 
assistants is to wound the exhibitor in his tenderest 
part. Here were pass tickets issued with a con¬ 
dition printed upon them in small type (so that few 
noticed it until too late) that they were not available 
between 1 o’clock and 6 o’clock each day. Not 
possible was it for these people to go outside for 
needful refreshments, for a wash, for any purpose in 
fact, unless they could return before 1 o’clock, and 
then they discovered the conditions too late, and 
were shut out in large numbers, so that they could 
not attend to their duties. This was a cruel 
disappointment, and created the deepest dissatisfac¬ 
tion. 
I am sure the Editor of the Gardening World 
will not refuse room for this complaint, because it 
was so needlessly provoked. It is explained that the 
privilege of the passes thus granted has been abused. 
That should be first proved, and if it be found so, 
then it could easily have been met by having a pass- 
card from which one portion on the first day could 
have been torn, and on the second it could 
have been given up. But have exhibitors’ assistants 
been one-half so criminal in their uses of passes as 
fellows have been of their cards ? To cl p their wings 
was right enough. The exhibitors and assistants, on 
the other hand, merit the fullest consideration. 
Exhibitors make the show for the benefit of the 
Royal Horticultural Society at a heavy cost, and as 
no other reward is made them but passes, these 
should be given with no niggard hand, and if so 
granted, would greatly help to make all things 
pleasant.— Hortulanus. 
The new firebrand rule of the R H.S. with regard 
to the admission tickets caused great inconvenience 
at last week’s Temple Show and was the source of 
much comment, and even bad feeling, among the ex¬ 
hibitors and their assistants towards its framers. 
Those having exhibitors’ tickets would have been 
about as well off without them as they debarred the 
holder from entering the grounds each day from 1 to 
6 p.m. After this I was not quite astonished to 
learn that a good many assistants had only one 
breakfast ticket supplied between two of them. This, 
also, is a very magnanimous arrangement and will, no 
doubt, command the entire approbation of all the 
hungry youths (our future gardeners, remember) who 
worked hard from very early in the morning of the 
first day till 11 o'clock or 11.30, clearing out time. I 
went cut on the second day to have some dinner and 
dispatch a telegram, and on returning about 2.30 had 
to pay a shilling as my exhibitor’s ticket was of no use. 
I thought my shilling valour cheaper than run the 
gauntlet of an unseemly squabble with gatekeepers 
and policemen doing their duty. What did you say ? 
Why didn't I send out the telegram and dine at "The 
Stores ” in the grounds ? Yes, my dear Sir, I dined 
—save the name—in the tent on the opening day, and 
paid 5s. 4d. for two of the most elegantly refined cuts 
of cold lamb I ever saw, but doubtless this delicacy 
would have been more highly appreciated by those 
who prefer to feed from very near the bone The 
above charge included two slices of bread and a cup 
of coffee—no toothpick. No, Sir, store prices and no 
toothpick I could not stand twice.— An Exhibitor's 
Assistant. 
May I be allowed a few lines in your columns for a 
growl about the mean, shabby way in which the 
exhibitors' assistants were treated by the Council of 
the Royal Horticultural Society last week at the 
Temple Show. It was so bad that it ought to be 
made public in order to prevent a repetition. My 
master, who sent a group, has a bone to pick with 
them, too, for the scurvy manner in which admission 
tickets were doled out to him, and vows he will not 
be served so shabbily again, but will give the 
society’s shows a wide berth in future. But he is 
able to take care of himself, and his troubles are not 
mine. But I do think the society should not have 
treated us assistants so badly. It would not hav 
mattered if we had had any notice of what was coming, 
as then we should have been prepared. I was up 
nearly all the night before the show and very hard 
at work until late in the morning. I then got an 
admission ticket which 1 did not read at the time, 
and a breakfast ticket. Now for the breakfast, we 
had to go to a public house in a back street near the 
show and sign the ticket. Then came breakfast, 
and what a breakfast it was to offer a tired and 
hungry man, and some I heard could not get any at 
all! The society ought to be downright ashamed of 
it. Well, after a wash and a rest for a time, I went 
back and found out only at the gate that being after 
one o’clock I could not enter the grounds again until 
six o’clock unless I p^id five shillings. Why, sir, 
that is a third of my week’s wages ! The conse¬ 
quence was that I had to walk the streets and kill 
time as best I could. Others besides me had to do 
the same, and if the reverend gentleman, who is the 
secretary of the society, could only have heard 
some of the language that was used, he would offer 
up a special prayer next Sunday for the good of all 
our souls. We could not understand, with such old 
showmen as Mr. Douglas, Mr. George Paul, and 
Mr. Bunyard on the council, how they could have 
the cheek to treat the exhibitors’ assistants so badly, 
and I do hope you will show them up. Anyhow, it 
was my first visit to any of the society’s shows, and 
I hope I may get out of the nursery before another 
one comes along.— A Journeyman Gardener. 
[We, too, have a grievance over the manner in 
which the representatives of the horticultural Press 
were treated by the council, but it will keep for the 
present.—E d.] 
-*s«-- 
DEATH OF MR. BARLOW. 
,From John o' Groats to the Land's End, whereso¬ 
ever florists' flowers are loved and grown, the 
announcement that Mr. Samuel Barlow, that prince 
of florists and good fellows, passed away on Sunday 
morning at his residence, Stakehill, Castleton, will 
be received with feelings of the deepest sorrow; and 
the warmest sympathy of all, we are sure, will be 
felt for .Mrs. Barlow in her sad bereavement. Our 
dear old friend had the misfortune to fall down a 
flight of stairs at his warehouse in Manchester a few 
weeks ago, and from the serious injuries then sus¬ 
tained he has not been permitted to recover. More's 
the pity ! For floriculture can ill afford the loss of 
such an enthusiast, and the human race could better 
have spared a greater man. 
Samuel Barlow was the keenest lover of plants, 
especially of hardy plants and such as are generally 
included under the denomination of florists’ flowers, 
that we have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He 
may be said to have been reared in the cradle of the 
Lancashire botanists and florists, for his father was 
a botanist of great local reputation, who was asso¬ 
ciated with such well-known Lancashire men as 
Dewhurst, Hobson, Horsefield (of Daffodil renown), 
Crowther, Buxton, and Percival, the latter of whom 
still follows his botanical pursuits as keen as ever 
at Smithy Bridge, near Rochdale. Mr. Barlow’s 
father was manager of the bleaching and manufac¬ 
turing department for Messrs. Otho Hulme & Sons, 
at Medlock Vale, and had a large garden well 
stocked with plants; his mother was an adept at 
window gardening, and his grandfather and uncle 
Richard had also gardens at Pike Fold, near 
Blackley, so that it is no wonder the son, with such 
an environment, became a devoted gardener too. 
Thus, the pleasures of youth led up irresistibly to the 
joy and solace of mature age, and Mr. Barlow to the 
end found pleasure and relief from the cares and 
worries of business in the flowers so carefully tended 
for him by Mr. Pomeroy, one of the late Mr. 
Turner’s old proteges at Slough. 
Mr. Barlow was for many years, and up to the 
time of his decease, Managing Director of Samuel 
Barlow & Co„ Limited, dyers and bleachers, at 
Stakehill, near Castleton, a little hamlet on the out¬ 
skirts of Middleton, of which borough he was last 
November unanimously elected Mayor. Within a 
radius of some six or seven miles of Middleton some 
of the most famous of the florists of this century 
resided, and in his garden or under his hospitable 
roof these genial souls ever found the warmest of 
welcomes, and happy was the visitor who found 
himself at any of the numerous social gatherings 
which took place round Mr. Barlow's mahogany. 
