370 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
February 11, 1893. 
It can hardly be doubted that such an 
experiment will be watched with con¬ 
siderable interest. Probably had the sum 
in question been allotted under the usual 
arrangement we should have seen the 
prizes ranging from forty shillings to five 
shillings, leaving the usual great gaps. 
We are told that it is the large amount of 
the first prize which always attracts entries 
and encourages competition, which may 
be true, only, as there is but one first 
prize and, say, five exhibitors, four must fail 
to secure it, and some must come off with 
very small amounts. Under the arrange¬ 
ment of awards as will be found in the case 
quoted instead of one competitor getting 
forty .'•hillings and one five shillings, their 
respective collections being after all not far 
apart in point of merit, the prizes may be 
apportioned in this way—the highest may 
be twenty-five shillings and the lowest 
fifteen shillings, the others being appor¬ 
tioned according to value. 
In that way every exhibitor will secure 
not amounts that have been arbitrarily 
determined, but sums that exactly repre¬ 
sent the actual worth of his exhibits. The 
universal adoption of the plan would be 
little less than a revolution it is true, but at 
least every society might have one class on 
this basis for trial. 
he Gardeners’ Orphan Fund.— The 
election of candidates to the benefits 
of this fund for the present year is now 
over, and our readers will find a report of 
the proceedings in another column. We 
cannot help drawing attention to the 
exceeding interest taken in the election 
this year, and if our readers will but com¬ 
pare the numbers of votes given to candi¬ 
dates last week with those of last year they 
will be struck with the extraordinary 
increase. The high figures obtained by 
the successful candidates indicate very 
much the amount of energy put forth by 
friends to secure these results. It is chiefly 
to these great exertions that the number of 
votes recorded was so large. 
It is true the committee’sreport mentions 
a small falling off in the amount of annual 
subscriptions, but the number of subscribers 
voting this year was unprecedented. We 
should like to see a corresponding degree 
of interest shown by those who being 
gardeners or horticulturists of some sort, 
are the very persons whose orphan children, 
or those of relatives, may' some day 
be only too pleased to benefit from the 
fund. Whilst to all who co-operate so 
heartily and so disinterested'}? to make the 
fund prosperous all honour and thanks are 
due, very specially so are they due to the 
chairman of the committee, Mr. Marshall, 
who is most earnest and untiring in his 
efforts, and far from least to Mr. Barron 
whose labours, given with the most un¬ 
selfish aims, are so great that only those 
fully intimate with them realise how 
meritorious they are. 
•Tf Gardeners’ Bureau. — We adopt 
here the name for labour exchanges 
now so plentiful in France, and which may 
in good time, although we copy slowly in 
this country, be plentiful with us. It is 
but needful just now to look over the 
published lists of applications for places as 
gardeners, or other garden workers, and we 
cannot fail to note that those needing places 
are in the largest majority. The same 
thing is but too evident all the year round. 
It may be that advertising is the best 
method at present devised of making a 
gardener’s wants known, but to many it is 
very? costly, and productive of great dis¬ 
appointment. The hope deferred arising 
from our present cumbrous methods of 
filling or finding situations has broken 
many a good man’s heart. The luck has, in 
spite of all his efforts and expenditure, 
utterly failed him. 
We welcome heartily the intention 
exhibited on the part of some gardeners’ 
associations to combine with their usual 
operations the very important one of 
making them, in a limited sense, labour 
exchanges. It may? be possible for 
members out of employ to learn of vacant 
places through the aid of m me fortunate 
members, and if the secretary be made the 
medium of communication, he could always 
be informed of openings, and thus put 
applicants on to their track. But any 
organisation which would merit the appella¬ 
tion of a gardener’s bureau, must be of 
a national character, with its centre in 
London, and branches in all the leading 
towns. How it should be formed is a 
matter for consideration, but we have 
ample examples in France, and other trades 
in this country can show us excellent leads. 
We have no bias or prejudice in the 
matter, but do most earnestly desire to 
see any form of organisation introduced 
which shall enable any gardener once he 
is lacking w?ork to find some again as 
speedily as possible. In many cases it is 
not the man who is best fitted, but he who 
is most fortunate, who gets the place. A 
gardeners’ labour exchange might do much 
to amend these defects. 
un flowers.— Wasthat distinguished and 
able astronomer, Sir Robert Ball, but 
indulging in a little joke at the expense of 
the poets when he was the other day 
lecturing to the children at the Royal 
Institution. He remarked that talking of 
the sun naturally led to the Sunflower; and 
to the assertion of the poi ts that the flowers 
followed the sun in its diurnal course, and 
returned to its eastward position during the 
night in preparation for the succeeding 
day’s journey 7 . 
An Arctic explorer, desirous of seeing 
how the Sunflower would act during the 
very short summer in Arctic regions, when 
the sun was above the horizon the entire 
twenty-four hours, sowed seed which 
rapidly grew, and when the plants flowered 
it was found that the blooms, having no 
night through which to return to their 
morning’s position, kept on turning with 
the sun until finally the stems, unable to 
endure such continuous twisting, snapped 
off. There is nothing like ridicule to kill 
nonsense, and pretty as is the poet’s con¬ 
ception it could not long out-last the fun of 
the Arctic story. But there is some truth 
in the idea all the same, as indeed it is so 
in reference to the habit of many flowers 
which are naturally attracted to the sun, so 
that the finest show of flowers may always 
be seen on the south side of the plants. 
Without doubt we have in the motions 
of plants very much that is curious and 
interesting, the mechanical action of the 
sensitive plant, or of the Sundew, the 
midnight flowering of the Cereus, the odd 
evolution of perfume by the night-scented 
Stock, these are but a few of many strange 
and indeed almost unaccountable acts of 
plants that may well command the atten¬ 
tion of the acute observer. Jt will be long 
ere the field of inquiry which Darwin com¬ 
menced will be entirely exhausted, if indeed 
it can be. 
-- 
Glamis. — We understand that it is most probable 
Mr. Whitton's successor at Glamis Castle will be 
one of his old foremen. 
The Windsor, Eton and District Chrysanthemum 
Society's second annual exhibition will be held at the 
Albert Institute, Windsor, on Friday, Nov. loth. 
Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution —We have 
great pleasure in announcing that the Baron 
Schroder has kindly consented to preside at the 54th 
annual festival dinner, at the Hotel Metropole, on 
the 22nd of June next, in aid of the funds of the 
Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution. 
Mr. T. B. Dolby, gardener and florist, Skirbeck, 
recently fell off Peterborough G.X.R. platform, and 
sustained rather serious injuries, breaking one arm, 
besides being very much bruised and shaken. Mr. 
Dolby is going on well towards recovery. 
Tue Widcombe Institute Horticultural Club.—At 
the annual meeting of this growing institution held 
last week, the secretary, air. Moger, was presented 
with a barometer, as a slight recognition of his 
energy and ability as organising secretary of the 
institute. 
Pansy Societies.—The Midland Counties Society 
has issued its schedule, a very liberal one indeed, 
for the next exhibition to be held at Tamworth at 
the end of May, and, if the season should suit, it 
ought to be a great national gathering of Pansy 
growers and blooms. The New London Pansy 
Society has also issued its first schedule, a very 
liberal one for a young society, and as it is under the 
wing of the Royal Horticultural Society, it should 
go ahead. There are 28 classes for Pansies and 
Violas, and for the first time, these flowers will be 
s een on an extensive scale in London. 
Bulbous Irises.—We quote the following from a 
circular recently issued from the office of the Royal 
Horticultural Society :—" About the end of March 
next, the society will publish a very important work 
entitled, 1 A Handbook of Bulbous Irises,’ by Prof. 
Michael Foster, Secretary, R.S., F.R.FI.S., See. The 
volume, which will be in octavo form, will contain 
an exhaustive treatise on ' Bulbous Irises,’ besides 
which will be given a systematic synopsis of almost 
every known species, with full descriptions and 
notes as to peculiarities, time of flowering, native 
habitats, &c.” 
Tomatos and Cancer.—There is a very prevalent 
idea that eating Tomatos is an exciting cause of 
cancer, and it is stated that for the last two years the 
Cancer Hospital at Brompton has been so inundated 
with letters on this subject that the Medical Com¬ 
mittee have thought it necessary to announce that 
Tomatos neither predispose to, nor excite, cancer 
formation ; also that they are not injurious to those 
suffering from this disease, but, on the contrary, are 
a very wholesome article of diet, particularly so if 
cooked. 
Unskilled Gardeners have been the subject of some 
recent correspondence in a Dundee paper, and one 
of the writers thus expresses himself :—I think it is 
about time that something was done towards gar¬ 
dener's protecting themselves, as at the present time 
time there are hundreds of men occupying journey¬ 
men’s places who have never served an apprentice¬ 
ship. But we gardeners are about the slowest 
moving body of men in existence. You will not see 
one who is not ready to admit that our profession is 
being ruined,bu t you cannot get them to stir themselves 
and form a Union to try and protect themselves. 
You cannot expect any good to come of talking about 
it, but waken up—we have imitated " Rip Van 
Winkle ” long enough now—and do not allow a pro¬ 
fession so respectable as ours to be fooled about any 
longer. 
Germinative Power of Beet Seed.—Mons. G. Marck, 
in hi.s work, Natnrawissenschaftl Pundschau, gives the 
results of the researches which he commenced in 
1885 with respect to the duration of the germinative 
powers in the seed of Beet. He has grown ninety 
samples of various ages from one to eleven years, 
each trial being made twice in capsules filled with 
sand. The samples came partly from the best 
known French and German houses, and were partly 
selected by the author himself. The temperature 
was from 13 0 to 19 0 Reaumur, and that of the sand 
from 12 0 to 15J 0 , the experiments extending over 
fourteen days. The results, says Mons. Marck, 
show that up to the age of five years the seed varies 
very little in germinative power, but in six or seven 
years it diminishes in the proportion of 3 to 5 per 
cent.; in the eighth year the loss rises to 25 per cent., 
and in the tenth to 40 per cent.; so it seems probable 
that after this period the germinative power falls so 
rapidly as to cause the seed to be of little or no use.—- 
Mark Lane Express. 
