540 
rHE GARDENING WORLD. 
April 24, 1897. 
gonias in rose, pink, and white flowers suspended in 
baskets from the roof of the house were floriferous 
and gay. Very distinct was B. Paul Bruant, with 
short fleshy stems, large, lobed or divided leaves and 
pink flowers, produced in great abundance. The 
rose wings to the seed pods add not a little to the 
attraction of the medium sized flowers. Sibthorpia 
europaea variegata is now getting better known as 
gardeners come to understand the treatment under 
which it thrives. A cool Orchid house with a moist 
atmosphere is the best place for it. S. e. aurea with 
uniformly yellow leaves succeeds equally well under 
the same conditions and grows freely. A distinct 
looking marsh plant is Scirpus Holoschaenus varie- 
gatus with slender leaves, wholly green or wholly 
white, or occasionally barred transversely, zebra- 
fashion. The Australian Pitcher plant (Cephalotus 
follicularis) is easily kept moist in the same house, 
the atmosphere being congenial to it. Lomatia 
lilifolia is a shrubby New Holland plant with very 
finely divided leaves, and is useful for greenhouse 
decoration. 
The conservatory was gay with a great variety of 
plants, independently of the Clivias. Both hard 
and soft-wooded subjects are cared for; and certainly 
they associate well together when not too densely 
crowded. Small plants of Acacia riceana, with 
gracefully drooping spray, were profusely flowered. 
Rhododendron Countess of Haddington still main¬ 
tains its reputation as a showy and suitable subject 
for greenhouse decoration. Profusely flowered 
Heaths have kept up a display for weeks together. 
Erica hyemalis superba is a showy Heath with 
flowers about twice the size of the type, but 
similarly coloured. The prettiest of all the dwarf 
heaths is E. ventricosa coccinea minor, with red- 
tipped flowers. E. wilmoreana and E. spenceriana, 
both having pinkish lilac flowers are useful and 
ornamental at this season of the year. They are 
compact in habit and easily managed Heaths. 
Amongst fine foliaged plants Crotons and Palms are 
grown in abundance. A collection of Bertolcnias 
is always interesting on acoount of the rich colour, 
variegation and spotting of the leaves. Numerous 
varieties occupy a frame in one of the stoves of the 
Stanstead Park Nursery. They were just com¬ 
mencing to put on fresh growth when we saw them. 
Another pretty plant always grown in some quantity 
here is Saxifraga sarmentosa tricolor superba, the 
red, creamy, and green leaves of which are ever¬ 
green. 
Out of doors the hardy herbaceous and Alpine 
plants were just commencing their long season of 
flowering. Always interestesting and pretty are 
Saxifraga burseriana major, S. luteo-purpurea with 
yellow flowers, S. sancta, and others. Pretty also 
were Sisyrhinchium grandiflorum, with purple, and 
S. g. album, with white flowers. Both are hardy 
and valuable border plants. 
-**•- 
GOOD KEEPING ONIONS. 
It may be just worth asking cultivators wbat their 
experience is as to the keeping properties of the 
modern introduced strains of Onions. I am refering 
to how they find them keep from February onward, 
as this is the period when they become scarce, and 
as the autumn sown ones are not large enough for 
use. I find there is considerable difficulty in keep¬ 
ing many of the quick swelling kinds after 
February. 
Some of the old strains or types that were in 
cultivation from twenty to thirty years ago were 
superior to them from a keeping point of view; and 
I often wish I knew where to obtain a true stock of 
that grand variety, James’ Long Keeping. I have 
had this from several seed houses, only to find it 
was not to be compared to the stock I used to see 
grown in several gardens thirty years ago. If my 
memory serves me correctly, this kind was somewhat 
tender compared to many kinds ; but nevertheless it 
was a grand variety. 
I have observed that kinds with a brown skin are 
better keeping than when otherwise. In point of 
fact I have bulbs from a seleciion I made some few 
years ago that have kept from the crop harvested in 
September, 1895. They kept sound enough for me 
to use them as object lessons, in lecturing for 
technical education, for eighteen months after being 
pulled up. 
A good stock of Newnham Park is hard to beat 
now. I know a garden in Norfolk where the gardener 
has saved his own, ever since the original stock was 
sent out. He kept selecting the best every year, and 
I have never seen such a pure stock of a grand 
Onion as I often witness in this garden when I visit 
it. No other kind is saved, nor has been during that 
time.— J. C., Chard. 
--e--- 
ARTIFICIAL MANURES. 
Mr. J. J. Willis, of Harpenden, is such a well 
known authority upon the question of artificial 
manures that it was not at all wonderful that despite 
counter attractions he secured a large and apprecia¬ 
tive audience at the Drill Hall on Tuesday, 13th, 
when he gave a long and exhaustive lecture upon 
this subject. Mr. J. Pearson, Chilwell, Notts, pre¬ 
sided. It is a thousand pities that the end of the 
Drill Hall where the papers are read is not better 
adapted to the purpose, for a lecturer had need to be 
possessed of a stout pair of lungs, and must not be 
afraid of using them if he is to be heard very far 
from the table. 
In his earlier remarks Mr. Willis laid stress upon 
the fact that plants have their respective wants with 
regard to food. These wants vary very much with 
the class of crops. Thus such succulent plants as 
vegetables had chiefly need of nitrogen, fruit trees, 
again, required plenty of potash, and so on. The 
lecturer averred that there was a great future in 
store for horticulture, as for agriculture, if 
practitioners of both would study the composition of 
manures and find out which of them best supplied 
the needs of their plants. 
The lecture was illustrated throughout by 
diagrams setting forth the composition of various 
plants, and showing what the requirements were. A 
ton weight of each of the type plants was taken. 
The component parts of the substance of a ton were 
expressed under five columns—dry substance, 
nitrogen, and ash, the last named being subdivided 
into potash and phosphoric acid. Mr. Willis went 
through this mass of data in a very thorough and 
painstaking manner. 
In order to keep up and, if necessary, improve the 
fertility of a soil it was necessary to put back double 
the amount of any element that was taken from it, 
as for a crop to do well there must be plenty of 
plant food at hand for use. The Strawberry was 
adduced as a good instance of a case where a lot of 
food had to be taken from the soil in a very limited 
period, for there was not very long between the 
flowering of the Strawberry and the ripening of the 
fruit. This was doubtless the reason for the Straw¬ 
berry being looked upon as a very exhausting crop, 
although reference to the figures on the diagram did 
not appear to bear this out. As an aid to keeping 
up the fertility of the soil all unsaleable portions 
should be returned to it. 
Potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen, con¬ 
tinued Mr. Willis, were the most important con¬ 
stituents of plant food, and fertile soils must possess 
large stores of them. Good farmyard manure was 
looked upon with great favour in most quarters, and 
experiment showed that it v:as rich in potash and 
phosphoric acid. He should, therefore, recommend 
its use, but in conjunction with chemical manures 
when a better result would be obtained than if it 
were used alone. In passing, he remarked upon the 
Grape as being a great producer of sugar for which 
plentiful supplies of nitrogen were necessary. 
Nitrogen and potash were more important here than 
phosphoric acid. He had been told by a large 
Grape grower in Jersey that sulphate of ammonia 
had with him yielded the most satisfactory results. 
Mr. Willis then referred his audience to a table 
wherein were displayed the relative values of various 
manures in the important plant food constituents. 
As with the other diagrams the lecturer trotted his 
audience through these explaining and amplifying as 
occasion offered. He commented upon guano as 
being a very favourite manure, which opinion was 
a true one if, and here Mr. Willis spoke with great 
emphasis, people would only buy good brands. 
There was a vast amount of adulteration and some 
of the forms of guano offered to the public weie 
absolutely worthless, the important food constituents 
having been replaced by lime or sand or both. In 
one that was specially bad, over 75 per cent, of the 
whole bulk consisted of sand. One-and-a-half tons 
of good guano were equal in nutritive value to 33J 
tons of good farmyard manure. 
Phosphatic manures in their turn were described 
as of the greatest value. Included in this section 
were such forms as bone meal, bone ash, basic slag, 
and superphosphate of lime, all of these being 
admirable. 
In conclusion Mr. Willis assured his audience that 
manuring meant something more than merely 
putting large quantities of farmyard manure into the 
soil. A superabundance of organic material was 
to be avoided as it too often afforded a congenial 
breeding ground for multitudes of injurious insects. 
HEXTABLE’S VICTORIA VINES. 
The Donor's Thanks. 
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s private 
Secretary (Sir Francis Knollys) on January 13th last, 
wrote the donor that the Prince thought the donor's 
idea an excellent one, and that he felt sure the Vines 
could not fail to be much appreciated by the 
inhabitants. The following interesting particulars 
will shew that His Royal Highness's anticipation 
has been fully verified. The sixty Vines were 
received by the following classes of persons, viz.: 
Three widows, six orphans, eight gardeners, seven 
labourers, five carpenters, three grocers, two brick¬ 
layers, two dairymen, two nurserymen ; and one each 
of the following : Assistant-engineer, baker, basket 
maker, blacksmith, builder, butcher, clerk in holy 
orders, cowman, factory hand, farmer, fly driver, 
fly proprietor, hairdresser, house agent, naval officer, 
photographic artist, platelayer, plumber, publican, 
rate collector, and tin-plate worker. The lengths of 
their residence in the neighbourhood are as follows : 
Five years and under, 10 ; over five years and under 
ten, 31; over ten years and under 20, 13 ; over 20 
and under 30, 2 ; upwards of 50 years, 4 ; total 60. 
Their places of residence were as under:—42 in 
Hextable, 16 in Swanley, two in Swanley Junction, 
total 60. The recipients have now only to devote 
themselves assiduously to the cultivation of the 
Vines, and to signify the earliest possible date when 
they are ready to compete for the four annual prizes 
of £1, 15s., ios., and 5s. to the four cottagers whose 
Vines produce the heaviest amount of ripe fruit. 
The donor wishes to take this opportunity, 
through our columns, of conveying his heartiest 
thanks to all who have united in making the move¬ 
ment so great a success, viz., the committee of the 
Home for Orphans, the secretary, the principal, and, 
although last, not by any means least, the Press, who 
have entered so heartily into the matter, and have 
given the same such generous publicity and support. 
—--*•- 
CONQUERING THE AUSTRALIAN 
DRY COUNTRY. 
A glance at the map of New South Wales will show 
nearly the whole of the north-western portion of the 
Colony, representing an area of several thousand 
square miles, to be a huge blank, traversed in some 
half-dozen placer, by roads used for stock-travelling 
purposes, with a few small townships situated 
many miles apart. This is the famous "dry 
country," part of the eastern fringe of the Australian 
arid interior, and occupied exclusively for pastoral 
purposes. One may travel for days through this 
part of the Colony without meeting a living being, 
and the absence of creeks and water-holes makes the 
journey dangerous to those who have no bush experi¬ 
ence. To offer such land for agricultural settlement 
is very much like asking a hungry man to accept 
stones for bread. True, the soil possesses all the 
elements of fertility, except moisture, without which 
cultivation is practically impossible. There are no 
streams, and the annual rainfall is of the slightest. 
Yet there exists the possibility of a large portion of 
this sterile region becoming in the near future a rich 
agricultural district, it having been ascertained that 
in many places there exist vast and apparently inex¬ 
haustible underground supplies of water, great sub¬ 
terranean rivers, which are supposed to become 
discharged into the sea unless intercepted by artesian 
bores in their course. But it was not until 1879 that 
artesian boring was attempted. In that year opera¬ 
tions were begun at Kallara, a station lying between 
Bourke and Wilcannia. The supply was tapped at 
a depth of 140 ft., and the effluent water rose to a 
height of 26 ft. 
In 18S4 the New South Wales Department of 
Mines put down its first bore in search of water, a 
