April 11, 1903. 
fHE Gardening World 
GENERAL NOTICES. 
^quately represented 1 m thfcolumns"^T he gIede^n^World. “ *" 10 adVaDCe “ P ° SSiWe 33 t0 date3 of meetings, shows, etc. We desire to do all in our power to have these 
Jy will thTebfnot onTobhge thfepaVT?but'the llrma Overusing in this paper, to mention that their advertisement was seen in The Gardening World. 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
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darcli 14.— NEW CHINESE PRIMULAS. 
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COOMBE CLIFFE GARDENS. 
tpnl 4th— COLEUS THYRSOIDEUS. 
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Hth the PRESENT ISSUE we present a 
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Views and Reviews. 
British-Grown Fruits and 
Vegetables. 
Hitherto the great fruit show of the Royal 
Horticultural Society has been held at the 
Crystal Palace, and the receipt of the 
schedule reminds us that they have in¬ 
augurated an innovation this year by adding 
a vegetable show to the fruits:. A more 
important factor in the case will be the hold¬ 
ing of it in the historical old gardens of the 
society at Chiswick. Since the National 
Apple Congress, held there on October 5th 
to 25th, 1883—and it was remarkably suc¬ 
cessful—several other large gatherings of an 
important character have been held with 
greater or less success. Those taking the 
form of exhibitions and , conferences on 
various topics and the period of the year at 
which they took place Were governed by the 
subject in hand, and the attendance of the 
public was more or less regulated by the 
popularity of the exhibits and the season of 
the year. 
The show of British-grown fruits and 
vegetables should be fairly comprehensive, 
and induce the Fellows to turn up in con¬ 
siderable numbers ; so we should expect that 
the general public would also, be interested 
in these things. It is many years since a 
good show of vegetables has been held, and 
whether they prove sufficiently novel to the 
general public remains to be seen; but they 
should at least draw a large number of 
Fellows and their gardeners, who may be 
interested in this particular branch of gar¬ 
dening. The show being held on the last 
two days of September and tbe 1st of October, 
one might fairly expect pleasant weather, 
without which a show held in tents would not 
be very agreeable. On the other hand, when 
shows are held at midsummer they may be, 
and have been, most decidedly disagreeable 
on account of the excessively hot weather, 
such as happened on the occasion of the Lily 
Conference, for instance, when it was most 
uncomfortable 1 , both under canvas and in the 
big vinery. 
The classes' for fruit are 1 very much the 
same as during the last two years, there 
being only a few alterations. The gardeners’ 
and amateurs’ classes for forty and twelve 
dishes have been reduced to one class of 
thirty, to be grown entirely in the open. 
I he big class for 48 ft. run of tabling, open 
only to. nurserymen, has been discarded, leav¬ 
ing the smaller classes as formerly. The 
numerous classes for single dishes of Apples 
and Pear's have not been reinstated, but left 
much the same as they were last year. 
The most important section in the 
schedule for vegetables is a division for large 
collections. Some of these classes are re¬ 
stricted to the trade, such as collections 1 not 
exceed 100 and 50 square ft. respectively. 
Smaller classes for amateurs are restricted 
to 50 and 24 square ft. respectively. In 
these large classes we may expect to see 
almost every vegetable cultivated in British 
gardens, but we calculate that such will be 
more interesting and educational to those 
who devote themselves to that form of gar¬ 
dening than attractive to the masses. Never¬ 
theless, the most important feature of such 
exhibitions should be decidedly of an educa¬ 
tional character. The classes for Potato® are 
not so numerous as we should have expected. 
An exhibition of this character should have 
provided the opportunity for a splendid 
display of the noble tuber. Only one class 
of eighteen varieties is open to the trade, and 
a collection of twelve for amateurs. Con¬ 
sidering the importance of Potato® and their 
universal cultivation, we think that twenty 
classes would not have been too many for 
this class of exhibit. 
Since the great Potato exhibitions at the 
Crystal Palace, long before the Royal Hor¬ 
ticultural Society took their fruit show there, 
scarcely a good Potato exhibition has been 
held in London, if we except those provided 
at Earl’s Court, in the early nineties. Few 
gardeners of the present day can, or, at least , 
do take the trouble to dress- up Potato® for an 
exhibition that will give them anything like 
an attractive character. During the past 
two decades finer exhibits of Potatos might 
have been seen any year at Edinburgh and 
Aberdeen than at London. Some of the 
finest, exhibits appearing at the London 
shows recently have ben tabled by northern 
