892 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
November 5, 1904. 
land, whose lines run through some of the rapidly developed 
fruit districts, had met the Department very fairly in offering 
facilities for the marketing of produce. It was too early to 
touch upon facilities offered by other companies, because the 
orchards situated along their lines had not yet reached a state 
of development for which very favourable terms could yet be 
offered in the way of special rates. He was sanguine, however, 
that the industry of fruit-growing was capable of raising the 
standard of living for' workmen. 
The chief question at the present time was what could be 
done to encourage farmers to undertake fruit-growing. Much 
advice had been given on the point, and the favourite recom¬ 
mendation was that the Department should fence and plant 
the cottage plots. He clearly pointed out, however, that the 
planting of trees was not the be-all and end-all of successful 
fruit culture. The owner of each plot must intelligently plant 
and carefully tend the trees 1 at all time® if he was to obtain a 
profitable crop. The problem was how to encourage tire owner 
to take a real, live interest in his own plantation. It was im¬ 
possible! for anyone to be successful even on the smallest scale 
for commercial purposes unless he possessed a certain degree of 
enthusiasm for this particular kind of work. 
An industry of this nature proved slow and uphill work, and 
it could only be done gradually. The Department, in order 
to promote the welfare of the industry among farmers and 
cottagers, had been giving instruction through the county com¬ 
mittees working in, conjunction with the Department. The 
first concern of the latter was to provide instruction and train¬ 
ing, and for this purpose they had been educating a large 
number of Irish teachers, who should in turn impart, instruction 
to the cultivators at various centres throughout the country. 
A number of these horticultural teachers liad already been 
trained at the Albert Agricultural College, Glasnevin, which 
has now been established for some tune as a horticultural 
school. Rapid progress!, he said, could not be expected until 
thesci teachers had gained experience and increased in numbers 
so as to make their efforts felt at a large number of centres 
throughout Ireland. 
At-this point he divulged a scheme which they had for 
encouraging horticultural education and the training of in¬ 
structors. The Department' and county committees had several 
schemes in hand, but one of these was a system of prizes for 
those who have the greatest success in teaching horticultural 
instructors. Prizes were also to be offered for best fruit and 
vegetable garden amongst the small holdings. 
At this point, he stated that the Department had called 
together the conference for the purpose of eliciting the best 
advice upon the best methods of commercial fruit-growing, 
which would have its markets in Great Britain and Ireland. 
During the first year’s operations of the Department experts 
were sent to the north of Ireland to see what had been, done by 
the very successful farmers in that region. This referred to' the 
enterprise of fruit-growing as conducted by the fanners n 
•several parts of Ulster. The soil and climate were not the best 
in Ireland, nevertheless the northern fanners had succeeded in 
building up a fruit-growing industry of considerable import¬ 
ance. While it bore testimony to 'their perseverance, it' also 
presented an object-lesson to the rest of the country. With 
such evidence before their eyes, the Department were en¬ 
couraged to make a, considerable effort in stirring up the 
farmers in other districts of Ireland, and thereby profit by the' 
lesson offered by their 1 northern neighbours. 
In order to give some idea of the extent toi which the industry 
had been brought within quite recent times in the north of 
Ireland, he mentioned the station of Annaghmore, oo. Armagh, 
which in 1898 sent away Strawberries to the extent of 100 toms. 
In 1904 this had risen to 700 tons’. In order to realise the 
value of this, lie thought a fair average return; might be cal¬ 
culated at =£20 a. ton, so that the 700 tons made a sum of 
£14,000 realised by the farmers in the neighbourhood of that 
station alone for one class of fruit. 
Turning to Pear growing, he thought this a, lost art in Ire¬ 
land, and he amused them by saying that he remembered when 
a schoolboy he thought that Irish Pears were not worth steal¬ 
ing. Strawberries were one of the most important crops, as he 
had just indicated. Raspberries are largely grown in the 
vicinity of Drogheda, and consumed in fair quantity in the 
Dublin and Belfast markets. From those towns considerable 
quantities were also shipped to Liverpool and Glasgow. Black 
Currants had been one of the most profitable of small fruits in 
Ireland during the past three years, owing to the fact that the 
Currant mite had been very destructive in Britain, and high 
prices were therefore obtained for the Irish product- 
The central and vital factor in the case, he considered, was 
the preparation of the Irish produce for the market and the 
most economical methods of distribution. Upon making in¬ 
quiries in the British markets, it was 1 found that Irish fruit 
was of excellent quality, but It was not consigned in a. form that 
would admit of rapid and cheap distribution while it was still 
fresh. In plainer language, it was not well graded nor well 
packed, so that, it would mean a great advantage to the industry 
if the Irish, ini connection with the fruit industries, would give 
the subject of grading and packing the very earliest and best 
attention. He said, if he were a benevolent despot, he would 
rather compel Irish producers to prepare their products in a 
proper manner for transmission to market than compel rail¬ 
ways to lower the rates upon consignments! of fruits that had 
been carelessly and injudiciously tumbled upon the railway 
platform by people thinking it would appear all right ait the 
other end of the journey. 
Another- method of assisting the industry was the establish¬ 
ment. of preserving factories at Portadown and Drogheda. In 
these, the Department bad been encouraging them to preserve 
fruits, dry vegetables, and make cider. The experiments were 
not yet complete, but they had gone sufficiently far to en¬ 
courage the Department to seriously consider liow they could 
reorganise the fruit trade as a whole. 
Sweet Peas Dainty and King Edward VII. 
(See Supplement.) 
During the past few years a great endeavour has been made 
to improve the crimson types of Sweet Peas and secure a true 
scarlet variety. There are now several very tine crimsons, 
the latest addition to which was King Edward VII. The 
Hewers from which our supplement was prepared were pro¬ 
duced about the end of August, which is rather late to get 
Sweet Peas in best form in the south of England. Neverthe¬ 
less, the: light was still fairly good, so that although the flowers 
were rather under their usual size the colour left little to be 
desired. The form of the flowers was, however, somewhat 
spoiled by being earned through the post in a box. With, 
these indications, however, we may say that the illustration 
represents both of the varieties in their general aspect. The 
flowers of King Edward VII. are of very largei size, and of a 
rich, almost, uniform, crimson. The wings are represented as 
being lighter in colour in some cases, but this is merely the 
accident of sunlight shining upon them while they were being 
photographed. It is now more than a year since we first saw 
this variety, but since it made its debut at the annual show of 
the Sweet Pea, Society at Earl’s Court, it has been, largely taken 
up bj other cultivators, and judging from the number of times 
we bave seen it, it is very constant under different conditions 
as to cultivation, both in the matter of foam and colour. 
The light variety which we represent on the left is not, white, 
as' the camera would represent it to be, although veiy nearly 
so. It is a Picotee-edged form well named Dainty, and it is 
certamly the daintiest of all the Picoteet-edged varieties in our 
estimation. The ground colour of the flower is creamy-white, 
and the standard is tinted with pale rosy-pink on the back. 
Tbisi same colour forms an edging to' the face of the standard 
as well a,s the wings 1 . The lattea* are, however, considerably 
paler than the standard, and the edging in some cases’ is rather 
faint, but nevertheless taken together the edging is as clear 
and even better defined than in most of the Picotee-edged 
varieties we already have. The above two varieties were 
