April 22, 1905. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
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EDITORIAL NOTES. 
Forestry in Natal. 
It seems that the authorities in South 
Africa are taking care to protect the native 
forests of the country so that the timber may 
not be wantonly destroyed, but reach a use¬ 
ful size. The report of the 'Conservator of 
Forests of Natal for the past year, issued 
from Pietermaritzburg, gives useful informa¬ 
tion to all concerned in the matter of timber, 
but particularly to those whose adopted home 
is South Africa. Amongst the native forests 
fifty-two kinds of trees have been reserved, 
the small number being accounted for by the 
neglect of the smaller and more useless kinds. 
We presume the cutting of useless kinds will 
be done under supervision. The Rubber Vine 
is included amongst the trees simply with a 
view to the protection of rubber. The 
Yellow Wood (Podocarpus Thunbergii) has 
been found very useful for railway sleepers. 
It is a Conifer, and Natal is now only follow¬ 
ing the precedent of Cape Colony, which has 
been using about 100,000 of these sleepers 
annually for many years past. An Arbore¬ 
tum has been planted with single specimens 
of all valuable trees and shrubs, numbering 
about 400 specie's, and space is retained for 
planting others as they come to hand. The 
larger trees are planted at 50 ft. apart. We 
should imagine that these solitary specimens 
of a kind would only be useful as samples for 
botanical study, as many accidents may hap¬ 
pen to a single tree preventing it from ever 
reaching a useful size as a timber tree. This 
large number is not by any means confined 
to native trees. Amongst the number listed 
is a large number of species of Eucalyptus, 
and it is the intention to increase the number 
of these Gum trees when obtainable. It 
seems, however, that in the two arboreta 
trees are grown for ornamental effect clad 
throughout with branches, while other trees 
are grown for the sake of clean and useful 
timber. The behaviour of E. obliqua shows 
that this species is coming near the frost 
limit of the species. Under similar condi¬ 
tions several species of Pinus have been 
giving satisfaction, including P. insignis, P. 
Pinaster, P. canariensis, and P. halepensis. 
Under the same conditions Araucaria Cookei 
had been killed out-right by the low tem¬ 
perature. 
—o— 
Weather at Glasgow in 1904. 
A regular record of meteorological pheno¬ 
mena has been kept for many years past 
by Mr. James Whitton, the superintendent 
of parks, Glasgow. The rainfall for last year 
was 34.87 in., being somewhat under the 
average, notwithstanding the fact that we 
regarded it as a wet year in the South. The 
average for Glasgow is 36 in. This was 
a verv moderate record by comparison 
with that for 1903, when 55.52 in. of rain 
fell. March was the driest month in Glas¬ 
gow with only 1.43 in. April was the 
wettest month, when the rainfall totalled 
2.64 in. The heaviest rainfall for any one 
day occurred on July 23rd, when 1.41 in. 
fell. There were 163 days without any rain 
whatever, tin’s being in pleasing contrast to 
1903, when there were only 138 dry days. 
These records are kept up at least at eleven 
of the Glasgow parks, and the variation of 
the accounts is considerable, depending upon 
elevation and other circumstances. The 
thermometer fell below freezing point on 68 
days, though actual frost was only recorded 
on 58 days. The lowest point registered 
was 16 deg. of frost on December 11th. 
No frost at all was registered during April, 
May, June, July, August and September. 
July and August were the warmest months, 
the average maximum for the former being 
64 deg., and for the latter 63 deg. The 
highest temperature occurred on July 12th, 
when 75 deg. in the shade was registered. 
—o— 
Potato Growing at Cambridge University 
A useful report of experiments has been 
published by the authorities of the Agricul¬ 
tural Department of Cambridge University. 
The experiments are conducted at the Uni¬ 
versity Farm by Professor Middleton. In 
this he makes some very pertinent remarks 
relating to the much boomed Pototos of last 
year. He thinks that the boom did good to 
the cause by drawing the attention of far¬ 
mers, gardeners, cultivators and raisers to 
the vital points concerning Pototos—that is 
in the matter of raising new varieties in 
order to keep up or even improve the stan¬ 
dard of fertility and disease-resisting pro¬ 
perties. One drawback to those concerned 
is the foisting of old varieties upon the mar¬ 
ket under new names and the enormous 
number of new varieties which have been 
raised. Nevertheless, a few years will serve 
to weed out all the less valuable and less 
important. It will be a task for the 
National Potato Society, and others who 
conduct experiments to point out whether 
old varieties are being grown under new 
names. In the Cambridge University ex¬ 
periments, the most fertile variety was 
Factor, which was a long way ahead of 
others. An important fact which Potato 
growers will not overlook is that most of the 
boomed and new Potatos had a full propor¬ 
tion of diseased tubers. In this respect 
Sutton’s Discovery stands out very promi¬ 
nently, as the Professor says it was about 
the only variety that was free from disease. 
It even did better in the wet summer of 1903 
than last year. For this reason it will be 
an excellent variety for the West of England 
and Ireland. Another interesting point 
brought out, or rather confirmed, is that 
Potatos raised from Scotch-grown seed give 
much heavier crops in England than from 
native seed. Interesting also is the fact that 
the second year’s produce from Scotch-grown 
seed gives much heavier crops than the native 
seed. After this it is necessary to get a 
fresh supply of seed from Scotland. 
