5 io 
THE GARDENING WORLD . 
August i, 1908. 
Garden Tools. 
BY AN EXPERT. 
Early Glass-houses. 
Glass-houses and the creation of arti¬ 
ficial climate and protection from the 
weather are so generally employed that 
we forget at times that years ago there 
were no such things in this country. The 
stiff and formal old English gardens, with 
cut Box and Yew trees, are sometimes re¬ 
vived at the present day. There open-air 
plants and flowers of old-fashioned kinds 
flourish. They remind us of the days 
when horticultural buildings were un¬ 
known. It is said that the invention of 
glass-houses was first brought to a satis¬ 
factory conclusion in the gardens of Hei¬ 
delberg in 1619. They were common 
among Italians even earlier, but they had 
no artificial heat. It was not until late 
in the seventeenth century that heated 
glass-houses were known in this country. 
One notable example was in the Apothe¬ 
caries’ Garden at Chelsea, where there 
was a greenhouse heated by embers placed 
in a hole in the floor. What a contrast 
Ts this little glass-house compared with 
the great greenhouses in the Royal Bo¬ 
tanic Gardens at Kew at the present time! 
But it is about glass-houses as at present 
available to the middle classes that we 
have to deal in a paper treating on the 
possibilities of gardening by those not 
blessed with the wealth of the millionaire 
or the merchant prince. 
Glass-houses of Moderate Cost. 
Fortunately they are inexpensive now, 
and man 1 ' well-known horticultural 
builders supply glass-houses in which 
rare plants may be successfully culti¬ 
vated. They also prepare designs and 
construct inexpensive span-roofed build¬ 
ings round which hot-water pipes are ar¬ 
ranged, providing at a minimum expense 
and labour a uniform temperature all the 
year round, so that exotic plants need not 
be solely the possession of the wealthy. 
Cottage gardening, too, has been fostered 
and encouraged of late years, and the 
makers of small conservatories have pro¬ 
vided inexpensive fitments which can be 
bought all complete ready for erection, 
so that the most inexperienced carpenter 
or amateur mechanic can re-erect, glaze, 
and fit them up without any difficulty. 
Even the internal fittings of greenhouses 
are simplified, and no costly fittings need 
be purchased, for independent stands 
made to suit any length of house are 
procurable. Thus those who manufac¬ 
ture these goods in large quantities by 
the aid of machinery are able to supply 
the middle class householder and the 
owner of a small suburban villa with just 
the building needed to make a garden 
rich in flowers all the year round. They 
have potting houses and hand frames too, 
in which choice bedding-out plants may 
be prepared for transplanting as the sea¬ 
sons come and go. 
Most Interesting Work. 
There is much interest attached to 
greenhouse work. Plants, too, may be 
cultivated there with but little expense. 
The tools required are but few, although 
some, like watering apparatus, thermo¬ 
meters, and other sundries, now being 
catered for so cheaply by horticultural 
suppliers, are essential. The catalogues 
offered free to enquirers are useful, and 
HAWK’S PATEi T 
IMPROVED 
WATERING 
CAPS. - 
The Original and 
Genuine Make. 
J HAWS, 
10 & 25a, Lea Bridge Rd. 
Clapton, London, N E. 
help the amateur to select the best value 
for his money, helping him to buy first 
hand the tools and accessories which will 
enable him to pursue his hobby economi¬ 
cally and with comfort. 
-- 
STAKING GERANIUMS 
AND CARNATIONS. 
A Letter to the Editor. 
Sir,- - 
Will you allow me a short space in your 
valuable paper to bring to the notice of 
your readers two points in horticulture 
which 1 venture to think will prove of 
considerable interest to many persons. 
First, with respect to the saving or storing 
of Geraniums through the winter : In the 
spring of 1907 I gave a friend some King 
of Denmark Geraniums, which were duly 
planted out in the garden. They gave 
■such excellent results that the owner de¬ 
sired to preserve them for another year 
if possible. He had no greenhouse, and 
knew very little of gardening. However, 
in October he took the plants from the 
ground, shook as little soil as possible 
from the roots, tied them all in a bundle, 
and hung them, roots upwards, at the top 
of his cellar steps, away from all danger 
of frosts. In March of the present year 
the plants were brought up, planted in 
pots, well watered, and placed in a scul¬ 
lery. There they soon began to grow, and 
at the end of April were put out in the 
garden bed. I called there a few days 
since, and was altogether surprised to 
see such a quantity of bloom. When I 
spoke of it I was told the above story as 
to the manner in which the plants had 
been saved. 
Second : Last summer I spent some days 
in the Midlands for the purpose of attend¬ 
ing the show of Carnations at the Botani¬ 
cal Gardens, Edgbaston. I availed my¬ 
self of some spare time'to visit Carnation 
growers in Birmingham district. I spent 
a most enjoyable day in looking over the 
great collection of Carnations grown by 
Mr. W. Svdenham at Bolehall House, 
Tamworth. Amongst other things I saw 
a most ingenious and new method of 
tying up the flowering stems of Carna¬ 
tions. Everyone knows what a tedious, 
long, and laborious job it is to tie up 
many Carnation stems with raffiia. Here 
I saw thin wire rings being used very 
rapidly, easily and effectively. The plants 
were fastened most securely to the stakes, 
and there was little or no chance of one 
being broken. This season I determined 
to try them myself, and with this view I 
obtained a supply from Mr. Sydenham. 
They have proved perfectly satisfactory, 
holding the "stem firmly, yet sliding up 
the stake as the stem grew. I was able 
to fix more than 100 stems in one hour. 
Those who have not used these rings 
would do well to give them a trial. Of 
course the rings rnay be used for all kinds 
of plants which require staking. 
T. IT. Harrison, 
Member Committee .National Carnation 
and Picotee Society. 
A City Man’s Flower Show. 
Nowadays everybody almost is a horti¬ 
culturist, and certainly everybody exhibits 
a love for flowers to a degree hitherto un¬ 
known. Even the matter of fact City man, 
who is not usually accused of sentimen¬ 
tality, turns his attention to the growing 
of flowers, and can find time to organise 
and exhibit at a flower show of his own. 
At Winchester House, in the heart of the 
City, the National Amateur Gardeners' 
Association hold a flower show every 
month, and the other day the Postmaster- 
General opened the first annual flower 
show of the Central Telegraph Office 
Amateur Gardening Association, which 
was a very notable effort and reflected 
great credit on the committee. Yet 
another City gardening society is that 
known as the Baltic Rose and Sweet Pea 
Society, which consists of members of the 
Baltic” Mercantile and Shipping Ex¬ 
change, Lloyds, subscribers to the London 
Corn Exchange, and clerks in their em- 
pfoy. 
The second annual show of this society 
was held on July 13th in the Merchants' 
Hall, St. Mary Axe, and everyone con¬ 
cerned in getting it up is to be congratu¬ 
lated, for it was decidedly good, and 
must have entailed no little labour on the 
two hon. secretaries, Messrs. B. Hugo and 
F. T. Barker. The blooms were of first- 
class quality and evidence of skilful cul¬ 
ture; they were excellently staged, and 
the combined exhibits provided a most 
effective and tasteful display which it was 
well worth while coming a long way to 
see. The committee and the other mem¬ 
bers of the executive deserve every praise 
for the way in which the show was en¬ 
gineered, and the exhibitors have proved 
themselves to be remarkably capable gar¬ 
deners. A pleasing feature, of this society 
is that the flowers exhibited are sold by 
public auction and the proceeds devoted 
to charity. 
Electrified Plants. 
It is difficult, observes the “Times," 
to exaggerate the importance of the 
experiments of Sir Oliver Lodge and 
Messrs. J. E. Newman and R. Bom- 
ford in stimulating vegetable growth 
by the atmospheric discharge of electri¬ 
city. The result is represented by an in¬ 
creased production of 40 per-cent, in 
Canadian wheat, 30 per cent, in English 
wheat, and 35 per cent, in Strawberries, 
and, while it is too soon to advance any 
theoretical explanations, the experimen¬ 
ters appear to be confident of the practi¬ 
cal effect of their methods. The appara¬ 
tus employed is exceedingly simple and 
inexpensive. Dealing with an area of 
iqi acres, a dynamo driven by a 2 h.p. 
oil engine is used to generate the current. 
An induction coil and a “rectifier,’ as 
patented by Sir Oliver Lodge, complete 
the special apparatus. A number of what 
are best described, perhaps, as low tele¬ 
graph wires are stretched over the area 
under cultivation, and these arc supplied 
with positive electricity at 100,000 volts, 
the negative electricity being conveyed 
direct to earth. We are told that “the 
charge fizzes off from the wires, ’ and that 
in the dark there is:a glow visible. The. 
main feature of the experiments is that 
much more success has been achieved than 
has been hitherto recorded in the case of 
attempts made to influence the roots by 
electrical discharges. 
