October 26, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
697 
trees after October, and in most cases they 
would be gathered a little before then. 
Some fruits, however, ripen in July, some 
in August, and the greater number in Sep¬ 
tember. All these things you have to as¬ 
certain by experience and the information 
which may be gleaned from our pages, etc. 
Each variety is gathered when it becomes 
ripe and stored in a fruit room. This stage 
may be ascertained by tire fruits parting 
from the tree easily when lifted up in -the 
hand. Also, by the seeds getting dark 
brown inside the fruits. A fruit can, of 
course, be cut open to ascertain the state of 
the seeds after some experience, which will 
not be necessary to do even then, except in 
the more doubtful cases. Early varieties 
may ripen on the trees and be fit to eat or 
cook accordingly. Those that do not ripen 
till well on in September or in October 
should be kept in a proper fruit room until 
they become fit for using. Your list of 
Apples we have divided into dessert and 
cooking, and the months that follow refer 
to the period during which they are fit for 
eating or cooking. The dessert Apples are : 
Irish Peach (August) ; Duchess of Olden- 
burgh (August); King of Pippins (October 
to January); Worcester Pearmain (August 
and September) ; Sturmer Pippin (February 
to June). Cooking varieties are more nu¬ 
merous, namely, Sandringham (December to 
March); The Queen (November); Potts’ 
Seedling (November); Frogmore Prolific 
(September and October); Peasgood’s Non¬ 
such (November) ; Bismarck (December till 
April); Lane’s Prince Albert (October till 
March); Bramley’s Seedling (January till 
March); Warner’s King (October and 
November); Golden Noble (December) ; Lord 
Grosvenor (September till November); New- 
I ton Wonder '(November till 'May); Lord 
SufEeld (August and September); Mank’s 
Codlin (August till October); and Keswick 
Codlin (August and September). Winter 
Greening we think should be Winter Queen¬ 
ing (December till March). Ackland Vale 
should be named Goff (December till Feb¬ 
ruary). Dominion we think should be 
Dcmino (September and October). Your 
Pears are all dessert varieties, namely, Jar¬ 
gonelle (August); Williams’ Bon Chretien 
(August and September) ; and Louise Bonne 
de Jersey (October). Of your Plums Green¬ 
gage is a dessert variety, ripening at the 
end of August. All the others are cooking 
Plums, namely, Goliath (end of August) ; 
Victoria (September); Pond’s Seedling (Sep¬ 
tember) ; and River’s Early Prolific (end of 
July). 
SOILS AND MANURES. 
2318. To Lighten Heavy Soil. 
I have a small garden and the soil is very 
heavy, inclined to be on the clay. What is 
the best thing to be done to lighten it? I 
have a chance to have a lot of horse manure 
from Sutton, the carrier. It is new, and the 
horses have been bedded down in sawdust, 
/ so would consist of a good sprinkling of 
sawdust. Will this lighten the soil? I am 
afraid it will breed slugs and worms olenti- 
fully, and we have much too many of them 
now. Shall be pleased to hear from you. 
I may say I got about a dozen beautiful 
Strawberries the other morning fully ripe 
from the same ground, and. we have olen.ty 
of bloom. The variety is St. Antoine de 
Padoue. (P. R., Lancs.) 
You can use the horse manure, but it 
would be of more value to you if you could 
sret it without sawdust, as there is very 
little, if any, plant nutriment in that. It 
would not be inclined to encourage worms 
and slugs to any greater extent than other 
manures, as it indicates that vour soil is 
rich and capable of supporting them. The 
slugs can., however, be kept down by trench¬ 
ing the ground at frequent intervals, say, 
every second or third year at least. You 
could give the ground likewise a dressing 
of lime, and that will hasten the liberation 
of plant food not only from the manure 
applied but that already in the soil. Lime 
also helps to lighten the soil mechanically 
by causing it to adhere in small lumps or 
particles. Such a soil as yours is a very 
valuable one, and only requires plenty of 
working to make it both fertile and serve to 
lighten it. The more frequently you trench 
it the more open it will become if you use 
plenty of manure each year when trenching. 
The loose material taken from the bottom 
of the trench could be put up on the top of 
the last filled one in the form of a ridge. 
This exposes a large portion of the surface 
to the action of frost, which serves to 
crumble it down. If you would take advan¬ 
tage of road sweepings and read scrapings 
you could get a deal of horse droppings in 
this, and the grit would act mechanically in 
loosening up the soil. If you can get this 
latter only in moderate quantity it could be 
worked into the top spit annually whether 
you dig or trench the ground. It will take 
you a few years to get it into the best work¬ 
ing condition, but perseverance overcomes 
all these things. You can get better and 
heavier crops from such a soil than from a 
light one if you take the trouble to work it 
well. 
to the Editor for information in The Gar¬ 
dening World as to whether a mixture of 
kainit and sulphate of ammonia would be 
the best manure to ensure rapid growth of 
Quick and Privet Hedge, and if not what 
would he recommend? (Leicestershire.) 
Those two materials could be used, but as 
they are incomplete manures, it would be 
necessary to add another, namely, super¬ 
phosphate of lime, to make a complete 
manure. The superphosphate cf lime and 
kainit could be scattered over the soil in 
winter and slightly pointed in with a fork 
on either side of the hedge. Then when the 
hedge commences to grow in spring you 
could either make a thin sprinkling of sul¬ 
phate of ammonia over the ground or dissolve 
it in water at the rate of \ oz. to the gallon 
of water. This may be made up on a large 
scale, but the same proportions should be 
observed. The soil at the time of applica¬ 
tion should also be moist. The sulphate of 
ammonia is a very powerful manure and 
quick acting. It should not be put on in 
winter, as it would get washed away with 
rain. By using it in spring, however, in 
the form of a light dressing when the hedge 
commences to grow, and give it another a 
month afterwards, it will act as a stimulant. 
NAME OF FRUIT. 
(Miss Dimsdale) Apple American Mother, 
one of the best-flavoured Apples grown. 
2319. Manures for Hedge. 
Miss Dimsdale would be greatly obliged 
BR 
V 
H 
rn 
AT WESTMINSTER. 
The annual Exhibition of British-Grown 
Fruit by the Royal Horticultural Society 
was held in the Horticultural Hall, West¬ 
minster, on the 17th and 18th inst. Apples 
and Pears were decidedly the feature of 
the exhibition. Grapes were much the 
same as usual. Peaches, Nectarines, and 
Plums were in much greater quantity than 
we have seen them for many years, and 
gave the judges a considerable amount of 
trouble to make the awards, both by rea¬ 
son of their numbers and high quality. 
The great heat last year caused these 
fruits to be out of season before the date 
of the show. We have seen the Apples 
more highly coloured generally, but 
Apples and Pears held their own for size, 
the sunless season notwithstanding. Or¬ 
chard-house fruits were attractive on ac¬ 
count of size and clear colour. 
Gardeners and Amateurs. 
The leading place for a collection of 
nine dishes of ripe dessert fruit was se¬ 
cured by Mr. J. H. Goodacre, Elvaston 
Castle Gardens, Derby. Noteworthy were 
his Black Alicante and Muscat of Alex¬ 
andria Grapes, Pineapple, Doyenne du 
Comice Pears, and Princess of Wales 
Peaches, all of v 7 hich were of fine size. 
The Hon. Mr. Justice Swinfen Eady 
(gardener, Mr. J. Lock), Oatlands Lodge, 
Weybridge. came in second with a Pine¬ 
apple, and Pitmaston Duchess and Mar¬ 
guerite Marillat Pears, all of great size. 
C. R. Adea'ne, Esq. (gardener, Mr. R. 
Alderman), Babraham, Cambridge, came 
in third. 
In the class for six dishes of ripe des¬ 
sert fruit, the best lot was shown by the 
Earl of Londesborough (gardener, Mr. 
J. C. McPherson), Market Weighton, 
v -~ ks. Cox’s Orange Pippin and Wash¬ 
ington Apples were particularly fine, and 
so were the Pitmaston Duchess Pears. 
M. W. Price, Escp (gardener, Mr. T. 
Patman), Codicote, Welwyn, came second 
with some good Grapes, though not 
equally ripe. Sir Charles Hamilton, 
Bart, (gardener, Mr. T. W. Birkinshaw), 
Hatley Park, Sandy, Beds, took the third 
place. 
In the class for six varieties of Grapes, 
two bunches of each, the bunches were 
not so large as in the ripe dessert classes. 
The lead was taken by J. W. Flem¬ 
ing, Esq. (gardener, Mr. W. Mitchell), 
Chilworth Manor, Romsey. His best 
bunches were Muscat of Alexandria and 
Mrs. Pince’s Muscat. H. J. King, Esq. 
(gardener, Mr. J. G. Weston), Eastwell 
Park, Ashford, Kent, was second with 
more equal bunches, but some of them 
were not well finished. 
J. W. Fleming, Esq., had the best two 
bunches of Black Hamburgh. Mr. J. 
Edmonds, Bestwood Gardens, Arnold, 
Notts, took the lead for two bunches of 
Mrs. Pince. W. G. Raphael, Esq. (gar¬ 
dener, Mr. H. H. Brown), Castle Hill, 
Englefield Green, in like manner showed 
the best Alicante, in nicely finished 
bunches. Madresfield Court Grapes were 
best shown by J. W. Fleming, Esq., the 
bloom on the berries being perfect. For 
any other black Grape the lead was taken 
by the Earl of Londesborough, with Gros 
Colman, nicely finished. Large bunches 
and handsome berries of this same variety 
were shown by the Ladies' Horticultural 
College, Studley, Warwickshire (Princi¬ 
pal, Miss M. Faithfull). 
White Grapes were well represented, 
but Muscat of Alexandria was most 
abundant. J. W. Fleming, Esq., had 
