February 15, IQ13. 
112 
THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 
RECENT ADVANCES IN 
HORTICULTURE. 
Mr. David King, the newly-elected pregi- 
dent of the Scottish Horticultural Associa¬ 
tion, devoted his inaugural addresK to a 
con.sideration of some of the more important 
advances that have been made in horticul¬ 
ture within recent years. 
In his opening remarks, he expressed the 
opinion that it might with truth be said 
that recent advances in horticulture in this 
country had been more along scientific lines 
than in practical horticulture. The e3^cel- 
lence of practical horticulture in Great 
Britain has alway.s stood very high, and it 
is difficult to say whether, in tne purely prac¬ 
tical aspect, we are much further advanced 
than we were half a century ago. Certainly 
there has been a great improvement in most 
of the appliances, and in recent years scien¬ 
tists have let a flood of light in upon many 
of what were obscure phenomena to the prac¬ 
tical man. We have had new race- of plants 
produced, and we have had varieties of 
fruits and vegetables rai.sed which give 
heavier yields; but when all is ^aid, consider¬ 
ing the materials, and the appliances, which 
gardeners had to work with then, it is 
doubtful if there ha.s been so great an ad¬ 
vance in the practice as appears on the 
surface. On the contrary, the old gardeners, 
without technical education of any kind, 
except what they could gather h^ reading 
and intercommunication with their fellows, 
could produce crops, making allowance for 
the differences in the kinds of fruits and 
vegetables grown then, which would compare 
favourably with those grown to-day. 
Soil Knowledge. 
In no department of scientific horticulture, 
perhaps, has .so great an advance been made 
as in our knowledge of the soil and the use 
of manures. It is only within comparatively 
recent years that we have come to r€^alige 
that the soil is not the dead, inert substance 
Wo formerly supposed it to be, and this has 
completely revolutionised many of our ideas 
both as regards the working and the manur¬ 
ing of it. Wo now know that the soil teems 
with life, and we know that life can exi.st 
only in the upper layers of the soil. We 
know, too, that some of these minute orga¬ 
nisms are beneficial, and that certain of them 
are injurious, and this knowledge of their 
properties and their mode of life has given 
us the key to failures in the past where it 
seemed that success should have been cer¬ 
tain. This knowledge enables us to see where 
we were wrong when, in our practice of 
trenching ground, we killed the organisms 
by putting the soil they inhabited in the 
bottom of the trench, away from the in¬ 
fluence of the air, and bringing the sterile 
soil in the lowest depths to the surface, there 
to remain until it had had time to be brought 
into a state fit for their habitation, and 
thereby we wasted time. That is one in¬ 
stance out of many wliere science has come to 
the aid of the practical man, and has de¬ 
monstrated to him tlvat be was wrong. It has 
also come to his aid in connection with 
the application of manures to the soil, 
and now the farmer and the gardener know 
well why, when potatoes are heavily do«ed 
with farmyard manure alone, stems and 
leaves only are produced at the expense of 
tubers; and why heavy dressings of lime, by 
killing out the soil b^teria, do more harm 
than good, and can only be beneficial as in 
the case of the trenching referred to’ after 
the soil has again becon>e fit for habitation 
by these organisms. 
One of the most recent, and, from some 
points of view, probably the most interest¬ 
ing of experiments in connection with soil, 
especially ©odl used in the cultivation of 
plants under glass, is ‘'soil sterilisatdon.” 
We are familiar with the old process of 
“baking eoil,^* and, of course, this kind of 
sterilisation is not new. But scientific 
sterilisation is a very different matter. Here 
the object is not to kiU all life in the soil, 
but only to kill off those organisms 
which are injurious to planit life, so that the 
beneficial ones may have free scope to multi¬ 
ply and render the soil fertile, again. It 
seems that the beneficial organisms cannot 
live, or, at any rate, cannot perform their 
functions, in an acid soil, and that all such 
soils require to be neutralised before they 
can be made fit for healthy plant growth. 
Mendelism. 
Perhaps the most important of recent dis¬ 
coveries in scientific horticulture is that of 
Menders Law of Inheritance. While it does 
not upset the old notion that “like begets 
like,” it has completely revolutionised our 
ideas aliout the breeding of both plants and 
aniimaLs, and it enables us to understand 
f >henomena which previously were unintel- 
igible to us. Now we know why the old, 
haphazard method of fixing varieties of 
plants produced by crossing was so tedious 
and troublesome. Now we know tliat num¬ 
bers of cross-bred plants which were discarded 
as useless before the discovery of this law 
were discarded simply because the breeders 
did not understand the outward evidences 
of its existence. It required a Mendel to 
interpret these things, and possibly not one 
in a hundred of the scientists of his time 
would have been able to do so. In fact, even 
the celebrated botanist, Carl NaegeH, did 
not seem to understand Mendel’s results after 
they were obtained. That wonderful law 
tells us that, when we cross two plants in 
order to blend or mix two desirable charac¬ 
ters, though what we desire may be entirely 
absent in the first family, nevertheless the 
factors are there, and most assuredly will 
appear in the next family. No factor, though 
it may disappear for the nonce, is ever lost, 
and breeders of both plants -and animals, 
provided their stocks are pure, may now 
make their crosses and be quite certain of 
the results. And not only this, for with a 
knowledge of this law they are saved all the 
trouble and loss of time involved in the old 
haphazard methods of fixing, which are now 
superseded by a method at once scientific and 
simple. Even on. the human, race itself, it 
is impossible to say what the influence of 
this wonderful law may be, and possibly 
it may yet be shown that much of the pre¬ 
sent-day SK)cial legislation is framed on wrong 
lines altt^her. In fact, the science of 
Genetics is one of the most important sub¬ 
jects with which biologists have to deal at 
the present time. 
Decorative and Rock 
Gardening*. 
As regards decorative gardening, there has 
been quite a revolution in recent years. The 
advent of so many fine decorative roses, the 
great improvement in such flowers as the 
antirrhinum, the sweet pea, and many other 
hardy subjects, and, more than anything 
else, perhaps, the greatly increased favour 
wMch hardy plants generally now enjoy 
with a large and increasing luumber of 
people, have brought about a great change 
in this kind of gardening. There is a grow¬ 
ing tendency to a less formal style, although 
the formal garden is by no means a thino* 
of the past. Bulbs for spring bedding and 
naturalising in wild gardens are being more 
and more used, and beautiful-flowered trees 
and shrubs have now a place in decorative 
gardening which they never had before. In 
fact, the whole tendency is in the direction 
of hardy subjects of various kinds, and the 
whole style of the garden is undergoing a 
corre^nding change. Nor is it to be won^ 
dered at that this interest in hardy plants 
has Ulsen such a hold on people, for the 
saving in glass-house accommodation is very 
considerable, to say nothing of the fuel and 
labour that atle saved. And there is another 
the use of herbaceous and ether 
hai^y subjects in that they give a succession 
01 bloom from early spring to late autumn, 
whereas tender subjects like geraniums and 
OTher summer-bedding things only last a 
lew months. 
or alpine gardening, too, is becoming 
more popular, and the fine displays of these 
gardens at the great International Horticul¬ 
tural Exhibition held in London in May last 
showed that the experts are not neglecting 
this branch of the subject. Then there b 
wild or semi-wjkl gardening, which gives 
great scope for the introduction of novel fea. 
tures, and which is also becoming very popn- 
lar with some people. In fact, the chief 
charm of these hardy subjects—^ees, shrubs, 
and herbaceous plants—lies in the fact that 
they can be used in such a variety of ways, 
and they give so little trouble. 
' New Plants. 
The last decade or so has witnessed the 
introduction from North China of a large 
number of new plants, many of which 
no doubt be valuable accessions to the stock 
of hardy plants for the decoration of gar¬ 
dens ; but as most of the regions of the globe 
have now been explored, we cannot hope for 
such a supply of new plant® in the future 
as we have enjoyed in the past, and, for 
decorative subje<^, at any rate, by and 
bye we shall have to relly almost entirely 
on the hybridists 'to supply our wants. 
This, however, we need have no fear about, 
for what they have done in the past for the 
rose, the rhododendron, and azalea, the car¬ 
nation, orchids, and many other things, they 
will do for other subjects which are likely 
to be of use in horticulture in the future. 
Improved Races and 
Varieties. 
Leaving out hardy annuals like the s' 
pea and some others among the non-^rubby j 
decorative subjects, none, perhaps, has made^ 
such a great advance in popular favour in , 
recent years as the perpetual-flowering car- , 
nation. The evolution of this flower has beet. | 
phenomenal, and the varieties nowadays are | 
very fine indeed, and its qualities as a out 
flower have given it such a lead over the 
border carnation that the altter will probably j 
have to take a lower position in the future. 
Another plant in which gp:eat improvement] 
had been effected in recent years is the tube;^ 
rous-rooted begonia, but it is doubtful if, as 
a bedding plant, it will supplant the pelar-^ 
gonium, unless, j^rhaps, in mild, moist 
localities, which suit its requirements best. 
In the case of old favourites like the ro^^ 
sweet pea, chysanthemum, dahlia, gladio-j 
lus, etc., the hybridists have also been busy, 
and many new varieties of these are con-i 
stantly making their appearance; in fact, 
there is no finality anywhere, and almost 1 
every year there is some new break or somoj 
new race appearing. But like tastes in gar - 1 
dening, there have been great changes here,! 
too, and the great aim now seems to be toi 
produce decorative varieties in preference to 
varieties which are chiefly, if not only, usefm 
on> the exhibition table. In the case of thej 
chrysanthemum, the growing of big bloon^ 
for exhibition purposes seems to have reacMiM 
its limit, and a reaction in favour of the 
corative varieties, including the singly* 
seems inevitable. It is the same with 
dahlia. How often now do we see the 1 
show dahlia at our flower shows? Its pl*^^ 
has been taken by the cactus, collarette, afl** j 
other useful kinms—decorative kinds—and it 
is the same with many other genera. An 
this change in taste in gardening is not ^ ' 
be regretted, for the simplicity and easej 
with which many of these hardy plants canj 
be grown will do more, perhaps, than any^ 
thing else to make decorative gardenm* 
more popular amongst the masses of 
people; and if ever the Garden City 1 
takes root in this country, as no . 
will in time, this wealth of decorative plan 
will be one of its greatest assets. 
(To be continued.) 
Honour to Messrs. Adnitt an 
Naunton. — In recognition ot tiic 
twenty-eight years of excellent f^ 
joint honorary secretaries of the Shr^^® » 
Show, the CJouncil of the Royal ^ 
tiiral Societv have appointed Mr. H- ’ 
Adnitt and Mr. W. W. Naunton honora j 
life Fellows of the society- 
