796 
THE GARDENERS- MAGAZINE. OcTOBiE 25, I9i:j 
manurial agent. Especially will the lime be 
useful for the purpose of sweetening the soil 
when liquid manure has been used freely. A 
matter of considerable practical importance 
that is referred to by one of our contribu¬ 
tors is the necessity for devoting special 
attention to the provision of an ample 
water supply for roses trained to pillars'. 
What is said with reference to these ap¬ 
plies with still greater force to roses cloth- 
mg pergolas and trained to walls. In such 
positions the moisture that reaches the roots 
is much less than in beds and borders, and 
unless this deficiency is made good, the 
plants suffer, and fail to make a satisf actory 
growth. Roses are moisture lovers, and 
when growing where there is a shortage 
they should 'be assisted with liberal sup¬ 
plies at intervals, the first being given when 
new growth commences. If a practice was 
made of maintaining the soil in a moist 
state about the roots of climbing roses we 
should bear fewer complaints of the havoc 
made by aphis, or of the failure to obtain 
ample leafage and flowers. 
Mr. W, Batchelor. —^It is with very 
great pleasure we present our readers with 
a portrait of Mr. W. Batchelor, who for 
eleven yearsi has been head gardener and 
estate steward to B. Wentworth Verncn, 
Esq., at Stoke Bruern Park, Towcester. 
Altogether Mr. Batchelor has been in the 
service of Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth Vernon 
for five-and-twenty years, as he was with 
them at Harefield, Uxbridge, previously. 
Mr. Batchelor is not an exhibitor, but he 
is a splendid cultivator, and probably in 
no garden in the kingdom is there 6uch a 
profusion' of bloom during the summer sea¬ 
son as at Stoke Bruern Park. Mr. and 
Mrs. B. Wentworth Vernon love their 
beautiful garden, and are always pleased 
when visitors come to enjoy its beauty. 
The garden is practically always open to 
the public, and on Simday evenings many 
people take advantage of the owners’ kind¬ 
ness and enjoy a few hours in this garden 
fair. Roses are a conspicuous feature at 
Stoke Bruern Park, and there are over 
three hundred ramblers on poles and arches 
in the kitchen garden alone, and all the 
borders in this part of the garden are edged 
with flowers. To keep such a garden- in the 
pink of condition is- no light task, but 
Mr. Batchelor manages it, to the great 
satisfaction of his employers and the de¬ 
light of the people resident in the district. 
He has little time for raising new flowers, 
but in 1895 he gained an Award of Merit 
from the Royal Horticultural Society for 
the decorative dhhlia Willie Batchelor, and 
on October 7 he gained a similar award 
for Tithonia specioea (Helianthus specio- 
sus), a showy annual with orange-vermilion 
flowers. Mr. Batchelor tell us this is very 
showy in the garden, but it must be sown 
early, in warmth, to be of real value. As 
evidence of the regard in which he is held, 
Mr. Batchelor was presented with a solid sil¬ 
ver tea service by Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth 
Vernon on the completion of twenty-one 
year’s service, and the occasion of his silver 
wedding, the dates coinciding. 
Gardeners’ Mag^azine ’ Fruit 
Nu m ber. — W e have once more entered 
on the season for planting fruit trees, and 
to enable us to assist our readers in carry¬ 
ing out the various operations connect^ 
therewith we shall devote our next issue 
(November 1) chiefly to fruits. The contents 
will include articles on ‘‘ Soil Preparation 
for Fruit Tre^,” “ Autumn-fruiting Rasp¬ 
berries,” ‘"Cordon Apole Trees.” “Best 
Twelve Fruits for Exhibition,” “ The Black 
Currant Mite,” “Some of the Newer 
Fruits,” “Promoting the Fertility of Fruit 
Trees,” and “ Cherries for Gardens.” The 
issue wiU be freely illustrated. 
International Botanical Con- 
of 1915. —A very important part 
of the work of the Fourth International 
Botanical Congress, to be held in London 
in May, 1915, will be the consideration of 
nomenclature. This difficult subject re¬ 
mains over from the previous Congress, 
and it is of interest to both botanists and 
horticulturists. The Organising Commit¬ 
tee consists of Sir David Prain, Professor 
Bower, and Professor Seward,’ while the 
Executive Committee is composed of Pro¬ 
fessor Farmer, Mr. A. W. Hill, Professor 
Keeble, Professor F. W. Oliver, Mr. A. G. 
Tansley, and Miss E. N. Thomas, with Sir 
Frank Crisp, Dr. Otto Stapf (Kew), and 
Dr. A. B. Rendle, British Museum, Corn¬ 
wall Road, London, S.W. The latter is 
acting as general secretary, and to him 
should be forwarded all donations to the 
fund needed (£1,000) to carry out the Con¬ 
gress arrangements. A subscription of 15s. 
will entitle anyone to admission to the 
Congress, and to all its publications. 
The Potato Crop in Germany. 
—A report dated September 26 has been 
received by the Board of Agriculture from 
His Majesty’s Consul-General at Berlin 
stating that favourable reports of the Ger¬ 
man potato crop are being received from 
all parts of the country, and the damage 
caused by the unfavourable weather in 
August appears to have been greatly ex¬ 
aggerated in all preliminary estimates. In 
the opinion of the Consul-General, it is 
not yet possible to determine the quality 
of the crop. Some disease will umdoubtedly 
be found, and unfavourable weather at this 
juncture would do much to impair the 
prospects. 
Sir Rufus Isaac©.— The newly-ap¬ 
pointed Lord Chief Justice of England is 
an ardent lover of flowers and of gardening. 
In the gardens surrounding his residence 
at Foxhill, Reading, he and Lady Isaacs 
possess a remarkably fine collection of roses, 
which they cultivate with skill, and in 
which they are keenly interest. Doubt¬ 
less the new Lord Chief Justice will con¬ 
tinue to turn with pleasure to his charm¬ 
ing garden, after his arduous legal duties. 
Some time ago we gave several illustrations 
of the gardens at Foxhill. 
Ang^lo-American Exposition, 
1914, —A meeting of the Horticulture, Ar¬ 
boriculture, and Forestry Committee of the 
Anglo-American Exposition, 1914, was held 
on Tuesday afternoon at the Hotel Wind¬ 
sor, Victoria Street, S.W., when the Right 
Hon. Sir Herl^rt Maxwell, Bart., was una¬ 
nimously elected chairman of the comrnit- 
tee, and Mr. George Gordon, V.M.H., vice- 
chairman. Sub-committees were also 
formed for fruit, flowers, forestry, and sun¬ 
dries sections. It was decided that the gar¬ 
dens of the exhibition be completely trans¬ 
formed in a manner worthy of the occasion. 
October Sweet Peas from 
Cad land Park.— October 18 is late for 
sweet peas in all but the cooler and moister 
parts of the kingdom, therefore we were 
surprised and delight^ to receive a fine 
box of blooms on t&s date from Mr. Lewis 
Smith, The Gardens, Cadland Park, Faw- 
ley, Southampton. Mr. L. Smith not only 
cultivates sweet peas well at Fawley, as 
he did at Shotesham, but he.is a raiser, 
and the flowers sent included a number 
of new seedlings, a brilliant salmon variety, 
deeper in tint than Barbara, being one of 
the most attractive. Both in colour and 
fragrance the flowers were delightful, and 
the varieties were Zarina Spencer, Mrs. 
Hugh Dickson, Lord Nelson Spencer R 
F. Felton, Princess Marv, Mrs. Wttm I 
(a waved Helen Pierce), Rosabelle, MHii 
King Manoel, Clara Curtis, and Walur P 
Wright. With the blooms Mr. Smith wm i 
the foUowing note : “ Knowing your btv 
for sweet peas a few blooms at'this <h)» 
may prove of interest. The flowers mm ] 
all cut from plants which have been a I 
bloom continuously since the second mtn 
in May. These plants are from ten ffe. 
to twelve feet high and bushels of flowfn 
have been cut from them. We ire <i- 
corating continually with sweet pets. a:v; 
as the plants are as Augorous as ever 
promise well for another month if 
weather holds good. The seeds were sph 
last October, and the cultural methods 
lowed have been precisely as I have jkb ^ 
cated in The Gardeners’ Magazim t» 
after time.” 
Variability and Sportiveneii 
of Lilium Leafage. — Mr. l. i 
Scrase-Dickins. of Coolhurst, Horsham, r?. 
cently exhibited a most interesting serw 
of specimens of Lilium Sargentije bdor» 
the meeting of the R.H.S.^^ientific Cot 
mittee. A bulb had last year producwl» 
stem one part of which carried the 
of L. SargentisB, and a part foliage Rimikr 
to that of L. myriophylliun. This plant ti* 
grown from a bulbil, not from seed. Tlmjo*- 
son offsets from it bore lespectively hintf 
similar to that of L. Sargentiee, L. n)vr> 
pbyllum, and partly of the one, partly 
the other. The flowers were indistingii:*£ 
able. It would seem that Mr. Nns 
Dickins had seen the passage of one 
of lily into another, or that the breaiith • 
foliage which is -constantly used as a i * 
tinguishing feature of these plants i* ‘ 
character of less importance than it > 
usually considered. Mr. Ehv^ drew auc¬ 
tion to the remarkable variation to W 
between lilies as one passes up the r 
san mountains, as though one specie ^ 
produced forms adapted to the 
under which they were growing, 
garded by botanists who had s^n on} 
lected plants as specifically ^ 
characters in plants which had ‘ 
by herbarium botanists as a 
fication were fr^uently variations o t 
tation as seen in the field. 
Changres in Secretaryship 
National Sweet ^ v 
In consequence of pressure of 
Charles H. Curtis r^ently 
honorarj- secretaryship of 
Sweet Pea Society, a ^ 
filled since early i" ,|,e ann» 
ceeded Mr. H. J. Wright. At the . 
meeting of the society, on MendV „ 
became necessary to ^ * 
Mr. Curtis, and it Avas 
salaried officer be «nd 
four nominations for the om , 
tually Mr. H. D. Tigwell 
pointment, and to him. at 
Greenford, Middlesex, all ^ 
concerning the society should t>e ^ 
Presentation 
Pritchard. - At a Ja g 
meeting of the members o ^ 
ticultural Society, which 
eA'enings since. adA^antage av ^ 
opportunity for « Vith 
Pritchard, the 'the 
timonial, in 
services he has rendered d ^ 
years. The testimonial to i 
mahogany roll-top B. ^ 
tion was made by the 
vicar of Elstree. 
ing. In asking Mr. 
giH Mr. Eales spoke m apP ^ ^ 
of the ability, courtesy, 
