February  1,  1900. 
JOU'RN'AL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
93 
THE  SWEET  PEA  CONFERENCE. 
As  an  admirer  for  many  years  of  Sweet  Peas,  and  knowing  well 
^  ^  garden  flower,  I  feel  peculiar  interest  in  the  sug- 
ges  e  Show  and  Conference  to  be  held.  As  a  cultivator  and  a  keen 
o  ^server  of  the  varieties,  and,  I  might  say,  the  multitude  of  names 
a  IS  so  fast  growing,  I  welcome  the  proposed  Conference  as  a  means 
those  sorts  which  are  t  m  much  alike  to  have  any 
o  er  but  ill  effect  upon  those  we  are  all  wishful  to  assist — beginners. 
cannot  be  denied  that  names  are  increasing  faster  than  are  the  actual 
varieties;  at  least,  if  some  are  not  identical  they  much  too  nearly 
resemble  each  other  to  be  either  useful  or  necessary.  A  thorough 
system  of  classification  should  do  much  to  make  plain  which  are 
desirable  varieties  to  grow. 
exhibition  confined  to  this  flower  only  will  show  us  the  best 
methods  of  staging  them  for  effect.  At  the  present  time  there  are 
many  styles  of  arrangement  which  are  hardly  worthy  of  emulation.  It 
is  the  best,  and  the  best  only,  that  we  require  to  see. — E.  Molynedx. 
VINES  IN  THE  OPEN. 
«  the  editorial  paragraph  on  page  54,  in  which  an  article  from  the 
Globe  ’  is  quoted,  there  is  a  reference  to  the  culture  of  Grape  Vines 
on  the  walls  and  gables  of  cottages  and  farmhouses  in  the  south  of 
England.  I  should  like  to  add  that  this  phase  of  Vine  culture  is  by  no 
means  an  uninteresting  feature  in  some  of  the  rural  districts  of  Kent, 
and  though  profit  is  probably  not  considered,  there  is  something  quaint 
and  homely  about  the  Grape  Vine  clustering  over  the  door  of  a  rustic 
dwelling,  and  apparently  doing  its  best  to  obscure  the  windows.  Only 
last  September  I  passed  a  cottage,  the  front  of  which  was  entirely 
furnished  with  a  Grape  Vine,  on  which  numbers  of  ripe  bunches  were 
hanging. 
The  grower  evidently  knew  something  of  the  rudiments  of  Vine 
culture,  for  I  observed  that  the  bunches  had  been  thinned,  and  the 
black  berries  were  of  fair  size  and  colour.  The  laterals  had  also  been 
stopped  in  the  orthodox  mannerj  and  closer  examination  disclosed  the 
fact  that  a  number  of  canes  had  been  trained  perpendicularly  up  the 
wall,  and  the  spurs  pruned  closely.  Treated  in  this  way,  and  with  the 
advantages  of  a  very  favourable  summer,  the  fruit  was  of  a  highly 
creditable  character,  and  to  me  it  was  an  illustration  of  what  the  Grape 
Vine  is  capable  of  doing,  even  out  of  doors  in  this  country,  under 
certain  conditions.  I  was  not  able  to  learn  from  the  grower  the  name 
of  the  variety.  It  was  there  when  he  took  the  house,  in  a  semi-wild 
state,  and  that  was  all  he  knew. 
Even  in  wild  uni’estrained  luxuriance  Vines  on  house  walls  have 
something  attractive  about  them,  and  1  have  often  seen  them  heavily 
cropped  with  small  crowded  berries,  but  where  cultural  skill  is  brought 
to  bear  on  them,  and  the  season  is  favourable,  useful  Grapes  can  be 
grown  in  suitable  situations  in  the  southern  counties.  This  does  not 
alter  the  fact  that  to  attempt  to  grow  Vines  outdoors  as  a  commercial 
enterprise  would  only  be  courting  failure. — Kentish  Man. 
HORTICELTURAL  EXAMINATIONS. 
The  paper  recently  read  by  Mr.  George  Gordon  at  the  Horticultural 
Club  on  this  subject  is  full  of  interest,  and  certainly  strikes  the  key¬ 
note  to  another  tune,  which,  by  the  re-arrangement  of  a  few  chords, 
will  be  more  acceptable  and  harmonious  to  the  gardening  craft.  For 
over  twenty  years  I  have  been  intimately  connected,  either  as  a  candi¬ 
date  or  examiner,  with  practical  gardening,  and  also  with  examinations 
of  various  kinds,  and  since  the  inauguration  of  the  R.H.S.  examinations 
I  have  been  preparing  young  gardeners  as  candidates.  The  ideal  of 
an  examination  should  be  to  test  the  candidate’s  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  and  the  more  practical  the  test  the  more  satisfactory  the 
results  to  everyone  concerned.  The  answers  to  a  few  questions  form  no 
criterion  of  knowledge  and  ability,  therefore  it  is  evident  some  other 
system  will  have  to  be  introduced  if  the  confidence  of  gardeners  is 
to  be  obtained  and  maintained,  and  if  a  certificate  is  to  be  of  any 
real  value  to  the  apprentice  or  journeyman. 
Mr.  Gordon’s  suggestion  of  an  examination  scheme  is  worthy  of 
serious  consideration,  for  when  I  have  scanned  the  results  of  the 
E.H.S.  exams,  and  found  thoroughly  practical  men  with  many  years’ 
experience  in  the  third  class,  whilst  boys  and  girls  in  their  teens,  with¬ 
out  any  practical  experience  worth  mentioning,  are  in  the  second  and 
first  class,  I  have  been  constrained  to  think  it  was  time  the  examina¬ 
tions  should  be  placed  and  worked  on  a  different  system,  so  as  to 
I'eally  meet  the  requirements  of  gardeners  ;  but  by  no  means  should 
they  be  allowed  to  fall  through. —  S.  H. 
It  must  be  over  thirty-five  years  since  I  had  to  pass  examinations, 
though  I  had  a  good  many  to  go  through  even  in  those  days. 
Perhaps  the  rising  generation  is  more  gified  and  requires  sterner 
trials,  but  if  those  eight  questions  on  page  79  of  the  Journal  are  a 
fair  sample  of  the  sixteen  in  a  recent  horticultural  examination,  I 
should  call  it  a  very  stiff  paper. 
One  or  two  of  the  questions  may  be  fairly  easy,  but  to  answer, 
in  a  really  satisfactory  way,  eight  such  in  two  and  a  half  hours. 
f  seems  to  me  a  very  hard  task.  Five  or  six  years  ago  I  essayed  to 
answer  one  of  those  questions,  and  did  so,  though  not  quite  to  my 
satisfaction.  It  took  me  about  six  months.  The  immense  amount  of 
condensation  required  could  only  be  learnt  by  “  cramming,”  at  least  I 
should  think  so,  but  I  have  no  personal  experience  of  that  process. 
Condensation  is  a  literary  art,  requiring  time,  not  only  in  the  learning, 
but  also  in  the  carrying  out.  Demosthenes,  the  great  orator,  being 
once  longer  than  usual  in  meditation  before  one  of  his  speeches,  was 
asked  it  is  said,  the  reason  of  it.  ‘‘ I  am  thinking,”  he  replied,  “how 
I  can  shorten  what  I  have  to  say  to  the  Athenians.” 
To  “  rattle  away  ”  is  comparatively  easy  if  you  know  your  subject, 
but  to  “boil  it  down”  must  take  time.  lam  sincerely  thankful  no 
such  two  and  a  half  hours  task  falls  now  to  my  lo^. — W.  R.  Raillem. 
APPLES  AND  IRON  PIPES  SPLITTING  BY 
FROST. 
My  experience  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  “  W.  N.,”  page  71. 
I  have  had  Apples  frozen  quite  hard  in  a  loft  in  which  fruit  was  kept ; 
Onions  also,  and  both  when  moved  about  rattled  like  stones.  When  the 
thaw  came  numbers  of  the  Apples  split,  in  fact  most  of  them  were 
spoiled.  The  frost  was  very  severe,  the  thermometer  registering  below 
zero  in  the  open.  The  Onions  were  not  injured.  The  Apples 
were  not  burst  by  the  “  thaw,”  but  by  the  frost.  There  is  no  expansion 
of  water  when  the  ice  melts,  but  slightly  the  reverse,  and  the  fluid 
then  escapes  through  the  fissures  produced,  it  may  be,  several  days,  or, 
as  in  the  great  frost  of  1895,  weeks  before,  though  of  course  there 
could  be  no  trickling  so  long  as  the  water  remained  solid. 
That  water  “  swells  ”  when  warmed  many  gardeners  know  by  its 
rising  in  and  sometimes  overflowing  from  the  boiler  feed  cisterns  when 
these  are  not  as  they  ought  to  be,  the  warmer  molecules  of  the  water 
rising  to  the  surface,  but  just  because  of  the  circulation  and  upward 
rise  in  the  feed  cistern  the  pipes  cannot  burst.  But  they  can  and  do 
when  circulation  ceases  and  the  water  with  which  they  are  filled  is 
changed  into  ice. 
Some  years  ago  a  gardener  was  forbidden  to  use  auy  fuel  to  exclude 
frost  from  a  range  of  Peach  houses  during  the  winter.  He  was  not 
told  to  empty  the  pipes,  and  a  severe  and  prolonged  frost  occurring, 
hundreds  of  feet  in  length  were  raised  and  split.  The  mischief  was 
not  done  at  the  time  of  the  thaw,  as  has  been  said  occurs,  but  by  the 
tremendous  pressure  consequent  on  the  expansion  of  the  water  during 
its  conversion  into  ice. — An  Old  G  ardener. 
I  WILL  be  serious ;  and,  indeed,  my  humour  did  not  seek  to  dispute 
the  patent  fact  that  heat  expands  water.  Bub  I  protest  against 
Mr.  Richards  persisting  in  the  error  of  his  ways  and  against  his 
endeavour  to  get  out  of  a  tight  place  by  saying  he  was  dealing  with 
water  only  as  a  liquid.  Now  Mr.  Richards  applies  the  theory  of  heat 
expansion  to  demonstrate  the  possibility  of  thaw  bursting  pipes  ;  he, 
perhaps,  does  not  know  that  water  is  at,  its  coldest  when  thawing — 
colder  even  than  ice.  How  can  any  theory  of  heat  expansion  account 
for  a  substance  bursting  its  containing  vessel  at  its  coldest  ?  Melting 
ice  absorbs  heat,  and  thawing  water  is  therefore  below  freezing  point. 
If  this  were  nob  so,  the  whole  frozen  surface  of  a  lake  would  change 
into  water  immediately  the  thermometer  stood  above  freezing  point. 
Mr.  Richards  would  then  find  skating  an  even  more  dangerous  amuse¬ 
ment  than  freezing  bottles — and  not  so  slow. 
Perhaps  the  phenomenon  of  thaw  bursting  pipes  observed  by 
Mr.  Richards  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  ice  does  not  leak,  and 
the  fracture  caused  by  the  ice  is  not  noticed  until  the  thaw,  when  the 
escaping  water  draws  attention  to  the  breakage.  At  the  same  time  I 
quite  admit  the  possibility  of  heat  applied  to  frozen  pipes  bursting 
them,  not  owing  to  the  expansion  of  the  water,  but  to  the  unequal 
expansion  of  the  pipe,  as  hot  water  cracks  a  cold  tumbler. — Ret  Raill. 
DECADENCE  IN  WALL  TREES. 
“A.  N.  0.,”  on  page  52,  is  a  little  severe  upon  some  people; 
scarcely  gardeners  one  thinks.  What  a  “  modern  go-ahead  ”  is  seems 
somewhat  incomprehensible,  but  that  he  is  a  man  in  a  hurry  can 
readily  be  understood,  and,  of  course,  with  trees  “  3  or  4  feet  above 
the  wall he  is  not  a  gardener.  That  he  may  be  called  so  is  another 
matter  and  another  tale.  A  gardener  can  scarcely  listen  to  the  wail 
of  wall  tree  woe  without  feeling  that  it  is  a  slur  on  his  vocation. 
Still,  the  fact  remains  that  neglected  trees  are  not  only  frequently 
seen,  but  in  the  suburbs  of  a  big  city  this  neglect  amounts  to  an 
epidemic.  The  cause  is  not  far  to  seek,  bub  it  would  take  longer 
to  detail  than  time  and  space  now  permit.  It  can,  however,  readily 
be  given  if  desired;  but  so  far  as  a  cure  is  concerned,  cui  hono? 
“  A.  N.  0.”  means  well,  doubtless  ;  but  he  might  as  well  have  addressed 
his  remarks  to  Queen  Victoria  as  to  the  “  modern  go-ahead,”  who,  we 
dare  affirm,  reads  not  the  Journal  of  Horticulture — alas  !  Would  that 
he  could  follow  “A.  N.  0.,”  whose  pen  runs  on  “  from  grave  to  gay, 
from  lively  to  severe,”  for.  although  the  modern  go-ahead  might  never 
be  a  gardener  he  would,  at  least,  have  received  an  elementary  lesson 
in  gardening,  as  well  as  the  sound  castigation  he  so  richly  deserves  to 
enforce  it,  from  “A.  N.  0.” — A.  N.  Oldhead. 
