March  4,  1897. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
177 
'trees  started  into  growth.  In  others  the  soil  wai  pointed  up,  and 
the  mixture  well  washed  in  ;  all  the  trees  had  at  least  1  lb.  each, 
which  was  repeated  during  the  season.  Some  trees  received  7  lbs. 
of  sulphate  of  iron  during  the  season  without  the  addition  of  any 
other  chemical.  Others,  again,  had  nitrate  of  soda  and  bonemeal, 
sulphate  of  ammonia,  and  superphosphate,  kainit,  soot,  and  lime. 
After  trying  these  experiments  for  two  years  there  was  no 
improvement  to  be  observed.  The  trees  still  carried  fair  crops  of 
fruit  of  medium  size,  but  the  leaves  were  yellow,  although  a  quantity 
of  soil  had  been  burnt  the  previous  year  and  well  incorporated 
with  that  in  the  border.  I  consulted  several  of  my  friends  but 
could  get  no  farther  advanced,  sulphate  of  iron  being  the  receipt 
invariably  given  to  bring  back  the  colour  to  the  leaves. 
As  a  last  resource  I  found  some  soil  on  another  part  of  the 
estate,  quite  different  in  composition  from  that  previously  used, 
being  of  a  sandy  nature.  This  I  used  in  proportion  of  two  to 
one  of  the  other,  plenty  of  broken  bricks  with  the  dust  taken 
out  being  the  only  ingredient  mixed  with  it.  The  first  season 
I  experimented  with  three  trees  of  different  varieties ;  after 
removing  the  old  soil  the  roots  were  well  shortened  back  and  the 
new  soil  made  very  firm. 
The  change  was  marvellous.  Although  the  young  growths  came 
yellow  as  before  they  gradually  improved  in  colour,  and  before 
autumn  the  trees  that  had  rec  -ived  the  new  soil  had  made  splendid 
growths  and  were  the  picture  of  good  health,  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  others.  The  whole  of  the  trees  in  the  house  were  after¬ 
wards  treated  in  the  same  manner  with  a  similar  result,  and  I  very 
much  doubt  if  there  can  now  be  found  a  more  healthy  stock  of 
trees  in  the  country. 
The  above  shows  that  from  failures  we  may  often  learn  a 
lesson.  It  also  proves  that  one  cannot  always  replace  artificially 
what  is  required  in  the  soil. — S.,  Yorlcs. 
IRIS  BAKERIANA. 
Many  times  have  graceful  lines  been  written  in  the  pages  of  the 
■Journal  of  Horticulture  by  Mr.  S.  Arnott  anent  the  beauty  of  many  of 
the  early  Irises,  such  as  reticulata,  histrio,  histrioides,  and  others,  with 
I.  Bakeriana,  of  which  the  woodcut  (fig.  38)  is  a  representation.  Of 
charming  beauty  and  delicious  fragrance  this  Iris  thoroughly  deserved 
the  first-class  certificate  accorded  to  it  by  the  Floral  Committee  of  the 
Royal  Horticultural  Society  at  a  meeting  held  on  February  11th.  The 
exhibitors  were  Messrs.  R.  Wallace  &  Co.,  Colchester,  who  have  placed 
prominently  before  the  horticultural  world  many  gems  of  chaste  beauty. 
The  colour  is  rich,  deep,  royal  blue,  the  slightly  paler  coloured  falls 
-being  daintily  spotted  with  white. 
PRECEPT  AND  PRACTICE. 
(Continued  from  page  132.) 
“  The  common  round,  the  daily  task,”  cannot,  so  far  as  our 
work  is  concerned,  drift  into  a  monotone,  and  if  ever  this  is  felt  to 
be  the  case  the  fault  is  in  the  worker,  and  not  in  the  work.  The 
necessity  of  forethought,  continually  enforced  in  all  horticultural 
teaching,  which  I  will  here  call  work  by  anticipation,  is  too  pre¬ 
dominating  a  factor  in  the  sum  of  even  one  day’s  work  to  admit 
of  mechanical  motion.  Work  by  anticipation  opens  or  shuts  the 
dampers,  the  ventilators,  stirs  up  or  slacks  down  the  fires,  shades 
or  admits  light,  saves  the  plants  from  flagging,  Onions  from  the 
maggot,  early  Potatoes  from  the  frost,  and  in  fact  does  a  hundred 
thing?,  and  does  them  at  the  right  time.  These  hundred  little 
things  are  to  an  unobservant  man  so  many  little  rocks  which  he 
will  bump  against  in  a  day  to  the  detriment  ofi  his  craft.  To  be 
expert  in  many  things,  as  well  as  to  avoid  trouble  (not  work),  our 
young  gardener  cannot  be  too  young  to  commence  this  prescient 
training,  which  if  followed  up  may  also  carry  him  far  enough  to 
interpret  and  press  into  service  some  simple  natural  phenomena 
which  otherwise  he  might  set  aside  as  being  beyond  his  ken. 
“  Come  up  here,  boy,  and  open  your  eyes  and  I  went  up  from 
the  stokehole,  where  I  was  vigorously  engaged  at  firing  up  in  the 
cool  grey  of  an  early  summer’s  morning,  to  be  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  by  the  time  the  pipes  would  be.  hot  the  sun  would  be  upon 
that  particular  range  sufficiently  strong  to  accomplish  the  object 
without  their  aid.  “  Now,  my  boy,  don’o  you  see  that  you  are 
wasting  fuel  and  time  ?  small  matters  compared  to  the  heat  you 
are  sending  into  the  houses  to  let  out  immediately  through  the 
ventilators,  drying  up  everything  in  the  bargain.”  “  Yes,  sir,  I 
see.”  “Well,  my  boy,  always  try  to  see  these  things  beforehand.” 
Now  it  is  astonishing  how  much  there  is  to  see  in  looking  ahead, 
and  how  much  work  there  is  to  be  done  by  anticipation ;  so  much 
so,  indeed,  that  one  is  inclined  to  say  the  smart  man  does  nearly 
everything  beforehand.  One  Chrysanthemum  grower  I  knew 
dressed  the  bulk  of  his  exhibition  blooms  beforehand  as  they 
developed  on  the  plants,  and  when  the  critical  hour  was  at  hand 
there  was  no  hurry,  no  confusion,  and  no  trusting  of  the  delicate 
work  to  the  tender  mercy  of  inexperienced  hands.  Surely. fore¬ 
thought  is  the  highest  exposition  of  “  heaven’s  first  law.” 
Having  alluded  to  simple  natural  phenomena,  we  may  here 
touch  upon  a  topic  of  daily  anxiety — the  weather.  “  It  is  absurd,” 
you  will  say,  “  to  bring  that  into  our  calculation.”  I  beg  to  differ. 
We  cannot  afford  to  leave  it  out;  we  must  have  it,  I  admit — take 
it  as  it  comes,  but  there  are  different  ways  of  taking  it,  the  best 
possibly  being  by  the  forelock  as  little  as  there  is,  unfortunately, 
to  grasp  ;  but  that  little  is  often  of  great  use.  Young  people  are 
not,  as  a  rule,  I  find,  as  well  acquainted  with  the  working  of  our 
two  most  prominent  meteorological  instruments  as  they  should  be, 
and  a  little  analytical  discussion  may  dispel  some  error  surrounding 
at  least  one  of  them.  First  by  right  of  pre-eminence  (to  us) 
comes  that  simple  instrument  the  thermometer,  a  compound  word 
FIG.  -38.— IRIS  BAKERIANA. 
— thermo-meter— springing  from  two  Greek  roots,  Thermo ,  heat ; 
meter,  a  measure  ;  literally  heat  measurer.  Simple  as  it  is, 
without  accurate  observation  misleading  statements  occasionally 
occur  which  are  worse  than  useless. 
There  are,  I  fear,  few  of  our  boys  at  starting  who  read  a 
thermometer  correctly,  and  we  know  for  a  fact  that  many  persist 
in  misconstruing  its  common-sense  name  into  “  theometer.”  As 
regards  observation  one  I  knew,  and  a  big  boy  too,  who  daily 
watched  an  instrument  for  over  a  month  from  which  the  bulb  had 
been  broken  off,  and  duly  recorded  the  dislocated  data  in  his  diary. 
Two  observers  should  agree  in  their  observation,  which,  if  they  are 
young  ones,  I  seldom  find  them  doing.  One  will  look  up,  the  other 
down,  with  a  variation  of  several  degrees,  especially  if  the 
instrument  is  on  a  small  scale.  When  I  note  a  lad  reading  the 
thermometer  I  like  to  test  his  capability  of  doing  so  correctly, 
and  point  out  to  him  that  in  order  to  do  so  it  is  necessary  to  bring 
the  eye  on  a  level  with  the  height  of  the  mercury  in  whatever 
position  the  instrument  is  placed.  One  lesson  is  sufficient  to  set 
the  matter  right  for  all  time — his  time,  and  the  value  of  all  such 
observation  is  entirely  dependent  upon  its  accuracy.  Due  justice  is 
not  always  given  by  placing  even  the  most  reliable  instrument  in  a 
suitable  position  beyond  the  contingent  influences  of  conductors, 
so  desirable  in  the  case  of  correct  shade  temperature  readings, 
