4 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
January  2,  1898. 
that  to  us,  who  are  in  the  vale  of  life,  cornea  so  swiftly  and  so 
often.  What  portion  has  he  for  us — pain  or  pleasure,  or  such  a 
blending  of  both,  that  we  know  not  where  one  ends  and  the  other 
begins  ?  One  blessing  he  brings,  the  greatest  of  all — honest  work 
for  honest  workers.  Call  work  a  curse  ;  why  how  ignorant  you 
are !  Half-hearted  work  may  be,  and  is ;  also  very  excessive 
slavish  work,  that  crushes  out  life  and  spirit.  But  speaking 
principally  to  and  of  the  great  gardening  brotherhood,  I  challenge 
all  the  world  to  prove  me  wrong,  and  to  Bay  if  the  heritage  of 
“  the  grand  old  gardener,”  our  common  sire,  has  ever  pressed  too 
heavily  on  any  one  of  them.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  have  never 
felt  over-tired,  else  they  would  not  be  human  ;  but  never  are  they 
so  disabled  that  they  cannot  rise  again.  Why  the  very  fact  of 
living  in  touch  with  Nature’s  God  means  life,  and  that  life  of  a 
high  and  noble  kind,  above  all  petty  sordidness  and  meanness.  “  In 
all  labour  there  is  profit.”  Then  spend  and  be  spent,  so  that  the 
reward  of  your  labour  may  be  full  and  satisfactory. 
The  wide  circulation  of  this  paper  brings  it  within  the  reach 
of  “  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.”  You  great  potentates 
of  the  gardening  world  need  not,  however,  glance  at  this. 
My  words  are  for  the  lowly  in  station,  the  class  of  men  I 
know  beat,  single-handed,  with  glass,  flower,  and  vegetable 
dividing  their  attention,  and  to  the  man  who  is  groom  and 
gardener  in  one.  Your  situations  spell  “Work,”  and  you  do  the 
work  well  as  far  as  your  knowledge  carries  you.  There  is  as  much 
praise  and  credit  due  to  you  for  your  healthy  vigorous  Cucumber 
plants  and  your  neat  pretty  beds  of  cheap  annuals  as  there  is  to 
“My  Lord’s”  gardener  with  the  product  of  his  costly  vineries  and 
priceless  Orchid  houses.  Work  and  common  sense  must  go  hand 
in  hand.  In  most  rural  districts  now  we  have  all  had  the  chance 
of  attending  horticultural  lectures,  all  good,  and  most  of  them 
highly  interesting,  and  there  are  also  many  excellent  gardening 
manuals  published  at  so  cheap  a  price  as  to  be  within  the  reach 
of  everyone.  What  you  do  read  digest,  and  then  commit  to  the 
store-room  of  your  mind.  Beware  that  mind  does  not  become  a 
lumber-room  ;  order  is  one  of  Nature’s  first  laws.  Do  not  sit  down 
whimpering  because  the  frost  is  likely  to  injure  your  young  and 
delicate  plants,  rather  devise  some  light  shelter  for  them.  You 
may  not  be  able  wholly  to  save  them,  but  much  may  be  done  by  a 
little  timely  protection.  Seeds  may  be  of  the  very  best  quality, 
but  they  do  not  thrive  in  company  with  twitch,  nor  on  poor  ill- 
tilh  d  soil,  neither  will  all  the  best  tilling  in  the  world  save  your 
early  Peas  from  the  ravages  of  the  sparrow  if  you  forget  the 
necessary  larch  boughs  or  bit  of  wire  netting.  Weak,  spindly 
plants  by  no  miracle  can  be  turned  into  stiff,  sturdy  growths,  and 
unpruned  fruit  trees  are  usually  not  productive. 
Drought  may  come  and  do, some  unavoidable  injury,  but  not 
much  to  that  garden  which  is  rich  and  fat  ;  and  even  the  com¬ 
monest  Roses  in  your  little  domain  will  be  less  subject  to  mildew 
and  insect  filth  if  planted  in  an  open  situation,  freely  manured  and 
freely  “  cut  back.”  If  you  could  but  realise  it,  you  small  men, 
with  your  little  but  good  tray  of  vegetables,  your  boxes  of  three, 
six,  or  twelve  blooms  are  the  strength  of  the  small  rural  shows. 
Do  you  not  know  the  villagers  are  much  more  interested  in  exhibits 
by  one  of  themselves  than  in  all  the  costly  exotics  from  the 
“squire’s  garden.”  Potatoes  and  Beans,  Stocks  and  Asters,  come 
home,  as  it  were,  to  them,  and  are  felt  to  be  within  the  reach  of 
the  many,  and  a  stimulus  is  given  to  greater  effort,  and  effort  is 
always  healthy. 
May  this  New  Year  find  us  all  with  a  keener  appetite  for  work 
than  ever — work  that,  done  honestly  and  with  a  “  single  eye,”  will 
meet  with  the  approval  of  the  Great  Master,  who  appoints  to  each 
servant  (however  humble)  his  task. — H.  G.  F. 
CHISWICK. 
A  Last  Look  Round  with  Mr.  Barron. 
Though  we  shall  hope  to  meet  our  friend,  the  late  Superinten¬ 
dent,  from  time  to  time  on  the  familiar  ground  of  his  labours  in 
connection  with  the  Fruit  Committee,  his  last  official  guidance  was, 
in  one  sense,  enjoyed,  in  another  regretted,  a  few  days  ago.  Mr. 
A.  F.  Barron’s  retirement  from  Chiswick  is  essentially  historical  in 
its  character.  He  leaves  the  garden  strong  in  the  strength  of  his 
life’s  work,  and  his  name  is  a  household  word  in  the  domain  of 
horticulture. 
Until  yesterday  Mr.  Barron  was  by  far  the  oldest  official  of  the 
Royal  Horticultural  Society.  He  not  only  formed  and  planted 
the  Garden  as  it  exists  now,  but  was  Superintendent  of  the  larger 
Chiswick  when  the  grounds  were  more  than  80  acres  in  extent  ; 
also  of  the  costly  gardens  at  South  Kensington,  the  demands  of 
which  brought  Chiswick  down  to  less  than  12  acres— a  valuable 
area  still,  compact  and  serviceable,  not  to  say  indispensable,  to  the 
status  and  authority  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society.  Seeing, 
then,  the  far-reaching  scope  of  Mr.  Barron’s  work,  and  his 
unparalleled  term  of  service,  the  event  of  this  week  must  of  necessity 
mark  an  epoch  in  the  annals  of  the  Society,  which  he  served  so 
long  and  so  well. 
Mr.  Barron  retires  in  ripest  manhood  and  with  honours  ;  the 
first  conferred  by  the  Council  of  the  Society,  and  rarely  bestowed — 
an  honorary  Fellowship  ;  the  next  by  those  who  lived  the  closest 
to  him — the  workers  and  students  in  the  Gardens,  who  each  joined 
in  the  presentation  of  a  handsome  drawing-room  clock  with  an 
appropriate  inscription  ;  and  there  remains  still  to  follow  the  result 
of  the  remarkable  expression  of  public  feeling  which  has  surprised 
him  so  much.  But  enough  has  been  said  in  that  strain  at  present. 
The  late  Superintendent  of  Chiswick  is  one  of  those  persons  who 
courts  no  praise  ;  and,  correlatively,  he  is  slow,  very  slow,  to  make 
other  than  friendly  references  to  his  contemporaries.  If  a  still 
tongue  make  a  wise  head,  then  is  Mr.  Barron  wise. 
In  this  last  look  round  in  his  company  not  one  word  was  uttered 
that  would  have  been  distasteful  to  any  individual  or  corporate 
body.  His  mind  was  on  the  work  he  had  done,  and  the  possible 
results  iD  the  future.  It  is  certain  he  will  not  cease  to  take  interest 
in  the  Gardens  which  he  has  left,  and  which  he,  in  one  sense,  can 
still  “overlook” — namely,  from  the  windows  of  his  pleasant  home  ; 
while  he  will  give  his  services  on  the  Fruit  Committee  to  the 
Society,  to  which  he  belongs,  and  that  he  desires  to  see  increasingly 
prosperous  and  useful. 
One  way,  if  not  the  chief  way,  of  contributing  to  its  usefulness, 
is  in  the  maintenance  of  the  famous  old  enclosure  in  the  best 
possible  state  of  efficiency  for  the  work  it  is  capable  of  doing.  It 
is  not  suggested  that  any  disposition  exists  on  the  part  of  the 
Directorate  to  do  otherwise.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  gardens 
are  in  a  better  state  than  they  were  a  few  years  ago,  because  of  the 
better  condition  of  the  structures  on  the  whole  and  means  applied 
generally.  With  the  exception  of  two  lean-to  houses,  which  are  not 
a  standing,  but  a  tumbling  down  disgrace  to  .the  establishment  (some¬ 
what  of  a  puzzle  as  to  whether  it  would  be  best  to  remove  or  restore 
them),  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  long  ranges  of  pits  and  larger 
structures  are  in  otherwise  than  in  good  working  condition.  Some 
are  permanently  occupied,  others  afford  shelter  to  a  shifting  popula¬ 
tion  according  to  the  demands  of  the  time  and  the  object  in  view. 
The  great  vinery  stands  alone  in  its  glory,  and  is  unique  of  its 
kind,  but  not  the  most  useful.  It  cannot  be  an  easy  house  to 
manage,  and  when  it  is  remembered  the  Vines  were  there  thirty- 
five  years  ago,  and  that  the  roots  are  no  one  knows  where,  it  will 
be  conceded  that  they  have  “  lasted  ”  well — mainly  by  the  syste¬ 
matic  extension  of  young  canes  and  gradual  removal  of  exhausted 
rods,  with  otherwise  good  management.  In  no  other  way  could 
good  crops  of  useful,  saleable  Grapes  have  been  produced  through¬ 
out  the  long  period  indicated.  Whether  this  huge  structure  will 
always  be  a  vinery  (plus  a  grand  show  house  for  Apples  and  Pears), 
or  whether  it  is  thought  it  would  make  a  noble  orchard  house,  time 
alone  can  tell.  Changes  are  expected,  but  their  nature  seems  to 
be  a  profound  secret.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  learned  by  the 
most  insinuating  inquiries  from  anyone  who  is  supposed  to  be 
likely  to  know  something  is  that  “  nobody  knows  nothing.”  That 
is  the  most  definite  information  that  can  be  elicited  up  to  date 
regarding  the  policy  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society.  It  is  a 
“  still  tongue  ”  policy  so  far,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  “  wise.” 
Then  there  is  the  Fig  house,  a  fine  roomy,  light,  span-roofed 
structure  which  in  the  season,  but  not  now,  contains  the  finest 
collection  of  Figs  in  the  kingdom.  They  are  grown  in  pots  and 
bear  prodigiously.  There  are  some  sixty  or  seventy  varieties,  but 
while  the  trees  get  larger  the  house  does  not — a  difficulty  that  will 
have  to  be  met,  and  it  is  hoped  surmounted,  while  the  collection 
will  be  maintained  in  its  integrity.  To  weaken  it  would  be,  in  the 
estimation  of  many,  a  change  in  the  wrong  direction,  and  we  do  not 
suppose  it  will  be  made,  but  some  of  the  large  trees  may  have  to 
give  place  to  smaller  of  the  same  varieties.  The  house  was  gay 
with  Chrysanthemums  a  while  ago,  and  the  cut  down  plants  remain 
still,  while  the  Fig  trees  are  resting  in  the  Muscat  house. 
This  also  is  a  fine  “  span-roof,”  and  when  it  is  considered  that 
the  Vines  have  had  to  share  the  border  and  the  house  with 
Tomatoes,  and  these  latter  grandly  grown,  it  will  be  admitted  that 
the  former — the  Muscats — have  struggled  bravely  in  the  contest 
for  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  They  are  stout  and  strong,  trained 
horizontally  across  the  house  forming  a  flat  ceiling  of  greenery  and 
golden  fruit  in  their  season.  The  Vines  have  produced  a  good  crop 
this  year,  and  may  be  expected  to  yield  better  with  the  house  to 
themselves — that  is,  if  they  remain.  The  structure  was  previously 
an  orchard  house,  and  as  such  a  good  example  of  failure. 
There  are  two  other  structures  devoted  to  Vines — one  a 
curvillinear  lean-to  containing  several  varieties,  the  other  a  long 
narrow  case  devoted  mainly  to  Gros  Colman.  Very  fine  Grapes 
have  been  grown  here,  practically  in  the  natural  soil,  with  such 
additions  a*  coaid  be  scraped  together,  no  “  made”  border  on 
