March  19,  1896. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
257 
■ -  In  Sebnitz,  in  Saxony,  experiments  are  being  made  to  cover 
real  flowers  and  leaves  with  a  metallic  coating  by  means  of  galvanic 
electricity.  A  way  of  doing  this  has  been  invented,  and  the  question 
now  is,  How  to  make  such  weatherproof  flowers  available  for  millinery 
purposes. 
-  Making  Fruit  Cans. — An  inventor  in  California  has 
perfected  a  machine  for  making  fruit  cans  which  can  be  operated  by  a 
child,  and  which,  according  to  the  accounts,  is  very  effective.  Sheets  of 
tin  are  fed  into  the  machine  at  one  side  and  sixty-four  cans  of  any  given 
size  are  turned  out  every  minute  at  the  other.  All  the  joining  of  the 
seams  and  soldering  are  done,  says  a  contemporary,  by  the  machine,  and 
a  Californian  dispatch  says  that  a  few  of  them  in  one  factory  would  be 
able  to  supply  all  the  cans  used  on  the  Pacific  coast  for  fruit,  vegetables, 
and  fish  at  one-tenth  of  the  present  cost. 
-  Clematis  indivisa. — There  is  a  fine  specimen  of  this  plant 
in  bloom  in  the  gardens  of  the  Rev.  H.  G.  Jebb,  Fir  beck  Hall,  Rother¬ 
ham,  that  is  worthy  of  notice.  It  is  planted  in  a  confined  space  about 
2  feet  square,  under  the  stage,  at  one  end  on  the  south  side  of  a  span- 
roofed  house,  and  is  trained  the  whole  length  (about  30  feet)  a  few 
inches  from  the  glass.  One  side  of  the  house  is  completely  covered  with 
this  creeper,  the  leaves  of  which  are  almost  hidden  by  the  flowers.  I  feel 
confident  that  I  am  well  within  the  mark  in  saying  there  are  tens  of 
thousands  of  the  pearly  white  star-like  flowers,  the  trusses  being 
exceptionally  large.  It  presents  a  sight  not  easily  forgotten,  and 
which  must  be  seen  to  be  realised.  On  inquiring  of  the  gardener, 
Mr.  Egglestone,  what  treatment  he  recommended  to  obtain  such 
good  results,  he  said  that  the  above  plant  is  placed  at  the  warmer 
end  of  the  house  (kept  at  greenhouse  temperature),  planted  in  good 
loam,  with  plenty  of  drainage,  and  is  kept  on  the  dry  side  at  this 
season  of  the  year. — S. 
-  Stbawbeeky  “  Sir  Harry.” — Possibly  one  of  the  reasons  why 
this  good  variety  fell  into  disrepute  in  some  quarters  was  owing  to  the 
fact  that  shortly  after  its  introduction  another,  and  much  inferior  variety, 
was  sold  for  it,  so  great  was  the  demand  for  the  former  at  that  time. 
In  evidence  of  its  good  qualities  at  the  present  date,  I  may  remark  that 
Mr.  P.  Blair,  at  Trentham  Gardens,  informed  me  that  of  the  4000  pots  he 
forces  annually,  both  for  early  and  late  supplies,  “  Sir  Harry  ”  is  the 
mainstay,  as  also  for  outdoor  purposes,  the  remainder  being  La  Grosse 
Sucrfie,  excepting  a  few  of  Noble  as  the  earliest.  Mr.  Blair  further 
remarked  that  of  the  several  varieties  he  has  tried  at  Trentham,  the 
only  ones  to  succeed  well  in  all  respects  have  been  Sir  Harry  and  La 
Grosse  Sucree.  As  regards  “  wintering  ”  the  forcing  supply  at  Trentham, 
the  pots  are  usually  plunged  in  ashes  under  a  south-west  wall,  and 
protected  with  fern  ;  for  nine  or  ten  weeks  during  the  severe  weather 
last  winter  the  plants  remained  covered  up  without  harm,  and  they  all 
carried  a  good  crop  of  fruit  afterwards.  The  bracken  fern  is  indeed  one 
of  the  lightest,  cleanest,  warmest,  and  generally  useful  commodities  at 
the  service  of  the  gardener. — W.  G. 
-  “  Kinds”  and  “Varieties.”— I  ask  leave  to  refer  to  the  need 
there  is  for  continued  expostulations  as  to  the  improper  uses  of  these 
terms,  simply  because  so  many  people  who  should  properly  understand 
them  employ  them  so  wrongly.  I  came  across  recently  the  following 
sentence,  and  written,  too,  by  an  eminent  gardener,  who  in  penning  it 
did  so,  I  am  sure,  in  a  moment  of  forgetfulness  ;  yet  is  it  a  deplorable 
example  of  the  confusion  which  prevails  as  to  the  fitting  uses  of  these 
terms.  “  Amongst  varieties  Doted  for  their  good  qualities  we  have  some 
excellent  kinds  that  present,  of  course,  a  terrible  muddle,  and  when 
such  confounding  of  terms  get  into  schedules  no  wonder  if  later  there 
are  occasional  outbreaks  of  strong  language.”  If  the  writer  in  question 
had  stopped  short  at  excellent,  or  had  been  content  to  add  “ones”  in 
place  of  “  kinds  ”  his  language  would  have  been  excellent  also.  But 
the  incident  admirably  illustrates  the  confusion  that  exists.  I  have 
noticed  that  in  the  few  criticisms  on  the  recently  issued  code  of  rules 
for  judging  issued  by  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society  little  or  no 
exception  has  been  taken  to  the  rules  as  to  the  proper  definitions  and 
uses  of  the  terms  “kinds”  and  “  varieties”  therein  laid  down.  Now,  it  does 
not  seem,  too  much  to  ask  of  everyone  who  may  write  for  the  papers 
or  assist  to  prepare  schedules,  or  be  exhibitors  at  shows,  to  make  them¬ 
selves  familiar  with  the  definitions  given,  aDd  to  abide  by  them.  In 
that  way,  and  in  course  of  time,  we  may  so  far  get  rid  of  doubts 
and  difficulties,  because  everyone  will  equally  employ  the  terms 
regularly  and  act  on  them.  The  term  “sort”  is  but  a  repetition  of 
“  variety,”  but  the  latter  is  by  far  the  more  expressive.  It  iR  the  special 
term  in  relation  to  variations  of  kinds  that  should  be  universally 
employed.— Uodicus. 
- Wolverhampton  Horticultural  Club.— At  the  monthly 
meeting  of  the  members  of  this  Association  held  on  the  10th  inst.,  Mr. 
William  Gardiner,  Birmingham,  read  a  paper  on  the  “  History  and 
Cultivation  of  the  Strawberry,”  being  a  modification  of  that  given  by 
him  on  the  2nd  inst.,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Birmingham  Gardens  Asso¬ 
ciation.  The  essay  was  listened  to  with  much  interest.  One  of  the 
members  spoke  highly  of  John  Ruskin  as  a  forcer,  and  that  at  the  present 
time  plants  in  pots  of  it  were  heavily  clustered  with  fine  fruit,  an  asser¬ 
tion  which  was  corroborated  by  another  member.  A  cordial  vote  of 
thanks  was  awarded  to  Mr.  Gardiner  for  his  interesting  address,  and  in 
the  acknowledgment  of  which  he  took  occasion  to  comment  on  the 
utility  of  mutual  improvement  associations  amongst  gardeners. 
-  Trials  at  Chiswick.  —  The  customary  vegetable  trials  at 
Chiswick  this  year  will,  we  learn,  include  Peas,  Potatoes,  Spinach,  and 
Turnips.  Sufficient  for  one  season,  especially  if  well  done,  as  it  is 
hoped  will  be  the  case.  Raisers  of  Peas  seem  rather  to  injure  their 
chances  by  sending  in  seed  so  late.  That  may,  however,  be  due  some¬ 
what  to  the  absence  of  any  clear  intimation  as  to  what  crops  would 
be  subjected  to  trial  during  the  year.  It  would  not  be  too  much  to 
ask  that  henceforth  not  only  such  subjects  of  these  annual  trials  be 
determined  upon  early  in  the  winter,  so  that  full  information  might  be 
diffused  through  the  Press,  but  also  that  the  Fruit  and  Vegetable  Com¬ 
mittee  should  be  consulted  as  to  what  subjects  it  may  be  thought  most 
desirable  thus  to  submit  for  trial  ;  were  such  the  case  no  doubt  the 
members  would  feel  more  interest  in  attending  the  Chiswick  meetings. 
— Fellow, 
-  The  Vegetable  Primer. — I  thank  Mr,  Iggulden  for  his 
kindly  criticism  of  my  little  book  on  vegetable  culture.  He,  however, 
wishes  I  had  condemned  the  dibber  as  a  planting  appliance  for  Potato 
sets.  I  really  do  not  know  why.  Last  year  I  had  to  plant  large 
quantities  on  eleven  plots  of  ground  and  on  soils  of  very  diverse 
texture,  but  I  had  no  reason  whatever  to  feel  that  the  use  of  the  dibber 
was  detrimental.  If  the  soil  about  the  tubers  be  through  its  use  made  a 
little  firmer  it  does  but  help  to  keep  newly  forming  tubers  closer  at 
home,  and  over  the  sets  there  is  always  found  finer  soil  hoed  in  than  is 
the  general  texture  of  the  whole.  That  is  an  admirable  feature  in  stiff 
soils.  As  to  selecting  Potatoes  to  suit  various  soils,  I  must  say  after 
last  year’s  experience  of  seventy  varieties  on  many  soils,  I  think  he 
would  be  a  bold  man  who  ventured  to  assert  that  one  sort  suited  a  certain 
soil  better  than  another.  Practically  I  found  certain  fine  varieties  gave 
generally  the  best  results  in  most  cases,  but  then  they  were  so  numerous. 
—A.  Dean. 
RULES  FOR  JUDGING. 
As  rather  an  old  hand  in  adjudications  at  flower  shows  and  in 
gardens  I  have  been  waiting  for  some  criticism  of  the  R.H.S.’s  code  of 
rules  in  the  Journal  of  Horticulture,  but  so  far  little  has  appeared.  I 
have  read  the  code,  and  found  nothing  startling  in  it,  and  nothing  new. 
I  only  find,  put  into  a  concrete  form,  the  principles  of  judging,  which  I 
have  carried  out  for  years,  and  which  every  colleague  I  have  acted  with 
has  carried  out.  Yes,  even  to  the  system  of  pointing,  though,  on 
perhaps  a  simpler,  but  quite  as  equitable,  a  basis  as  that  set  forth  in  the 
code  for  1896. 
I  think  we  old  provincial  judges  may  set  our  minds  at  rest,  for  a  time 
at  least,  fully  satisfied  that  the  officers  of  those  societies  for  whom  we 
have  acted  will  decide  to  rely  on  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  served 
them  well  in  the  past,  rather  than  trust  to  untried,  though  no  doubt 
well  qualified  experts,  who  may  be  willing  to  come  and  judge  every 
exhibit  strictly  according  to  the  new  code.  I  do  not  intend  to  criticise 
the  rules,  I  am  quite  satisfied  that  the  gentlemen  who  formed  the 
Committee,  and  those  who  assisted  them,  either  named  or  not  named, 
did  their  very  best,  and  generally  speaking  their  best  is  very  good  ;  but, 
gentlemen,  though  all  that  you  have  said  is  true,  it  is  not  new.  We 
knew  it  all  before,  and  it  bothers  me  why  there  should  have  been  such 
a  flourish  of  trumpets  about  the  matter. 
Now  there  is  to  my  mind  one  great  omission  in  the  code,  and  that  is, 
there  are  no  rules  for  judging  cottage  gardens  and  allotments.  It  has 
been  my  pleasant  duty,  with  a  colleague,  for  a  good  few  years  now  to 
judge  the  allotments  on  a  large  estate.  Every  year  there  will  be  ten  to 
fifteen  entries,  and  these  will  be  separated  one  from  the  other  by,  say, 
two  miles  from  one  point  to  another.  It  will  be  seen  that  there  is  no 
way  of  arriving  at  an  equitable  and  sound  judgment  but  by  points,  and 
yet  these  points  have  to  be  somewhat  elastic,  because  of  the  difficulty  of 
arriving  at  the  standard  of  judgment  of  the  whole  lots  by  a  general 
survev  of  (hem  on  the  principle  set  forth  in  Rule  30.  Personally,  there¬ 
fore,  I  should  gladly  have  welcomed  any  suggestions  how  to  arrive  at  a 
true  judgment  of  these  allotments  or  cottage  gardens,  even  though  I 
might  have  differed  from  them,  and  of  course,  with  the  egotism  of  an  old 
provincial,  thought  my  own  way  the  best.  You  see,  in  the  country, 
what  we  know  we  know,  or  at  least  we  think  we  do,  and  that  is  enough 
for — An  Old  Provincial  Judge. 
