258 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
March  20,  1902. 
rigorously  removed,  or  the  bed  will  in  time  become  one  mass  of 
small  weak  roots.  Sutton’s  Perfection  and  Connover’s  Colossal 
are  fine  varieties  to  grow  for  ordinary  purposes.  Those  who  wish 
to  grow  something  startling  in  the  shape  of  giant  sticks  should 
try  the  French  Giant,  which,  with  very  high  feeding  give 
wonderful  results.  All  things  considered,  the  Asparagus  is  more 
easily  cultivated  well  than  the  majority  of  vegetables,  and  should, 
therefore,  find  a  place  in  nearly  all  gardens. — H.  D. 
- - 
The  Horticultural  Hall. 
On  Monday  last  we  made  a  special  visit  to  the  position  of  the 
site  selected  and  commended  by  the  Council  of  the  Royal  Horti¬ 
cultural  Society  for  the  proposed  new  exhibition  hall  and  office.? 
of  the  Society.  It  was  announced  on  page  240  of  the  Journal  of 
Horticulture  last  week  that  the  chosen  site  is  at  the  comer  of 
Bell  Street,  Vincent  Square,  S.W.  We  found  the  place  without 
the  slightest  difliculty,  and  discovered  that  all  that  had  been  said 
in  favour  of  the  site  was  no  elaboration,  and  that  the  place  is,  in 
the  highest  scn.se,  eminently  satisfactory.  The  comer  of  Bell 
Street  proposed  to  be  rented  for  the  hall,  seems  to  be  at  present 
a  goodly  sized  garden  belonging  to  a  villa  standing  alone.  Being 
walled-in,  the  space  cannot  be  seen  from  tlie  .street.  It  is  a  most 
convenient  position,  however,  and  is  exactly  at  the  corner  where 
Bell  Street  meets  Vincent  Square  Road  at  right  angles.  Vincent 
Square,  by  the  way,  is  really  a  10  acre  green  grass  park  or  playing 
field,  used  by  the  boys  of  Westminster  School.  Thus,  right  in 
front,  there  is  ample  freedom  and  a  pleasant  survey.  Bell  Street 
at  present  is  composed  of  low-roofed  houses  and  tenanted  by 
labouring  people,  but  the  whole  neighbourhood  is  highly  respect¬ 
able  even  now,  and  is  yearly  being  remodelled  into  one  wdiere 
handsome  residential  flats,  churches,  and  such  other  buildings 
form  the  composition. 
Fellows  of  the  Society  w’ho  desire  to  see  the  gromid  and  its 
surroundings  before  voting  at  the  meeting  to-morrow,  can  do  so 
by  a  three-minutes’  walk  from  the  present  exhibition  hall  in 
Buckingham  Gate.  Cross  into  Artillery  Row  (which  is  exactly 
opposite  Buckingham  Gate)  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  street  bear 
round  to  the  left  behind  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores,  where  there 
is  a  wide,  open,  paved  space.  Here  take  the  right  hand  and  cross 
into  Greycoat  Street,  on  the  left,  thi.s  leading  into  Bell  Street, 
at  the  'end  of  which  the  site  lies.  The  whole  distance  is  not 
more  than  400yds. 
It  is  earnestly  hoped  that  Fellows  who  support  the  proposed 
new  hall  movement  will  be  forward  at  to-morrow’s  meeting  in 
the  Drill  Hall  at  3  o’clock,  and  that  at  la.st  the  Society  will  sign 
its  intentions  to  take  the  neces.sary  steps  towards  the  erection  of 
a  suitable  edifice  for  its  floral  exhibitions,  its  library,  offices, 
lecture  hall,  and  council  chamber.  £8,000  have  already  been 
promised,  and  at  least  another  £8,000  can  be  expected  by  an 
appeal  to  the  5,500  Fellows,  without  touching  the  standing  funds 
of  the  society  at  all.  The  expenditure  of  £780  a  year  extra  on 
ground  rent  for  the  proposed  hall  is  a  mere  bagatelle  in  face  of 
the  constant  accession  of  Fellows,  and  also  in  view  of  the  likely 
attractions  of  such  a  hall. 
We  herewith  print  that  part  of  the  New  Hall  Committee’s 
report  to  the  Council  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society  that 
was  omitted  in  our  last  issue.  On  page  240  we  referred  to  the 
site  the  New  Hall  Committee  have  recommended.  The  other 
sites  are  discussed  as  follows :  — 
“  At  the  first  meeting  Baron  Schroder  (chairman)  made  a  state¬ 
ment  in  regard  to  finance,  concluding  with  the  words :  ‘  The 
financial  part  of  the  question  need  not  cause  any  insuperable 
difficulty.  It  was,  thoi'efore,  decided  that  the  first  matter  for  the 
Committee  to  engage  upon  should  be  the  finding  of  a  suitable 
site.  Five  different  sites  have  been  very  carefully  inspected  and 
inquired  into,  with  the  result  that  four  have  been  dismissed  as 
unsuitable  for  one  reason  or  another.  Your  Committee  strongly 
advise  the  adoption  of  the  fifth  site  (see  page  240  of  this  journal 
last  week),  which  they  regard  as  suitable  for  the  Society’s  pur¬ 
poses,  all  circumstances  considered.  They  do  not  believe  that  any 
better  site  can  be  obtained  which  would  not  prove  to  be  alto¬ 
gether  beyond  the  financial  resources  likely  to  be  available.  The 
first  site  investigated  wa,s  that  known  as  Niagara,  covering  nearly 
an  acre  of  land  (about  40,000  square  feet),  and  with  a  large 
circular  building.  The  price  of  the  freehold  wa,s  fixed  at  a  little 
over  £100,000.  Probably  at  least  £5,000  would  have  been 
required  for  adapting  the  building  for  the  Society’s  purposes,  ana 
another  £5,000  or  more  for  building  suitable  offices.  The  rates 
and  taxes  would  also  have  been  exceedingly  heavy.  Long  and 
careful  consideration  was  given  to  this  site,  but  after  the  fullest 
inquiry  with  regard  to  borrowing  upon  the  freehold  and  the  rate 
of  interest  required,  Baron  Schroder  announced  at  the  fourth 
formal  meeting  of  the  Committee  that  the  rate  of  interest 
required  for  borrowing  on  Niagara  is  .so  high  that,  considering  the 
large  initial  outlay  required,  he  had  reluctantly,  but  decidedly, 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  property  was  too  large  and  too 
costly  to  be  further  entertained.  The  second  site  was  one  in  the 
Buckingham  Palace  Road,  containing  15,190  square  feet.  This- 
site  also  received  careful  consideration,  but  was  eventually 
dismissed  on  the  ground  that  a  rent  of  £700  a  year,  coupled  with 
an  obligation  to  expend  at  least  £20,000  on  buildings,  was  toe 
high  a  price  for  the  Society  to  pay  for  a  lease  of  eighty  years  only. 
The  third  site  was  bounded  by  Vauxhall  Bridge  Road, 
Francis  Street,  and  Carlisle  Place,  and  included  the  fine  building, 
suitable  for  offices,  &c.,  known  as  the  Old  Cardinal’s  House.  The 
whole  site  proposed  contained  22,500  square  feet.  This  property 
commended  itself  strongly  to  the  Committee,  but  it  had  the  dis¬ 
advantage  of  belonging  to  three  different  owners,  and  also  of" 
involving  the  necessity  of  obtaining  certain  permissions  from  the- 
London  County  Council.  As  soon  as  definite  negotiations  were 
entered  into  with  the  various  owners  it  was  apparent  that  an. 
agreement  as  to  price  could  not  be  arrived  at,  and  this  site  was 
most  regretfully  dismissed.  The  fourth  site  was  in  Francis- 
Street,  consisting  of  15,000  square  feet,  but  the  rent  asked,  viz., 
£1,400  a  year  for  a  long  lease,  was  considered  to  be  beyond  the- 
Society’s  means.” 
Obituary. 
Mr.  N.  H.  Pownall. 
A  week  or  two  ago  we  wrote  to  Mr.  N.  H.  Pownall,  at  his 
home  in  the  Lenton  Hall  Gardens,  Nottingham,  asking  him  to- 
join  the  veterans  who  had  promised  to  write  a  short  letter  for 
the  Spring  Number  of  the  Journal,  which  appeared  last  week. 
Mr.  Pownall,  better  known  to  Journal  readers  as  “An  Old 
Provincial,”  had  to  excuse  himself,  and  wrote  to  say  ;  “  I  anx 
passing  through  one  of  my  spring  bilious  attacks,  which  is  more 
severe  than  usual.”  And  now  comes  to  us  the  sad  news  of  his 
decease,  after  a  very  short  illness,  on  March  3,  aged  seventy 
years.  He  was  buried  on  Thursday,  March  6,  and  four  days 
later  his  wife,  aged  seventy-three  years,  also  passed  away,  and. 
was  interred  on  the  14th  inst.  The  Vicar  of  Lenton,  Notting¬ 
ham,  in  a  letter,  says :  “  He  was  greatly  respected  by  all  who^ 
knew  him,  and  they  were  Legion!  ” 
A  brief  autobiography  of  Mr.  N.  H.  Pownall  was  given  in  the- 
Journal  of  Horticulture  for  March  9,  1899,  from  which  we  make- 
the  following  extracts :  — “  In  the  late  ‘  forties  ’  I  see  myself 
entering  the  gardens  of  my  father’s  employer,  a  large  cotton- 
manufacturer,  at  a  place  twelve  miles  N.F.  of  Manchester,  and 
on  the  western  slopes  of  the  Pennine  range  which  forms  the 
backbone  of  England.  Gardening  was  not  the  proposed  avoca¬ 
tion  mapped  out  for  me  by  my  parent-s.  My  father,  who-  was  the- 
accountant  of  the  works,  had  intended  training  me  up  to  his 
profession,  so  that  eventually  I  might  be  able  to  take 
his  place.  A  severe  illness,  caused  in  large  measure  hy  too  close 
indoor  confinement,  induced  my  parents  to  alter  their  plans, 
and,  in  consultation  with  my  master  and  mistress,  who  always 
took  a  special  interest  in  me,  brought  about  my  admission  into- 
the  gardens.  I  had  always,  from  my  earliest  years,  had  a  taste 
for  gardening,  from  the  time  I  grew  my  first  pot  plant — a  Musk 
— in  an  old  cracked  teapot  of  my  mother’s,  and  pruned  her  pot 
Rose  so  effectually  that,  as  she  ruefully,  but  laughingly  said, 
‘  It  must  be  well  pruned,  for  there  is  only  the  stump  left.’  The 
gardener  I  was  put  under  was  one  of  the  good  old-fashioned  type 
— a  Yorkshireman,  essentially  a  practical  man.  Being  always  a 
reader,  and  a  frequenter  of  the  booksellers’  and  newsagents’ 
shops  somewhere  about  the  beginning  of  the  ‘  fifties,’  I  made 
my  first  acquaintance  with  the  then  ‘  Cottage  Gardener,’  and 
from  it  I  got  visions  of  a  larger  world  of  gardening  than  up  to 
that  time  I  had  any  idea  of.  I  read  each  weekly  number  from 
first  page  to  last.  I  read  them  again  and  again,  and  the  writers’^ 
personalities  became  clearer  to  me  each  week,  so  that  Robert, 
Errington,  Donald  Beaton,  Robert  Fish,  Thomas  Appleby,  and 
others  became  my  personal  friends  with  whom  I  held  converse- 
week  by  w’eek,  and  to  whom  I  looked  up  with  the  reverential  awe- 
of  a  young  hero-worshipper.  My  first  communication  to  the- 
‘  Cottage  Gardener  ’  was  somewhere  about  the  year  18.54.  In 
1856  I  came  into  Nottinghamshire  to  be  gardener  to  Mr.  William 
Sand  ay,  the  great  Leicester  sheep  and  Shorthorn  breeder,  and 
my  facilities  for  advancing  in  gardening  were  there  strictly  un¬ 
limited,  the  encouragement  to  go  on  to  higher  things  Avas  of 
the  heartiest,  and  through  all  these  years  I  occasionally  dropped 
notes  to  ‘our  Journal,’  generally  under  the  pseudonym  of 
‘Excelsior’  or  my  own  narne.  I  have  stayed  in  the  county  all 
through  the  last  twenty-six  years  with  my  present  employer, 
Mr.  Frederick  Wright,  J.P.,  of  Lenton  Hall,  Nottingham. 
Notts  IS  a  county,  I  consider,  good  enough  for  any  man  to  live 
in,  and  its  beautiful  county  town,  or  city  now,  is  one  which 
draws  out  daily  more  and  more  my  admiration  and  love.  My 
later  writings  as  ‘  An  Old  Provincial  ’  will  speak  for  thernselves.” 
The  Editors  of  the  Journal  deeply  regret  the  los.s  of  a  very 
old  acquaintance,  an  able  gardener,  an  attractive  personality, 
an  ever-welcome  writer,  and  a  God-fearing  citizen.  Peace  and' 
