IMarch  19.  1903. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  ANU  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
249 
Cfl  j  ter  cC-  Co 
Melon,  Earl’s  Favourite.  {See  page  248.) 
great  working  university  of  the  world.  In  America  and  Australia 
of  course  this  fact  is  still  more  strikingly  emphasised.  It  is  all 
right  to  make  senior  wranglers  and  prizemen,  just  as  it  is  to 
make  racehorses,  champion  greyhounds,  and  overfed  cattle,  but 
the  tests  applied  to'  these  examples  of  supremacy  is  an  arbitrary 
and  artificial  one,  but  the  real  organisation  and  work  of  the 
wnrld  would  fare  ill  if  left  entirely  to  showmen  from  the 
universities  or  higher  schools. 
Nature  Studies. 
Of  late  years  what  is  called  “  Nature  Study  ”  has  been  intro¬ 
duced  into  schools,  and  a  very  good  method  it  is  of  educating  tlie 
sense.s.  Well,  a  gardener’s  whole  life  is  simply  one  long  course) 
of  Nature  study,  and  many  are  the  miracles  he  sees  going  on  all 
the  year  round.  The  gardener,  as  a  rule,  represents  for  us  one 
of  the  highest  and  best  types  of  mankind,  viz.,  a  self-made  man. 
Debarred  as  most  of  us  now  over  middle  age  were  in  our  youth 
from  what  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd  calls- “Equal  social  opportunity,” 
we  had  perforce  to  do  our  be.st  to  educate  ourselves  individualljq 
and  to  fit  ourselves  for  conflict  and  victory  in  that  struggle  for 
existence  which  take.s  place  in  the  garden,  and  amongst  gar¬ 
deners,  as  well  as  elsewhere.  In  these  days  of  cheap  literature 
and  teclinical  schools,  young  gardeners  near  towns  possess  a 
great  advantage.  Even  in  country  districts  it  is  often  possible 
for  the  young  men,  of  two  or  more  neighbouring  gardens,  to 
meet  once  or  twice  a  week,  and  co-operate  together  in  various  ' 
ways  towards  their  mutual  advantage  from  sociM  and  educational 
points  of  view.  “  Heaven  helps  them  who  try  to  help  themselves,” 
and  once  a  desire  is  shown  for  improvement,  employers  and 
head  gardeners  will,  as  a  rule,  be  found  only  too  glad  to  assist. 
A  course  of  elementary  physics  will  show  them  how  to  economise 
labour,  as  one  of  chemistry  will  illustrate  the  economy  and  right 
use  of  materials — constructive,  manurial,  and  otherwise.  Arith¬ 
metic  and  book-keeping  are  most  essential ;  while  drawing,  both 
geometrical  and  freehand,  are  of  incalculable  value. 
I  do  not  mean  a  gardener  should  carry  plan  drawing  to  the 
point  one  expects  in  an  architect’s  assistant,  or  that  he  should 
^  able  to  make  “  pretty,  pretty  ”  shaded  drawings  like  a  board¬ 
ing  school  lassie ;  but  that  he  should  acquire  the  facility  of 
making  correct  working  plans,  drawings,  or  sketches  to  measure¬ 
ment,  and  freehand  memoranda  of  anything  it  is  worth  his  while 
to  record  or  remember.  In  every  walk  of  life  the  jjower  to  make 
sketches,  however  crude,  to  measurement  is  nowadays  absolutely 
essential,  and  to  none  more  so  than  to  the  gardener  as  a  man. 
The  use  of  simple  carpenters’  and  smithsi’  tools,  and  an  elemen¬ 
tary  knowledge  of  electricity  are  often  very  useful  adjuncts  to  a 
gardener’s  ability.  In  other  places  he  may  acquire  a  knowledge 
or  horses  and  live  stock  in  health  and  disease,  and  pick  up  the 
threads  of  sucoes.sful  arboriculture  and  forestry. 
Nature's  Inventions. 
The  land,  be  it  farm  or  garden, 
is  the  bed-rock  of  men’s  lives,  and 
study  in  tha  garden  may  teach 
the  willing  student  many  beauti¬ 
ful  things.  He  may  learn  to  see, 
for  example,  that  the  plants,  ages 
ago,  adopted  many  of  what  wo 
commonly  look  upon  as  purely 
human  inventions.  The  plants 
are  often  very  skilful  engineers, 
and  make  their  growths  at  angles 
and  in  aspects  best  suited  to  resist 
breaking  strains  by  gravity  or  by 
winds.  They,  moreover,  apply 
t  h  e  well-known  engineering 
dodges  of  tubular  structures  for 
strength,  plu.s  economy  of  mate¬ 
rial,  as  in  bamboos  and  grass- 
culms;  and  they  utilise  .stay- 
braces,  struts,  and  girders  of  all 
kinds.  The  very  leaves  are  of  such 
forms,  and  placed  at  such  angles 
as  to  obtain  the  optimum  of  light, 
and  to  resi.st  undue  strains  and 
loss  of  moisture  from  prevailing 
winds.  One  of  the  most  remark¬ 
able  facts  in  Nature  is  that  the 
seeds  of  many  trees  and  other 
plants  can  actually  fly  through 
the  air,  and  so  obtain  what  we  cal! 
rotation  of  crops,  or  a  change  of 
soil.  The  less  the  gardener,  as  a 
man,  is  obliged  to  imitate  these 
seeds  the  better.  When  he  obtains 
a  good  place  he  should  anchor  him¬ 
self  to  the  spot,  like  a  sturdy 
Scotch  Fir. 
Plants  are  bankers  that  care¬ 
fully  deposit  all  surplus  materials 
or  savings,  such  as  starch,  .sugar, 
&c.,  in  such  a  manner,  that  they  duly  receive  the  highest  or  best 
interest  on  the  depo-sits  they  have  made,  to  be  stored  in  tree- 
trunk,  tuber,  bulb,  fruit,  and  seed  as  the  case  may  be.  The 
two  great  principles  of  isolation  and  of  co-operation,  are  both 
used  by  plants  to  their  advantage.  Even  the  device  we  look 
upon  as  modem  amongst  human  inventions,  viz.,  attractive 
advertisements,  has  by  the  plants  bean  adopted  from  time 
I  immemorial.  Small  flowers  crowded  together  into  large  and 
conspicuous  heads  or  clusters,  or  a  flaming  poster,  is  run  up 
on  a  miniature  standard,  or  flagstaff,  as  in  Hippeastrum, 
Poinsettias,  Anthuriums,  and  many  other  plants,  the  flowers  of 
which  depend  on  insect  visits  for  due  fertilisation. — (Paper  read 
by  F.  W.  Burbidge,  M.A.,  V.M.H.,  before  the  Scottish  Horti¬ 
cultural  Association.) 
(To  be  continued.) 
— -  - - - - 
Manurial  Experiments  at  Droitwicli. 
In  accordance  with  the  intimation  contained  in  my  report  of 
the  Birmingham  Chrysanthemum  Show  of  the  vegetables  exhi¬ 
bited  by  Mr.  J.  Udale,  I  make  an  extract  from  his  report  for  1901 
of  the  experimental  garden  at  Droitwich,  which  will  serve  as  an 
illustration  of  the  comparative  value  of  manures  and  of  the 
system  adopted.  In  one  of  the  annual  experimental  cases,  the 
plot  of  ground  has  never  been  manured  since  the  installation  of 
the  experiments  in  1875;  but  the  ground  has  been  bastard 
trenched  every  year  for  three  kinds  of  tap-rooted  vegetables,  viz.. 
Carrots,  Beet,  and  Parsnips.  Taking  Onions  as  an  illustration, 
the  results  Avere  : — 
Tons  cwts  lbs 
No  manure  . 
1 
19  68  per  acre. 
Chemical  manures  onlv 
7 
13  58 
Stable  and  chemical  manure 
..  U 
7  91 
Stable  manure  onlv  .. 
1  104 
Garden  refuse  onlv  .. 
..  16 
2  24 
In  addition  to  the  foregoing  experiments,  plots  of  the  same 
variety  of  Onion  (Rousham  Park  Hero)  Aver©  devoted  to  four 
separate  chemical  manures,  the  results  being  as  follows: _ 
Tons  cw(s  lbs 
Sulphate  of  ammonia  ..  ..  1  15  0  per  acre. 
Superphosphate  of  lime  ..  ..  2  6  76  ,, 
Nitrate  of  soda  .  3  10  0  ,, 
Kainit .  6  8  56  ,, 
The  comparisons  are  sufficiently  significant  and  eminent  Iv  in 
favour  of  kainit.  The  report  states  that  “  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  garden  refuse  gave  the  best  crop  of  Onions  for  two  consecu¬ 
tive  years,  and  that  the  stable  manure  application  stood  for  three 
years  in  succession.” — W.  G. 
