April  25,  1901. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
351 
Royal  Horticultural  Society  of  Ireland. 
The  correspondence  you  have  admitted  to  your  columns  respecting 
the  etiquette  of  awarding  prize  money  relates  to  a  difficulty  which 
occasionally  crops  up,  and  you  will  do  a  service  both  to  exhibitors  and 
managers  of  shows  if  your  action  clears  away  some  of  the  misunder¬ 
standing  that  has  arisen.  With  regard  to  Mr.  Brock’s  complaint, 
providing  that  the  rules  that  bear  on  the  matter  in  dispute  require  that 
the  exhibitor  should  be  a  member  of  the  society,  or  pay  an  entry  fee,  it 
is  clear  that  the  initial  mistake  was  made  by  Mr.  Brock  in  entering  his 
employer’s  flowers  without  paying  the  entry  fee,  and  the  society  were 
equally  wrong  in  accepting  such  entry.  With  regard  to  the  payment 
of  the  prize  money,  it  is  the  custom  of  the  society  with  which  I  am 
eonnected  to  send  the  cheque  to  the  gardener,  but  all  cups  are  sent 
direct  to  the  employer.  Judging  from  the  correspondence  there  can  be 
no  doubt  about  the  bond  fides  of  Mr.  Brock,  and  the  best  course  would 
have  been  to  have  deducted  the  amount  of  the  entry  fee  when  sending 
the  cheque.  It  cannot,  however,  be  too  clearly  understood  that  the 
exhibitor,  and  not  the  gardener,  is  entitled  to  the  money.  The 
oourteous  letters  of  the  secretary  of  the  society  seem  to  show  that  the 
Council  were  anxious  to  do  what  was  right,  whilst  those  of  Mr.  Brook 
assume  a  lofty  and,  in  some  cases,  false  position.  I  should  have 
thought  that  his  position  as  a  member  of  the  Council  would  have  made 
him  decline,  much  less  expect,  any  exceptionally  favourable  treatment. 
Unless  the  rules  of  the  society  are  different  to  those  of  all  others  with 
which  I  am  acquainted,  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  the 
qualification  of  his  employer  to  compete  existed  in  Mr.  Brock’s 
membership,  as  he  says  it  does.  He  claims  aB  his  employer’s  trusted 
agent  in  the  transaction  to  stand,  as  it  were,  in  his  employer’s  position. 
But  do  the  rules  of  the  society  acknowledge  any  agency  ?  Or  has  he 
yet  to  learn  the  wide  difference  there  is  between  a  servant  and  an 
agent?— Edw.  Harland. 
- - 4*m»* - 
Potato  Yagaries. 
The  two  notes  on  Potato  peculiarities  in  the  Journal,  page  258, 
signed  respectively  “Subscriber”  and  “  W.  R.,”  have  set  me,  and  I 
daresay  many  another  old  Potato  grower,  a  thinking  over  the  many 
vagaries  they  can  remember  in  their  Potato  experiences.  Every 
grower  of  them  has  in  his  memory  numberless  instances  as  to  their 
peculiarities  in  production,  quality,  and  soil  likes  and  dislikes  ;  and  it 
is  when  adverse  influences  are  thrust  upon  us,  as  in  the  case  of  your 
two  correspondents,  we  take  the  lessons  hardly,  and  as  we  are  injured 
by  them  we  kick,  and  we  sternly  set  ourselves  to  find  out  the  reason 
and  the  remedy.  Perhaps  it  will  be  best  to  just  look  at  the  two  notes, 
and  on  comparing  them  we  find  a  strong  family  likeness  between  them. 
“  Subscriber  ”  complains  of -the  earthy  flavour  and  smell  of  his  offending 
Potatoes,  Snowdrop  and  Up-to-Date;  and  “W.  R.”  of  the  soapy  and 
insipid  characteristics  of  his  Reading  Russet  and  Saxon,  and  this  much 
to  his  surprise  and  regret,  because  previously  at  another  place  these 
two  had  been  so  excellent  in  every  way.  One  answer  will  oover  both 
cases,  at  least  I  think  so;  and  that  answer  is  (and  may  I  beg  the 
editor  to  ask  the  printers  to  put  it  in  italics  for  emphasis?),  No  Potato 
with  American  blood  in  it  (using  a  breeder’s  expression),  whether  it  is 
a  hybrid,  or  a  hybrid  of  hybrids,  will  come  of  high  quality  as  to 
composition  and  flavour  from  off  strong,  clayey ,  or  close-holding  land. 
There  now  !  I  may  be  pulled  over  the  coals,  and  that  very  roughly  too, 
as  to  this  conclusion  of  mine,  and  many  will  no  doubt  try  to  show  me 
how  wrong  I  am.  I  do  not  mind ;  I  speak  that  I  know,  and  that  I  have 
proved  over  and  over  again  by  actual  experiment — yea,  experiment 
after  experiment,  and  many  of  them  to  my  great  loss  and  detriment. 
I  am  not  clever  enough  to  discuss  soil  constituents  or  the  chemical 
analysis  of  soils,  these  are  beyond  me.  I  simply  declare  that  I  have 
come  to  my  conclusions  from  practical  trials  of  various  kinds  of 
Potatoes  on  soils  widely  differing  from  each  other,  and  that  the 
results  of  those  trials  have  made  my  conclusions  facts,  absolutely  facts 
to  me,  and 
Facts  are  chiels  that  winna  ding, 
And  dama  be  disputit. 
I’ll  just  give  one  instance.  After  Early  American  Rose  Potato  came 
out  I  got  it.  My  garden  was  then  a  strong  holding  loam  with  clayey 
subsoil ;  it  had  been  well  worked,  and  would  grow  anything.  I  had  a 
beautiful  orop,  and  was  delighted.  Sent  some  in  at  once  for  the  master’s 
table.  Next  day  my  delight  ended.  “  Pray  don’t  send  in  any  more 
Potatoes  like  those  you  sent  yesterday  ;  the  master  says  they  are  more 
like  a  Jerusalem  Artichoke  than  a  Potato.”  I  tried  them  myself ;  it 
was  so.  Well,  here  was  a  stern  and  severe  lesson ;  it  staggered  me. 
Now  the  after  effects,  which  by  the  way  will  suggest  the  remedy  to 
“  Subscriber,”  and  be  a  hint  to  “  W.  R.”  I  had  a  cottager  neighbour 
who  was  very  fond  of  Potato  growing,  and  with  whom  I  compared  notes 
on  Potatoes  as  well  as  other  things.  I  was  telling  him  of  my  bad  luck 
and  loss,  and  he  said,  “  I  think  I  should  like  to  try  them.”  “  You  shall 
have  the  lot,”  I  said  ;  and  he  had.  Next  season,  at  lifting  time,  he  sent 
me  word  to  come  and  see  him.  I  went,  and  saw  what  were  to  my 
eyes  some  of  the  brightest  looking,  clean-skinned,  even-sized  Potatoes  I 
had  ever  seen.  “  There’s  your  American  Rose,”  said  he  ;  “  and  now  come 
into  the  house,  and  the  wife  shall  show  you  some  we  had  left  from 
dinner.”  The  good  wife  smiled  when  asked  to  bring  forth  her  vegetable 
dish,  but  did  so,  and  in  it  were  the  remains  of  fine,  white,  soft-fleshed, 
but  dry  and  mealy  Potatoes  of  beautiful  texture  and  flavour,  and  my 
cottager  friend  said,  “  If  you  were  not  satisfied,  I  am.” 
What  was  the  cause  of  this  difference  ?  The  cause  was,  so  it 
appeared  to  me — and  it  has  been  confirmed  in  my  mind  many  timeB 
since — my  friend’s  Potato  ground  was  on  dry  sandy  land,  with  a 
gravelly  subsoil.  It  lay  full  south,  and  would  be  a  veritable  frying-pan 
in  a  long  hot  summer ;  but  there  lay  the  secret — light  open  soil,  I  say 
again,  so  it  appeared  to  me.  In  the  south,  on  their  lighter  and  hotter 
soils,  the  “  Americans  ”  do  well,  but  on  the  stronger  clayey  lands  of  the 
Midlands  and  the  North  they  are,  speaking  generally,  a  failure.  But,  it 
may  be  argued,  one  instance  is  scarcely  sufficient  to  justify  your  very 
general  conclusions.  Very  well ;  here  is  another.  Sutton’s  Red-skinned 
Flourball,  on  first  ooming  out,  went  through  precisely  the  same  round  ; 
it  was  planted,  and  gave  a  fine  crop.  But  it  was  “  soapy  and  insipid,” 
as  “  W.  R.’s  ”  two  sorts,  so  I  passed  it  on  to  my  neighbour,  with  the 
result  not  quite  so  exhilarating,  but  still  satisfying. 
I  could  go  on,  giving  instance  after  instance,  but  my  space  is  becoming 
exhausted,  and  if  I  am  left  alive  after  the  overhauling  in  prospeot  for 
me,  I  may  go  into  the  subject  again.  Now  I  leave  it. — N.  H.  P. 
Scarcity  of  Journeymen  Gardeners. 
The  point  so  ably  presented  by  your  correspondent,  who  signs 
himself  “One  Who  Has  Been  Through  the  Mill,”  is  one  whioh  must  be 
of  interest  to  all  gardeners,  in  fact  it  is  a  question  to  which  few 
thoughtful  gardeners  have  not  given  some  consideration  at  one  time  or 
another.  Why  are  gardeners’  wages  so  low  ?  That  they  are  low  in 
comparison  with  those  in  other  trades  is  unquestionable  ;  that  those 
individuals  engaged  in  many  other  callings  requiring  less  skill,  a 
shorter  time  in  which  to  attain  proficiency,  involving  less  responsibility, 
and  in  whioh  the  hours  worked  are  generally  shorter,  can  earn  two  and 
three  times  as  much  as  the  best  foreman  and  journeymen  gardeners,  is 
a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  but  the  reasons  for  this  state  of  affairs, 
though  often  disoussed  among  gardeners,  are  probably  somewhat 
complex,  and  no  complete  and  satisfactory  explanation  seems  to  be  so 
far  forthcoming.  It  seems  as  though,  while  in  most  mechanical  trades, 
at  any  rate,  wages  have  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds  of  late  years, 
those  prevailing  in  the  gardening  world  have  remained  pretty  nearly 
stationary,  and  the  cause  of  this  is  often  said  to  be  the  absence  among 
gardeners  of  a  union  fixing  the  standard  of  wages,  as  in  the  case  of 
bricklayers,  plasterers,  and  most  other  trades,  and  that  while  only  a 
certain  proportion  of  beginners  are  allowed  by  the  union  to  learn  these 
trades,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  anyone  who  likes  from  picking  up  as 
much  as  he  can  of  the  gardeners’  art,  and  becoming  skilful  in  it.  This 
system,  encouraged  by  the  trades’  unions,  though  successful  as  far  as 
keeping  up  wages  is  concerned,  seems  as  though  it  must  in  time,  by 
limiting  competition,  and  giving  a  good  worker  no  more  encouragement 
than  an  indifferent  one,  have  a  deteriorating  effect  on  those  trades,  for 
a  man  who  is  aware  that  he  cannot  with  ease  be  replaced,  will  not 
invariably  take  the  same  amount  of  pains  with  his  work  as  one  who 
knows  that  there  are  others  ready  to  step  into  his  place,  and  most  of 
your  readers  will  agree  that  it  is  not  considered  a  point  of  honour, 
among  gardeners  at  any  rate,  to  get  through  as  little  work  in  as  long  a 
time  as  possible.  Perhaps  another  reason  is  that  until  recently  many 
have  been  willing  to  take  up  gardening  as  a  profession  in  spite  of  the 
lower  wages,  under  the  impression  that  it  is  more  respectable  and  genteel 
than  other  trades  offering  better  remuneration,  and  thus  they  feel 
compensated.  Whether  this  is  so  or  not,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
horticulture  is  a  more  interesting  employment  than  many  others  that 
could  be  mentioned ;  it  is  pleasanter,  the  work  is  carried  out  under 
better  conditions  as  regards  surroundings,  there  is  more  variety,  and  it 
is  a  calling  which  will  always  engage  any  intelligent  gardener’s 
attention  for  its  own  sake,  in  whioh  respect  it  differs  from  the  dull, 
endless  monotony  of  some  mechanical  pursuits.  At  the  same  time,  if 
there  is,  as  your  correspondent  “  W.  L.”  says,  suoh  a  scarcity  of 
journeymen  gardeners  now,  it  is  probable  it  will  not  be  long  before 
there  is  a  change  for  the  better  in  the  matter  of  wages. — A.  W.  D. 
- - - - - 
Money  Grants  to  Violet  Growers. — The  crop  of  Violets  on 
the  Italian  Riviera  has  been  ruined  owing  to  the  bad  season.  The 
growers  have  all  suffered  heavy  losses,  and  the  Russian  General  Gorloff 
(according  to  a  daily  contemporary)  has  sent  150,000  francs  (£6000) 
to  the  Russian  Consul  at  San  Remo,  to  be  distributed  among  the 
poorest  of  the  peasant  growers,  in  order  that  they  may  not  be 
discouraged  by  this  season’s  failure,  and  to  help  them  towards  a  better 
orop  next  year. 
