August  14,  1902. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER . 
151 
The  Great  Sequoia?. 
I  notice  your  reference,  in  recent  issue,  of  probable  injury  to 
some  of  California’s  “  big  trees  ”  (Sequoias,  or  Washingtonias,  or 
Wellingtonias)  through  fire.  I  am  happy  to  report  that  the  ICS. 
troops  stationed  at  Wawona  were  able  to  check  the  fire  before  it 
reached  the  Sequoia  Grove.  This  is  the  Tuolumne  Grove  (pro¬ 
nounced  Tu-o-lum-ne),  with  which  I  am  very  familiar.  I  took 
the  measurements  of  one  of  these  trees  with  a  ball  of  twine,  and 
found  on  reaching  home  that  the  diameter  of  the  tree  exceeded 
the  outside  lines  of  a  tennis  court.  This  gives  one  a  good  idea 
of  the  immensity  of  these  trees;  a  few  groups  of  a  hundred  or 
two  standing  among  the  forest  of  Cedar  and  Pine  which  extend 
for  hundreds  of  miles  north  and  south,  and  nearly  forty  miles 
in  width.  X  nfortunately  the  fires  which  annually  occur  destroy 
thousands  of  acres,  and  the  axe  of  the  lumberman  cares  naught 
for  the  morrow. — Leonard  Coates,  Napa,  California. 
The  Effects  of  Frost. 
When  last  spring  there  appeared  an  article  from  my  pen  in 
the  Journal  of  Horticulture,  entitled  “The  Season  of  Blossom,” 
I  was  in  a  hopeful  mood,  because  just  about  that  time  prospects 
were  indeed  fair.  The  weather  had  been  cold,  and  the  season 
was  backward  ;  but  gardens  looked  promising,  and  fruit  growers 
were  particularly  sanguine.  Indeed,  they  had  reasons  to  be  just 
then,  for  the  country  all  about  was  a  sheet  of  living  bloom,  and 
the  question  of  heavy  fruit  crops  was  hopefully  discussed.  But 
before  my  notes  appeared  in  print  something  happened  which 
necessitated  the  insertion  of  an  editorial  foot-note.  It  was  a 
series  of  light  frosts  and  one  heavy  one,  when  the  thermometer 
in  my  garden  indicated  lOdeg,  and  since  then  the  aspect  of 
affairs  changed  considerably,  and,  unfortunately,  for  the  worst. 
My  first  impulse  on  that  memorable  morning  (I  need  not 
trouble  about  the  date,  as  most  gardeners  have  good  reasons  for 
knowing  it)  was  to  walk  through  the  garden.  I  had  been  there 
the  night  before,  and  had  congratulated  myself  that,  so  far,  a 
promising  patch  of  early  Potatoes  had  escaped ;  but  lOdeg  of 
frost  was  too  much  for  them.  The  tops  tvere  covered  with  a  thin 
silver  crusting,  that  quickly  vanished  under  the  influence  of  the 
sunshine,  and  left  nothing  but  black  ruined  growths.  They  subse¬ 
quently  started  again,  but  they  merely  presented  a  number  of 
thin  weakly  shoots  instead  of  one  healthy  growth,  and  this  I 
knew  meant  a  late  and  light  crop.  A  neighbour  who  had  looked 
somewhat"  enviously  at  those  early  Potatoes  came  round  to  see 
the  damage,  and  sympathised  with  me  in  a  most  comforting,  but 
human  manner.  "  You  shouldn’t  have  been  in  such  a  hurry,” 
he  said.  “  I’m  glad  to  say  mine  aren’t  through  the  ground.” 
Only  two  days  before  he  was  excusing  himself  for  being  late  with 
his  Potatoes. 
But  I  was  not  the  only  sufferer,  and  my  loss  has  been  nothing 
compared  to  that  of  some  of  my  neighbours.  During  the  day  a 
market  gardener  called,  a  hard  working  man,  who  makes  a  living, 
but  is  not  growing  rich,  on  a  few  acres  of  land.  “  Three  acres  of 
Potatoes  clean  spoiled,”  that  was  his  dismal  story,  so  far  as  one 
crop  was  concerned,  but  his  troubles  did  not  end  there.  He  has 
a  plantation  of  Gooseberries  and  Currants,  from  which  he  was 
hopeful  of  reaping  a  nice  little  return,  as  the  bushes  were  heavily 
laden  with  fruit.  He  was  trusting  that  the  foliage  would  protect 
the  berries,  and  at  first  they  seemed  all  right  ;  but  later  on 
the  effect  of  the  frost  could  be  fully  seen.  The  ground  beneath 
was  strewn  with  black  and  shrivelled  fruits,  and  comparatively 
few  remained  on  the  branches  above.  Amateurs  and  private 
gardeners  fancied  that  they  had  been  hard  hit ;  but  it  is  the  men 
of  the  market-gardening  class,  who  look  to  early  crops  for  a  living, 
that  have  had  the  greatest  reason  for  deploring  that  deadly 
frost. 
“  I  don’t  know’  what  to  make  of  it,”  said  a  working  fruit¬ 
grower  to  me  in  those  days,  as  he  cast  an  anxious  glance  round 
his  orchard.  “We  had  such  a  show  of  bloom  that  if  three-parts 
of  it  goes  there  wdll  still  be  a  crop ;  but  I  am  not  very 
hopeful.”  In  company  we  walked  amongst  the  trees. 
The  white  petals  had  all  flickered  from  the  Plum  trees,  but 
instead  of  plump  little  green  fruit  remaining,  they  were  mostly 
black,  shrivelled,  and  falling.  “  I  doubt  it’s  over  with  the  early 
Cherries,”  continued  the  grow’er,  and  in  his  case  it  was  a 
certainty,  for  an  examination  displayed  the  same  sad  state  of 
affairs  as  in  the  case  of  the  Plums.  In  the  case  of  Apples  there 
did  not  seem  to  be  the  same  cause  for  anxiety.  Many  trees  were 
in  bloom  when  the  frost  came,  the  changing  of  the  bright  pink 
of  the  flowers  quickly  to  a  dull  brown  being  not  a  good  sign, 
and  in  many  places  the  frost  very  visibly  left  its  mark.  The 
bloom,  however,  was  exceptionally  thick,  so  to  that  we  owe  the 
present  averagecrop,  and  also  to  the  fact  that  the  later  flowering 
varieties  were  not  out  fully  when  the  frost  came,  and  the  weather 
subsequently  grew  more  genial. — Rttstictjs. 
Overtime. 
The  subject  of  overtime  will  not  fail  to  interest  the  young  men 
in  the  bothy,  particularly  if  they  happen  to  be  doing  a  few  hours 
every  evening  now  without  any  addition  to  the  stipend  on 
Saturday  night.  From  the  views  put  forward  by  “  R.  P.,”  the 
average  gardener  must  be  something  of  a  natural  overtime 
working  animal,  possessing  an  inherited  tendency  for  this  from 
his  parents.  I  don’t  say  that  it  is  so,  but  I  have  known 
gardeners  of  this  order,  and  have  made  one  of  the  luckless  bothy 
staff  who  were  expected  to  put  in  an  extra  hour  or  two  when 
the  days  were  long  enough,  quite  as  a  matter  of  course.  There 
are  times  when  overtime  is  necessary  in  most  gardens — in  the 
Grape  thinning  season,  for  instance — but  except  on  such  occasions 
I  quite  agree  with  “R.  P.”  that  a  good  deal  of  it  could  be  dis¬ 
pensed  with  if  a  better  method  of  arrangement  was  in  force  ; 
but  then,  as  your  correspondent  remarks,  it  is  not  easy  to 
change  from  bad  methods  to  good  ones.  It  is  largely  a  question 
of  moderation  ;  but  when  a  man,  be  he  head  or  under,  has  put  in 
from  ten  to  twelve  hours  in  a  day  he  has  done  enough,  as  a  rule. 
— H.  L. 
The  Bothy. 
In  looking  over  the  back  numbers  of  the  Journal  I  find  some 
strongly-worded  articles  on  “  The  Bothy,”  a  subject  teeming  with 
interest,  and  admirably  adapted  for  the  display  of  passionate 
declamation,  with  which  some  of  your  correspondents  appear 
superabundantly  gifted.  Although  I  emphatically  concur  in  the 
expediency  and  necessity  of  reform,  I  view  with  ridicule  the  sug¬ 
gestion  that  the  bothy  system  should  be  wholly  abolished.  Why 
condemn  the  entire  system  because  in  practice  it  shows  the  need 
of  alteration?  Should  we  reject  a  machine,  correct  in  principle, 
accurate  in  construction,  because  the  presence  of  rust  and  absence 
of  oil  prevent  its  harmonious  working?  Clearly  the  advocates  of 
such  radical  measures  display  an  ignoratio  elenchi  and  a  miscon¬ 
ception  of  the  elementary  logic  of  cause  and  effect.  Following 
their  principle  to  its  rational  conclusion,  we  should  shoot  every 
broken-winded  horse,  destroy  every  foundered  engine,  and  even 
upset  our  constitutional  form  of  government,  on  account  of  its 
minor  inefficiencies,  in  favour  of  a  despotic  monarchy  or  the  nega¬ 
tive  principles  of  anarchism. 
These,  however,  are  deductions  from  which  common-sense 
recoils.  Thus  one  correspondent  applies  to  the  bothy  the  epithet 
of  “  moral  nuisance,”  regarding  it  as  the  forcing  ground  of  corrup¬ 
tion,  and  a  hotbed  of  all  the  vices  which  can  be  committed  by  a 
systematic  and  categorical  breaking  of  the  ten  precepts.  Truly, 
“  lie  that  saith  this  hath  o’erstept  the  slippery  footing  of  his 
narrow  wit  and  fall’ll  away  from  judgment.”  Our  worthiest  men, 
whom  we  look  upon  as  models,  horticulturally  and  socially,  have 
been  trained  in  bothies,  and  the  well-nigh  unanimous  voice  of 
gardeners, .  young  and  old,  proclaim  that  to  dispense  with  the 
bothy  is  neither  practicable  nor  desirable.  Moreover,  the  strong 
argument  of  mutual  convenience  and  economy  to  employer  and 
employed  precludes  the  probability  of  such  a  fanatic  howl  ema¬ 
nating  from  an  effeminate  minority  ever  being  afforded  serious 
attention.  It  may  be  regarded  as  an  almost  infallible  rule  that 
those  who  condemn  the  bothy  system  are,  in  the  plenitude  of 
their  effeminacy  and  pedantic  refinement,  characteristically  un¬ 
suited  for  such  a  life;  for  it  cannot  be  controverted  that  bothy 
life  is  eminently  fitted  for  the  early  development  of  that  manly 
and  independent  spirit  so  conspicuous  in  the  English — or,  rather, 
I  should  say,  considering  my  geographic  position,  British 
character.  Still,  on  the  need  of  reform,  nearly  all  seem  agreed, 
and  the  sooner  it  can  be  brought  about  the  better.  The  ventila¬ 
tion  of  the  grievance,  as  at  present,  in  a  high-class  journal,  cannot 
fail  to  be  prolific  of  good  ;  but  some  minds  are  so  encrusted  wn.li  a. 
rusty  conservatism,  and  so  filled  with  an  irrational  dread  oj 
change,  that  time  alone  can  bring  about  any  alteration. 
It  is  the  height  of  absurdity  to  suppose  that  an  ideal  bothy  is 
necessarily  utopian.  Such  is  by  no  means  the  case.  If  if  be  ad¬ 
mitted  as  proved  that  a  badly  organised  bothy  engenders  a  devil- 
may-care  spirit  and  a  sublime  indifference  to  his  own  progress  in 
the  young  gardener,  it  may  clearly  be  adduced  as  a  corollary  that 
a  good  bothy  will  tend  to  promote  qualities  diametrically  opposed 
to  these  failings. — Wm.  Rowles.  Edinburgh. 
