September  25,  1902.  JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  OOTTAGE  GARDENER . 
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A  Specimen  Fuchsia. 
The  variety  figured  on  page  291  is  Western  Beauty,  and  which 
was  the  best  specimen  plant  at  the  Bath  horticultural  exhibi¬ 
tion  this  year.  The  plant  figured  was  shown  by  Mr.  G.  Tucker, 
of  Hilperton  Marsh,  who  is  a  noted  grower  there.  This  plant 
was  over  8ft  high.  Trowbridge  is  the  centre  at  which  to  see  these 
gigantic  Fuchsias — living  testimonials  of  patient  cultural  care. 
The  King's  Gardens  at  Windsor. 
The  alterations  at  the  King’s  gardens  at  Windsor,  says  a  daily 
paper,  are  now  nearly  complete.  New  and  commodious  apart¬ 
ments  have  been  built  for  the  employes,  including  bath  rooms, 
bed  rooms,  and  a  recreation  room.  New  glass  houses  have  been 
added,  and  up-to-date  methods  adopted.  The  magnificent  Grape 
Vine  near  Cumberland  Lodge  will  yield  from  1,800  to  2,000 
bunches  this  year. 
Attar  of  Roses. 
In  Eastern  Roumelia,  the  yield  of  attar  of  Roses  this  year  is 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  less  than  in  1900.  Prices  have 
fallen  to  an  extraordinary  degree  in  the  foreign  markets.  ,  The 
main  cause  for  regret  is  that  the  Rose  fields  belong  to  peasant 
proprietors  who  are  also  distillers  of  the  essence,  and  the  ruin  of 
the  industry  means  their  undoing.  But  no  attempt  to  revive  it 
is  promising  of  success,  owing  principally  to  the  indifference  of 
consumers  abroad.  Some  Frenchmen  have  started  a  large 
distillery  at  Ivarlovo,  but  there  does  not  appear  to  be  much  chance 
of  it  doing  well.  The  Rose  is  itself  more  cultivated  than  ever, 
the  commoner  kinds  for  massing,  the  rarer  for  individual  blooms, 
but  the  commercial  purposes  of  the  queen  of  flowers  have  fallen 
into  the  background. 
Plants  on  an  Irish  Bog. 
To  “  Knowledge  ”  for  September,  Mr.  R.  Lloyd  Praeger  con¬ 
tributes  an  article  which  deals  with  bog  vegetation,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  writes :  “The  oozy  sinuGus*pools  are  filled  with  Sphag¬ 
num,  and  here  and  there  withthe  Bog  Bean,  Menyanthes  trifoliata  ; 
the  edges  of  the  pools  are  luxuriously  cushioned  with  a  variegated 
growth  of  Sphagnum,  and  these  edges  are  the  favourite  haunt  of 
two  of  those  wonderful  fly-devouring  Sundews,  Drosera  rotundi- 
folia  and  D.  anglica.  In  the  shallower  pools,  or  on  bare  mud,  the 
White  Beak-rush,  Rhynchospora  alba,  grows  in  tufts,  and  its 
farther-creeping  relative,  R.  fusca,  fills 'portions  of  the  pools  with 
an  erect  growth  of  bright  green  stems  and  brown  inflorescence. 
.  .  .  The  conditions  under  which  this  plant-group  lives  are 
remarkable.  The  spongy  crust  is  perenially  saturated  with 
water,  which  circulates  very  slowly.  In  consequence  the  soil  is 
badly  aerated,  and  the  plant-remains  which  form  the  crust  do  not 
become  thoroughly  oxidised,  and  soluble  humus  compounds 
remain  in  solution  in  water.  The  plants  can  with  difficulty  absorb 
by  their  roots  water  charged  with  these  substances,  and  thus  it 
comes  to  pass  that  while  the  bog  is  physically  very  wet,  physi¬ 
ologically  it  is  .very  dry.  In  the  midst  of  plenty  the  plants  are 
actually  starving.  .  .  .  Exactly  the  same  difficulty,  it  may 
be  remarked,  occurs  in  salt  marshes,  where  the  water  is  charged 
with  sodium  chloride.  In  both  cases  the  plants  meet  it  in  the 
same  way,  by  checking  transpiration,  and  thus  saving  up  the 
water  which  they  absorb.  Thus  they  assume  characters  similar 
to  those  displayed  by  plants  of  deserts  and  dry  places — xerophytic 
characters,  to  return  to  a  term  which  we  have  had  occasion  to  use 
before.  These  are  seen  in  the  smallness  of  the  leaves  of  the 
Heaths,  for  example,  as  well  as  in  the  curious  backward-rolled 
character  of  their  leaves,  as  well  as  of  those  of  the  Cranberry, 
Crowberry,  &c.  In  other  cases  the  leaves  are  protected  by  a 
thick  impervious  cuticle  or  skin,  or  by  a  close  growth  of  hairs. 
Another  peculiarity  in  the  conditions  under  which  the  bog  flora 
grows  is  that  in  the  water-logged  soil  there  are  no  bacteria 
present,  which  are  so  useful  in  breaking  up  the  complicated  nitro¬ 
genous  compounds  contained  in  the  dead  plant  matter;  hence 
nitrogen  as  a  plant  food  is  scarce.  This  may  help  to  explain  why 
the  Sundews,  which  are  essentially  bog  plants,  have  hit  upon  the 
extraordinary  manner  of  obtaining  nitrogenous  food — the 
capturing,  killing  and  digesting  of  small  animals.” 
The  Favourite  Carnations. 
In  our  paragraph  on  this  subject  last  week,  Germania  was 
referred  to  as  the  popular  buff  variety.  Germania,  of  course,  is 
one.  of  the  best  yellows,  but  Benbow  should  have  been  mentioned 
in  its  place. 
Appointments. 
Mr.  A.  W.  Culloch,  as  head  gardener  at  Heythrop  Gardens, 
Chipping  Norton,  Oxon,  in  succession  to  Mr.  Downing,  who  has 
resigned  owing  to  ill-health.  Mr.  Culloch  has  been  for  the  last 
ten  years  head  gardener  at  Newstead  Abbey,  Nottingham.  *  * 
Mr.  John  Williams,  for  the  past  five  years  foreman  at  Baron  Hill 
Gardens,  Beaumaris,  has  been  appointed  head  gardener  to 
J;  Marshall  Dugdale,  Esq.,  Llwyn,  Llanfyllin  Montgomery. 
Proposed  European  Flower  Trust. 
Trusts  ate  springing  up  like  mushrooms.  The  latest  proposal 
of  the  kind  is  for  the  formation  of  a  “  floral  ”  trust,  the  “  Societe 
Florale  de  Cannes.”  According  to  the  Paris  correspondent  of 
the  "  Financial  Times,”  this  company  proposes  to  control  the 
flower  market  of  Europe,  and  is  now  soliciting  £160,000  from  the 
publio  to  carry  the  scheme  into  operation,  “  Our  object,”  says 
the  prospectus,  “  is  an  ambitious  one ;  we  desire  to  form  a 
European  natural  flower  trust.”  The  combine,  we  are  told, 
already  makes  an  annual  turnover  of  £560,000,  on  which  the 
profits  are  said  to  be  enormous. 
Hailstorm  in  Kent. 
Not  for  many  years  has  a  more  severe  and  disastrous  storm 
than  that  which  passed  along  the  valley  of  the  Medway  from 
Tonbridge  to  Maidstone  on  Wednesday,  the  10th  inst.,  been 
experienced  in  England  within  recent  times,  except  the  tornado 
which  devastated  Essex  five  years  ago.  At  East  Farleigh  there 
were  hailstones  Sin  in  circumference*  and  in  places  they  lay  18in 
in  depth.  In  the  two  villages  of  Teston  and  Wateringbury  alone 
it  is  estimated  that  nearly  £4,000  damage  was  done.  Colonel 
Warde,  Member  for  the  Medway  division,  who  resides  at  Barham 
Court,  Teston,  had  1,650  panes  of  glass  in  his  greenhouse 
smashed ;  another  property  owner  lost  6,000  Peaches.  Hard 
Pears  were  cut  to  pieces  by  the  hailstones,  and  all  trees  were 
stripped  of  their  foliage.  It  is  feared  that  many  of  those  who 
suffered  loss  were  uninsured. 
The  Canadian  Wheat  Belt 
Might  not  English  agricultural  newspapers  do  more  than  they 
are  now  doing  to  keep  that  magnificent  area  of  Wheat  land  in 
Western  Canada  thoroughly  British,  by  encouraging  the  emigra¬ 
tion  of  English  people  to  their  own  territories?  Millions  of  acres 
of  the  finest  agricultural  land  in  the  world  are  now  being  offered 
by  the  Canadian  Government  (160  acres  ahead,  free)  to  all  bona 
fide  settlers,  and  yet  English  people  are  looking  on1  while  Americans 
— who  generally  know  a  good  thing  when  they  see  it —  are  rush¬ 
ing  over  the  border  by  thousands  to  seize  the  opportunity  and,  of 
course,  the  future  reward.  It  grieves  me  to  see  what  is  now  a 
fine  British  province  being  settled  so  largely  by  Americans  and 
foreigners.  I  am  not  a  capitalist,  or  I  would  soon  take  out  a  few 
thousand  of  good  British  blood  to  settle  upon  these  fine  farming 
lands — I  mean  take  some  of  those  who  are  now  treading  on  each 
other’s  heels  in  the  Old  Country,  scrambling  for  a  living?  But 
why  don’t  they  go  on  their  own  account  ?  Are  they  afraid  they 
should  be  going  from  civilisation  to  barbarism  in  a  wild,  unknown 
land?  Twenty-two  years  ago  I  left  England,  and  made,  what  to 
me  was  largely,  a  plunge  in  the  dark.  I  have  never  regretted 
the  step  I  then'  took,  for  I  have  learned  to  love  Canada  and  her 
people,  and  hope-  to  return  again  before  very  long.  In  the  mean¬ 
time,  if  my  twenty  years  of  experience  in  Canadian  life  can  throw 
any  light  upon  the  step  other  people  may  now  be  contemplating, 
I  will  gladly  do  what  I  can  to  help  them  by  answering  any 
questions,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  provided  those  who  ask  them 
will  enclose  stamped  and  addressed  envelope  to  my  private 
address,  Alexandra  Park  Road,  Wood  Green,  N.  To-day  there  is 
plenty  of  the  choioest  land  to  be  had  for  next  to  nothing.  Five 
years  hence  it  may  be  in  the  hands  of  aliens.  Now  is  the  time  if 
English  people  are  going  at  all.  Why  not  make  up  parties  of 
say  100  each  and  go  out  and  settle  by  townships  in  company 
together?  Why  not  a  large  party  for  next  March ?  I  am  willing 
to  do  all  I  can  to  help. — (Rev.)  George  E.  Lloyd,  Deputation 
Secretary  (for  Canada),  Colonial  and  Continental  Church 
l  Society,  Wood  Green,  N. 
