38 
Jaiiuar3’  14,  190'^, 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
Pear,  Fondante  de  Thirriot. 
This  is  a  large  dessert  Pear,  with  very  handsome  fruits  of  the 
finest  flavour,  sweet  and  nfelting.  These  are  in  use 
November  and  December,  or  even  a  httle  latei  in  the  Nortl  . 
The  tree  is  a  good  grower  and  generally  fnnts  heavily,  as  oui 
illustration  shows.  As  a  market  variety’  it  has  a  high  lepu  e, 
good  fruits  fetching  long  prices. 
Mv  Fruit  Farm  in  1903. 
The  following  interesting  letter  is  from  the  “Westminster 
Gazette  ”  of  December  22 :  •  r 
■•The  area  of  my  fruit  farm,  after  allowing  for  space 
pied  bv  liouse,  barns,  road,  paths,  Ac.,  is,  as  nearl^^  as  possible, 
five  acres.  Two  acres  and  a  half  arc  occupied  b^'  Cobnuts, 
among  which  are  some  fruit  trees  and  C'urrant  and  Gooseberry 
bushels  ;  an  acre  and  a  half  by  Apples,  Plums,  and  I  ear.s :  and 
an  anre  by  kitchen  garden,  where  again  there  are  some  Apples 
and  Plums.  The  soil  is  light,  in  some  places  almost  pure  .sand; 
the  height  above  sea  level  varies  from  420ft  to  oSOtt. 
Without  further  preface  I  will  give  the  results  of  this  years 
farmiim.  Kleven  hundred  and  fiftj'  pounds  ot  Cobnuts  brought 
in  tif  10s.  net  (i.e.,  after  paying  carriage  and  commission). 
This  works  out  at  oijd.  per  pound.  By  sj?nding  some  to  pro¬ 
vincial  towns  I  obtained  a  better  price  than  coulcl  be  got  in 
(  event  Garden.  For  twelve  bushels  cf  Apples  I  received  £4  1  is. 
(maiiv  of  these  were  sold  to  friends  and  neighbours  whose 
gardens  wcrC'  absolutely  bare  of  fruit),  and  for  five  bushels  ot 
Plums  £3  13s.  (two-thirds  of  this  came  from  half-a-dozen  Damson 
trees).  Finallj',  the  kitchen  garden  brought  in  £29  2s.  bd. 
Prcbablv  this 'sum  is  soniewhat  in  excess  of  value  received.  A 
fixed  sum  is  paid  for  fruit  and  vegetables  consumed  in  the 
home,  and  I  am  pretty  sure  that  the  house  did  not  receive  its 
mcnev’s  worth.  Now  'for  the  balance-sheet:  — 
For  iVut.s  .. 
.,  Apples 
,,  I'lums. 
..  Kitohen 
fu'deu 
£  s.  d. 
27  n  0 
4  17  0 
3  13  0 
29  2  6 
Labour,  pruning,  ite. 
Mamire 
Kates  . 
Tithe  . 
.£  .s.  cb 
f9  10  0 
7  JO  0 
2  4  0 
0  18  0 
£35  2  6  -  2  0 
Tt  will  be  observed  that  nothing  is  allowed  for  interest  on 
capital  expended  in  the  purchase^of  the  land.  Ihis  may  be  put 
down  at  £30  (4  per  cent,  on  £7o0). 
“The  item  for  labour  may  seem  high.  Pruning  cost  a  con¬ 
siderable  sum  ;  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  attempt  a  saving  in 
tlii-  item.  Probably  the  hand  regularly  employed  could  have 
worked  a  large  area;  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  has  been  put 
clown  for  the  labour  of  members  of  the  family.  It  will  be  in- 
Icresting  to  give  last  yearls  figures;  — 
Nuts  (6,300  lbs.) . Vi 
Apples  (66  budiel.s)  ..  ’  'il 
Pliuiis  (10  bushels)  . 3 
The  kitchen  garden  was  in  process  of  making. 
••  The  Nuts,  it  will  be  seen,  were  a  very  large  crop,  and, 
though  the  price  was  low,  they  made  a  goo.d  return.  The  price 
cf  the  Apples  works  out  at  Os.  (id.  in  1902  and  8s.  Id.  in  1903. 
Onlv  the  eating  Apples  fetched  a  good  price.  Cooking  Apples 
cf  even  the  best  (jUality,  as  the  Warner  Kings,  in  spite  of  the 
scarcity,  fetched  little  more  than  usual.  By  the  time  they  are 
ready  the  markets  are  flooded  with  American  and  Canadian 
produce.  With  the  Plums  it  was  different.  Five  bushels  fetched 
aimest  as  much  as  ten  last  year;  but  then  Plums  do  not  bear 
transport  very  well.  It  is  premature  in  a  person  with  so  short 
an  experience  as  I  have  to  form  conclusions,  but  I  feel  sure  that 
an  Knglish  fruit  farmer  must  rely  on  growing  good  and  early 
kiiicls.  °  To  show  that  my  experiences  are  not  exceptional,  I 
may  add  that  I  bought  my  neighbour’s _m-op  of  Apples  and 
Pilin'.*  for  £8.  Last  year  he  sold  it  for  £i5. — A.  J.  C.” 
A  Famous  Elm  Tree. 
The  famous  Sully  Elm,  which  was  known  to  be  over  three 
centuries  old,  and  stood  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Church  of  Saint 
Jacciues  du  Haut  Pas,  Paris,  had  recently  to  be  cut  down  owing 
to  its  decayed  condition.  The  wood  was  cut  into  logs  and  offered 
for  sale  the  other  day.  There  was  keen  competition  to  secure 
tile  liistoric  wood.  The  famous  Elm  ha.s,  however,  not  been 
entirely  destroyed.  -The  dead  trunk,  to  the  height  of  about 
t'>irty  feet,  has'been  left  standing. 
History  of  the  Potato. 
The  Potato  is  one  of  the  greatest  ble.ssings  bestowed  upon 
mankind  ;  for,  next  to  rice,  it  affords  sustenance  to  inor.* 
human  lieings  than  any  other  gift  of  God.  It  has  been  im¬ 
piously  called  the  curse  and  the  Upas  of  Ireland;  but  the  abuse 
of  the  blessing  is  the  curse,  and  it  is  as  unjust  thus  to  condemn 
it  as  it  would  be  to  anathematise  iron,  because  man  ha;i  formed 
from  it  the  rack  and  the  thumbscrew,  as  well  as  the  plough¬ 
share,  the  loom,  and  the  compass. 
The  Potato  is  a  blessing  so  long  as  it  is  only  a  subsidiary 
food  of  a  people;  adopted  by  them,  as  in  England,  as  an  aid, 
or  re.sonrce,  when  other  better  food  is  deficient,  and  as  a 
diluent,  or  corrective,  of  gros.ser  animal  nutriment.  No  man  in 
a  mild  or  torrid  climate  can  live  healthily  upon  a  preponderat¬ 
ing  animal  diet ;  and  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  quantity 
required  for  appeasing  the  semsation  of  hunger  that  such  food 
as  Potatoes  and  rice  are  so  beneficial. 
In  Ii-eland  this  cheap  produce  has  become  the  chief,  th? 
staple,  food  of  the  inhabitants;  and,  as  the  .staple  food  of  a 
people  regulates  the  price  of  wages  paid  for  their  labour,  wages 
have  become  so  low  in  that  country,  that  when  a  dearth  of 
Potatoes  occurred,  the  day’s  earnings  were  not  sufficient  to  pur¬ 
chase  a  day’s  sustenance  of  dearer  food.  But  why  did  the 
Potato  become  the  staple  food  of  Ireland?  Simply  because 
the  pi'iest  and  the  middleman  in  days  now  pa.st  encouraged 
the  division  and  subdivision  of  paltry  holdings  into  others  still 
more  and  more  miserably  small.  This  subdivision  of  farms, 
says  Dir.  INIaccnlloch,  has  been  both  a  can.se  and  a  consequence 
of  the  use  of  the  Potato  as  a  principal  article  of  food.  A  small 
farmer,  or  even  proprietor,  with  five,  ten,  or  fifteen  acres  of 
land,  cannot  afford  to  feed  himself  and  family  on  bread  and 
beef.  He  is  compelled  to  resort  to  inferior  food  ;  and  as  the 
Potato  affords  the  greatest  quantity  of  nourishment  from  a 
given  extent  of  ground,  to  that  he  naturally  re.sorts  ;  and  this 
facility  of  obtaining  support  tempts  to  a  further  divi.sion  of  the 
holding.  Such  have  been  the  con.seqiiences  of  the  extreme  siih- 
division  of  landed  property  in  Ireland ;  and  it  has  been  fostered 
by  the  prie.st  and  the  middleman,  because  each  fraction  of  a 
holding  is  productive  of  further  fees  and  increased  rentals. 
Whei-e,  as  in  England  and  Scotland,  the  Potato  ground  i  i 
only  the  poor  man’s  aid,  not  his  all,  it  is  indeed  a  blessing ;  and 
it  is  told  in  these  few  words  of  an  allotment  tenant  :  ‘  ‘  There 
are  but  few  days  in  the  year  sir,  on  which  we  cannot  get  a 
meal’s  help  from  it.”  Most  a.ssiiredly  therefore  do  I  think  that 
tho  de.scendants  of  Baleigh  might  be  proud  of  a  .sprig  of  the 
Potato  foliage  on  their  coat  armour  as  those  of  Appel  de 
Kapoesang  are  of  its  tubers  with  which  the  Austrian  heralds 
have  charged  their  shields;*  and  it  is  with  the  hope  of  com¬ 
bining  and  diffusing  the  latest  and  best  information  relative  to 
this  esculent — to  disalm.se  the  public  mind  from  growing  pre¬ 
judice — and  to  disseminate  widely  the  most  successful  modes  of 
culture — that  the  National  Potato  Society  is  formed. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  Chili,  and  especially 
the  neighbourhood  of  Quito,  is  the  native  country  of  the 
Potato.  It  is  there  now  found  in  a  wild  state ;  its  slightly 
bitter  tubers  have  been  thence  imported  of  late  years ;  and 
cultivation  has  gradually  raised  from  tho.se  tubers  plants  now 
producing  crops  of  excellent  Potatoes.  We  learn,  also,  from 
Peter  Cieca  and  Dlolina,  that  when  the  Spanish  navigators  first 
visited  Chili  and  Peru,  their  inhabitants  cultivated  and  ate  a 
tuberous-rooted  plant  which  they  called  papas.  Molina  says 
there  are  two  kinds:  the  wild,  having  small  bitter  tubers; 
and  the  other,  improved  bv  culture  so  as  to  have  tubers  grateful 
to  the  palate. t 
The  Spaniards  imported  the  Potato  into  Spain  where  it 
was  called  Battata,  from  the  resemblance  the  tubers  bore  to 
those  of  the  Sweet  Potato  (Ipomoea  Battata),  and  from  thence 
it  was  communicated  to  Italy.  This  was  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  or  early  in  the  sixteenth  century  ;  yet  at  the  latter 
period  the  Potato  was  so  little  known  even  to  botani.sts,  that 
Lobel,  in  his  “  Plantarum  sen  Stirpiiim  Historia,”  piibli.shed  at 
Antwerp  in  1576,  has  no  mention  of  it,  though  he  describes  and 
figures  the  Sweet  Potato.  Gerarde,  in  England,  however,  and 
Ca.spar  Bauhine,  at  Basil,  both  in  the  year  1596,  gave  notices 
of  their  acquaintance  with  it  yet  still  evidently  as  a  rarity. 
*  I)e  Kapoesang  was  tlie  first  successful  cultivator  of  the  Potato  in  Austria. 
t  P.  Cieca’s  “  Chronicle.”  published  in  1553.  IMo'ina's  “  Hist,  of  Chili  ” 
The  Spaniards  first  visited  South  America  in  ihe  year  14.T!,  .and  there  is  no 
r.itional  doubt  of  this  being  the  earliest  neiiod  in  which  the  Pot.ato  became  known 
to  Europeans.  Clusius  and  some  others  have  surmised  that  tho  Arachidna 
described  by  Theopbrastus  w.as  thes.ame  plant,  although  the  suggestion  does  not 
appear  with  a  single  reason  to  sustain  it ;  but  it  seem.sto  me  that  the  Arachidna 
is  identical  with  ihe  Arachidna  of  Pliny,  Hist.  lib.  xxi.  cap.  20,  and  this  appears 
to-liave  been  synonymous  with  out  Truffle.  Pliny  says  it  was  a  root  having  no 
leaf  or  stem  or  any  other  part  above  ground.  Corlucius  had  a  similarly  ground- 
jess  opinion  as  to  the  i  lentity  of  the  Potato  wi  h  the  Picnocomus  of  Dioscorides. 
This  certainly  was  not  the  Pot.ato,  for  it  is  described  .as  g-owing  wild  in  .‘outhoi  n 
F.iirope  in  stony  places,  as  having  aci  id  leave',  and  seeds  narcotic,  producing  heavy 
disturbed  sleep. 
