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372  JODRXAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  ■  October  22,  1903, 
County  Council  Instruction  in  Horticulture. 
Continuing  the  serie.s  begun  in  April  of  this  year,  the  present 
notes  briefly  summarise  the  work  being  undertaken  by  the 
Oxfordshire*  County  Council,  whose  horticultural  instructor  is 
Mr.  Samuel  Heaton.  By  abridging  the  annual  report  of  the 
Technical  In.struction  Committee  for  the  year  1902-3,  as  pre¬ 
sented  to  tlie  Oxfordshire  County  Council,  a  fair  outline  of  the 
work  will  be  gleaned.  The  report  is  as  follows:  — 
Oxfordshire. 
“  Horticultural  Lectures,  Trial  Allotments,  &c. 
“  In  the  past  year,  200  lectures  have  been  delivered  by  Mr. 
S.  Heaton,  the  .staff  instructor,  attended  by  3,435  auditors. 
The.se.  included  single  lectures,  short  courses,  and  three  long 
courses  of  lectures  and  demon.strations  in  preparation  for  the 
Royal  Horticultural  Society’s  examination.  These  latter  were 
held  at  Adderbury,  Bicester,  and  Chipping  Norton.  Although 
the  attendance  at  the  lectures  was  good,  few  students  (only  eight 
in  all)  sat  for  the  examination  on  April  22.  The  results  of  the 
examination  are  satisfactory;  all  eight  candidates  passed. 
Mr.  S.  Heaton. 
“  Thirty-four  demomstrations  have  been  given  in  gardens, 
allotments,  &c.,  attended  by  347  persons.  Growing  interest  is 
being  exhibited  by  allotment  holders  and  cottage  gardeners  in 
the  work  of  the  staff  instructor,  and  information  is  constantly 
asked  for  by  them  as  to  the  cultivation  of  their  crops,  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  insect  and  fungoid  pests,  and  the  eradication  of  weeds, 
so  that  the  visits  to  190  allotments  and  118  gardens  have  proved 
of  considerable  value.  Reports  of  the  trial  allotment.s,  leaflets 
on  insect  pests,  diseases,  manures  and  manuring,  &c.,  have  been 
widely  distributed  among  the  cottagers.  During  the  year,  also, 
255  allotments  have  been  judged,  and  eleven  shows  have  been 
visited  by  the  staff  in.structor  as  judge.  A  short  course  of 
Nature-Study  excursions  for  teachers  has  been  planned,  and  a 
party  of  some  twenty  to  twenty-four  teachers  went  with  the 
instructor  to  the  garden.s  and  woods  of  Heythrop,  Blenheim, 
and  Middleton  Stoney.  Full  reports  of  the  work  of  each  of  the 
nine  trial  allotments  in  the  county  were  printed  and  widely 
circulated. 
“  The  annual  exhibition  of  the  produce  grown  on  these  trial 
allotments  was  held  on  September  18,  1902,  in  St.  John’s  College, 
Oxford,  when  Mr.  W.  Hovmll  acted  as  judge.  Throughout  the 
summer  the  plots  had  been  inspected  several  times,  for  the 
special  purpose  of  awarding  marks  for  (u)  general  cleanliness, 
(h)  system  of  cropping,  (c)  methods  of  cultivation,  (d)  re.spective 
merits  of  crops,  and  (r)  the  financial  position  of  the  individual 
plots.  .  .  .  Demonstrations  in  grafting  and  budding  have  been 
given  on  most  of  these  centre.s,  and  considerable  interest  has 
been  taken  in  the  operations  by  the  cottage  and  allotment 
gardeners  of  the  neighbourhood. 
“  Practice  Plots. 
“  The  ‘  Practice  Plot  ’  scheme,  whereby  any  allotment  holder 
may  receive  advice  as  to  his  methods  of  cultivation,  make.s  .slow 
progress.  Tho.se  working  under  the  scheme  are  well  sati.sfied, 
and  much  good  work  has  been  done,  but  the  allotment  holders 
are  diffident  of  writing  reports.  The  following  report,  however. 
will  show  that  the  advice  given  is  appreciated  ;  ‘  I  beg  to  inform 
you  that  the  yield  (of  Wheat)  was  very  satisfactory.  When 
threshed  the  amount  was  seven  bushels  of  corn  (grown  on  one 
chain  and  a  quarter  of  allotment  ground) — a  very  good  sample, 
too,  as  the  flour  makes  good,  sound,  and  sweet  bread.  I  may 
add  that  my  yield  of  Wheat  was  the  best  in  the  allotment.s  this 
year  (1902).  (Signed),  George  Berry,  North  Newington.’  ” 
The  Committee’s  report  gives  a  tabular  statement  to  show 
the  work  of  the  .staff  instructor  during  the  year,  but  we  must 
be  content  with  the  gross  .summary:  “Number  of  lectures  given, 
200;  total  attendances,  3,435;  number  of  demonstrations  given, 
34;  total  attendances,  347;  visits  to  trial  allotments,  69; 
gardens  visited,  118;  allotments  visited,  190 ;  gardens  and  allot¬ 
ments  judged,  255;  shows  judged,  11.” 
After  glancing  through  the  foregoing  report,  it  will  bet  patent 
to  everybody  that  Mr.  Heaton  is  well  and  busily  occupied ;  and 
for  the  guidance  of  the  allotment  holders  and  amateurs  he  has 
had  prepared  a  “  Calendar  of  Garden  Operations  ”  in  leaflet  form. 
Mr.  5.  Heaton. 
It  is  ju.st  over  forty  years  since  Mr.  Heaton  was  born  at 
Keighley,  in  Yorkshire,  to  wit,  August  6,  1863.  He  entered  the 
establishment  of  the  late  Sir  Isaac  Holden,  Bart.,  at  Oakworth 
House,  in  the  year  1878,  at  fifteen  years  of  age.  This  place  was 
then  in  the  making,  and  here  experience  was  gained  in  land 
draining,  reservoir  making,  rockery  building,  and  landscape 
gardening.  Hard  practical  work  was  the  order  of  the  day  ;  and 
through  the  kindne.ss  of  the  architect,  the  late  Mr.  George  Smith, 
books  on  landscape  gardening,  surveying,  and  allied  subjects 
were  studied. 
Over  seven  years  were  spent  here  in  acquiring  practical  know¬ 
ledge  in  the  cultivation  of  fruits,  flowers,  vegetables,  and  plants, 
under  Mr.  Halliwell  Shaw,  a  thoroughly  practical  gardener,  whose 
motto  and  practice  was  AVork.  He  was,  indeed,  a  good  teacher. 
The  glass  department  was  very  extensive,  as  will  be  seen  from 
the  following  extract,  which  is  from  the  “Bradford  AV^eekly 
Telegraph”  of  Saturday,  March  31,  1883:  “It  is  the  winter 
garden  that  con.stitutes  the  special  and  particular  charm,  and 
when  it  is  remembered  that  the  bare  formation  cost  about 
£30,000,  some  idea  may  be  obtained  of  its  noble  proportions. 
In  addition  to  this  large  ‘  garden,’  whose  interior  embraces  an 
area  of  about  half  an  acre,  there  are  also  enormous  ranges  of 
glass  houses,  forty  in  all,  covering  an  area  of  about  two  acres, 
and  requiring  a  series  of  over  a  dozen  boilers  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  feet  of  hot-water  piping  to  keep  them  at  the  required 
tem’perature.  Opening  immediately  from  the  end  of  the  winter 
garden  is  a  lantern-roofed  hou.se  devoted  to  Muscat  Grapes,  and 
connected  with  this  are  .six  other  vineries  arranged  so  as  to  give 
continuous  croppings  all  the  year  round. 
“  Right  and  left  of  the  winter  gardens  are  Orchid  houses  and 
greenhouses.  There  is  a  good  collection  of  rare  and  valuable 
Orchids,  and  the  Rose  house.  Camellia,  Azalea  and  Heath  houses, 
&c.,  contain  many  handsome  and  well  grown  specimens.  The 
fine  Peach,  Melon,  and  Cucumber  houses  are  well  stocked. 
The  vineries  contain  4,000  feet  of  four-inch  pipes ;  the  fine  pits 
and  plant  preparing  house.s,  &c.,  7,000  feet ;  the  stoves  adjoining 
the  winter  garden,  11,000  feet ;  the  winter  garden  itself,  7,500 
feet.” 
AFhile  at  Oakworth  Hou.se,  opportunity  was  taken  of  the 
science  and  art  classes,  both  at  Oakworth  and  Keighley 
Mechanics’  Institutes,  to  acquire  instruction  in  drawing  (geo¬ 
metry,  freehand,  &c.),  botany,  agriculture,  and  mathematics, 
which  Mr.  Heaton  must  have  since  found  very  useful. 
In  1886  a  move  was  made  to  Astley  Bank  Gardens,  Darwen, 
under  a  Mr.  Charles  Grey,  an  excellent  vegetable  and  fruit 
grower.  From  here,  Dilevvorth  House  Gardens,  Longridge,  was 
taken  charge  of,  followed  by  Claye  House  Gardens,  Halifax,  and 
Elmwood  House  Gardens,  Batley.  During  these  appointments 
exhibiting  was  tried,  and  .succes.sfull3'. 
In  1891  a  move  was  made  to  Leeds,  to  take  charge  of  the 
Yorkshire  School  of  Horticulture  in  the  theory  and  practice  of 
gardening ;  and  in  1893  our  friend  was  appointed  horticultural 
instructor  for  the  Isle  of  Wight  County  Council,  but  resigned 
that  post  in  January,  1901,  when  he  commenced  duties  under 
the  Oxfordshire  County  Council  as  Rural  Agricultural  Instructor. 
Thus  the  record  of  a  .strenuous  worker,  a  man  as  eager  to  get  a.s 
to  impart  knowledge  :  and  both  in  his  teachings  and  his  studies 
he  goes  .systematically  to  work.  Mr.  Heaton  is  not  merely  a 
theorist  and  science  scholar;  he  is  practical  above  all,  and  unle.ss 
that  is  a  qualification  of  a  C.C.  instructor,  his  own  time  and  that 
of  others  is  largely  wasted. 
AA'hen  superintending  practical  work  in  the  open-air,  as,  for 
examle,  trenching,  pruning,  making  allej^s.  or  planting  on  allot¬ 
ments,  Mr.  Heaton  cannot  tolerate  the  deliberate,  half-willing 
worker;  he  will  somewhat  sharplj^  a.sk  to  have  the  spade  (or 
other  tool),  and  with  vim  and  skill  proceeds  to  “  ocularl.v 
demonstrate”  how  the  business  ounht  to  be  undertaken.  And 
that  is  just  what  the  majority  of  the‘  country  working-men 
want;  they  do  enjoy  “elbow-grease,”  e.specially  when  it  come.s 
from  the  man  who  is  set  ov^er  them  to  give  light  and  leading. 
We  give  a  synopsis  of  his  session’s  work  at  the  Batley  Teclinical 
