510 
JOURNAL  OR  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
December  3,  1903. 
The  Uncut  “Journal.” 
Not  the  Journal  of  Ilorf  iculf.ure,  which  was  the  pioneer  among 
gardening  new.spapers  to  cut  the  edges  of  its  pages,  and  greatly 
did  we  welcome  the  change.  The  “  Journal  ”  referred  tO’  is  that 
of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society.  On  past  occasions  your 
correspondence  columns  have  testified  that  there  are  others 
beside  me  who  feel  that,  in  order  to  satisfy  a  petty  sentiment 
which  dominates  some  Fellows  of  the  Society,  the  members  at 
large  have  to  bear  a  very  unnecessary  infliction.  Here  is  the 
latest  volume  of  the  R.H.S.  Journal.  It  numbers  418  pages, 
with  the  exception  of  the  advertisement  folios,  which  are  cut. 
Imagine  the  precious  time  that  is  absolutely  wasted  in  the  painful 
performance  of  unnecessary  labour,  which  can  be  accomplished 
in  one  second  by  the  movement  of  a  cutting  machine!  It  is  more 
than  annoying;  and  only  those  who  have  to  work  from  early 
morning  till  late  at  night  for  their  daily  bread,  CcVi  appreciate 
how  irritating  are  little  hindrances  like  this.  Nor  have  all  of 
us  glass-faced  bookshelves,  so  that  the  ragged  edges  of  the 
Journal  are  like  a  velvet  curtain,  catching  all  the  dust  that 
flies. — Chelsonian. 
Horticultural  Travellers. 
“A.  N.  Noyed  ”  certainly  cite.s  an  exceptional  case  on 
page  490  in  his  indictment  against  nur.sorymen’s  representatives. 
In  all  my  dealings  with  travellers,  never  have  I  known  an  offer 
of  cash  made,  and  never  before  heard  of  one  being  made.  That 
the  gentlemen  of  the  road  are  somewhat  of  a  nuisance  at  times 
we  are  all  aware;  but  alack!  like  the  rest  of  us,  they  must  live. 
That  the  necessary  pushfulness  attaching  to  their  calling  may 
occasionally,  in  an  individual,  degenerate  into  brazen  effrontery 
scarcely  justifies  gardeners  in  branding  all  comers  with  the 
ap2)ellation  of  “Mr.  Nuisance.”  Knowing  something  of  the 
precarious  nature  of  the  livelihood  of  some  of  these  men,  my 
.sympathies  have  frequently  been  wdth  them  when  it  has  been 
my  duty  to  say  “  No,  thank  you.”  They  may  at  times  hold  out 
that  charming  inducement  to  buy,  viz.,  5  per  cent,  or  10  per  cent, 
discount ;  but  what  of  that  P  Their  employers  often  act  very 
similarly.  It  is  years  since  I  have  experienced  any  annoyance 
from  a  traveller’s  visits.  Gardeners  should  be  courteously  decided 
in  their  .an.sw'ers.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  necessity  for  dodging 
these  gentlemen,  and  I  certainly  should  think  the  gardener  who 
Avould  play  “  hide  and  seek  ”  with  them  the  greater  part  of  a 
day  was  either  lacking  in  decisiveness  or  had  more  time  to  play 
with  than  many  of  us  possess.  The  visits  spoken  of  by  your 
correspondent  as  being  so  annoying  could  at  any  time  be  stonped 
by  a  note  to  the  firm  or  firms  represented.  “Live  and  let  live” 
we  are  all  ready  to  cry,  and  the  old  adage  may  well  be  extended 
in  its  application  to  horticultural  travellers. — Provincial. 
The  tirade  on  this  worthy  section  of  the  world’s  business  men, 
by  one  apfjiarently  annoyed,  is  to  say  the  least  of  it,  amusing. 
Personally  I  have-  always  enjoyed  the  visits  of  our  erratic 
brethren,  and  whether  they  booked  an  order  or  not,  we  have 
always  iiarted  the  best  of  friends.  Therefore  I  must  strongly 
protest  against  the  contumely  laid  at  the  door  of  the  average 
horticultural  traveller.  He  is  not  infrequently  one  who  spent 
part  of  his  life  in  gardening,  and  if  not,  he  is  very  much  in 
possession  of  the  knowledge  of  the  manner  he  should  conduct 
liimself  inside  the  precincts  of  a  gentleman’s  policies.  I  have 
not,  thank  goodness,  yet  come  in  contact  with  the  specimen 
^,ho  struts  like  the  peacock  about  the  garden  quite  oblivious 
to  tlie  presence  of  the  head  gardener  or  his  employer.  No,  I 
must  say,  those  I  have  enjoyed — and  they  are  not  few — were 
gentlemen  who  had  every  regard  for  the  little  civilities  and 
courtesies  peculiar  to  a  gentleman’s  establishment.  The  traveller’s 
duty  is  to  make  sales,  but  tlie  gardener’s  duty  is  to  buy  nothing 
that  he  can  do  without.  Both,  therefore,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  understand  their  relative  positions,  and  can  enjoy  a  crack 
on  several  topics,  and  yiart  as  good  friends  as  they  met.  Dear 
me,  what  kind  of  a  fellow  can  he  be  who  runs  to  hide  himself 
from  the  traveller?  Has  he  got  an  impediment  in  his  speech  or 
faculties  ivlien  he  so  dreads  to  meet  the  voluminous  talk  of  an 
honest  man  who  solicits  your  patronage?  He  certainly  must 
be  deficient  in  moral  courage  ;  and  let  me  tell  you  when  such  is 
the  case,  such  a  person  is  not  able  to  conduct  a  place  of  any 
importance.  He  may  launch  himself  and  his  employer  into  a 
me.ss  at  any  moment. 
You  have  all  heard  of  “Facing  the  Mu.sic.”  Well,  my 
exhortation  is  Face  it,  then,  and  j'ou  will  conquer  more  than 
lying  in  a  danqi  mushroom  cellar  for  the  best  part  of  a  day. 
I  came  across,  in  my  peregrinations,  one  or  two  of  the  acidulous 
natured  gardener,  who  has  no  room  in  his  heart  for  anything  or 
anyone  outside  his  own  selfish  ends.  In  my  aiiprentice  days  we 
— bothy  boy.s — used  to  have  a  very  much  worse  traveller  to  deal 
with,  viz.,  the  book  canvasser.  I  confess  I  was  persuaded  once 
to  enter  into  a  big  thing  for  me,  then,  and  didn’t  I  regret  it  ! 
Nor  do  I  get  in  the  least  annoyed  now  at  the  most  persistent  of 
men  whose  calling  such  is.  I  tell  them  in  the  outset,  my  mind, 
and  .strange  to  say  they  somehow  know  that  I  mean  what  I  say, 
and  there’s  an  end  to  it.  Let  us  hear  your  correspondent’^ 
version  of  the  other  side.  He  has  given  us  the  darkest,  I 
am  sure  he  can  also  give  us  a  good  word,  for  the  hard  working 
travellers. — C'omites. 
- - 
A  Crimson  Chrysanthemum. 
Herewith  I  send  you  a  bloom  of  a  new  Japanese  seedling 
Chryisanthemum,  which  is,  in  my  opinion,  much  the  nearest 
approach  to  red  or  crimson  of  any  variety.  A  strong  point  in 
favour  of  this  variety  is  the  manner  in  which  its  surface  colour 
is  exposed.  It  is  not  like  so  many  of  the  new  varieties,  half  surface 
and  half  of  the  reverse  seen  at  the  same  time.  As  you  will  note, 
the  bloom  is  large  enough  for  any  purpose,  and  in  point  of  colour 
it  is  quite  unique. — Edwin  AIolyneux. 
[Placing  the  bloom  on  our  desk,  so  that  the  light  falls  fair 
upon  it,  the  colour  is  seen  to  be  a  very  bright  crimson,  especially 
toward  the  centre.  The  reverse  of  the  florets  is  pale  iirimroso 
coloured;  and  each  floret  is  broad.  For  colour  alone  it  is 
decidedly  interesting. — Ed.] 
- - 
Public  Halls  for  Floral  Exhibitions. 
The  assertion  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Journal  (page  460)  as 
to  the  prohibitive  jirice  charged  the  Sheffield  Chry.santhemum 
Society  for  the  use  of  the  Cutlers’  Hall,  would  break  the  back 
of  many  societies  with  less  grit  than  seems  to  animate  the 
members  of  that  admirable  body.  Surely  a  society  which,  I 
believe,  has  consistently  assisted  the  funds  of  the  Gardeners’ 
Royal  Benevolent  Institution  with  its  suiqilu-s  revenue  in  the 
past,  is  worthy  of  more  magnanimous  local  concession  than  has 
presumably  been  meted  out-  to  it  in  the  matter  of  reasonably 
rented  hall  accommodation  the  last  three  or  four  years.  That 
a  reserve  fund  should  have  to  be  drawn  on  to  meet  the  seemingly 
high  rent  levied  by  ambitious  landlords,  seems  hardly  consistent 
with  the  love  of  flowers,  and  the  advancement  in  mind  and  body 
of  the  Sheffield  artisan  (.speaking  for  the  amateurs)  who  seeks, 
after  w'orking  hours,  the  purlieus  of  greenhouse  and  garden  to 
relieve  the  monotony  of  the  sulphurous  works  of  the  city  :  works 
that  are  controlled  by  those  capitalists  who,  I  am  assured,  have 
not  sufficiently  gra.sped  the  ends  and  aims  of  such  societies,  or 
else  they  would  use  their  great  influence  to  divert  that  power 
into  the  balance  that  would  favour  the  continued  success  and 
prosperity  of  such  an  old  and  deserving  society  as  that  at 
Sheffield. — Albert  F.  Upstone,  Rotherham. 
Diseased  Potatoes. 
As  the  Potato  disease  has  been  .so  very  iirevalent  this  season 
I  am  tempted  to  give  a  few  notes  on  the  behaviour  of  a  few 
varieties  during  this,  the  wettest  summer  on  record.  The  soil 
here  is  a  clayey  loam,  and  the  subsoil  is  wdiite  clay,  consequently 
it  pays  best  to  dig  in  dry  or  frosty  weather  (no  time  to  trench), 
otherwise  the  soil  runs  together,  and  will  not  work  properly  the 
whole  summer  if  dug  just  after  rain.  That  grand  all-round 
variety,  Up-to-Date,  gave  by  far  tbe  best  returns,  both  for  it.s 
cropping  and  disease-resisting  qualities.  Out  of  sixty  bushels 
we  only  had  half  a  bushel  of  diseased  tubers,  and  almost  a'  total 
absence  of  “chats,”  the  smallest  among  them  really  being  good, 
average-sized  seed-tubers.  Sir  John  Llewelyn  cropped  well,  but 
a  large  percentage  of  tubers  were  diseased,  though  many  did 
not  .show  traces  of  disease  until  being  peeled.  Syon  Prolific 
did  not  justify  its  name  this  year,  for  it  gave  a  light  crop,  and 
though  the  tops  succumbed  early  to  disease,  there  was  scarcely  a 
diseased  tuber  found  in  the  whole  of  fifteen  rows.  All  of  the 
Potato  rows  were  51yds  long.  Snowdroji,  on  the  other  hand,  on 
a  similar-.sized  brake,  was  fully  three-parts  bad,  and  had  an 
enormous  quantity  of  “  chats,”  or  small  tubers.  This  variety 
had  the  appearance  of  turning  out  well,  for  the  haulm,  during 
July  and  August,  looked  remarkably  well.  ‘  Sutton’s  Flourball 
cropped  well,  and  there  w'ere  not  many  diseased.  Gentenary 
furnished  small,  badly-shaped  tubers,  with  a  large  bulk  diseased. 
Sutton’s  Ninetyfold  fully  bore  out  its  name,  but  a  larger  quantity 
of  diseased  tubers  I  never  saw.  We  planted  24  bushels  of  .seed 
and  got  barely  one  bushel  of  .sound  tubers  in  return.  The  whole 
of  these  were  used  up  the  first  week  after  lifting,  as  I  shall  not 
grow  it  again. — A.  Jefferies,  Moor  Hall  Gardens,  Harlow,  Essex. 
