The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-02-01 00:00:00

WITH SEEDS AT READING.

IN rouge for this iinportant and rapiilly.growing Berk-
shire town, I fell a-limiting, and bethought me that in an
establishment like the one for which I WWI hound, seed-
time and harvest are constantly and simultaneously
. . .

e-iiint7see.Si7iirnie-in the variousii-ts7es-a-nd packing-
' rooms, and harvest in the countinghouse. Arrived
at Reading Station, it MIS easy work to find Messrs.
Sutton and Son's Royal Berkshire Seed Establishment.
The aborigines knew it well, and peripatetic policemen,
witii something like contempt for my ignorance, directed
me to where, in the Market Place, Xmas. Sutton and
Sone were architecturally obvious to the eye. Passing
through • miniature version of Fairy Land, I made for •
dour conspicuously labelled "office" and, going to the
further end of a room well supplied with clerks and light.
Made the acquaintance of a competent gentlemen as "MY
guide, philosopher, and friend," and under his superien-
tendence at once set iint on my tour of the ostaldishment.
After • flying visit to • noble Reading Room, eriteil by
Meows. Sutton for the evening use of their siapteyie
and a windy glance from the roof of the building at
contiguous Reading and the distant Hampshire hills,
we entered whet is rolled the Flower Seed Room.
Here, all along the walls and underneath the counters
which ral down the neeu, were innumerable drawers
filled with countless packages of Hower seek ready for
instant service, so that all that is necessary for the com-
pletion of each order, as its turn comes, is the taking of
the specified seed packets from the compariment allotted
to them, and their aggregation for subsequent enclosure
in envelopes, or boxes, as bulk and commonsense may
deride. Perfidious Albion not being favourable to the
full development of some varieties of the needs repre-
sented in this departmeitt, Messrs. Sutton employ growers
in Germany and ehowhere to raise them. We next
repaired to the Ledger office, where the superintendent of
that department detailed with what economic precision
the huge brass-cornered volumes are kept, and how it II
next to impossible for any one of the six hundred Smiths
to receive and be charged for goods which should fall to
the lot of any other possessor of She same surname.
So with the Browns (who are three hundred strong), and
the -Neese* (who number two hundre I and fifty), and
indeed, with all the thoutands of customers who are
entitled to enrolment mu Messrs. Sutton's voluminous
indexes. Here I expressed appropriste surprise on being
shows • one-day batch of orders sixteen inches in stature
and was duly astonished at learning that it took eight
permute several hours every_ morning to open the day's
letters. The wile range of Messrs. Sutton's export trade
was here mole manifest to my eyes by the production of a
colossal invoice some two yards long, and containing a list
of English trees, plant; and seeds for despatch to Jamaica.
Leaving the domain of figures, we next entered the vege-
table Seed Order Room. In this room several thousand
bushels of peas are put up in paper during the season,
and equally alarmiug quantities of equally well-known
vegetable seeds find envelopes. The packets thus put up
are distinguished by appropriate labels of which the firm
use nearly two millions in a year. From the department
iu whi ih the Vegetable Seeds are picketed to tibsat iri
which they were packed, is • natural and easy tramutioN
and the haluiner-blovrs of the men who are smiling or, the
lids of a number of highly respectable-looking boxes,
fall like welcome music on my ears. After a stroll
through one of the Grass Seed Stores in which
the Messrs. Sotton keep their assorted mixture of gram
seed for different soils, we strode into what is the largest
agricultural seed store in the world, comprising two floors,
each nearly two hundred feet long by 62 feet wide. Under
this spacione building, 111•801:14 and carpenters were hard
at work on what will, when complete, be used for the
delivery of agricultural seed onlers of large bulk lq
waggons for conveyance per • newly constructed eXit to
the goods' shed of the Great Weetern, Seuth Western, and
South Eastern Railways, or. the same level as the stores.
The bulk of the grass seeds are stowed away in multitu-
dinous sacks, in a building quite distinct from the other
stores, and enterable from the King's Road. Here one
allay see all manner of mixtures of all kinds of grasses-
from grasses tine and smooth-surfaced, for cricket grounds,
grasses rank and coarse, for game covers. All these duly
prescribed admixtures are carefully sifted before delivery,
a promos to which great importance is rightly attach.
While interviewing a great heap of one these grass
conglomerations, my indefatigable Mentor incidentally
apprised me of several noticeable facts ; one being that
the Messrs. Sutton have growers scattered not only all
over England, but in France and Germany; and another
that the sale of seed potatoes in • single season reaches
20,000 bushels. Having 'lancet at the busy little engine,
which can turn its fly-wheel to anything, sack lowering
being its staple occupation, and looked into the Export
Seed Room, we made our way hack to the Correspondence
Department, whence communication with the aforesaid
growers is kept up. While comfortably seated iii this
Labe, I learnt, among other things, that from 500 to LUOU
letters per day are received by the firm, and opened in
the presence of one or more of the principals ; and that
February and March are the heaviest seed months. I
found, too, that. were I buried beneath the inangel seed
of the season, I should he unable to hreathe under the
cnoriuous number of tons of vegetable weight, and that
thoussuils of bushels of swede and turnip seed,. would
further incommode ine if I desired a "season able
addition to the last-indicated kind. Further, it woul4
be within my power to eschew roots, and be in-or
under-clover to the extent of several hundred toad.
'fere, too, I was provided with Sutton's Amateur's
Guide aforesaid-an elegantly printed, well-arranged,
profusely illustrated seed manual, eontainingg some admir-
able floral chromodithoplis ; and Stain's' s Farmer's
Veer Book; with Mr. Martin H. Sutton'. Permanent
Pastures-reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society; wite a Geological and Railway Map of
England and wales, capitally printed in colours for the
crop guidance of farmers: with • series of taseeful basis
nese circulars; and with a natty little Almanac for the
current year. These appropriated, and my Menke
proffered to my courteous wen-informant, retraced my
steps to the railway station-and so home again, gratified
ex-seed-ingly.-Fruni the kende,' Figaro, Jan. 90Ind,

Ipswich journals report that there hare been two shocks
of earthquake near Stowmarket duriu the week.
After -February lit, receipts for telerphic messages
may be obtained on payment of twopence.
BUILILZT.—Kr. Abused Kenealy, eldest son of Dr.
&mealy, M. P., has gone down to contest the canstituencr
as an independent candidate.
The chastise from the Cambridge 'Varsity Committee
has reached Oxford. The day for the race will be
Saturday. April lith, the couree being from Putuey to
Mortlake. _ _

A young mau named McCarthy received twenty•live
Whet in Newgate Thursday morning, for robbery and
violence, lie bore the punishment well, but was removed
an almostfainting condition.

.-1717e-671;i7i—Queen s Bench Thursday granted the
Salisbury and Dorset Railway • rule nisi for • mandamus
tommandlug the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas to
appoint an umpire in a claim for compensation against the
Postmaster-General under the Act which transferred the
telegraphs to the Government.
. .

--Ai."iii-e—live-ii;oa-P:iiiCe--6-3.utt, to-day, William Hay-
ward, chief steward of the screw steamer testes, was
charged with smuggling forty seven pounds of tobacco and
seven and half ounces of cigars. The contraband goods
were found concealed In Hour barrels in the storeroom,
aud the defendant admitted that they were his, but said
that he did not intend to take them ashore. The Customs
representative pressed for the full penalty. and the
prisoner was fined £lOO and .C 1 7s. lOd. costa.
An inquest was held at Liverpool Thursday, before Mr.
C. Aspinall, on the body of Sarah Ann Paterson, 11 years
old. On the night of the sth November last, deceased was
at the coroner of Crafton-street, in Northumberlandoitreet
Liverpool, between five and si• o'clock, when some men
set of a rocket upon adjoining waste ground. The rocket
was carried by the wind, which was very strong at the
time, across the street, to where the deceased was walking.
and hit her on the head, knocking her down. The men,
none of whom were known, ran away when they saw the
rocket carried by the wind woes the street Deceased
was taken to the Southern Hospital where it was found
that she had sustained • fracture of the skull She
remained in the institution WI her death, which occurred
on Saturday last
THROAT ILIAJTATION. —The throat and windpipe ars
especially liable to inflammation, causing soreness and
dryness, tickling and irritation, inducing cough and
affecting the voice. For these symptoms use glycerine in
the form of jujubes. Glycerine' in three agreeable/DA'
gar
factions, being is proximity to be gliptde et the Moment
are Ptice4siour act of attain& becomes tenv
' bogie (hy post 14 stain:
"Jew= & Co. Homosopathic Chemists,4B,
reedneedle Street, and 171 i, Plcadilly, Londen,"—Sold in
eyniouth b,y .L V. Wilcusgs. aheettslt gl„ St. Athens
Row,
KTTLAORDINART OUIUI OP • 00UOH.—" Her Majesty's
Gun Boat, Neuey,' Wick, North Fast Guest of Scotland.
—Dear Sir,—Havitui had a 'nu" distressingWugh' which
unused me many sleepless night.' andreatless,days, I was
recomnieudiaL by His Lordship the Earl of Caithness, to
try your most invaluable Balsam of Aniseed, and I can
enure you with the first dose I found unmediate relief;
etjaveentiw.ittlisoulaut hagluttuetooosinuar,nt.trd niolumivarinmu.s. fuld
therefore I
have the greatest madden°e in fully recommending it to
the million. Most respectfully >fount W.
!AIWA', H.M.
Netley.'—To Powell" Powell • Balsam of
Aniseed can be had of all Chemist.. In Bottles at Is, led.
and 24.34. W 84w-iciness Road, Loudon. Ask
fer "Powell's B= Aa11014."