The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-13 00:00:00

CALLS AT SEED FARMS.

MESSRS. EDWARD WEBB AND SONS, WORDSLET,
STOURBRIDGE.—WhiIe rusticating in the Midlands
in the later days of the past delightful summer I
was reminded by a current newspaper report of
the recent rapid progress of this firm in the seed-
growing business, and I resolved to run over to
Stourbridge and have a look round. The growth
of a trading house is as interesting as the growth
of any other hous3, whether military, literary,
artistic, or "of the c.tunty," which imp Les that the
house grows out of land and rents and marriages—
a way of growing uot much in fashion of late years.i
For any house to grow during years of such de-
pression and disaster as we have lately known s
peculiarly interesting; but there could be no mis-
take about it, because. when I reached the trading
centre at Wordsley, which is a continuation of
Stourbridge, I was delicately button-holed and lE.d
over a huge pile of new seed stores counting
houses, sifting and sorting rooms, and all the rest
of the "house room" required by a fiim that after
years of quiet prosperity and steady growth new
found new customers coming in at the rate of
about four thousand per annum, and must perforce
find or make accommodation for the expanding
busin, ss. It is rather singular, however, that the
extensive premises now nearly completed are, as it
were, hidden a‘vay in one of the quietest suburbs of
one of the quietest towns of the Midlands, and not
aswe might expect, in a commanding position in a
county town or a showy city. But what does that
matter? A trade is like a tree—the best place for
it is where it first strikes root —The mysteries of
seed stores, and bulb stores and potato stores hare
been explained tl me so often that I am utterly in-
capable of surprise when the statistics of a great
trade are revealed. And it strikes me the sweet
and accommodating party known as the "general
reader" is less surprised than we might imagine
when be learns from our reports that such a house
sold so many tons of seed of Chinese primulas, and
so many hundred tons of begonia seei, and so many
million packets of mangel wurtzel and mignonette.
Therefore I paraphased the old song, and said,
'Let us go to Kinver Edge, bonnie lassie, oh
and very soon thereafter we were on the road in
full trot amongst the big trees and the pleasant
farms, and the hamlets and churches tnat dot the
3oungy between Stourbridge and Kinver, where
the Messrs. Webb have seed farms and trial
grounds covering some 1,200 aert..,s of land. The
situatiOn is altogether delightful, and. beyond
doubt suitable. Kinver Edge rises as a rule bluff
or headland, as if to give shelter to the fruitful
fields below it, and the wealth of big timber in thi
landscape tells that we have n. 4 come into a
starving country. Having devoted the best part of
my life to the pastime that pleased Dr. Syntax—
the search for the picturesque—l must confess I
was greatly delighted with the drive round t!:0
farms—more delighted in fact than afterwards in
walking over them. as any other idler would be in a
choice between play and work. The fat ins are .en.
compassed wi,h a grand boundry road, on eithe,..
side of whiLli rise big trees of every kind except
beech ; the eak, the ash, and the elm being in fine
force, telling ,f deep holding land, not wanting in
water below; while the crops 'we see from time to
time, as the fields open to our view, tell us unmis-
takably that the top crust is full of bread and
butt( r, and mutton chops and gammon and spinach,
and whatever else one would get out of go-d la d
by farming and gardening.—" But pleasures are
like poppies spread," and the ride round ended in a

Square, amongst walls of some sort, and we turned
out of the trap to turn into the maim eer's L alsE to
tighten our shoulder straps for svriou- wore. es e
matter of course, we made &tete :so !et tri
ground, and the foreman of that dpartment w is on
spot with people all around him c!earing off trial i
crops and harvesting seeds. This feature of a seed
farm is one of the most important of all apart from
the bulk produce of the different seeds. It affords
the means of closely inspecting varieties and stocks
and of improving them more or less to increase the
certainty of bulk production. Messrs, Webb have
completed a task which should be performed !
annually somewhere—and best of all at Chiswick-- j
and that was a good trial growth of peas. It is
not to be expected that a seed firm, engaged in
severe competition and having an eye to business
solely, should make public the results of a trial of
peas. Those results are in such a ca-e a property,
and the property is invested in the business as
money might be—it is pat of the knowledge of
the business that tends to augment reputation and '
bring grist to the mill. But in all such cases
visitors have but to keep their eyes open and to ask
questions and make observations, and they may
carry away as much knowledge as they can hold.
One observation must have occurred to many who
saw the century of peas, and it is that the day of
the tall growers is comity-, to an end ; for we now
have at command a grand lot of three and four
feet sorts that are of great strength in the stem,
and may be left to fall over and grow bush fiedlio,
if it happens to be inconvenient to stake them.—
In the way of flowers the gayest things at the time
of my visit were the godetias, the helichrysurns, the
petunias, the marigolds, and the stocks. The last
were especially noticeable for their splendid quality
and their prolonged flowering; but Kinver is c ol-
ish perhaps, and stocks will hold out to a late d ,te
in a cool climate, just as one can eat a second
dinner with the nil of a cool chair. The pot Ito
trials were on the same scale as the peas, and
doubtless as valuable. The hero of the field ap-
peared to be the Schoolmaster, who was quite at
home on the nice mellow fertile loam of this en-
chanted ground.—lt seemed as I quitted the road
round, with its boskey beauty and occasional
stretches of landscape, that I had now done with
poetry and must return to prose. But the trial
ground became poetry, and would have continued
so had not one of the dry doctors of stati -tics that
always haunt these places come direct to me to say
that the trials comprised over 1,600 species and
varieties of vegetables and flowers. And I learne.i
soon after that of Webbs' strain of Chevalier bar-
ley there were 150 acres; and of Webb' Challenge
oats 100 acres - and of common turnips 20 acres ;
and of Schoolmaster potato 50 acres; and so on
ad. in. ; while some 7,000 acres in scattered lots
were under et op for seeds that cannot be so well
grown at Kinver as in places far rernoved.—Ha ving
been in this way brougnt back to prose, and being
now in a fine passion for study of everything in de-
tail, I made bold to have a lo.)k at some of the
larger work, such as mangels and swedes, and in-
quire about them. Teen indeed I saw a pretty bit
of seed farm work which may be reported on to
interrst the reader. All the named striins and
stocks of roots that b awe becom famous for their
several feeding and keeping qualitie9, are the
result in great part of systematic selection, and the
selection has to be earn i d on i of only to fashion
the model on which the stock is based, as for ex-
ample a long root, or a round to ,t, or an oval root;
but also to keep the stock true from year te year,
and, if possible, keep it always in a state of im-
provement. All the bulbs of turnips, mengels, &c.
which are to be planted for a seed crop are selected
fr, in the general bulk of the previous year's crop
in such a way that it may be said, with scarcely
a touch of exaggeration, that the seed is the im-
mediate produce of exhibiti in samples. The
selecting is quickly done, of course, and it consists
in throwing one way every root that setisfies the
eye and the touch, and another way every root that
does not satisfy. The result of this preliminary
selection is not only the elimination of rogues, but
"the sum vival of the fittest," and the consequent
production of seed that will cerry on the type, so
that we may know that we are about to grow in
sufficient time to avoid the loss of a season in cul-
tivating rubbish—lt is really astonishing that
while all this care is taketi by a first-class house to
ensure the production of a first-class article, farmers
will go into the in .rket and buy seeds with,,ut
pedigree, or wareanty, or knowledge of their origin'
committing the work of the year to an invited
chance of failure, and yet in so doing the saving in
first cost is altoee.her so trifling a nature aS to
make the proceeding i a liculous. We are not to be
understood as declaring that seeds good and true
are not to be bought in the open market, but we
do declare that for the sake of a low-priced article
farmers wild jeopardize their fortunes in a manner
which mi 211% be called reckless, were it not much
more prop( r to call it stupid, sleepy, and suicidal.
—This being iuteaded rather as a sketch than a re-
port, I will hastily mention a few things that I
thought especially interesting. Blocks of lawn
grasses, forming a series of niinia,turn trial lawns,
and affording va uable information on the relative
suitability of the various grasse-e as also of the
proportions in which they should be mixed - for
various purpves. A collection of tropmolums,
conspicueus amonst them one named King Theo-
dore, quite in the style of the best scarlet bedders
of the Lebbianum section. Other good tropolums
were King of Tom Thumbs, Crystal Palace Gem,
Tom Thumb Crimson, and Torn Thumb Yellow.
A collection of Drurnmond's phlox, forming de-
licious ma-ses of colour, and all the lots as true as
if from cuttings. The best were Grandiflora, Ocu-
lata, and Coccinea, and a bed of mixtures had a
delightful appearance. A cellection of godetias, in
the midst of which Whit neyi and Lady Al' eurarle
were conspicuous for their splendid colours.
Collection of candytufts, comprising grand clumps
of the Purple, Crimson, and White. A lot of
Schizanthus pinnatua and retusus, grown as hardy
annuals to flower late, very fine and distinct and
p!easing. Zinnias in collections, a gorgeous lot, the
doublt s certainly the most effective, and the colours
very various. Marigolds in galore, some of the
pieces showing the exhibition type all through ;
others in the rosette and mop-headed styles, to
please all tastes. Everlastings, a big feature, and
amongst them halichry sums conspicuous for variety
and fine character. Whitlavia grandiflora is a fine
yellow everlasting, and the Ithodanthes are of the
fairy-flower type, to su't the " good people" at
Christmas, A vast and various lot of dianthus, the
Ileddewigi and the laeiniatus sections, making
patches of colour wondrous to behold, The return
to the dull streets of Stourbtidge was like going
I home after seeing a display of fireworks.
ALPILABETAGAM SIA.
I The Gardener's Magazine.

HAGLEY.

STOCK ''A his sale on Monday last, there
A s .g • a shoe , cud pigs, only a few fat
d
0 I,- ;11)., a. •;s of 100 head of cattle. Goo
bt ei i mu, i,ou m, as well sold, and although store
ti Was in pe-tty good demand, moderate pric.ee
only realized. Some well-fed beasts from the prot•
wich anq Tenbury grazing districts met with god
compel ition.

KIN VER.

PROPERTY SAI E.—On Wednesday evening Mess
Oat s, Perrens, and Wooldridge offered fir tale tall,
front shops and cottages. and they were knockeu
down to Mr. John Knowles, of Enville, for ..t260.

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF CELEBRAT•

ING GUNPOWDER PLOT AT OLD HILL- •
2sOn Monday night last a miner named Richard
Roberts of Grariatt's-Line, and John and JosePll
Edwards, the sons of Job Edwards, miner, Welling.
ton-stieet, Old Hill, were endeavouring to manufac•
ture fireworks with gunpowder in a brewhouse at •
Edward's house, and for this purpose had a can CO
taming loose gunpowder before them on a table. ,
Roberts accidentally dropped a piece of lipted
paper into the can, the result being that the pos%d"r
exploded, and the three named were injured about
the lace and hands, Roberts and Rain Edaards
very severely, and it is feared that the latter
I..se his eyesight. They ore ot presant attended IV
De. Standish.