240 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[October i, 1883. 



The position of this house on the rock, with little if 

 any natural soil, seems to be one of the best suited to 

 Grape culture. On the Contineut some of the most success- 

 ful vineyards are those at high elevations — perched on a 

 ledge of rock on a hillside, mth so little natural soil that 

 what the plant requires must be carried from the plains 

 below, and many times afterwards retained in its place by 

 basket-work, yet with all these seeming disadvantages yield- 

 ing a crop nuiny of (^ur gardeners would en\'j'. In such 

 cases little or no manure is given, for the natural denudation 

 caused by rain is such as to compel regular supplies of 

 fresh soil obtained from the alluvial plains. These soils 

 are mostly from volcanic districts, and contain much potash 

 in combination. Not unfrequently the hills themselves are 

 extinct volcanos. In planting a vinery on the side of a 

 trap hill, and with alluvial soil from the district, we are 

 flimply taking advantage of Continental experience, and 

 provided the house have a proper exposure to the sun, the 

 results must be succtssful. 



All the authorities I have consulted advocate the manuiing 

 of the borders during autumn as being the time calculated 

 to yield the greatest results. The manures chffer much. 

 Drs. Thudicum and Dupre advocate the employment of 

 farmyard manure, and draw attention to the farms attached 

 to some of the Continental vineyards, and wliich are specially 

 kept up for the purpose of supplying the manm-e necessary. 

 M. Ville, in his excellent Treatise on Artificial Manures, 

 reconnnends two maniu-es which he has found successful 

 in his experiments on the Vine, and which are composed 

 according to the following recipes: — 



Oalcic superphosphate 

 Nitrate of potash ... 

 Nitrate of soda 

 Oalcic sulphate 



Difficulty will be experienceil in compouiijing these 

 mixtures, as nitrate of potash is lioth costly and difficult 



to obtain, whilst its place cannot be taken by any single 

 salt. 



Thomsn)i^<i Vine Jfanio'e. 



Potassie oxide (K,20) 1-144 



Calcic oxide (OaO) 18-f)26 



rhosphoric anhydride fP20S) 2!)-144 



Carbonic anhydride (C031 2-165 



Sulphuric anhvth-ide (S03) 6-902 



Sodic oxide (Na20) 1-901 



Silica 7-640 



Moisture 9480 



««Orgamc matter, &e .". 22-698 



100000 



**Yielding ammonia 4-41 



Very good results have been olilainod by Mr. Malcolm 

 Duim, of Dalkeith, from the use of a manme manufactured 

 from a formula; of my own. Besides Mr. Dunn several 

 other members of this Association have also tried the 

 compound, and it has given satisfaction toaU. Since last 

 session I have changed the manure slightly, adding one 

 more element an 1 ai-ranging the ijroporfious of the other 

 bodies to correspond. This compound has been in Mr. Dunn's 

 hands during the pa.st season, and has proved itself superior 

 to the old mixture. It has also been employed under my 

 own supervision on Vines and general greenhouse plants, 

 such as Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, Carnations, Camellias, &c., 

 and has yielded splendid results. My own greenhouse plants 

 have been in full flower all the season, and are now showing 

 good heads. The Camellias are especially well budded. 



In applying these concentrated manures it is advisable 

 to give a dressing during autumn, and after the buds begin 

 to swell a regular small dose once a week, this latter being 

 simply sprinkle<l over the surface of the soil. M. Ville 

 says tliat the absence of any one of the indLspensable 

 elements of a plant food lays the plant open to be 

 attacked by disease, and instances his experiments on the 

 uou-prcsence of potash salts on the Vines, &c. The leaves 



of the plants did not attain fidl development, whilst the 

 stems were not one-fourth the size they shoiUd have been. 

 By July the leaves became red, spotted with black, and 

 then dried up so as to be easily pulverised in the fingers. 

 What is true of potash salts is equally true of the other 

 mineral ingredients. The stem cannot thrive mthout 

 calcium salts, or the fruit without phosphates, and the 

 sap must contain nitrogen, as a life-giving property. — 

 Gttrdeiu'i'n^ Chronicle. 



AVIfAT IS THE SOUECE OF LEDGER BARK. 



At a meeting of the Linnean Society, on May 3, a paper 

 on this subject was read by Mi'. J. E. Howard, F.K.S., the 

 substance of which we had intended *-o lay before our readers 

 as soon as the paper should be pubUshed in the Journal of " 

 that Society. A report of ]\[r. Howard's paper has, how- 

 ever, in the meantime reached the Colonies and has pro- 

 voked a somewhat animated discussion, as a result of which 

 Mr. T. N. Clnistie, one of the leading cinchona planters of 

 Ceylon, has forwarded to us samples and notes which he 

 hopes may clear up the poiats in dispute. 



The point at issue appears to be whether the plant named 

 *^Ciiiclio}i'f Ledi/eninia^^ by Dr. Trimen is a true species or 

 only a variety of Cinchona CaliMti/a. Mr. Howard published 

 in his ' Quinology of the East Indian Plantations ' a descrip- 

 tion by Dr. 'Weddell of a variety of Cinchona Calisaya, which 

 he named LeJgericma. Of this plant three plates were figured 

 all of which were dra\vn from plants grown from seed 

 bought of Mr. Ledger in 1883, and cultivated in Java. 



In November 1881, Dr. Trimen, who had then seen, in 

 a growing state, the " Ledgeriana " trees as known to planters 

 in Ceylon, and as recognized by Mr. Moens of Java, de- 

 scribed the Ledgeriana tree as a distinct species, in the 

 London Journal of Botany for that month, giving the features 

 which he considered distinctive, and a full description of 

 every part of the plant as well as a figure of the leaves, 

 flowers and fruits. To this description of the Ledgeriana 

 plant, as a good species, Mr. J. E. Howai-d .appears to have 

 taken exception in the paper read before the Linnean Society, 

 and so far as we under,5tand the remarks made, or reported 

 to have been made, by him, he beUeves " the tree figured 

 " as C. Ledgeriana, Moens, to be no Calisaya at all, but a 

 " species, .standing intermediate between C. Calisaija and 

 " C. ni'crantha, or a mere variety of C. micrantha," probably 

 var. Calisoyoides, and he thinks "it "will be evident to any 

 botanist" that the plates as well as the description differ 

 very widely. But it is a further question whether the plant 

 thus referred to is that described in Weddell's Notes 

 (Translation, p. 40). Mr. Howard adds, "On Jlr. Moens' 

 own authority, I claim that mine alone are authentic, " and 

 he seems further to have stigmatized Dr. Trimen's tyjjical 

 plant as derived apparently from seed of uncertain origin, 

 given by Mr. Mclvor. 



The question therefore arises, what is the true Ledger 

 Cinchona? Dr. Trimen says that the seed from which his 

 plant was raised came from the late BIr. Blclvor, and 

 that there can bo no doubt it was obtained from trees which 

 originated from Mr. Ledger's seed. Mr. Howard states 

 that his figures were drawn from trees grown in Java from 

 Ledger's seed. His description of Ledi/criaiia is not so full 

 as Dr. Trimen's, and the points which Dr. Trimen men- 

 tions as characteristic of the tree do not .apjjear in Mr. 

 Howard's statements. The features mentioned by Dr. Ti-i- 

 men as characteristic are as follows: — Leaves always luiving 

 the broadest part at or about the middle, flowers di-ooping 

 or divaricate, flower-buds not at all or very slightly widened 

 at the end and never abruptly enlarged there, corolla some- 

 what inflated in the middle. The imexpanded leaves and the 

 buds and yoiuig soft shoots have a bronzed or olive-oi'ange 

 tint, by which in a field of CaUsaya. the plants of Ledgeriana 

 may often be picked out at first sigbt. AVe have here, there- 

 fore, definite characters by which two excellent botanists as 

 well as the planters in Ceylon distinguish a distinct form 

 or variety or species, whichever it may be, for it can only 

 be proved to be a distinct species by it coming true from 

 seed. Dr. Trimen admits {Journ. Bot., 1881, p. 322) that we 

 have at present little direct evidence to show that the plant 

 does come true from seed. He also remarks thii t 1 be ]>rogeny 

 which comes from any sowing of C. CaliMj/a seed are certainly 

 less like one another than some are hke C. Lcdi/eriana ; more-" 

 over, seed from the latter has not hitherto been found to 



