416 EDINBURGH NEWS NOTES. [April 



Edinburgh is to have another Exhibition in 1886. The under- 

 taking is avowedly projected more for the benefit of hotelkeepers, 

 tramway shareholders, and others, than for directly advancing know- 

 ledge. Still we rejoice in the vigour with which this project, is 

 being pushed. However much or little the Murrayfield Exhibition 

 did for science, it supplied an Edinburgh want, and the experience 

 gained last summer wiU go far to make the new undertaking a 

 success. The site is likely to be on the south side, so rapidly are 

 the benefits of the new suburban railway being appreciated. 



New Brunswick is advised by the St. John's Sun to act on the 

 hint given in these columns, and have a small Colonial E.xhibition, 

 similar to that of the Canadian Pacific Land Company, late in 

 autumn. As fruits, specially grapes and apples, would form a pro- 

 minent feature in the exhibit, tlie idea lately thrown out by the 

 Saturday Review of a competitive Exhibition of British, American, 

 and Continental Apples might take practical shape, forming an 

 Edinburgh 1885 Exhibition. Perhaps this might convey more 

 instruction than even that of 1886. 



I note as a result of the late International Forestry Exhibition, 

 that Messrs. John Greig & Sons have just completed and shipped to 

 Spain a large four-wheel tree-transplanter, capable of conveying trees 

 of ten tons and more. It is a great improvement on the two-wheel 

 pattern shown at the late Forestry Exhibition. The whole machine 

 is 6 feet 7-g inches high, 17 feet long, and 6 feet broad; the wheels, 

 which are 6 feet in diameter, are situated at each extremity of the 

 frame, and one or two horses may be yoked to the carriage. The 

 " ball " is pulled up on to the machine by a set of three blocked 

 puUeys, worked by two capstans at either end of it, but which form 

 part of the frame ; and the elevated mass consisting of soil and tree 

 is kept in position on the carriage by ratchet teeth at each side of 

 the capstans, assisted by an iron chain strapped from the centre of 

 the carriage. Of course your readers are aware that Mr. Meehan 

 has lately adduced American examples of large trees being safely 

 transplanted without any " ball." This may be so. But in any 

 case Messrs. Greig's frame appears a very workmanlike apparatus, 

 possibly capable, with slight alterations, of transplanting more than 

 a single tree at once. 



There are five candidates at least for the Glasgow University 

 Botanical Chair. Drs. MacNab, M. Ward, Messrs. Bower, Holmes, 

 and Geddes are said to be applicants. This, and the Chambers 

 Street Museum Directorship, may be filled ere the issue of next 

 number. Dixi. 



