THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE 375 



vine, which is also a hlack Hamburg, made such rapid progress, that a house was 

 erected over it, which lias been repeatedly enlarged to its present size — the iast 

 addition having been made some fifteen years ago. At the surface of the soil this 

 vine is three feet in circumference ; at two feet from the soil it is two feet ten 

 inches ; here it branches into two main stems, which at four feet branches each into 

 two rods, and run the whole length of the house, branching in all directions covering 

 an area of 2553 feet, and producing from 600 lb. to 1200 lb. weight of good grapes 

 annually, ripened late in autumn. It is pruned on the close-spur system. The 

 border is 60 feet wide, and is not cropped. The house is 138 feet long, and, like 

 that at Hampton Court, is heated by flues ; but little fire-heat is applied, as the 

 vines are not forced.' 



" In a letter I recently received from Mr. John "Watson, gardener to Sir Robert 

 Peel, Bart., at his seat, the Campagna Lammemun, near Geneva, he refers to three 

 very large old vines in his neighbourhood. He writes : ' I have ascertained from 

 family documents that they were fine large vines a hundred years ago. The 

 diameters of their steins near the ground is an average of one foot six inches, equal 

 to a girth of four fret six inches. The finest of them grows on the slope of Mount 

 Salne ; the other two on the flat plain that at one time probably formed part of the 

 Lake of Geneva. The soil they are growing in is pan chalk, which, when duo- up 

 in autumn, looks more like a turnpike road than a vine-border ; yet these vines are 

 in great vigour, and last autumn, owing to the hot summer, yielded more wine, and 

 of higher quality, than usual. The Lake of Geneva is forty miles long ; on both 

 sides it is planted with vines ; and during the autumn hundreds of invalids come 

 from all parts of the world to undergo what is termed the "grape cure" here. 

 They begin by eating h lb. of grapes a day, and increase the quantity till it reaches 

 13 lb., when they as gradually diminish it. By this means, I have known many 

 remarkable cures effected, even of cancer, which had baffled the best medical skill.'" 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Crown of Thorns. — Lady B. — The question proposed — From what 

 plant was the Saviour's crown of thorns derived? is of far less interest to us than it 

 appears to be to others, and for this reason, that it cannot matter at all to the moral 

 of the narrative, or the spiritual purport and lesson of the crucifixion, what par- 

 ticular plant was employed. There is, we think, too much minute textual exegesis 

 to the injury of philosophical criticism, and the devotional application of religious 

 truths. However, the question is appropriate to the season and to our labours. In 

 Syria and the fertile parts of Arabia thorny trees and shrubs abound. The Psalmist 

 compares the laughter of fools to the crackling of thorns under a pot, which indi- 

 cates that " thorns" of some sort were commonly used as fuel in Palestine. We 

 read again of thorns and briers as emblems of desolation. These and other refe- 

 rences point to the wild scrubby vegetation of uncultivated lands, of which in the 

 East thorny and prickly forms of vegetation constitute the major part. The 

 Hebrew language has about twenty words to represent different (or the same) 

 thorny or prickly shrub?, the various meanings of which are more likely to be 

 discovered by the traveller than the philologist. The abundance of thorny vege- 

 tation in Palestine increases the difficulty of the question before us, because of the 

 wide choice the soldiers probably had wnen they determined to form a mock crown 

 for the King of the Jews. The Greek text, however, and the necessities of the case 

 contract the inquiry almost to a point, leaving us to choose finally between two 

 common shrubs of Palestine, one of which there can be but little doubt was selected 

 for this purpose. That there is nothing new in our selection of these will be evident 

 by their names. Paliurus aculeatus, the "Christ's thorn" of gardens, has long 

 enjoyed the reputation of immediate relationship to the history of the crucifixion. 

 On the other hand, Zizyphns spina Christi, the "Christ's thorn lotus," has at least 

 an equal, if not a superior claim. Both are common and conspicuous shrubs of the 

 Bible lands. They both belong to the same order, being rhamnacenus plants, both 

 are spiny, and from the branches of either a crown might be quickly constructed. 

 The second of these two plants appears entitled to the distinction of having pierced 

 the Saviour's brows. Its young sprays are long and flexile, and its leaves are of a 



