84 THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. [ April, 



and lightly covered with sand or finely sifted soil, little else will be needed until 

 they are fit for the pot. The richer the soil, the more crisp and delicious will the 

 Lettuce crop be, and the sooner will it come to perfection. 



Salford. Alex. Forsyth. 



THE KUMQUAT, CITEUS JAPONICA. 



[The following valuable information respecting the treatment of this highly ornamental fruit-bearing shrub 

 was communicated to the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on the 16th ult. by Mr. R. Fortune : — ] 



' MONGST other plants which I discovered and introduced into this country 

 while on the mission to China in 1842 was the Citrus japonica, or 

 Kumquat. I found it cultivated over a large tract of country in China, 

 but it was evidently most at home in the more temperate parts — for 

 example, in the islands of the Chusan Archipelago, and on the mainland in the 

 same latitude. Here large plantations were met with on the lower slopes of the 

 hills, and very beautiful they appeared in autumn, winter, and spring, when the 

 plants were covered with their golden-coloured fruit and deep green leaves. The 

 fruit is much liked by the natives, who eat the skin as well as the pulp. Its 

 chief value, however, is when used as a preserve. A large quantity is expoi-ted 

 annually to Europe and America in China jars, preserved and sent home in 

 nearly the same way as the better known China ginger is sent. 



In a horticultural point of view, in this country we must look at the Kum- 

 quat as an ornamental plant only ; and I think that if our gardeners would set 

 about it in the right way, they would find its cultivation easy, and it would amply 

 repay them by being one of the most ornamental plants for winter decoration. 

 I believe that a knowledge of climate and other circumstances relating to a plant's 

 natural habitat is of the first importance, if a gardener would be successful in 

 its cultivation. Here is a wide field for study, in which practical horticulturists 

 would do well to labour. For what do we really find if we enter an ordinary 

 hothouse in some of our English gardens ? We find plants which have been 

 formed for, and which occupy situations on the earth's surface widely different, 

 crowded together in one house, where they are treated much in the same 

 manner, as if their nature and requirements were of a like character. Need we 

 wonder at the results of such treatment ? I may mention, as an illustration of 

 this subject, a circumstance relating to the cultivation of the Tree Pseony in 

 China. This beautiful plant is a native of the more northerly parts of the 

 Chinese Empire, where the winters are extremely cold. Large quantities of it 

 are brought south to Canton and the other southern towns every autumn, where 

 it blooms well the first year, but the first year only. The winter is too warm for 

 its constitution, and if its cultivation is further attempted in the new climate, it 

 only dwindles away, and eventually dies. In practice the Chinese simply throw 

 the plants to the rubbish heap when the blooms fade, and order from the north 

 a fresh consignment every autumn. In no country in the world is the artificial 



