138 THE GARDENER. [March 



LONDON INTERISTATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1871. 



The buildings in which the Exhibition of 1871 wiU be held have been designed 

 by Lieut.-Col. Scott, R.E., and are to be of a permanent character. Those per- 

 sons familiar with the Horticultural Gardens know the long ornamental arcades 

 parallel with the Albert and Exhibition roads. At the back of these arcades is 

 a piece of waste ground, some 200 feet wide, extending to the road. On these 

 strips of laud the two main exhibition buildings are to be built. At the northern 

 ends, these main buildings will be pLiced in communication with the conserva- 

 tory of the Horticultural Gardens, and through it with the new Albert Hall of 

 Arts (the grand promenade of which will be utilised for exhibition purposes, the 

 educational collection being placed therein) by covered approaches, which are 

 being made upon the top of the arcades connecting them with the conservatory. 

 The southern ends of the main buildings will communicate with the permanent 

 portion of the Exhibition building of 18C2, which forms the southern boundary 

 of the Horticultural Gardens. By this means the building will completely sur- 

 round the gardens, to which the public will be admitted at certain times and 

 under special conditions, which have yet to be decided upon. The buildings are 

 in the decorated Italian style, with mouldings, cornices, columns, and courses in 

 buff-coloured terra-cotta ; the brickwork being of the hard red Fareham bricks, 

 so as to match the garden architecture, and harmonise with the new Museum 

 buildings which are rising in front of them. The terra-cotta and red Fareham 

 bricks are more durable against a London winter than even granite. The build- 

 ings altogether will accommodate 50,000 people. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales 

 is the president of Her Majesty's Commissioners of the Exhibition ; Messrs Spiers 

 & Pond are to be the refreshment contractors ; Messrs Chaplin & Home tbe 

 carriex's; and Her Majesty's Commissioners have entered into arrangements for 

 the printing and publication of the ofiBcial catalogues by Messrs J. M. Johnson & 

 Sons, of Castle Street, Holborn, Ijondon. 



GRAFTING. 



I^S" your last number I notice an article, signed X. S., on Grafting, in 

 whicli the writer makes a statement to the effect that he has seen two 

 or three dozens of Elms grafted on Beech, and that they are fifty years 

 old. Having had considerable practice in this branch of horticulture, 

 I feel deeply interested in this matter, particularly as it is totally 

 opposed to all my experience, as well as subversive of all the now 

 universally accepted theories of vegetable physiologists — all of whom, 

 to whose works I have had access, agree to the proposition "that plants 

 on which grafting is practised miist be botanically allied, or at all 

 events there must be a similarity in the composition of the sap " 

 (Balfour's ' Outlines of Botany,' p. 414). 



Belonging to two distinct and well-marked natural orders, and widely 

 different in habit and general appearance, it seems to me that no such 



