1870.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 381 



witnessed ; and, visible as are its effects about London, the season seems even 

 more harmful in places usually more favoured. In the neighbourhood of Dublin 

 and along the east coast of Ireland generally, the Conifers and Evergreens seemed, 

 when we saw them a few weeks since, as if they had been thoroughly boiled — 

 scorched would scarcely describe their state, as the leaves, though dead, held their 

 places on the trees. Such things as Barberis Darwinii have succumbed before 

 the shrivelling breeze, and few Evergreens have escaped in any places we have 

 examined ; but the deciduous trees hold their own everywhere. The severe 

 season has had no effect on them, except, indeed, that the blossoms of some of 

 the tenderest kinds were slightly injured in the frost of the 4th inst. Among 

 the many beautiful deciduous trees we have had the pleasure of seeing in bloom 

 in this country, we were never more struck with any than with the Pinus Malus 

 floribunda, which has been brilliantly beautiful for some weeks past, and yet con- 

 tinues in that state. It is difficult to do justice to it in words, but we would 

 advise those who have an opportunity to do so to see it in bloom. The neatest 

 specimen we have seen is in Mr Parker's exotic nursery, Tooting. The tree pre- 

 sents two distinct aspects .during the period of its blooming, and which is the 

 most attractive it is not easy to say. The bloom is produced along the branchlets 

 in clusters, the blossoms being as thick as they can stand, each supported on a 

 tender footstalk, about an inch and a half long. The flower-buds are of a vivid 

 crimson lake, and as the footstalks are slender, each of the thousands of flowers 

 hangs down very gracefully, justifying the remark of an enthusiastic gardener, 

 that the buds were " like scarlet Snowdrops." It remains in this stage a consid- 

 erable time, when the handsome blossoms begin to expand and show their inner 

 sides of pale rose with yellowish stamens, both of these contrasting very pleasingly 

 with the yet unopened buds, the tree seeming ablaze with rose and crimson. If 

 these attractions are presented by young trees 3 to 6 feet high, it is fair to 

 assume that they will be much greater when the trees are matured. We know 

 of no object more worthy of a place on lawn or pleasure-ground, isolated or 

 grouped with other choice shrubs, or in a favoured spot on the margin of a choice 

 shrubbery. The fruits, which we have not seen, are said to be small, and of a 

 fine golden yellow, and the plant grows well grafted on the crab or the Paradise 

 stock.— W. E. 



Old-Fashioned Gardening. — Time was when kings and conquerors did not 

 disdain the homely occupation of farming and gardening ; when philosophy, in 

 the persons of Plato and Epicurus, took up the gentle craft, and made their para- 

 dises — for so were gardens called in the olden days— real academies; when the 

 rulers of Rome, with their proverbial magnificence, caused their gardens to rank 

 among the wonders of the world ; when, in our own land, princes and prelates 

 loved gardens and gardening; and when Adam's craft — "There are no ancient 

 gentlemen," says the Clown in "Hamlet," "but gardeners, ditchers, and grave- 

 makers; they hold up Adam's profession" — was pursued with enthusiasm and 

 delight by philosophers, statesmen, and courtiers. Gardening is a direct sign and 

 warrant of civilisation. Without going back to the days of antiquity — when the 

 Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, borrowing the art from still more primi- 

 tive people, filled their gardens with aromatic herbs, shady trees, and odorous 

 flowers — we find abundant evidence of a knowledge of gardening among the 

 highest and lowest in our land. — The Bookseller. 



The Common Bind- Weed.— I have been much struck with the wonderful 

 wealth of flower this weed has manifested in several parts of the country during 

 the prevalence of the drought. Very pretty, indeed, it has looked, and still does 



