18S 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



prescription. Our fathers thought it impossible to 

 grow a plant without putting it into an omnium 

 gatherum especially contrived for its own separate 

 use. 



" If you would grow an Auricula well," said an 

 old gardener, "you will make your compost of 

 ancient cow-dung, fresh sound earth, rotten leaves, 

 coarse sea or river sand, decayed willow wood, 

 peat, and wood ashes. You must have half the 

 first, one-sixth of the second, one-eighth of the 

 third, one-twelfth of the fourth, and one-twenty- 

 fourth of each of the three others." This was de- 

 clared to be of the utmost importance : no depar- 

 ture from the proportions was permitted. A man 

 might as well have thought of planting Tulips on 

 any other day than the 24th of October, or the 

 25th, if the 24th was a Sunday. 



To this day some relics of such superstitions are 

 traceable in gardening operations. A mysterious 

 virtue is ascribed to particular mixtures of peat 

 and loam and leaves and sand, or to each of these 

 separately, or to others. We may one day en- 

 deavor to point out what there is of real, and 

 what of unreal, in the evidence upon which such 

 opinions are founded. For to-day we confine our- 

 selves to Peat. 



In the belief of some very good gardeners there 

 are certain kinds of peat possessed of such mar- 

 vellous qualities that plants have but to get their 

 roots into any one of them, and further care is 

 needless. These qualities are popularly believed 

 to depend upon the peculiar chemical conditions of 

 such soil, upon a particular per centage of iron for 

 instance, or a certain dose of some other unknown 

 matter which chemical analysis might reveal. 

 We believe no such thing. The different quali- 

 ties of peat depend upon their physical differences 

 and upon them alone. In one a large quantity of 

 fibrous matter exists, in another very little ; the 

 former is, therefore, more permeable to air than 

 the other, which may be an advantage. In ano- 

 ther sample there is much sand instead of fibrous 

 matter, and this constitutes a material physical 

 difference ; for such a sample will be perfectly 

 penetrable by air and moisture ■without the liabi- 

 lity to dry up which belongs to an over-fibrous ma- 

 terial. By such differences are the various kinds 

 of peat distinguished, and in general by nothing 

 else of the smallest importance to plants. 



It is part of the horticultural faith of many 

 men that peat is for many purposes indispensable: 

 und that for Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and similar 

 •"'American plants," no substitute can be found. 

 Here we find another piece of superstition. Peat 

 is a mixture of certain decayed matters, and any 

 other mixture of similar decayed matter in the 

 same proportions answers all the purposes of 

 peat. Rotten leaves, dead branches, roots of wiry 

 grasses, fibres from the heather, or such wild 

 plants, and a certain proportion of sand, form the 

 constituents of the peat best suited for gardening 

 purposes. If such a mixture can be made artifi- 

 cially, it will be just as good as if it had been 



scraped from a moor. It will have the requisite 

 penetrability ; it will be as rich in saline and de- 

 caying matters ; it will &s much abound in thdt 

 humus or black substance from which plants so 

 largely derive their nutriment. 



The truth of this assertion will probably be 

 questioned ; for men are slow to believe that they 

 have been carting from a distance, under the name 

 of peat, the very substance which is wasted in the 

 wood yard at their door. We therefore beg to 

 direct attention to a case with which we have been 

 favored by a correspondent near Devizes, in which 

 it is shown that the decayed woody matter of an 

 old timber yard is in all respect equal to peat for 

 the growth of Rhododendrons. We believe it to 

 be better; because it is just as yielding to the 

 slender roots of those plants, and much more re- 

 tentive of moisture, in which they greatly delight. 

 If the lovers of gardening would as frequently 

 think for themselves as our correspondent has 

 done, they would, we doubt not, discover that the 

 indispensable necessity of peat is only one of the 

 crop of prejudices which the progress of know- 

 ledge has to trample down. — Gard. Chronicle. 



Mr. River's Nursery, Sawbridgeworth. — 

 An hour's ride by a fast train on the Eastern 

 Counties Railway brings the visitor to the Harlow 

 station, which is scarcely half an hour's walk from 

 this nursery. The latter is situated in a pretty 

 part of Hertfordshire, on gently undulating ground. 

 The turnpike-road to Cambridge and Norwich 

 bounds it to the south-east, and is 12 feet lower 

 than the frontage near Mr. River's house. The 

 latter is approached by three terraces, each laid 

 out in beds of roses, and the banks on each side 

 planted with climbing roses pegged to the ground. 

 Standing in front of the house is a lawn sloping to 

 the road, on which are grouped dwarf China and 

 Bourbon roses on their own roots, also standards ; 

 and we noticed here a dome of roses, 10 feet in 

 diameter, covered with the white flowers of differ- 

 ent varieties of Sempervirens. This group re- 

 ceives no pruning beyond what is necessary to 

 keep it within bounds, and certainly nothing could 

 have a better effect than it had. A fine specimen 

 of the Fern-leaved Beech, about 50 years old, 

 grows close to the drawing-room window at the 

 south-west end of the house, and near it several 

 rows of 5 feet yew hedges, which serve as shelter 

 to the young pot plants. To the right is a steep 

 bank, consisting of hard, white clay, and turfed 

 over. This has been formed into a bank of climb- 

 ing roses, and a most beautiful bank it makes. 

 On the top is a row of Ayrshires, Sempervirens, 

 and Boursaults, planted 6 feet apart in a straight 

 line ; these are trained to stout larch poles, about 

 7 feet in height, and they are never pruned. In 

 front, is a row of climbing roses, varieties of Sem- 

 pervirens and Ayrshire, worked on short, stout 

 stems, from 2 to 2k feet in height. These are 

 also never pruned ; the branches are allowed to. 

 droop to the ground. In front, again, on the 



