126 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[April, 



the gardener's cottage not a fit place to live in, 

 the place very rough, and tlie employer rougher, 

 with the additional advantage that his men were 

 taken out for game beating, and he was ex- 

 pected to go also as a pheasant frightener. This, 

 he could see, would not do, and at once gave 

 warning, and left at the end of a month, for 

 which he got well swore at, and threatened with 

 a horsewhipping, which did not come off. He 

 had a good character when he went, now he has 

 applied for a situation. The lady wrote to the 

 Eastern counties' man for his character, but he 

 refused to give it, and the consequence was he 

 lost the place. You see, this man's bread is 

 gone, at least for a time, and he has no remedy 

 at law. We are no lawyers, but we think the 

 gardener has a remedy if he choose, or is rich 

 enough to enforce it." 



American Coal in England. — A corres- 

 pondent of the Garden says : 



"Anthracite is extensively used and very 

 highly spoken of by Mr. B. S. "Williams, of Hol- 

 loway. He prefers it to coke, because it is more 

 powerful, and, therefore, really more economi- 

 cal. This fuel is said to produce the best results 

 when a small, bright, thin fire is kept in the 

 furnaces, distributed fairly over the bars. By 

 adopting this plan combustion is more complete 

 than when the furnace is choked up with a great 

 bulk of fuel — a mistake often made by inexperi- 

 enced stokers. Of course, when making up 

 the fires for the last time at night it is requisite 

 to add a considerable quantity of fuel, but at all 

 other times, and especially when the heat has 

 declined and requires to be quickly got up, a 

 thin, bright fire is absolutely necessary. I am 

 convinced that bad stoking is to blame for half 

 the failures with boilers that are attributed to 

 other causes. The kind of boiler that finds 

 most favor with Mr. Williams is the flued saddle, 

 known as the gold medal boiler, which appears 

 to be simple and powerful." 



Balm of Gilead. — Dr. De Hass gives the 

 following particulars as to this far-famed specific 

 for all diseases : The name of Gilead was some- 

 times applied to all trans-Jordanic Palestine ; 

 properly, however, it included only the country 

 east of the Jordan from the head of the Dead 

 Sea to the foot of the Lake Genesareth, of 

 which Mizpeh Gilead was the crowning point. 

 It was here, along the Jordan and about Jericho, 

 the balsam or balm once so highly prized, was 

 procured irom an aromatic tree, supposed still 



to be found in this region, and known as Spina 

 Christi, or tree from which the Saviour's crown 

 of thorns was woven. This most precious gum 

 was obtained by making an incision in the bark 

 of the tree ; it also oozed from the leaves, and 

 sometimes hung in drops like honey from the 

 branches. The tree which originally was found 

 in Palestine, was transplanted to Egypt by 

 Cleopatra, to whom the groves near Jericho- 

 were presented by Mark Antony. The shrub 

 was afterwards taken to Arabia and grown in 

 the neighborhood of Mecca, whence the balsam 

 is now exported to Europe and America, not a» 

 balm from Gilead, but balsam of Mecca. The 

 gardens around Heliopolis and the " Fountain 

 of the Sun," in Egypt, no longer produce this 

 rare plant, and it has long since ceased to be an 

 article of export from the ancient Gilead. — Jour- 

 nal of Chemistry. 



MosAicuLTURE. — M. Chretien (writes our 

 Lyons contemporary) has this year given us in 

 the Pare de laTete d'Or, some pretty examples 

 of what he terms " mosaiculture," in the shape 

 of beds containing mottoes and devices set out 

 with colored foliage plants. Our Scottish neigh- 

 bors seem to have carried the idea .farther, 

 with an eye to business as well as ornament. 

 On a hillside not far from Glasgow may be read 

 the words Glasgow News in gigantic letters, each 

 forty feet long and six feet broad, formed of col- 

 ored foliage plants. The inscription occupies a 

 length of one hundred yards, and covers a space 

 just 1,450 times the size of the journal it adver- 

 tises. — Garden. 



Fifty Years an Editor. — The Germantown 

 Telegraph has just passed its fiftieth year under 

 the sole and continued editorship of the well- 

 known P. R. Freas. The most remarkable fea- 

 ture in this half century of work is that the paper 

 is to-day as popular as it was at the start, and is 

 considered by the knowing ones of the city to be 

 an extremely valuable piece of newspaper pro- 

 perty. The Germantown Telegraph is a living 

 proof of the falsity of some beliefs, that to make 

 a paper successful, humbug and sensationalism 

 must be indulged in. No paper has been more 

 free from these vices. No paper can boast of a 

 more honorable career. For this example it is 

 meet that not only his friends should congratu- 

 late the Editor on his long lease of life, — but 

 every friend of a pure and independent press 

 should feel to be his debtor. 



