426 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



could have given, of his daily impressions of 1 the science which should direct their daily 



the farming of Europe. Wc make this re- 

 mark — not as undervaluing in the least, the 

 high character of Mr. Colman's labors, but 

 with liie deep-rooted conviction of this fact, 

 that bears upon the case ; that when prac- 

 tical men are just commencing the study of 



labors, they must not be treated as patient and 

 trained students, eager to explore the whole 

 temple of science, but rather like cautious and 

 somewhat unwilling candidates, who must be 

 lured into its outer vestibules, by wisdom, 

 conveyed in pleasant and familiar words. 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



Japanese Taste in Arboriculture. — The Ja- 

 panese gardeners, it is well known, succeed in 

 dwarfing almost every tree. It is said that they 

 select the very smallest seeds, taken from the very 

 smallest plants; two circumstances which are cer- 

 tainly rational and conformable to all the facts 

 known to us in connection with varieties of race. 

 No doubt, indeed, exists about the operation thus 

 far; but the following assertions are much n)ore 

 apocryphal. 



It is said that as soon as the plants have germi- 

 nated, the Japanese cover them with fluid honey, 

 or with dissolved sugar; that they afterwarils 

 paint them with a camel's hair pencil, using the 

 same material; and that they afterwards introduce 

 into the little box, which serves as a green house 

 to these marvellous pigmies, a nest of little ants, 

 whose eggs soon hati-h and ])roduce an active co- 

 lony, greedy of sugar, and incessantly running o\er 

 the plants, which, though alive, have really been 

 converted into a cold preserve. Gardeners know 

 very well that aphides, scale insects, the cocci, 

 and other vegetable leprosies, do in fact torture 

 and distort plants till they are quite disfigured. 

 The everlasting play of these insects, which are 

 always running over every part of the plant, keeps 

 up a peculiar excitement, which ends by producing 

 the state of dwarfness so much admired in that 

 part of the world, at least this is what the Japanese 

 say. The Fir, of which Dr. Sieboldt spoke as 

 being only three inches high, and growing on the 

 second stage of the box, was the Pinus massoniana, 

 the " Wo-matza" of the Japanese, or the " Koks- 

 jo" of the Chinese. Thunbeug mistook it for 

 the Scotcli Fir. Its history is very curious, and is 

 also given in the " Flora Jaiionica," p. 25, vol. 2. 

 Of all the conifers, (the pine family,) we found 

 this the commonest, through the whole empire of 

 Japan. In places where it does not grow wild, it 

 has been universally cultivateii. It has a great 

 reputation on account of the fables, miraculous sto- 

 ries, and idle tales of all sorts, mixed up with its 

 history, and is a religious symbol in the ceremo- 

 nies and festivals of the peojile. The " Wo-mat- 

 za" and a " IMunie"' (a sort of plum) are planted 

 before the residence of Mikado. It forms groves 

 round the temple of the sun-gotl, of saints, and of 

 holy men; anil it overshadows all the little cha- 

 pels jnd gartlens adjoining the dwelling houses, &.c. 



On the high road it forms alleys 100 leagues long; 

 and the course of every higliway is marked by 

 hillocks planted with this pine, and with species of 

 nettle trees. The art of the Japanese gardener is 

 exhausted in the cultivation of these pines. They 

 are clippeil and cut into all sorts of shapes; their 

 branches are sjjread into fans, or horizontal trelli- 

 ses, and are thus fashioned into a sort of flat dish. 

 In this kind of gardening, extremes are made to 

 touch, and the traveller is astonished to find speci- 

 mens of an immense size placed by the siile of 

 others of the most tiny dimensions. While stay- 

 ing at Phosaka I went to see the celebrateil i>ine 

 tree before the Navi-waja Tea-house, the branches 

 of which are artificially spread out into a circum- 

 ference of 136 feet. On the other hanil, they 

 showed me at Jeddo, a dwarf tree, in a lacquered 

 box with branches not occupying more than 2 square 

 inches! They even know how to graft the pine 

 family in Japan, and we saw dwarfed specimens on 

 which almost every variety of pines known in Ja- 

 pan was fixed by grafting. — Botanical Register. 



Smee on the Potato Plant. — If fine paper, 

 good type, and lithographic plates, with all the 

 formalities of numbered paragraphs, and the ad- 

 vantage of a dedication to Prince Albert, could 

 settle the question of the Potato disease, Mr. Smee's 

 book would be conclusive. But we apprehend 

 that in addition to such auxiliaries, an extensive 

 knowledge of facts, correct judgment, and acquaint- 

 ance with the nature of all the subjects treated of, 

 and, moreover, the power of ilravving just conclu- 

 sions from ascertained premises, are also indispen- 

 sable requisites, which we do not find in the work 

 before us. We say so with much regret; but the 

 subject is one of such moment that we are bouml 

 to express our opinion without reserve when a 

 work of pretension, written by a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, enlists itself on the side of the most 

 manifest error. 



The opinion of the Author is, that a kind of 

 Aphis, which had been previously called Rapes, 

 but which he new names vastator, has done all the 

 mischief; and thus he joins that small knot of wri- 

 ters among whom it is enough to say that no man 

 of science has before been rash enough to rank 

 himself; writers who are all equally clear as to 

 the potato disease being caused by insects, though 



