FOREIGN AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. 



tained by some French cultivatorSj by whom it 

 was soon extensively distributed. Tlie plants 

 produced at first only small and few flowers, 

 in consequence of its proper treatment being 

 imperfectly known. But when subsequently 

 tliey were grown in a peaty soil, and freely sup- 

 plied with water in the period of their vegeta- 

 tion, they soon assumed a very different ap- 

 pearance, and their real beauty was discovered. 

 This fact alone might teach us to abstain from 

 pronouncing a decided opiin'on on the merits 

 of a newly introduced plant before the proper 

 method of treating it has been proved by ex- 

 periment. ]\Ian}' species of the same genus have 

 since then been introduced, but these are not 

 so beautiful as the old one. Their umbels are 

 smaller, and the blossoms are less highly color- 

 ed; moreover, witli tlie newer sorts, the large 

 unfertile flowers are less numerous than in the 

 old species, tlie umbels of which are almost 

 compact. This monstrosity is apparently the 

 rosnlt of long experimental culture in the 

 Chinese and Japanese gardens, and it is scarcely 

 to be doubted that ultimately the smaller flowers 

 will be made to bloom as large and as profusely 

 as the others. The beautiful species which has 

 called forth these observations, would seem to 

 confirm this supposition, its unfertile exterior 

 flowers are double, of a bright rose color. Ac- 

 cording to Siebold, who, however, does not ap- 

 pear to have introduced living plants of it, it 

 grows on the liighest mountains of the island 

 of Niphon and Sikok, (Japan,) where itflowers 

 during the months of July and August. It is 

 gruwii plentifully in tlie gardens of tliese parts, 

 and forms a handsome plant, with a stem about 

 three feet high. According to some travellers, 

 there are four varieties of it; one lilac, the 

 others with flesh-colored, yellowish, and rose- 

 colored flowers. The leaves are opposite, round- 

 ed at the base, or nearly heart-shaped. — Van 

 Houtle's Flores des Serres. 



Ammonia in Horticulture. — The labors of 

 modt'rn chemists have shown us, and it is one 

 of their grandest discoveries, that itisthe Azote 

 to which manures owe all their value, and that 

 their fertilizing pi-operties are just in propor- 

 tion to the quantity of this agent they contain. 

 Jt is not always in its form of a simple body 

 that this gas is useful ; it can only be absorbed 

 by plants in combination with hydrogen, that is 

 to say, in the condition of animc)nia. It has 

 also been satisfactorily demonstrated that the 

 atmosphere is the grand source or medium from 

 whence vegetables derive this substance. Hence 

 the great utility of cultivated plants being 

 trenched in the soil, especially if these jilants 

 are such as easily give off their azote to mix in 

 the atmosphere rather than in the soil. Legu- 

 minous plants, for instance, are very suitable 

 in this respect; and long experience rather than 

 the teachings of science, has taught agricultur- 

 eeonomize the plants of this family, to 

 the ground which has been exhausted by 

 .ssivc cropping. Chemistry, properly speak- 



ing, has not made this discovery, but it has 

 ■elucidated and justified a practice long in use. 

 It may be interesting to investigate the causes 

 which perpetui.'.ly hold in the atmospliere the 

 quantity of ammonia necessary for the develop- 

 ment of vegetables, and which repair without 

 ceasing the losses which they sustain. Accord- 

 ing to the researches of many chemists, and 

 particularly those of M.M. Boussingault and 

 Liebig. these causes are two in number. The one 

 which is the most direct is the decomposition 

 of organized bodies, which, without exception, 

 contain a greater or less quantity of azote. All 

 vegetables contain it, but it is particularly in 

 the bodies of animals that this agent is con- 

 densed. It enters extensively into the compo- 

 sition of their organs, and when, after death, 

 these animals are left to the chemical action of 

 nature, all the elements of which they are con- 

 stituted separate, and immediately form new, 

 and, for the greater part, gaseous compounds, 

 and among others the ammonia, which returns 

 to the atmosphere, where it soon dissolves in the 

 Wi.tery vapor with which the air is always char- 

 ged. 



The second productive cause of atmospheric 

 ammonia has been much less studied, and it is 

 only within a few years that its existence has 

 been suspected. It is known to reside in the 

 electric discharges which succeed one another 

 in the air, at least in certain portions of the 

 globe. It is the opinion of Boussingault as well 

 as of the celebrated Liebig, that the carbonate 

 of ammonia must pre-exist In all organised be- 

 ings. " Tbe phenomenon of the constancy of 

 thunder-storms," says M. Boussingault in' his 

 treatise on Rural Economy, "would seem to 

 justify tliis opinion." It is said, indeed, that 

 every time a series of electric flashes pass in the 

 humid atmosphere, there is a production and 

 combination of nitric acid and ammonia. The 

 nitrate of ammonia, besides, always accompa- 

 nies the rain which falls in a thunder-storm ; but 

 this acid being fixed in its nature cannot be 

 maintained in a state of vapor. "When we consi- 

 der the reactions which take place between the 

 different compounds in question, it may easily 

 be conceived that the nitrate of ammonia, 

 which is drawn to the earth by the rain, and 

 which comes in contact witli the rocks or calca- 

 reoiis soil, is afterwards volatilised to the state 

 of carbonate at the next drying of the soil. In 

 such a climate as France, where thunder-storms 

 are rare, we should perhaps scarcely attach so 

 much importance to the electricity of the 

 clouds; but, between the tropics, the electric 

 discharges which take place in the atmosphere 

 are almost incessant, and an observer placed at 

 the equator, if his organ of .sound were delicate 

 enough, would hear the peals of thunder con- 

 tinually. There can be no doubt at the present 

 day, that the carbonate of ammonia is the most 

 active agent of vegetation, and without which 

 all the others would be useless; but this 

 nate is gaseous, and, for this reason, can 

 employed directly by the cultivator, who 



