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FOREIGN AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. 



379 



subject of Roman hothouses and pits, heated 

 artificially, I omitted several (flotations whicli 

 proved my statements, and they have conse- 

 quently been impugned. My first authoritj' is 

 Columella (XL, 3, 51, 53.) Tiberius being in 

 ill health, was advised to eat cucumbers every 

 day. Tiie Roman gardeners cultivated these 

 vegetables in frames, containing hot dung, and 

 e.vposed to the sun in front of a wall. The 

 frames were, moreover, on wheels, so as to be 

 easily moved into, and continual!}' placed in the 

 sun's rays, and were, in addition, furnished 

 with pieces of talc, by which they were covered 

 at night, and by which the plants were jtrotect- 

 ed fiom frost and cold. " Thanks to this in- 

 vention," says Columella, " Tiberius was sup- 

 plied with cucumbers at nearly every season 

 of the year {fere toio anno.") Martial (VIII., 

 14,) the contemporary of Domitian, who had 

 in his palace a hothouse, containing exotic 

 plants, called Adonea, describes a glass hot- 

 house, belonging to one of his patrons, which 

 was set apart for similar plants, as follows, in 

 one of his Epigrams: — " As you are afraid that 

 your pale fruit trees, natives of Cilicia, cannot 

 withstand the winter, and tliat a too cold wind 

 may nip your delicate shrubs, you take care 

 that b}' panes of talc the chilly wintry blast 

 may be kept off, and that nothing be admitted 

 but sun and a genial air; and yet I have noth- 

 ing but a miserable lodging, with a window that 

 does not fit, and where Boreas himself would 

 not find a habitation. Is it thus, cruel man, 

 that you lodge an old friend! I had much 

 rather be the guest of your tree!" The use 

 of some heating apparatus is here clearly re- 

 ferred to ; but Seneca (Letter 122) tells us that 

 the Roman hothouses were heated by steam. 

 He denounces the unbridled luxury of his con- 

 temporaries. '■ Do not those live contrarj' 

 to nature who require roses in winter, and who. 

 by the use of hot water, and application of 

 heat, compel the lily to blossom in winter, in- 

 stead of in the spring?" It is remarkable that 

 the most direct evidence of the use of hot- 

 houses by the Romans should be furnished by 

 a poet and a philosopher. — Comptes Rendus. 



London Hort. Society. — The event of the 

 past week has been the second show of the 

 Horticultural Society at Chiswick. A sunless 

 but dry day brought together 9383 visitors, form- 

 ing such an assemblage of rank a nd fashion as is 

 to be seen in these gardens only, in the open 

 air, near London. At an early liour the ex- 

 hibition had the distinguished honor of being 

 inspected by her Royal Highness the Duchess 

 of Orleans. 



In speaking of the objects presented for ex- 

 amination, we can do little more than repeat 

 wliat we have said on recent occasions, namely, 

 that the great and important feature of the ex- 

 hibition was the total absence of ill-cultivated 

 mens. There were various degrees of ex- 

 nce, but everything was excellent in its way. 

 may even add that the worst plants exhibi- 



ted last Saturday would have swept away the 

 first prizes 20 years ago. The miserable penny, 

 pressed Pansy flowers, which once collected a 

 crowd of simple admirers, would now be con- 

 sidered a disgrace to the place, and are satis- 

 factorily represented by well cultivated speci- 

 mens in pots. The gawky straggling half- 

 starved sticks, first exhibited as roses grown in 

 pots, are replaced by plants of exquisite beauty 

 prepared with unrivalled skill- And let us add. 

 in justice to one class of exhibitors, even the 

 Cape Heaths, which were for so many years 

 produced in silly imitation of beehives, or Hot- 

 tentot kraals, have at last been permitted to 

 assume their natural forms. The pruning- 

 knife, in moderation, has taken the place of the 

 shears with which some innocent gardeners 

 thought it necessary to clip their bushes into 

 shape (!), and the genus Eiica now merits, for 

 its beauty, the high place in these exhibitions 

 which was once given it merely because of the 

 difficulty attending its cultivation. 



As to Orchids, the fondness for them is evi- 

 dently extending; new and good exhibitors are 

 threatening the ancient lords of the region of 

 epiphytes; and we have no doubt that in a few 

 years the sanguine expectations of our friend 

 " Dodman" will be realised, through the in- 

 strumentality of Mr. AVilliams' capital practi- 

 cal papers, now appearing weekly in our 

 columns. The continual sales by auction of 

 these plants afford opportunities of purchase 

 suitable to the means of different classes of 

 buyers, and it is not extravagant to predict that 

 Orchids will some day be as common as Heaths 

 and Pelargoniums. It is not impossible indeed 

 that they may dislodge the latter, admiration 

 of whose tawdry charms is more and more 

 clearly on the decline. 



As usual Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter, stood 

 pre-eminent among the exhibitors of new or 

 rare plants. Their exhibition of Pitcher 

 plants was one of the most remarkable sights 

 that have yet been chronicled in the annals of 

 Horticulture. Some, the Nepenthes, from the 

 forests of the Indian Ocean, threw abroad their 

 tendrils, and suspended their curious bags of 

 gi'een and crimson and white by whatever they 

 could cling to. Others, the Sarracenias, from 

 the swamps of North America, stood erect, like 

 living trumpets, or imitating ewersand jugs ol' 

 green and crimson ; even while the spectator 

 was looking at them, the unhappy fly might be 

 seen entrajjped amongst the relentless teeth 

 with which the recesses of these cups are guard- 

 ed. The most curious of all, perhaps, and the 

 most beautiful in form, was the Cephalote, from 

 the Australian bogs,, whose delicate goblets 

 reared their richly-carved and many-tinted 

 crests above their bed of moss. No one in the 

 world except Mr. Veitch could produce such 

 an exhibition as this. He had also a new yel- 

 low shrubby Calceolaria, with leaves like a 

 Peach-tree; a curious Aster-like plant from 

 New Zealand, said to be a hardy evergreen 

 shrub; and the Eucalyptus coccifera of Van 



