This is the whole secret of the business. Get the soil once well encased around 

 the roots, — once well watered, — and all that is necessary afterwards is to keep the 

 surface soil well pulverized, that is, its little atoms well divided, in perfect dual if 

 you will ; and there will seldom be a failure, if the tree be healthy otherwise. 



I do not imagine I am offering any thing new in this article. The facs are well 

 known to practical gardeners ; but I presume that amongst the thousands of readers 

 of the Horticulturist, there are many novices and amateurs to whom the hints may 

 be acceptable. 



DIERVILLA JAPONICA, DC. 



BY W. D., WEST CHESTER, PA. 



Dear Sir : — In compliance with your request to be furnished with some account of 

 the history, synonyma, &c., of the pretty flowering Shrub, known among our Florists 

 by the name of Wei(/elia rosea (or Weigehi, as it has often — and perhaps was ori- 

 ginally — written), — I take pleasure in sending such notices of the plant as my 

 limited resources enable me to offer. It appears that this shrub was announced, by 

 the London Horticultural Society, as "one of the new plants" sent home to England 

 from China, about ten years ago, by Mr. Fortune. See Downing's Horticulturist, 

 vol. 1, j>. 48. A further account of it, with a figure, is given in the second volume 

 of the Horticulturist, -pages 359-60. The description is tolerably good, — except 

 that, with us, the branches, loaded with beautiful flowers, are rather erect, and do 

 not " hang down in graceful and natural festoons." The plant is also briefly noticed 

 in volumes 3 and 4, — and still as if something new. It would seem, however, that 

 the same plant was made known by Kaempfer, as long ago as 1712, by the names 

 (probably aboriginal in Japan,) of Sima utsugi, and Nippon utsugi. Thunberg, 

 in his Flora Japonica, — supposing it to be a new genus — published it, in 1784, 

 by the name of Weigela JajMnica, — in honor of Prof. C. E. Weigel, a German 

 Botanist. Willdenow, in his edition of the Species Plantarum, vol. 1, p. 836, 

 gives it by the name of Weigelia Japoniea. Professor De Candolle, being satis- 

 fied on a closer examination, that it really belongs to Tournefort's previously 

 established American genus, Diervilla, referred it thither; and in 1830, published 

 it in the 4th volume of his Prodomius, page 330, by the name of Diervilla Japoniea, 

 — retaining, according to the received canon, the specific name imposed by TllUN- 

 BERG. By this name, of course, it will be hereafter known among Botanists — and 

 all others, who are duly posted up, or desire to be correct, in the use of the authentic 

 nomenclature. 



This species is stated to be indigenous at Jeddo, — at or near which place, Com- 

 modore Perry negotiated the recent treaty with Japan. 



I observe the plant, under cultivation here, frequently sports flowers with a four- 

 lobed corolla, and four stamens, — the normal number being five. 



lere is another species in Japan — referred doubtfully to this genus, — 



