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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 16, 1873. 



seed gathered oil' one of the fine specimens of this tree, for 

 which Piltdowu is so famous. The tree is about seventeen 

 years old. — E. L. 



CULTURE OF CAPE GERANIUMS. 



In answer to Mr. J. R. Pearson's paragraph in your number 

 of the '2nd of October about the growing of Cape Geraniums, I 

 send the following few remarks, which I hope will prove bene- 

 ficial to him, and many others besides. I have grown these 

 curious-looking plants, and have flowered them with what may 

 be termed success in the following manner : — They should 

 be well ripened during the hottest of the summer months, 

 allowing them little or no water from the end of July untU 

 tho month of October, and then start them as soon as you 

 like in a pretty fan- heat, as near 60° as possible ; and I can 

 assure Mr. Pearson and all who grow this class of plants that 

 they will have flowers, and that in abundance. Although 

 their flowers are not of much consequence, still they make a 

 pretty show for a month or two early in the spring. They are 

 very easily grown, with a little attention of course ; and Mr. 

 Pearson need not be surprised at their losing their leaves, as 

 they are deciduous. 



As lam not acquainted with any of the places about London, 

 I cannot direct him where to go to see a good collection. I 

 shall be very glad to give him any other information regarding 

 them if required. — Axdkew Scott, The Gardens, Maris Bank, 

 Ijoanhead, Edinburgh. 



[We are much obliged by the above, and hope we shall have 

 more from the same and other pens. The ouly cultural point 

 Mr. Scott has not noticed is a description of the soil he em- 

 ploys. This omission reminded us that thirty years ago we 

 visited the Cape of Good Hope, and that when at the head- 

 quarters of the wild Geraniums (Table Mountain), we were 

 surprised to see the soil in which they flourished. We turned 

 to the journal of our travel, and the following is an extract 

 from notes we made at the time : — 



" In our wandering to-day (November 20th) we got to a 

 villa in the suburbs, with a garden hedge of the Prickly Pear 

 (Opuutia vulgaris), covered with its gorgeous yellow flowers. 

 It appeared the most splendid exhibition in vegetable nature 

 I had ever seen. Growing also wild we saw the Aloes, which in 

 our climate are said to bloom but once in one hundred years ; 

 but here they are to be seen in every direction with their 

 gigantic flower stems, and looked upon as a weed ! I was told 

 their only use is ' to wean babies ! ' which I found upon further 

 inquiry is by means of the bitter juice of the plant being 

 applied to the breast of the mother, and rendering it unpalat- 

 able. It is very rare to see a genuine Hottentot ; they are not 

 blacl;, but leaden-coloured. The jetty blacks with woolly hau' 

 are Mosambiques. The waggons from the country drawn, as 

 we saw them, by eighteen bullocks two abreast, with a driver 

 riding, and a little boy running in advance and leading the two 

 headmost, are very peculiar features of this place. The lower 

 description of blacks go riniversally with naked feet, but some 

 of them, both men and women, wear one of the most primitive 

 kind of clogs imaginable. It is simply a wooden sole, raised 

 as English clogs are by two transverse pieces, and kept on the 

 foot solely by means of a piece of iron with a fiat broad knob, 

 which is passed between the great toe and the next. They 

 have three markets daily. The green market is attended by 

 poor blacks from the neighbouring country with the produce of 

 their gardens, which they spread out upon a cloth, and squat 

 by the side of their little commodities beneath the shelter of 

 another cloth spread out as an umbrella. We are unfortu- 

 nately just between the blossoming and the fruit seasons. Mr. 

 Justice Kekewieh tells me the first makes the country the most 

 gorgeous spectacle possible, and he likened it then to the 

 richest Turkey carpet. We saw in the market abundance of 

 Garlic, Oranges, Lemons, green Almonds, a kind of Turnip- 

 rooted Cabbage (which is a very nice vegetable, tasting between 

 a Vegetable Marrow and a Turnip), Parsnips ? (or roots some- 

 what like them). Potatoes, Parsley, and other pot herbs. 



" At half-past seven a.m. I started from Mr. Kekewich's, 

 with the guide he had provided — a bastard Hottentot unmfd 

 Jonas, and an intelligent little boy, a sou of Mr. Kekewich's 

 housekeeper. After passing several villas and small vineyards, 

 Hopeville, the residence of the Chief Justice Sir John "Wilde, 

 &c., we arrived at a public pump, at which our guide filled the 

 bottle that was to accompany us. We then got on to a rudely- 

 stoned (to say paved would convey an idea of regularity) road, 

 which follows the course of one of the mountain streams, and 



leads to a rude water-mill, picturesquely situated among Fig 

 and other trees, from among which its overshot wheel was very 

 perceptible. The stream puzzles its way through huge blocks 

 of granite, of which the mountain is composed, and it serves 

 as the chief means of washing the clothes of the town, for 

 hither the washerwomen resort, and at the time I was there 

 about fifty of them were employed in the process of cleansing. 

 This did not add a little to the interest of the scene. They 

 are universally Mosambiques, black, and shining as ebony. 

 Dressed in white with red handkerchiefs round their heads, 

 and with arms bared to tlie shoulders, and legs equally so to 

 above the knees, they stand in the rushing stream each before 

 a smooth-surfaced block of granite ; they wet the clothes, soap 

 them, and having kneaded them like dough for some time, 

 they redip them into the water, and then taking them by one 

 end they swing them round their heads in the course of beating 

 them (not violently) upon the block of granite. They rinse 

 them in a tub which each has, and complete the process by 

 spreading the clothes upon the blocks of granite around, and 

 sprinkling them for hours with water by means of a cow's 

 horn. In more than one instance I saw a woman thus em- 

 ployed with a child at her back. There is a house about 

 half a mile up the stream where they deposit the clothes t.hat 

 are net finished, and where they are taken care of until the 

 next morning. The path from here became gradually less 

 traceable, and soon we had no other mark than the stream. 

 This continued until we nearly reached the gorge through 

 which we had to pass on to the table summit, and this is the 

 only even slightly dangerous part, for it is here alone that you 

 have to leap from the points of one huge block of granite to 

 those of another, and if you sUp your fall is not upon the 

 softest of surfaces, and your legs may get wedged in the inter- 

 vening spaces. It is a fatiguing ascent throughout, for it is a 

 continued passage over granite blocks, and the few steps you 

 take upon the soil fall upon the loosest possible of sand. Every 

 yard's advance was interesting, for everywhere around were 

 plants which I have been accustomed to see in the vases of a 

 parlour or greenhouse. Mesembryanthemnms, Cape Heaths, 

 Geraniums, and many others are in profusion and greatest 

 luxuriance. The luxuriance would suggest that we cultivute 

 Geraniums in too rich a soil, for here they grow in nothhig 

 but pulverised granite, plentifully supplied with moisture. 

 Apes, tortoises, and lizards are to bo found in the mountain, 

 but we saw none. The view is the chief attraction, and this 

 fully compensated me for the three hours' labour in ascending 

 for whether looking down upon Table Bay and Cape Town, or 

 more to the southward over Simon's Bay, or into the interior, 

 it was magnificent and extensive ; such a grand foreground of 

 granite in its confused masses, interspersed with, to me, the 

 strange foliage of shrubs I never beheld before."] 



CALCEOLARIAS. 



In the very useful matter conveyed in recent communica- 

 tions on the disease and means of prevention, I observe that 

 one point which I have repeatedly found valuable has not been 

 noticed. I have grown the Calceolaria for many years, and at 

 times in soils naturally unsuited to healthy growth, and re- 

 sulting in partial failures, giving much trouble. The best 

 remedy or preventive of disease I ever found was the very 

 simple one of a change of cuttings. When grown on a light 

 soil the growth appeared to get weak and degenerated, and the 

 plants from cuttings continuously produced on such soil lacked 

 vigour to begin with. A batch of sturdy cuttings grown on a 

 soil approaching clay produced results most marked and bene- 

 ficial. From infancy to death they showed their strength, and 

 were proof against the ills to which the weaker ones suc- 

 cumbed. Not in one year, but ten, and perhaps nearer twenty, 

 I have proved the advantage of " foreign " cuttings put in by 

 the side of my own, and taken from soil of an opposite character. 



My practice is similar to that of most others — selecting stubby 

 cuttings and putting them in at the end of the present month 

 (October). On a firm bottom a good covering of soot — not a 

 mere dusting, but fauiy covering the ground — is spread, over 

 this 3 or -1 inches of sound loam trodden firm, topped with a 

 little finer and lighter soil and sand. I like inserting the 

 cuttings 5 or G inches apart, and never removing them until 

 they go at once into their blooming quarters. This, however, 

 is a question of numbers and spare lights to cover them. 

 When lights are limited they are put in twice as thickly, and 

 half taken out in spring and turned into Celery trenches (beds 

 4A feet wide). The ends and sides are roughly boai-ded, and 



