November 24, 1863. ] JOUENAIi OF HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



41& 



of a caustic limestone, that ate up in a very short time all 

 dead animal matter committed to its care. Even then we 

 might moralise on the wonders of this world of change and 

 progress, where life now must be sustained by life that was. 

 The fine rich umbels of the Agapanthus seem to tell \is that 



even beauty must be sustained by a due portion of decom- 

 position. Be that as it may, we must state that these beds 

 in their beauty evinced the most careful and skilful manage- 

 ment. E. Fish. 

 {To be continued.) 



Many of our subscribers not having our first series, we 

 are induced to republish the very excellent portrait of our 

 deceased friend, which is in the thirteenth volume of that 

 series, and we accompany it with a very interesting relique. 



THE LATE ME. DONALD BEATON. 



the last contribution he had the power of ^vriting for this 

 Journal. It was written in answer to a note we forwarded 

 to him. Paralysis seized him before he had returned it to 

 us, and it has just been found among his papers. 



CHANGING THE COLOUE OF THE PEA BY CEOSSING. 



" I NEVER cross-bred a plant intentionally in my life, so I 

 am not about mounting a pOlar like Simon StyUtes, and 

 proclaiming myself an authority, but I have been a cross- 

 breeder of poultry, and have observed facts there which 

 make me hesitate from agreeing that it is " absurd " to 

 think that the skins of Peas may be altered in colour by the 

 poUen which fertilised them. For instance : Cochin-China 

 hens lay buff-coloured eggs, but if they are associated with 

 a Dorking or Spanish cock the shells of their eggs frequently, 

 after a time, are laid nearly white. Again, another fact we 

 all have observed, a white woman has white chUdreo, but if 



her husband is a black man her offspring becomes dai-k- 

 skinned. — FebriMry Srd, 1863." 



[The above is a most interesting fact, bearing directly on 

 the question of changing the colour of the garden Pea by 

 the influence of the poUen ; and the two cases, as far as I 

 know, stand isolated, the one in the vegetable and the other 

 in the animal kingdom. The other fact adduced goes directly 

 against the inference he draws from it, for to bring it within 

 the analogy it is not the offspring of the white woman that 

 would or should be the dark-skinned, but the white woman's 

 own skin. It is not the offspring of the crossed Pea or 

 second generation which the believers in Gartner" s cross ac- 



