438 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Juno 23, 1670. 



mistake ; the trees are ugly and the shoots cannot be arranged 

 to suit the requirements of the tree. I use no shreds, bat 

 drive little cast naila in and tie the shoots to them. In 

 autumn the ties are all cut loose ; the trees that were not 

 roplanted in the previous autumn are replanted, and secured 

 to the wall by a few ties until spring, when they are pruned 

 and nailed back ; and throughout the summer I give copious 

 waterings with liquid manure. I thus secure plenty of large 

 luscious Peaches, and have about one fruit to the square foot. 

 — Richard Jameson. 



MANAGEMENT OF OUT-OF-DOOK GRAPE 

 VINES. 



I think I never before saw the Grape Vines on the open walls 

 so healthy, and so free from any mildew or other disease, as 

 they are this summer. The dry weather, with the warm nights, 

 appears to suit the plant, for the foliage is well developed, the 

 growth uncommonly vigorous, and so far as I have seen there 

 is likely to be a good crop of fruit. Every Vine is well furnished 

 with more than medium-sized bunches for out-door Vines, 

 which are now well in bloom. 



A. pity it is that those who possess these Vines should allow 

 them to exhaust themselves, and injure the crop of fruit, by the 

 production of a superabundance of foliage and wood. Very 

 many of the bunches are hidden so thoroughly among the mass 

 of wood and foliage, that they can neither have light nor air. 

 Thi3 fosters that terrible enemy the mildew, which in most 

 cases ruins the crop of fruit. 



Taere is no great trouble in giving a judicious thinning of 

 useless shoots, and stopping those branches with fruit two or 

 three joints beyond the bunches, which will be found to ma- 

 terially assist the fruit towards perfection, which is a point of 

 no small importance, seeing that the out-door Vine has a very 

 short season in which to do its work. Attend to the above in- 

 structions, and train and neatly nail every shoot and branch to 

 the wall, and if the crop of fruit do not pay for the trouble the 

 appearance of the Vine itself will ; for it will prove to be one 

 of the noblest and most ornamental plants that ever adorned 

 a house front or garden wall. — Thomas Record, Lil'.csden. 



PREVENTION OF MILDEW ON ROSE 

 TREES. 



This season the Rose trees in my garden have been kept 

 free from green fly by syringing them two or three times, at 

 intervals, with a wash costing less than 2d. the gallon. I make 

 it thus — Pour 1 gallon of boiling water on 12 ozs. of African 

 aloes and 3 ozs. of potash, and add 16 ozs. of soft soap and 

 10 gallons of water. This mixture is valuable as a dip ; it will 

 keep good for two or three weeks. — A. C, Scarborough. 



PRIMITIVE VEGETATION OF THE EARTH. 



Undeb this title Mr. Dawson has communicated a very in- 

 teresting narrative to Nature, a periodical well meriting a wide 

 circulation. It is a subject deeply interesting to me, and has 

 been from boyhood, the interest being then first aroused by my 

 finding the very perfect impress of a Fern frond on the face of a 

 piece of coal. At that time — more than forty years since — ■ 

 scarcely one hundred fossil plants were known, but since then 

 Goppert, Brongniart, Lindley, Hutton, and others have made 

 special and systematic researches, and now about two thousand 

 are named and arranged. Of these not more than seven hundred 

 are known as at present existing. The remainder we may con- 

 clude belonged exclusively to the " Primitive vegetation of the 

 earth." Researches are still being ardently pursued in America, 

 and among the results has been the discovery of the oldest plant 

 of that country. Mr. Dawson thus describes and depicts it. 



" In the sandstone cliffs of Gasps' Bay, Sir W. E. Logan 

 recognised in 1843 the presence of great numbers of apparent 

 roots in some of the shales and tine sandstones. These roots had 

 evidently penetrated the beds in a living state, so that the root- 

 beds were true fossil soils, which, after supporting vegetation, 

 became submerged and covered with new beds of sediment. This 

 must have occurred again and again in the process of the forma- 

 tion of the 4000 feet of Gaspe sandstone. The true nature of the 

 plants of these fossil soils I had subsequently good opportunities 

 of investigating, and the most important results, in the discovery 

 of the plants of my genus Psilophyton, are embodied in the 



restoration of P. princeps. This remarkable plant, the oldest 



land plant known 

 in America, since it 

 extends through the 

 Upper Silurian as 

 well as the Devonian, 

 presents a creeping 

 horizontal rhizome or 

 rootstock, from the 

 upper side of which 

 were given off slen- 

 der branching stems, 

 sometimes bearing 

 rudimentary leaves, 

 and crowned, when 

 mature, with groups 

 of gracefully nodding 

 oval sporecases. The 

 rootstocks must in 

 many cases have 

 matted the soils in 

 which they grew in- 

 to a dense mass of 

 vegetablematter, and 

 in some places they 

 accumulated to a 

 sufficient extent to 

 form layers of coaly 

 matter, one of which 

 on the south side of 

 Gaspe Bay is as much 

 as 3 inches in thick- 

 ness, and is the oldest 

 coal known in Ame- 

 rica. More usually 

 the root-beds consist 

 of hardened clay or 

 fine sandstone filled 

 with a complicated 

 network or with 

 parallel bands of 

 rhizomes more or les3 

 flattened and in va- 

 rious states of pre- 

 servation. In all 

 Psilophyton princeps— the oldest known plant Probability .these 

 of America, restored, la , Fruit, natural size : beds were Originally 

 lb), Stem.natnr.il size: (c . Seilariform tissueof swampy soils. From 

 the axis, highly magnified. la the restoration th 6urfaoe f suc h a 

 one side is represented in vernation, and the , , . ., 



other in fruit. root-bed there arose 



into the air countless 

 numbers of slender but somewhat woody stems, forming a dense 

 mass of vegetation 3 or 4 feet in height. The stems, when young 

 or barren, were more or less sparsely clothed with thick, short, 

 pointed leaves, which, from the manner in which they penetrate 

 the stone, must have been very rigid. At their extremities the 

 stems were divided into slender branches, and these when young 

 were curled in a crosier-like or circinate matter. When mature 

 they bore at the ends of small branchlcts pairs of oval sacs or 

 sporecases. The rhizomes when well preserved shiw minute 

 markings, apparently indicating hairs or scales, and also round 

 areoles with central spots, like those of Stigmaria, but not regu- 

 larly arranged. These curious plants are unlike anything in the 

 actual world. I have compared their fructification with that of 

 the Pilularia; or Pillworts, a comparison which has also occurred 

 to Dr. Hooker. On tte other hand, this fructification is borne in a 

 totally different manner from that of Pilularia, and in this respect 

 rather resembles some Ferns ; and the young stems by themselves 

 would be referred without hesitation to Lycopodiace;e. In short, 

 Psilophyton is a generalised plant, presenting characters not 

 combined in the modern world, and, perhaps illustrating what 

 seems to be a general law of creation, that in the earlier periods 

 low forms assumed characteristics subsequently confined to higher 

 grades of being.'' — G. 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY'S SHOWS. 

 Having been to the last two Exhibitions of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society at Kensington, I wish, while they are still 

 fresh in my memory, to make a few remarks upon them. In 

 the first place I must confess myself mnoh disappointed wilh 

 the Show on the 18th May, which was called the Heath and 



