Aagnst 29, 1866. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



171 



"saMnesa. We find them occupyinfj a space at the cottagers' 

 Shows, and very pleasing' it is to tiud that our poorer neigh- 

 bours know how to appreciate thuir vahie. There is a nght 

 way, however, of getting them in iicrfection, as well as an in- 

 different one in leaving them to themselves. At Uiishtun the 

 Baspberry canes occupy the south-western corner of the garden, 

 and bear, as all liaspbervy canes should bear, in profusion, and 

 beiTies of large si/.e. The strength of the plants is main- 

 tained l)y ellicient manuring, which is allowed to work in by 

 the action of the weather. As little or no mulching is done 

 between the rows, the groimd was, of course, somewhat hard ; 

 bnt it effectually prevents suckers, which is one great cause of 

 weakening the plants. The wlinle of the plantation was 

 covered with netting to prevent the depredations of the 

 feathered tribe, to which, by the way, Stephen is not so 

 friendly as could be wished. 



Peaks. — Surely Jlr. Rivers must be prince among us to have 

 devised so mauagealile a plan of growing one of the most 

 grateful of fruits. If we have been in the habit of regarding 

 a Pear tree, either as approaching the dimensions of timber, 

 or, in the espalier form, stretching its long arms for many feet 

 in either direction, our ideas may now be greatly modified in 

 seeing the diminutive little trees, smaller than an ordinary Cur- 

 rant bush, and small enough to be put into a portable pot. No 

 garden, however small, need now bo without Pear trees, with 

 the further advantage to the owner, that if he be a horticul- 

 turist his plants will cause an interest from their manageable 

 form and size. It would bo premature to state what has been 

 done with Pears on the quince stock at Rushton, since Mr. 

 EadclyiTe has not yet reported upon them, and that a little 

 longer time is still' necessai-y to complete a fair trial. They 

 were all of them (about fifty), in excellent condition, and many 

 of them loaded with promising fruit. I have no doubt that in 

 due time we shall have a proper account of them. 



I cannot conclude these notes without expressing my deep 

 sense of the kind feeling and hospitality sho\vu to myself and 

 other horticulturists to whom I had the pleasure of being 

 introduced while in Dorsetshire. — Adolphus H. Kent. 



THE CALCUTTA BOTANIC GARDENS AND THE 

 CYCLONE OF OCTOBER .Vih, 1AM. 



We have been favoured with a copy of the Supplement to 

 the "Calcutta Gazette" of June 2l3t, in which we find an 

 account so singularly and painfully interesting of the injury 

 done to these celebrated gardens by the terrible cyclone of Oc- 

 tober 5th, that we do not hesitate to condense it for our own 

 pages. A tropical botanic garden must of necessity be some- 

 thing very different from an English one. The stature and 

 girth of the trees, the fine climate, the great multitude of 

 species, must combine to give it an aspect of wonderfid rich- 

 ness and splendour, and make it almost a terrestrial paradise, 

 trying weather, and a thousand little difficulties with indi- 

 vidual species, have no doubt to be encountered at times, just as 

 in Europe ; but the reward of toil and enteqirise will be as much 

 greater, one season with another, as an eiiuatorial country is 

 superior to a temperate one in respect to its adaptation to the 

 growth of plants. 



The Calcutta Botanic Garden was established towards the 

 close of the last century, and has had the benefit from time to 

 time of the superintendence of some of the most distinguished 

 botanists residing in India. The number of species brought 

 together was very considerable, comprising all the rare and 

 splendid plants of the country, and lai-ge numbers from distant 

 parts of the world, exhibiting a fair show of what tropical 

 botany is, whether in the eastern hemisphere or the western. 

 A large niunber of the timber trees in the garden were cut 

 down by Mr. Griffiths about twenty years ago ; the condition 

 of the Garden, as appears from liis report to Government in 

 May, 1843, being that it was " choked with trees." Sufficient 

 remained, however, to allow of the destruction of not less than 

 a thousand in the terrible cyclone of the date above given. 



The history and general character of the cyclone as it oc- 

 cuiTed in the city of Calcutta itself are well Imown to all 

 readers of the public journals, having been fully narrated at 

 the time. In the gardens this terrible visitation was far more 

 severely felt, they being situated more in what was the centre 

 of the storm — in the very vortex, so to speak, of this awful 

 aijrial whirlpool. It did not last long, but in the short space 

 of its endurance there was done damage incredible to a Euro- 

 pean were it not described by a crowd of eye-'witnesseg. The 



Garden suffered further from being near the river, across which 

 the gale blew diagonally, and thus struck the trees and plants 

 with a force unbroken for the space of a mile by any obstaclo 

 whatever. The damage appears to havi! been done between 

 11 A.M. and l.'M) p.m. The five Imurs and a half saw sliips 

 forced by the water on to the actual surface of the fiardeii ; a 

 large portion of the soil was submerged to a depth of ,5 or 

 (> feet ; and green trees were stripped not merely of their foliage 

 but of their branches, so that what an hour previously were 

 stately masses of vordm-o became bare poles, like those used to 

 support scaffolding by builders. The most curious fact in'tho 

 histcu-y of the destruction ajiijoars to be that the endogenous" 

 class of plants, speaking generally, suffered least, or at all 

 events much less than the exogenous. So extensive was the 

 destruction of exogenous vegetation, that the morning after 

 the storm the country seemed to be inhabited almost exclu- 

 sively by Palms and Bamboos. Not that the I'alms were rmi- 

 forniiy exempt from ruin ; two species suffered severely — 

 namely, the Areca catechu and the Ar'cnga saccharifera. The 

 Cycads also very generally escaped. Why the exogenous trees 

 should have been victims to so great an extent while the 

 endogenous were mostly spared does not appear ; nor without 

 experience of obser\-ations made on the spot, or at least in 

 India, is it easy to sjieculate on the cause. Another very 

 curious circumstance attendant on the devastation was the 

 death of many trees through the mere force of the wind, or 

 through the violent strain to which they were subjected during 

 the chief pressure. During the height of the storm this was 

 calculated to be I'JO lbs. on the square foot. It is wonderful 

 how great a strain trees will bear if it be administered gradu- 

 ally. In the winter, when the snow falls gently but steadily 

 for many hours together, it is not unusual to see small trees 

 bowed completely to the ground by the deposit upon their 

 twigs and branches, and when the thaw has commenced they 

 gi-adually return to their position unhurt. Coming, however, all 

 at once, it is Uke the blow of a cannon-ball, and the tree can 

 no more bear it with impunity than a human being. A third 

 very curious circumstance was the complete upset of the vital 

 economy of certain trees and plants. Several kinds flowered 

 or fruited for the first time shortly after the %dsit of the cyclone ; 

 others, that ordinarily are deciduous, became partially ever- 

 green ; while others, accustomed to fiower profusely, scarcely 

 produced a blossom at the time when they were wont to be 

 loaded with bloom. Nothing proper to the idea of a garden 

 was visible the morning after the storm. Not a leaf or a flower 

 or a fruit remained, and the paths and tanks were blocked 

 with fallen branches. 



Of indi\'idual instances of destruction, one of the most terrible 

 and lamentable was the overthrow of the great Adansonia, the 

 trunk of which was 12 feet in tUameter. Out of sixty-seven 

 Mahogany trees no less than thirty-one were blowni down. 

 Only four trees remain of the Casuariua avenue, and these are 

 much mutilated. Of twenty-five Araucaiias not one has been 

 left with the main stem entire. In-doors there were destroyed 

 of the fine collection of Orchidaee* at least one-half ; while 

 the plants in the thatched conseiTatory were almost without 

 exception annihilated. The only plants that seem to have 

 defied the storm were the munerous species of Ficus, and these 

 by virtue of their powerful aerial roots, which enabled them 

 to hold on as if by anchors. The great Banyan tree, though 

 injured, was not damaged seriously. 



Such was the state of things produced by the awful cyclone 

 of October 5th. The picture is in no respect over-coloured ; it 

 is below rather than above the reality. What shoidd we think 

 if the sweet lawns, and shrubberies, and grand old trees o£ 

 Kew were, in the com-se of a short forenoon, to be totally 

 obliterated ? Yet this is the mournful condition of the best 

 portion of the Calcutta Garden, which half a century will 

 hardly restore to the beauty and richness it possessed on the 

 eve of that fatal tempest. The climate is in its favour, and 

 all that skill and devotedness to the work can accomplish vrill 

 no doubt be given to the process of restoration ; the loss is, 

 ne%'ertheless, one of the greatest that has ever been sustained 

 in connection with a garden. 



MR. BULLS VINERY. KING S B.OM), CHELSEA. 



People who have not been abroad sometimes imagine what 

 a beautifiU sight a vineyard must be, and conjure up all sorts 

 of poetic visions as to the " clustering Vine ; " but in the 

 great majority of cases this is a mockeiy, a delusion, and a 



