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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ August 14, 1866. 



few subjects each season, and to seize upon every circumstance 

 tending to secure isolation. For instance, the plants to be 

 experimented upon should be brought into flower as early in 

 the season as possible, and only one or two worked upon at 

 a time. There are several great advantages in this. When 

 there is not too much to think about, the operator, as well as 

 the plant, is in a beneficial state of isolation. When the real 

 growing and flowering season of the year comes on at a later 

 period, and multitudes of plants are bursting ungovernably into 

 flower all around us — when no hand however quick, or eye 

 however vigilant, can stamp out the general outburst of foreign 

 pollen influences — when the mind is distracted and confused 

 with the desire to take advantage of the profusion of subjects, 

 without the leisure to attend to them all properly — no very 

 accurate results can be expected. A temporary occupation of 

 the mind elsewhere, or a short absence from home, may vitiate 

 the labour of weeks, and, in fact, often does so. 



Small plants of Geranium in their first shift from the cut- 

 ting-pan seed very kindly in a little heat in the spring, and 

 more especially on the first blossoms of the first truss produced. 

 Moreover, in this case the flowers are often antherless, which 

 is a great and real advantage, provided we have the desired 

 pollen at hand. 



The hybridist should never be without a hand-magnifying 

 glass, with which he can often at once set his mind at rest with 

 regard to accidental or insect-borne importations of pollen. 

 After all, there are strange and inexplicable occurrences met 

 with occasionally in the matter, and so the internal evidence 

 borne by .a truly intermediate seelding is all that, at any rate, 

 the practical man can with any certainty look to. 



In the matter of variegated produce from variegated plants 

 my own experience is but small. A Candytuft in my garden 

 produced several generations of variegated plants ; they were, 

 however, distorted unhealthy things. I have met with others, 

 but cannot at this moment call them to mind. Mr. Wills's 

 instances were very interesting to me. They confirm the 

 general disposition to lose constitution in proportion to the 

 accession of albinism. 



The splendid great scarlet Geranium, known by several 

 superb and imperial names, now rarely seen except against the 

 back wall of some old conservatory, is very shy to seed, but I 

 should greatly like to see it made use of as a breeder. I seeded 

 it in the open air late in autumn two years ago. Six plants 

 came up, one rather better than the parent, and one more 

 stocky : these I have kept ; the rest were not so good as the old 

 plant. Its pollen seems good, and is plentiful. 



In conclusion, I beg Mr. Wills not to consider these remarks 

 as conceived in a spirit of criticism, but as provoking and look- 

 ing for a system of friendly scientific discussion and mutual 

 enlightenment, which I could wish to see far more cultivated 

 in the pages of yours and other high-class journals. — G. 



.AMONG THE SCOTTISH BRAES, LOCHS, AND 



MOUNTAINS.— No. 1. 



I snr.iN-K from talking in a railway carriage, for I'm deaf, 

 and my hearing-horn brings in such a mingling of words and 

 tramroad rattle as almost to cause a brain-concussion. So I 

 sit in a corner well supplied with periodicals ; and when 

 weariness of eyes compels I close them, shut myself up, and 

 shut out my companions. Whilst journeying hither I was 

 quite successful in so excluding until Carlisle was reached, and 

 then an elderly man with ruddy cheeks and bright brisk eyes 

 • came among us. He would talk, and would joke ; and I hated 

 him, until the following testified that he was " as weighty as 

 witty." He nudged me, made me listen — and I omit my in- 

 terlocutories from the summary — " You've The Cottage Gar- 

 dener there. I've just written to them about a bit of land 

 I have, for I should like to know whether it's just as much as 

 it was in Edward the First's time. I have a copy of the oldest 

 deed about it, which says, 'Continet s acras in campis Don- 

 •castria.' We make it out twelve acres. The Cottage Gar- 

 dener people say that what an acre was in those days no one 

 has told, but that in the British Museum MSS. it is stated in 

 the fourteenth century, ' A plough can commonly plough one 

 acre per day, and sometimes more.' Well, they used oxen 

 then, and now a pair of those beasts can plough one of out- 

 acres ; so I suppose my foregoers cribbed somewhat out of the 

 waste. Then the Cottage Gardener's people go on to talk 

 about land measure and forty rods making a furlong ; but at 

 •our school I found a different measure, for there one rod made 



an alter! That ' furlong,' what a curious corruption that is ! 

 By the ' Statutum dc admetmtrationc terrarum ' it was fixed to 

 be forty pertica or perches of 16i feet each, and it waB called 

 quarantena or Forty -lung ; so there's the parentage of our 

 Fur-long." 



Carlisle, however, must not be passed from without other 

 notices ; and first, as most appropriate to these pages and to 

 the credit of the old city, let me record that the fruit and 

 vegetable market, though held, as it should not be, in the open 

 air, is well supplied. I never saw such a series of quart basins 

 full of Raspberries ; such large Black Currants, a fruit I would 

 gladly see elevated into bunches more numerously berried ; 

 nor six and thiity carts in a row filled with Potatoes, and their 

 contents retailing from scales, with which each was furnished, 

 suspended from an iron bracket fixed to the cart's side. 



Then there are the ruins of the Castle — the first English 

 prison of Mary Queen of the Scots. Whether she was more 

 sinning than sinned against is as doubtful as it is now whether 

 she was beautiful or the very reverse, after seeing her many 

 portraits in the National Collection at South Kensington. 

 Even if she was so superlatively bad as some maintain, still 

 she was unconvicted when at Carlisle, and yet she had no 

 other place for exercise there than the wall-engirthed space 

 still designated " The Lady's Walk." There were no castle 

 gardens in those days ; and she might well say for a more sor- 

 rowful reason than that, " Would I were among the Heather !" 



However, here lies (I am now in the cathedral aisle), he 

 who, even after having two wives, has left as his testimony, 

 " It is a happy world after all." Yes, beneath this slab rests 

 William Paley, whose "Natural Theology," "Evidences of 

 Christianity," and " Hora? Paulina?," still stand forth uncon- 

 quered wrestlers for the truth when the showy unsubstantial 

 shadows of German theology have long since ceased to deceive. 

 He has touched slightly in his published writings, and more, 

 I have heard, in manuscripts still imprinted, upon the plants of 

 the ancient world ; but the researches were but shallow in his 

 days, aud every year now brings light to us from previously 

 unthought-of sources. Who ever suspected, a few mouths 

 since, that the bricks of Egypt's pyramids would reveal to us 

 some of the plauts of the days of the Pharaohs ? Yet true it 

 is that they have made that revelation. Professor Unger has 

 just shown, in a communication to the Vienna Imperial Aca- 

 demy of Sciences, that those bricks contain evidence of the 

 plants existing at the time of their making. He has examined 

 a brick from the Pyramid of Dashour, which was constructed 

 between 3400 and 3300 r.c, consequently at the lowest calcu- 

 lation it is more than 5000 years old. In that brick he found 

 the forms of plants so perfectly preserved that he had no diffi- 

 culty in identifying them. Besides two sorts of grain, Wheat 

 and Barley, he found the Teff (Eragrostis abyssinica) ; the 

 Field Pea (Pisum arvense) ; common Flax (Linum usitatissi- 

 mum) ; wild Radish (Raphauus raphanistrum) ; Corn Chry- 

 santhemum (Chrysanthemum segetum) ; Wartwort (Euphorbia 

 helioscopia) ; Nettle-leaved Goosefoot (Chenopodium murale) ; 

 Bearded Hare's-ear (Bupleurum aristatum) ; and the common 

 Vetch (Vicia sativa). The presence of chopped straw confirms 

 the account of the brick-making mentioned in the Book of 

 Exodus aud Herodotus. 



So there are "sermons in bricks" as well as "in stones," 

 and, as certainly, "good in everything;" and not the least of 

 that " good " is to be met with at Carlisle's " County Hotel." 

 No traveller can leave that hostelry without regret, and none 

 the less if he is to be " over the Border," as I shall be when 

 I next write. — G. 



VIOLA CORNUTA. 



Would Mr. Wills say what is to be done with young plants 

 of Viola cornuta raised in pots, and now 2 or 3 inches high ? 

 They are healthy, but I see no signs of flowering. They were 

 up early in spring, and kept in the greenhouse till the hot 

 weather, when I placed the pots in the open air. Will they 

 bloom this season, and what am I to do with the plants in 

 autumn? — M. K., Bristol. 



[You have kept the plants too long in the greenhouse ; if 

 you had planted them out threo months ago they would have 

 been in beautiful bloom now ; lose no time in planting them 

 out. As the plants have stood so long in pots the roots must 

 be carefully disentangled. Turn the plants out 6 or 8 inches 

 apart in good soil, and you will soon have plenty of bloom on 

 them, if you have the best variety. There are three dis- 



