Angast 5, 1869. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



103 



cannot, according to my experience, be said to prove the rule. It is 

 generally admitted that the most perfectly develo pod flowers and fruits 

 are the best for the improver to work upon, and this is, I believe, trao 

 as a rule, althouRh still attended with exceptions. Personally I have 

 learnt from my labours in this field never to lose heart or hope. For 

 sixteen years, from 1843 to 1859, I had laboured with such qnalified 

 finccess in raising seedling Roses, that I had then minimised the 

 amount of labour by omitting the costly process, in point of time, of 

 keeping notes of parentage, &c., when in the following year, 1860, I 

 was more than compensated for all past labour by the extraordinary 

 flush of success already stated. I say, then, to my brother horticulturists 

 who may be working in this field — Never despair ; persevere and wait. 

 " Let ns then be up and doing, 



With a heart for any fate ; 

 Still achieving, stiU pursuing. 



Learn to labour and to wait." 



My experience in selecting, hybridising, and cross-breeding teUs me 

 that he who is seeking to improve any class of plants should watch 

 narrowly, and seize with alacrity, any deviation from the fixed character, 

 and the wider the deviation the greater are the chances of an important 

 issne. However unpromising in appearance at the outset, he knows 

 not what issues may lie concealed in a variation, sport, hybrid, or 

 crossbred, or what the ground newly broken is capable of yielding under 

 careful and assiduous cultivation. If we would succeed in this field wo 

 must observe, and think, and work. Observation and experiment are 

 the only true sources of knowledge in nature, and while observing and 

 experimenting we should above all things guard against prejudices. 



My remarks have hitherto been chiefly of horticulture, and addressed 

 to horticulturists. But there are three other great and important 

 classes of the community who are deeply interested here — the agricul- 

 turist, the manufacturer, and the merchant, to each of whom I would 

 momentarily address myself. 



To the agriculturist 1 would say. You have of late years practised 

 draining, deep cultivation, and high manuring, and the increased 

 fertility of your soil has largely rewarded your industry, enterprise, 

 and skill. The nest step with you is the improvement of the races 

 of your cereals and root crops. I have in the opening of this paper 

 ahown what you may accomplish by selection merely, but you may do 

 far more by cross-breeding. I believe that your produce may be im- 

 proved and increased by this means beyond what the boldest thinker 

 vonld at this moment dare to declare. 



The manufacturer is also deeply interested in this question, in at 

 least so far as the raw material he uses is drawn from the vegetable 

 kingdom. As the horticulturist has by selection and cross-breeding in- 

 creased the size and substance of his flowers, so may the manufacturer 

 or his growers, by selecting from other special points of view, increase 

 the productiveness, strengthen or soften the fibre of their cotton, flax, 

 hemp, and jnte. 



Again, if the horticulturist can increase the size and productiveness, 

 advance or retard the seasons, and improve and vary the flavour of 

 his fruits, why should not the merchant or his agent do the same with 

 his teas, coffees, cocoa, and other vegetable productions ? There can 

 be no question here that the one is as open to modification as the other ; 

 it only requires the thoughtful interposition of the skilled brain and 

 hand. 



Thus, we see how vast are the interests involved, how rich in 

 prospect the unexplored territory in which the horticulturist may be 

 eaid to be the pioneer. The agriculturist, the manufacturer, and the 

 merchant should in their own interests, as well as in the interests of 

 society at large, lend him a willing and a helping hand, and he in his 

 turn should rejoice to find his labours acceptable and capable of so wide 

 and beneficial a diffusion. I stand before you this day and declare, 

 what I honestly believe, that we are here waiting, but working, at one 

 of the chief gateways of a grand Temple of Science; and not many 

 years will elapse ere its secrets shall be revealed, to the surprise, delight, 

 and profit of the human race. — Wiluam Paui., Walthani Cross. 



[We shall publish other papers next week. — Eds.] 



STRAWBERRY RUNNERS, 

 It is an error to suppose that the first runner is less prolific 

 than the second on the string. I invariably choose the first 

 mnner, and cut oS the string beyond it. The Editors have 

 given the true reason. Some soils are so good that they drive 

 the runner into foliage instead of crowns. This does not often 

 occur. There is another error in the opposite direction — viz., 

 that only the first runner is proUfic. If the plant is not stami- 

 nate (i.e., a male plant ; most of our European sorts are herma- 

 phrodites), the last runner would be equally prolific, but it 

 could be planted later, and hence would not bear so well as the 

 early runner. — W. F. Eadcltffe. 



Covering Seeds. — I may have missed seeing it recommended, 

 bnt 1 have never found any covering for small seeds equal to 

 short grass mown from the lawn. This is strewn over the 

 seeds to about half an inch in depth, and then the usual 

 watering given. It soon shrivels and becomes light, so that I 



the seeds come through it freely. The birds, at least here, 

 never attack them, and my crops never fail. At this Cabbage- 

 sowing time it will be found most efficient. — T. R. 



AMONG THE SWISS LAKES.— No. 2. 

 Geology and archaeology have taught ns from facts — and 

 facts, like figures, are tough evidence, that we have wrongly in- 

 terpreted the only written record of man's first existence on 

 our globe. Those facts tell that man was here ages before that 

 in which he has been usually thought to have been created. 

 Prominent among those facts are the remains of the Pfahl- 

 bautcn, or lake-dwellings, in Lake Zurich. That word of ugly 

 aspect is a pure German word, signifying " pile-buildings " — 

 houses on a structure of piles or posts. The inhabitants lived 

 many thousands of years ago, but have left " no record of their 

 date remaining" but the submerged remains of those piles, 

 the stone implements they employed, and fragments of their 

 daily surroundings that have been extraordinarily preserved in 

 the peat formed where water had been below their dwellings. 

 The first discovery of the remains of these dwellings has thus 

 been told ; — " In 1853, the inhabitants of Ober-Meilen, a village 

 on the lake of Zurich, availed themselves of the unusual lownesB 

 of the waters to reclaim a piece of land from the lake. The 

 excavations disclosed a number of remains of deeply-driven 

 piles, formed of various forest trees. In the mud around these 

 piles the attentive investigation of Dr. Keller detected the 

 remains which threw the first light on the nature of the discovery. 

 There, heaped together, lay stone axes, and hammers, and chisels 

 or celts with their hafts of horn, rude implements for crushing 

 corn, a great variety of coarse pottery, implements of bone, lance 

 and arrow-heads, knives, saws, &c., all of flint, in rich abun- 

 dance, although flint is not a natural product of Switzerland. 

 Some of the smaller celts, or chisels, are formed of nephrite, a 

 species of transparent jade, a stone imagined to be entirely 

 peculiar to the East. The saws, in particular, are curious 

 examples of human ingenuity under difficulties. Tbey are 

 formed of length in flakes of flint, one edge of which is finely 

 notched, and the other fitted into a neatly formed long wooden 

 handle, the perfect preservation of which may probably be 

 attributed to the antiseptic influence of the peat wherein it 

 had so fong remained. A kind of bituminous cement appears 

 to have been used for securing the saw in its handle. The 



illustration we now give (half the actual size), from Dr. Keller's 

 drawings, is from the lake of Neuch.Uel, and presents the 

 singularity of a handle formed from the tip of a stag's antler. 

 These saws were probably used for working horn and bone. 



" One would like to know how the pile-driving was managed, 

 bnt driven the piles were, at a distance of from 1 to 300 feet 

 from the shore, at a depth of 6 or 7 feet, gradually advancing 

 into deeper water. They were then extended parallel with the 

 shore till \,he pfahlbau assumed somewhat of the form of a narrow 

 parallelegram. At Merges, on the lake of Geneva, the piles 

 extend ' 1200 feet in length, by 120 in width, giving a platform 

 surface of some 18,000 feet. On this M. Troyon calculates that 

 some 316 cabins may easily have stood ; which, only allowing 

 four persons to a cabin, would give a population of 12(34.' On 

 these piles, driven at short intervals, was laid a platform on 

 which stood the cabins, constructed, as there is good authority 

 for believing, of wattled work plastered with clay. From the 

 extraordinary number of reliques found it is supposed the 

 planks of the platforms were not set close together, and that 

 things were hence continually falling through ; but there would 

 scarcely appear need for such an hypothesis. It is clear that 

 the great mass of jifahlbauten were fired, purposely or accident- 

 ally. In buildings so constructed fire would spread too rapidly 

 to allow the inhabitants to save much of their property, which 

 accordingly would sink to the bottom of the lake. Indeed, the 

 carbonised state of many things, especially the vegetable pro- 

 ducts, has preserved themfor the examination of modern science. 



"In the masses of carbonised grain discovered at Wangen, 



