June ■!, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTIOULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



447 



plants , have attained a good size, allow them abundance of 

 ■water, give them plenty of air to keep them stubby and well 

 supplied with branches, and syringe them towards evening to 

 keep them clean. If you succeed in obtaining stems at the 

 surface of the pot in thickness more like your wrist than your 

 finger, and well clustered with double flowers, you ■will have 

 obtained floricultural objects than which few things are more 

 strikingly beautiful, or which in such a short time will better 

 reward you for your labour. Transplanted out of doors in the 

 end of May, either singly or in groups, they will ornament the 

 flower garden until cut down by frost, and possess a vigour and 

 Etubbiness of growth rarely combined when grown under glass. 



liussiaUf Double Blue, Tret-, and Neapolitan Violrls. — There 

 are few of our fair friends to whom a small bouquet of these sweet- 

 scented flowers is not an agreeable acquisition during the cold 

 mouths of winter and the milder days of spring. Unlike their 

 near neighbour the Heartsease, which is frequently vei-y odori- 

 ferous as well as strikingly beautiful from the variety and 

 harmonious combination of its colours, the delightful Violet, 

 like the night-smelling Stock, presents but small claims upon 

 our admiration, so far as our organs of vision are concerned, and, 

 like many other objects of real worth and usefulness, it would 

 be passed by unnoticed in the throng did not its effects and its 

 powers to please become impressed upon our senses and sym- 

 pathies in a way not to be mistaken. The Eussian Violet is as 

 hardy as our common one that cheers with its perfume our 

 banks and hedgerows in the spring; the flowers are much the 

 same in size, and single ; the foliage is larger and more luxuriant, 

 and it blooms rather more profusely and at an earlier period of 

 the season. It, as well as the others I have mentioned, will 

 flourish in rather a stiff soil, pro^vided there be plenty of drain- 

 age and no stagnant water about the roots. If planted in light 

 sandy soil all the sorts are apt to grow too much to foliage, 

 and to produce less of bloom. It may be plentifully propagated 

 by seeds at an earlier period, and by dividing the shoots or by 

 runners now. They will flower better if the rows or beds are 

 renewed every second year. A bed planted so as to have the 

 protection of a frame, and the addition of mats in cold weather, 

 will yield abundantly all the winter. In mild winters, such as 

 we have lately had, the plants will produce plentifully at the 

 bottom of a south, east, or west wall, or below a hedge or paling 

 with a good aspect. The Double Blue Violet delights in a deep 

 loamy soil well drained. In such circumstances the flowers are 

 very large and sweet ; it will flourish on the same ground for 

 years, the plants increasing in size, and producing flowers from 

 the older and younger parts. To have them in perfection it 

 should be fresh planted every two or three years. Except in 

 very mild seasons very little can be done with it in winter, for 

 though the plants may be forwarded by having a frame placed 

 over them, they do not like anything approaching to artificial 

 forcing, and even when obtained by extra coaxing the flowers 

 do not seem to yield their natural odour. The Tree Violet is 

 also a double blue, but the flower is rounder and smaller, and 

 the foliage too is smaller than the common garden variety. I 

 once thought they were both the same thing under different 

 circumstances, but I find that the habits and properties of 

 the two are rather different. It ■will stand a slight degree of 

 forcing, and, it kept in pots on the front shelf of an ordinary 

 greenhouse, it will furnish abundance of blossom during the 

 winter months. 



The Neapolitan Violet will always maintain its place as a 

 general favourite. It does but little good when unprotected 

 out of doors unless in very sheltered situations, and even then 

 it will not flower well until the spring months. To grow them 

 in a bed under glass use a pit considerably elevated above the 

 ground, or make-up a bed for a frame in the following manner 

 in the beginning of September : — Put do^wn a layer of 18 inches 

 or 2 feet of blocks of wood, faggots, brickbats, &c., which will 

 not only insure perfect drainage, but enable you to have a little 

 heat below your plants in winter by means of a lining. Place 

 above this a slight hotbed of about a foot in thickness of half- 

 decomposed dung, and then a sufficient layer of mellow maiden 

 loam in rather a dry state. The use of the dimg is to throw a 

 little extra heat into the loam in order to cause the plants to 

 root freely. Take-up the plants with good balls ; and as you do 

 not wish to grow them but to bloom them, place in a row across 

 the bed just so thickly that they do not touch each other ; water 

 each row at the bottom as you proceed, and then cover-up with 

 the dry soil, which ■will prevent the evaporation of moisture, and 

 keep the atmosphere of the frame dry. To insure this more 

 effectually, and to also prevent the ravages of slugs, &c., strew 

 over the surface of the bed several times during the winter dry 

 charcoal dust, burnt earth, sand, &c. ; and by attending to their 

 wants, by judicious air-giving, watering, &c., yon will be well 

 rewarded. General directions as last week. — W. Keakk. 



COLLECTING CINCHONA BARK. 



This most valuable medicine has acquired more than even 

 its former interest from the success attending Ita cultivation 



in India. So great has been that euccpss that the bark has 

 become one of the important exports of Hindostan. The tree 

 is the Cinchona Calisaya ; our engraving is from a French 

 work, and the description is from M. Figuier's " Vegetable 

 World." 



" The mode of procuring this invaluable febrifuge is interest- 

 ing, and has been recorded in the following notes. ' About 

 the end of June, 1847,' says Mr. Weddell, ' I set out to walk 

 to the province of Casabaya. This province is divided by the 

 CordiUeras into two distinct regions ; the one forming table- 

 lands, the other comprehending a long series of parallel valleys. 

 .... These valleys furnish the greater part of the Peruvian 

 bark. It would be difficult to give an idea of all the treasures 

 of vegetation buried in these vast solitudes. The thirst for 

 gold formerly peopled them, but the wilderness has resumed 

 its empire, and the axe of the caseariUero alone breaks its 

 silence now. 



" ' The name of caseariUero is given to those men who cut 

 the Peruvian bark in the woods ; they are brought up to this 

 occupation from their childhood, and instinctively, as one 

 might say, they find their way to the centre of the forest, 

 through almost inextricable labyrinths, as if the horizon were 

 open before them. 



"_' These cascarilleros do not gather the Peruvian bark for 

 their own profit ; generally they are enrolled in the service of 

 some tradesman or small company, who send a sort of over- 

 seer to superintend their labour. Having fixed upon a portion 

 of the forest favourable to their purpose, the party proceed to 

 make roads to the point which is to be the centre of their 

 operations. From this time, every part of the forest — a view 

 of which is commanded by the new pathway — becomes pro- 

 visionally the property of the party, and no other cascarilleros 

 dare work it. 



" ' The overseer having established his camp, proceeds ta 

 build a hangar, or wooden hut, in which he can shelter himself 

 and store his provisions ; and if their stay is likely to be pro- 

 longed, he does not hesit.ate to sow Maize and vegetables for the 

 use of the party ; the cascarilleros, in the meantime, wandering 

 over the forest one by one, or in small bauds, each enveloped in 

 his poncho, with provisions for several days, and the blankets 

 which constitute their beds. They range the forest, axe or knife 

 in hand, to clear away the innumerable obstacles which arrest 

 their progress at every step ; for the caseariUero is exposed to 

 dangers which often endanger his life. The forests are rarely 

 composed entirely of Cinchonia ; but these shrubs form groups 

 more or less numerous, scattered here and there in the depths 

 of the forest ; sometimes — and this is commonly the case — 

 they are completely isolated. If the position be favourable, a 

 glance at the branches, a slight display of colour peculiar to 

 the leaves — a particular colouring of these same organs — the 

 aspect produced by a large mass of inflorescence, reveals the 

 branch of the manchas, as the Peruvians term the tree, at a 

 great distance. In other circumstances he must content him- 

 self with an inspection of the trunk, in which the outer layer 

 of bark — the fallen leaves, even — are suflicient to make known 

 the neighbourhood of the object of their search. Ha^ving 

 marked the group, they begin operations by felling the tree 

 with the axe a little above the root, taking care, in order to 

 lose none of the bark, to bare it at the place where the axe is 

 to be laid ; and as the thickest part is surrounded by the largest 

 quantity of bark, and is consequently the most profitable, it ia 

 usual to dig out the earth at the foot of the trunk, so that the 

 barking should be complete. 



" ' The Cinchona is sometimes completely surrounded, as in 

 a pit, with lianes, which shoot from tree to tree. 



" ' I remember having cut down a large tree, hoping to get 

 the flowers, but after having knocked down three neighbouring 

 trees, it still remained standing, supported in that position by 

 the /(a?ifs, which were wound round its branches, supporting 

 it as if wrapped in a shroud. When, at last, the tree falls, 

 outer bark is gathered by means of a wooden maUet, or the 

 back of an axe. The part thus stripped is then brushed, and 

 divided throughout by uniform incisions. The bark is sepa- 

 rated from the trunk by means of a knife, with the point of 

 which the surface of the wood is raised. The bark of the 

 branches is separated much as that of the trunk. The details 

 of dressing the bark vary a little in the two cases ; in fact, the 

 thinner plates of the bark of the branches, which make the 

 rolled quinine, called cannto, are merely exposed to the sun, 

 when they take of themselves the desired form, which is that 

 of a hoUow cylinder ; but those which are the produce of the 

 trunk, and constitute the ordinary bark, which is called labia. 



