(iotobor i 1875. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



3ld 



maritime districts — renders coprolites a valuable ingredient for 

 artificial manures, and their manufacturers grind tliem to a 

 powder and mix them with other fertilisers, for those phos- 

 phates are found in cultivated plants. 



It is a curious fact that our field and garden crops are being 

 nourished by the excrement of an animal produced before the 

 Deluge. Some estimate may be formed of the abundance of 

 fossil animals in the lias by the fact that Sir Henry de la 

 Beche distinguished more than 130 species ; and how numerous 

 was one of the species, the Ammonite, is apparent to any 

 observer. I have a flat mass not 5 inches square and 1 inch 

 thick, that contains at least a hundred small Ammonites. 

 This fossil, known among old geologists as the Cornua Am- 

 monis, has that name preserved corruptly among the poorer 

 classes here, for they call it " Cornomis." Heavy fragments 

 of some that must have been inches in diameter are used 

 to keep doors from closing. 



The peculiarities of the plants of the district are no less 

 noteworthy than those of its fossils. One instance for the 

 present must suffice — " The Flower of the Axe," or, as the 

 country people near Axminster call it, " The Flower." Until 

 the present week I never heard of this member of our national 

 Flora, and, therefore, was ignorant that it is found nowhere 

 but on one small spot at Kilmington, near Axminster. 



For all my relative information, and the outline portrait ac- 

 companying this note, I am indebted to the Eov. Z. J. 

 Edwards's excellent little volume on the Ferns of this vicinity. 



The plant is Lobelia urens (Stinging Lobelia). It was un- 

 known as a British plant until Hudson published the second 

 edition of his "Flora Anglica" in 1778. He described it as 

 having an erect stem, the lower leaves rounded at the end, 

 scolloped; upper leaves lance-ehaped, toothed; flowers violet 

 blue. It is a perennial, flowering in July, August, and early 

 September. On Kilmington Common this Lobelia has a range 

 of about a mile in length, and in no place more than a hundred 

 yards in breadth. In some fields that have been recently cul- 

 tivated near its usual haunt it has appeared abundantly on the 

 newly turned-up soil. Hudson states that it was first dis- 

 covered by Mr. William Newbery, a noted herbalist, in the 

 vicinity of Axminster. 



Since writing the above I have visited Kilmington Common, 

 and, though the last day of September, found many plants of 

 the Lobelia still in flower. Then, as on many other similar 

 occasions, I entered into the feeling that made Linnreus fall 

 on his knees by the side of the first Furze bush that he saw 

 clothed with its golden flowers. Kilmington Common was 

 entirely mantled with them ; the bushes were dwarf, and above 

 them stood forth the blue-flowered stems of the Lobelia. They 

 are 2 feet high, and '■) inches of their summits bear the flowers, 

 alternate, and half an inch apart, so that the drawing copied 

 from Mr. Edwards's volume does not approach to doing the 

 plant justice. The leaves are alternate, the lower being 

 4 inches long, and 1 inch wide where broadest. 



The soil of the Common is stony but wet from numerous 

 springs ; yet the water is not stagnant, for the Common is on a 

 hill about 300 feet above the Axe, and facing the south-west, so 

 that when the Lobelia is transplanted to neighbouring gardens 

 it can only be kept in moderate vigour by copious and unre- 

 mitted waterings. 



Kilmington Common is on the road from Axminster to Honi- 

 ton, and the habitat of the Lobelia is about six and a half miles 

 from the town last named. — G. 



SUMMEK FRUITS. 



It is true, as stated by Mr. Lnckhurst on page 177, that 

 Rivers' Early Prolific Hum stands out prominently in any col- 

 lection, but I must have Rivers' Early Favourite along with it. 

 These Plums ought to be on every garden wall in the best 

 position they can be placed in, and in the borders too, as 

 pyramids and bushes wherever there is a square yard to be 

 found. I have endeavoured to impress this on many calti- 

 vators, especially those in humble circumstances. 



Some years ago at an horticultural exhibition held the first 

 week in August, within a few miles of the sea in north York- 

 shire, I exhibited a dish each of Eivers' Early Favourite and 

 Early Prohfic Plums from the open wall. It was with diffi- 

 culty that I could persuade those connected with the exhi- 

 bition that they were grown outside, for they were quite sure 

 they had been grown under glass. 



There is another early Plum, Precooe de Tours, which in 

 years gone by used often to be met with, and was the earliest 



Plum we then had, and I believe the parent of Mr. Rivers' 

 rightly-named Favourite. It is but seldom met with now. I 

 saw many years ago at Old Thornville, the residence of Colonel 

 Thornton, a fine old place twelve or fourteen miles north-west 

 from York, trained on a wing of the mansion a fine old tree 

 of Precoce de Tours with one of the heaviest crops of fruit on 

 I ever saw. This was at the latter end of July, and the fruit 

 was ripe and in use. The favourable spring and fine summer 

 no doubt had much to do with the fruit being ripe so early. I 

 have often wondered why fruit trees are not more numerous. 

 I am of opinion that they ought to be as numerous as Thorn 

 bushes. We all know how beautiful our fruit trees are when 

 in bloom in the spring and early summer, and then in autumn 

 we have the pleasure of storing the fruit. In planting it is 

 very important to know which kinds of fruit came the soonest 

 into a bearing and profitable state, and amongst Plums I know 

 none which will pay their expenses more quickly than the 

 sorts I have named. — F. F. 



DIONiEA MUSCIPULA. 



I HAVE a plant of Dionroa muscipula which is thriving well. 

 It recently threw up a vigorous new leaf, and one morning I 

 found this new leaf tightly closed with the end of an insect's 

 leg just showing between the edges of the leaf. I noticed a 

 brown mark extending from the edge of the leaf nearly to the 

 base of it. I feared that my grand new leaf was going to 

 deeay, and I wondered what the food could be that had evi- 

 dently disagreed with it. A few mornings since the problem 

 was solved. 



The leaf opened, and it then appeared that Dionsea had 

 captured a wasp, and the brown mark was produced by the 

 sting of the insect. I have not removed the wasp, and he lies 

 in his trap with his sting fixed into the flesh of his captor. It 

 is curious to note the effect of the wasp's revenge on the plant 

 that has made a meal of him. — George C. Stenning, BcauUeii 

 Parsonage. 



SALES OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES AT 

 COVENT GARDEN. 

 In Covent Garden Market is transacted the largest fresh 

 fruit and vegetable business of any market in the world, it 

 being the grand centre of distribution not only for London 

 and its suburbs but Great Britain. It receives contributions 

 from the chief fruit-bearing regions of the world, and vege- 

 table products from France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as 

 from more distant quarters. Of fruit, schooners built for the 

 purpose, and faster sailing steamers, are constantly bringing 

 hither supplies from the tropical, intertropical, and temperate 

 zones of America, from the Channel ports of France, the 

 shores of the Mediterranean and Adriatic, and of Northern 

 Asia. Of late years the purveyors of Covent Garden have 

 entered into active competition with the city importers, ware- 

 housemen, and dealers in Pudding Lane and its vicinity, fruit 

 and vegetables being now consigned on a large scale directly 

 to them. The Covent Garden dealers have their agents at 

 the leading foreign shipping ports, many of whom dispatch 

 representatives from time to time to the interior fruit-growing 

 districts to report on the crops, and forestall, by advances and 

 agreements to purchase, the native dealers. As crops mature 

 or arrive at port for shipment, a large part of the correspon- 

 dence between the agents abroad and the Covent Garden 

 dealers is carried on by telegrams, for in these days of com- 

 petition early advices are essential, the character and amount 

 of prospective supplies exerting an important influence on 

 prices. By large capital intelligently applied, by maintain- 

 ing an intimate conversance with all the influences calculated 

 to increase or lessen foreign supplies of market garden produce, 

 taking at the same time into account home contributions, 

 these dealers may be said to rule over our supplies, and to 

 some extent to govern prices. It is by the completeness of 

 their organisation in connection not only with producers and 

 intermediate agents, but their connection with the host of 

 retail dealers throughout the country, that the statement holds 

 true that of fruit and vegetables "the best come to London." 

 The tendency year by year has been to vest these large trans- 

 actions in a few hands, or at least in a few families. To allow 

 of the enormous trade carried on, it has become a necessity 

 to extend the transactions of the market proper to the short 

 streets branching from it north and left, the upper floors and 

 cellars of these afYording storage, whilst the ground floor is 



