December SO, I87S. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOETICULTURE AND OOTTAQE QAEDENER. 



579 



Early Rivers is one of the most beautifal of early Peaches, 

 large, and of a pale straw colour with a warm rosy cheek — just 

 Bach a fruit as Eve could not resist. Its flesh is melting, 

 juicy, and delicious, and in size and quality it has few if any 

 seasonable superiors as a family Peach, but it is too soft to 

 ship. It ripens at the same time as Early Louise — end of May. 



Early Victoria before it ripens is one of the dirticst-lookinK 

 little Peaches I know of, but from ten days before up till the 

 time of its maturity it undergoes quite a change, and gets 

 moderately pretty — a rusty white with red cheek. Its quality 

 is honey. Its size is medium, time of ripening early .June, 

 and although a fine family fruit it is too soft for shipping. 



Stanwick Early York is a pretty little Peach, white, a good 

 deal covered with red. It is a very heavy cropper, but much 

 too small to compete with such sorts as Large Early York, 

 Mountain Rose, and other fine kinds of the same season. It 

 is not nearly so big as Troth's, nor yet so iane-eating as the 

 true Early York, and it is the most wormy little Peach I know 

 ©f. It drops badly in dry weather. 



Rivers' Early York is not much unlike Stanwick Early York 

 in size, colour, or quality, but it is not nearly so bad with 

 worms, and if anything it is a trifle earlier, this sort being 

 quite gone whilst a good third of the preceding still hang on 

 the trees. Both ripen about the third week in June. 



Prince of Wales is a beautiful creamy-coloured fruit highly 

 coloured with red, from medium to large in size, of excellent 

 quality, and ripens about the end of July and 1st of August. 

 It is a great cropper, and with a little care in thinning it 

 would be a first-class family Peach. Owing to last summer's 

 extreme drought more than half the crop fell ; but it was not 

 alone in that, as many standard kinds, as Wilson's Early, 

 Druid Hill, Stump the World, and Ward's Late were equally 

 faulty. — W. Falconkb, Brenham, Texas. — (American Gardener's 

 Monthly.) 



NEW BOOKS. 



Elementary Lessons on Botanical Geography. By J. G. Baker, 



F.L.S. London : Lovell Reeve & Co. 



Botanical GiooEAi'nY is a subject which is rarely presented 

 to gardeners in a popular form. The treatises which have 

 hitherto been written on the subject are expensive and elabo- 

 rate, or have been incorporated with botanical works which are 

 at once philosophical and expensive. In the little volume 

 which has recently been published by Mr. J. U. Baker we have 

 the subject presented to us in clear and simple language, which 

 makes it easily intelligible to those who would be bewildered if 

 it were treated in conjunction with physics and biology. We 

 give as our illustration an extract from the chapter " On the 

 Manner in which Heat Influences the Distribution of Plants : "■ — 



'* The influence of temperature upon the distribution of any 

 plant depends largely upon its season of vegetative activity. 

 Annuals, which run their course from the seed stage to leafing 

 and flowering, and back to the seed stage, in a period varying 

 in length from two to six months, can only be affected by the 

 temperature of that portion of the year during which they are 

 growing. Biennials have to last through the winter, and often 

 concentrate their energies for a large proportion of their exist- 

 ence in storing up materials in their rootstocks, and spring up 

 into flower and seed in a short time when warm weather comes, 

 at the expense of tissue previously elaborated. Trees and 

 shrubs have usually a well-marked time of flowering and fruit- 

 ing once a year, and it is the same with a great many perennial 

 and annual herbs, but the season with different species is very 

 different. Eranthis hyemalis, and the Snowdrop and spring 

 Crocuses, push out their flowers and leaves as soon as the snow 

 melts. Hawthorn and Blackthorn, and out common fruit trees, 

 push out their flowers in April and May, before the leaves are 

 developed or perfected. The flowering of Ragwort and St. 

 John's Wort takes place long after the leaves appear, and marks 

 that the summer equinox is past, and the days are beginning to 

 shorten. Colchicum autumuale produces its flowers regularly 

 in August, but its leaves not until the following spring; while 

 Asters and Chrysanthemums flower regularly at Michaelmas ; 

 and Holly and Ivy, and Aucnba, and Cherry-Laurel, are in full 

 leaf all winter ; and Lamium album, Poa annua and Capsella 

 bursa-pastoris, may be seen during any month of the twelve in 

 fiimultaneoua leaf and flower. So that the time of tho year at 

 which different plants are at all sensitive, and especially sensi- 

 tive to temperature, varies extremely. 



" It is evident that, in the first place, plants need very different 

 degrees of temperature to start them into life. The seeds of 

 many of the Microtherms, and even of plants of our middle 

 latitudes, will germinate at a temperature of little over 32°. Of 

 cool-temperate species, for which the experiment has been care- 

 fully tried, Sinapis alba has been found to germinate at 32' ; 



Lepidium sativum and Linum usitatissimum at 35' to 30"; 

 Nigella sativa, Iberis amara, Trifolium repens, [and CoUomia 

 coccinea at 11° to 12"; and Wheat, Barleys, and Oats at 44" to 

 45°. Witb heat added over and above these degrees theitima 

 from the sowing of the seed to its germination is found to be 

 materially shortened. Sinapis alba, which took seventeen days 

 to germinate at 32°, was found by M. Alphonse De CandoUe to 

 take sixteen days at 35° to 3G°, nine days at 37° to 38°, four days 

 at 42', three and a half days at 48°, one and three-quarter days 

 at 51° to 52°. Passing to Mesotherm types, the temperature 

 needed for germination becomes gradually higher. For Maize 

 it is stated to be 43°, and for the Macrotherms at least 50° to 60°, 

 but it may take place at a much higher temperature. Sesamum 

 orientale has been found to germinate in nine days at 51° to 52°, 

 in three days at 62° to 63°, in thirty to thirty-six hours at 68? to 

 60", in twenty-one to twenty-two hours at 75° to 70°, in twenty- 

 five hours at 82°, and some even in ten and a half hours at a 

 heat of 104S to 105°. 



" The start once made, it is evident that plants need a certain 

 amount of heat to enable them to flower and fruit, but that, with 

 some species at any rate, it is immaterial, within surprisingly 

 wide limits, whether the heat come gradually or rapidly; and 

 that if the latter, the times of flowering and seeding are 

 accelerated. Nothing shows us better how flexible in this 

 respect a plant may be than the familiar facts about the sowing 

 and harvesting of the common cereal grains. In the north of 

 India Wheat is a common winter crop, to be followed in summer 

 by Maize or Indigo, and is sown, and the harvest gathered, 

 within three months. In Palestine the Barley ripens at the 

 end of March, and the Wheat by the end of April, November 

 feeing the month of ploughing and sowing. In Malta and Sicily 

 they sow at the end of November, and harvest through May. 

 lu the countries round the north side of the Mediterranean 

 basin they sow early in November, and harvest in June. In 

 Central Europe they sow in October, and harvest in July. On 

 the Yorkshire wolds and in the Alpine valleys of Switzerland 

 they have to sow in September, and cannot harvest till the 

 following August ; so that the time that elapses between sowing 

 and ripening may be said to vary between the different parts of 

 the tract in which the common cereal grains are cultivated for 

 the use of man, on a grand scale, from 'JO to 320 days. If too 

 much heat be apphed the embryo refuses to germinate; or if 

 it has germinated already, the leaves, or flowers, or fruit, 

 according to the stage which the plant has reached when the 

 hurtful heat is applied to it, are not developed. 



" Then, again, it is equally evident that a gradual or sudden 

 access of cold below a certain point— a point which varies with 

 different species — coming when the plant is in a state of vegeta- 

 tive activity, injures or kills it. It may be simply a cold north- 

 east wind in spring, blighting the blossoms of the Apricots, and 

 Apples, and Pears, and whilst destroying the seed for the year, 

 doing no permanent harm to the tree ; or it may be a mild frost 

 at the beginning of winter, cutting off entirely our garden 

 Dahlias, Pelargoniums, and Mesembryanthemums ; or a hard 

 frost in the middle of winter, killing the Eucalypti, Araucarias, 

 Hollies, and Aucubas. 



" It follows from these familiar facts that some plants are 

 checked from spreading from warmer latitudes towards the 

 poles by the want of plenty of heat in summer to carry them 

 from the seed stage, round the circle of life, to the seed stage 

 again ; and that others, for which the heat of summer is suffi- 

 cient, are cut off by sudden fits of cold that catch them at a 

 time of vegetative activity. It is of no use, it seems to me, 

 attempting to treat this last matter in close detail as a question 

 of figures and thermometric degrees, because the different 

 habits of growth of plants, and the different degrees of the 

 wateriness of their sap, dependant upon the hygrometrio condi- 

 tions of the surrounQing atmosphere and soil, influence it 

 greatly, and their vegetative action passes through so many 

 intermediate stages between the fulness of life in spring and 

 their nearest approach to a dormant condition. But we may 

 safely distinguish broadly between the two great classes of 

 plants which I have indicated, and which I will call the Heat- 

 lovers (Philotherms) and Cold-fearers (Frigoftiges.) Annuals 

 are usually heat-lovers ; trees and bushes, especially ever- 

 greens, are usually cold-fearers ; and it follows, from what has 

 been explained already about the characters of the two kinds 

 of climate, that the cold-fearers can work up further from the 

 equator in insular, and the heat-lovers in continental, cUmates." 



This is a work which we can commend to the study of all 

 gardeners, whether amateur or professional, as being a clear 

 exposition of laws which materially affect the cultivation of 

 plants. 



Handy Book of Ornamental Conifers and of Rhododendrons 

 and other American Flowering Shrubs. By Hugh Fbaseb. 

 London : Blackwood & Sons. 

 The work before us is a useful one to lovers of Conifer89 



and of what are called "American plants" — two families of 



