MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 183 



On Vinca ai.ba. — Can you or any of your readers inform me the best way to 

 keep the Vinca alba in a healthy state ? I have a very fine specimen of it, but it 

 is always losing its leaves though in full bloom, and I give it the same treatment 

 as other stove plants. I have thought it might proceed from keeping the house 

 too moist. Perhaps you or some reader might be able to enlighten me on the 

 subject ; if so, you will very much oblige 



Kensington, July \<dth, 1840. A Subscribe*. 



P. S. Will you give me the name of the plant I enclose a specimen of? — 

 [The. specimen of a plant sent us is an Hypericum, but it being so bruised and 

 no particulars given relative t'i it in any way, we could not ascertain its specific 

 character. — Conductor.] 



REMARKS. 



On Tobacco-wateh. — In this month's Cabinet you gave as a recipe tobacco 

 water for the destruction of green fly on plants. Agreeably to the directions 

 there given, I procured some in London and diluted it with an equal quantity of 

 water. I submitted half a dozen of plants to the operation, immersing the plant 

 entirely in the fluid fur some minutes ; this I found had but little effect upon the 

 insects, as, at the expiration of half an hour, they appeared as lively as ever. 

 Determined, however, not to be baffled, and as you state that the liquid used in 

 its pure and undiluted state would have no injurious effect upon plants, I put 

 them into it as I received it from the manufacturers ; bot alas! it not only killed 

 the insects, but my plants that I much prized. The liquid was procured from a 

 Dutch manufacturer of tobacco opposite the Custom House. 



Chatham, May 22d, 1840. A Subscriber. 



[We have purchased hundreds of gallons of the liquid of the tobacconists in 

 Yorkshire, and frequently used it in its pure state, immersing plants in it, and it 

 never injured one in the slightest degree. — Conductor.] 



On Kyanized Woon. — Observing many inquiries by your correspondents in 

 the Cabinet relative to the use of Kyanized timber in stoves and greenhouses 

 and also several answers which are wide of the mark, I beg to give you an 

 explanation of the combination which takes place by steeping timber in a solu- 

 tion of oxymuriate of mercury, (corrosive sublimate.) The chlorine of the 

 sublimate unites with the albumen of the wood, foiming a new insoluble sub- 

 stance in the pores of the wood, thereby destroying the component in which 

 decay commences. Mercury is deposited by the decomposition of the sublimate 

 and is easily extracted in a metallic state. It can in no way be injurious to 

 plants, as. if given out at all by the action of heat, it would be in the form of 

 vapour rising rapidly above the atmosphere of the house, and the whole of the 

 mercury (if any) would speedily be evaporated. I have had some years' expe- 

 rience in Kyanizing, and have a stove, the timber of which is so prepared; my 

 plants have always been particularly healthy. 



Hervey House, May '24Jh, 1840. V. B. W. 



FLORICULTURAL CALENDAR FOR AUGUST. 



Pelargoniums. — Those plants that have done blooming should now be cut 

 down, this will induce them to push fresh shoots immediately; when the shoots 

 have pushed two inches long, the old plants should be repotted, shaking off'the 

 old soil and replacing with new. This attention to have a supply of strong 

 young shouts before winter, furnishes the vigorous blooming wood for the ensuing 

 S|irmg,and the plants are kept dwarf and bushy. When the young shoots push 

 after being headed down, there are generally many more than necessary to be 

 retained. 



They should be thinned out when an inch long: the tops now cut off may be 

 inserted in sandy loum, and struck if required. 



