30 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



A New Grape Malady. — A new malady has proved very fatal to vines, 

 during the past season, in the northern counties of England. A correspon- 

 dent of the Gardeners^ Chronicle mentions a singular -case of this disease, 

 arising evidently from a minute parasite. It made its appearance last year 

 for the first time on a peculiarly healthy vine, noted for its excellent fruit, 

 which it seems likely to destroy. The first indication of disease is a little 

 brown speck : this increases gradually, forming an orbicular spot of sienna 

 brown, and preserving a definite outline. The surface of the spots, some- 

 times from the extension of one patch but more frequently from the conflu- 

 ence of more than one, is rough, with little raised, orbicular reddish bodies, 

 arranged in concentric circles, and easily separated from the matrix. The 

 writer classes this little parasite under the genus Sepioria, and remarks that 

 he can as yet suggest no remedy, and is doubtful whether it will admit of 

 one. We have not yet heard of this disease in America. 



Pampas Grass. — A species of grass known by this name is, at the pres- 

 ent time, attracting considerable attention in Europe. Although a true 

 grass, it is likely to form one of the most useful of garden ornaments. In 

 stature it is said to rival the bamboo, growing, in its native plains, nearly 

 twenty feet in height. The leaves are hard, wiry, very rough at the edge, 

 not half an inch broad at its widest part, and of a dull grey green color. 

 The flowers appear in panicles, averaging two feet in length, resembling those 

 of the common reed, but of a silvery whiteness, being covered with long 

 colorless hairs, and consisting of colorless membranous glumes. It is es- 

 tablished beyond doubt that it will bear any degree of cold ever experi- 

 enced in the neighborhood of London, without injury. "Let the reader 

 says the Gardeners' Chronicle) conceive of one individual of a reedy grass 

 of such magnitude, whose grey hard warm leaves cuiTe most gracefully 

 from the centre to the circumference, forming a thin, but huge tuft: add to 

 this many slender flower-stems, darting into the air, and gracefully poising 

 on their summits a white airy mass of light scales, whose polished surface 

 can only be rivalled by the delicate work of the silverapiith : place this a 

 little above the eye in rocky ground, let it be well backllp up by some dark 

 foliage, and a fiiint idea may be formed of the general appearance of the 

 Pampas Grass." The botanical name of this grass is Gynerium argenteum, 

 and was originally brought from the vicinity of Rio Janeiro. 



Ill0ntljlj| (Scssip. 



Changes of the Weather as Indicated bt the Barometer. — The 



ensuing remarks are carefully abridged from a work \vritten for the use of 

 navigators, and have reference to the latitude of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 We have condensed them in a few words, believing that they might be in- 

 teresting and useful to landsmen as well as to mariners. The barometer 

 has a range from 29 to 30-5 inches in tlie latitude of the Gulf, and its 



