Queries and Ans'-jccrs. Obituary. \ 1 1 



Art. VII. Queries and Anstvers. 



A Manure which any Farmer or Collager can make in any Quantity on his 

 own Premises, and even in the very Field ivherc he may require to use it. — 

 Such a manure is said to have been invented by Mr. George Kiniberley, an 

 experienced and scientific agriculturist, who occupies a farm of 500 acres at 

 Trotsworth, near Egham ; and it is said that it will be made public through 

 the Central Agricultural Society. (See a letter signed Agricolain the Morning 

 Chronicle, Jan. 2. 1838.) Can you, or any of your correspondents, inform me 

 whether there is any truth in this supposed discovery ,• or whether, like many 

 others of the present day, it does not savour of quackery ? — John Roe. 

 London, Jan. 3. 1838. 



[Before receiving our correspondent's query, we had written to Mr, Kim- 

 berley, who politely sent us an immediate answer, consisting of a letter in 

 which he states that the account given of the manure in the public papers 

 (and especially in Bell's Weekly Alessenger of December 25. 1837) is correct. 

 He also sent us a printed paper, dated from the Central Agricultural Society, 

 in which it is stated that " Mr. Kimberley's method of improvement is en- 

 tirely owing to the discovery of a combination from the vegetable and mineral 

 kingdoms, which, in a liquid state, contains the essential food and properties 

 of all plants, and may be so varied as to suit all soils. This hquid speedily 

 decomposes all vegetable matter : but the best and cheapest mode of using it 

 is to mix it with mould. This mould, when mixed with the liquid, in the 

 course of a few days is changed to the richest vegetable food for plants, and 

 may be made by the farmer or cottager to any extent, and even on the very 

 field where it is required." This certainly aj)pears a most extraordinary and 

 valuable discovery ; and one would almost be inclined to doubt it, had we not 

 Joyce's stove (p. 57.) fresh in our recollection. — Cond.] 



Effects of the Frost on certain Species of 'Erica. — Happening to be lately in 

 Kew Gardens, I was much struck with the effects of the severe frost on dif- 

 ferent species of heath in the open garden. The species, I think, were F. 

 stricta, E. niediterranea, E. australis, E. multiflora, and j^erhaps some others. 

 In these the branches, both large and small, were bruised and spUt from nearly 

 the points of the shoots down to the very surface of the ground, as if they 

 had been laid on a board and beaten with hammers. They reminded me of 

 the appearance of beaten flax. The bark was in some cases separated from 

 the wood, but not generally. I have since seen the same appearances in some 

 gardens near London ; but never on any other shrub but heaths. I have 

 looked for it in other Fvichceas, and in i?hodoraceae, but without success. 

 Now, what I am anxious to know is, how the splitting is be accounted for in 

 a kind of wood apparently containing very little moisture. I hope some of 

 your numerous readers may have attended fea the same phenomenon, and that 

 some of your correspondents who are better acquainted with vegetable phy- 

 siology than I am, will be good enough to accovmt for it in the Magazine. I 

 have heard of the sugar maple tree splitting in America from severe frost ; 

 but I have always fancied that that was owing to the expansion of the sac- 

 charine juice, when turned into ice. — I should like to know what Mr. Main 

 has to say on this subject. — /. B. A. London, Jan. 25. 1838. 



Art. VIII. Ohituarij. 



Died, at Stapleford, Herts, on the 28th of December, Mr. William Griffin, 

 in the 85th year of his age. He was for twenty-two years gardener to the late 

 Samuel Smith, Esq., of Woodhall, in this county; and author of a Treatise on 

 the Culture of the Pine-AiJple ; also, a paper "On the Management of Grapes in 

 Vineries," published in the Horticultural Transactions, vol. i. p. 98. The de- 

 ceased was a native of Leicestershire, in which county he commenced his 

 business; and, after fiUing various situations in that and the neighbourine 



