302 Sotvitig Seeds m S?iow. 



may be compared to branched candlesticks. The orangery is 

 an immense vaulted apartment under the terrace, in the manner 

 of that at Versailles; and, like it, it preserves the orange, trees 

 through the winter without the aid of artificial heat. In front of 

 the orangery is the forcing-ground, in which ananas are grown, 

 as far as we were able to judge, as large as in England, more 

 economically, and as rapidly. In summer they are grown on 

 dung beds, in the open garden, in the rudest description of un- 

 painted boarded frames, as at Versailles. The gardener, M. 

 Gabriel, has raised an immense number of seedling ananas from 

 seeds, chiefly of the Enville, ripened here ; some with leaves per- 

 fectly smooth and dark green, others very prickly, some broad, 

 others narrow, &c. ; in short, if he chooses, he may pick out 

 twenty or thirty very distinct varieties. An account of M. Ga- 

 briel's mode of cultivating the anana was given, in 1836, in the 

 Annales d' Horticulture de Paris^ vol. xix. p. 297., by M. Poiteau, 

 which we have akeady noticed. There is a pit here, as at Ver- 

 sailles, entirely devoted to the culture of dwarf musas; and of 

 these M. Gabriel possesses a plant the leaves of which are 

 blotched, he says, permanently, with a rich velvety dark brown. 

 This appearance is common in plants which are quite young, but 

 it disappears when they grow 3 or 4 feet high ; in M. Gabriel's 

 plant, however, it remains. 



(Tb be continued.^ 



Art. II. On Solving Seeds in Snow. By M. Lucas. 

 (From the Garten Zeifitng for April 17. 1841.) 



Fou five years past 1 have been very successful in sowing seeds 

 in snow that are considered difficult to germinate ; such as the 

 following alpine plants : Genticifia, 7?anunculus, Anemone, &c., 

 and in this manner I raised several hundred young gentianas 

 in Messrs. Hague's establishment at Erfurt. In our gardens 

 in the North of Germany, it is a well known practice to sow the 

 Auricula in snow, and this spring the idea struck me of making 

 the same trial with exotic seeds, which are generally more dif- 

 ficult to germinate ; 1 therefore sowed a few of the seeds of 

 New Holland plants, principally of the Papilionaceous and 

 Mimosa kinds, also ^rica, iJhodoraceae, Cacti, Cucurbitaceoe, 

 &c. &c., all of the most distinct families. I filled the pots with 

 earth the most suitable to each kind of plant ; I then put a layer 

 of snow, then the seed, and covered it with another layer of 

 snow. I set them in a box covered with glass, and placed it in 

 one of the houses at a temperature of from 12° to 15° Reaumur 

 (59° to 60° Fahr.), in which the snow melted. I was not deceived 

 in my expectations ; some acacias, such as A. subcasriilea and A. 

 Cunnin<Thamz, and several mammillarias, such as M. uncinata, 



