388 Foreign J^otices. 



twisted together, and the points again buried in the soil; no more water 

 is given than but barely keeps the plants alive. The bark of the stem 

 and branches is torn and mangled in all manner of ways; sometimes a 

 branch is slipped from the stem, but not entirely off, so as to hang down- 

 ward, and kept in that position by wire. By wires, also, the tortuous 

 direction of the shoots are given; and being repeatedly stopped, and the 

 half of every leaf cut off, tends materially to check all vegetative inhe- 

 rent vigor, and in time produces a vegetable cripple. When the native 

 vigor is thus subdued, the plant becomes subject to moss, lichens, and 

 every weather-stain so desirable on such an object, to give the idea of 

 hoar antiquity to a plant only of ten or a dozen years' growth. Such 

 dwarfed trees are considered valuable; and some of the merchants imag- 

 ine that they cannot make a more acceptable present to a European 

 friend, than one of those dwarfed trees! — (^Paxton's Hort. Reg.) 



Chinese Love of Flowers. — So much is the love of flowers predomi- 

 nant in China, that almost every window-sill and every bit of a coui't in 

 front or yard behind the houses of the shopkeepers and tradesmen are; 

 filled with plants, either in the ground, or in pots of different shapes, 

 sizes, and colors. Some of the finest specimens of the Chinese magno- 

 lias we met with in the back courts of some of the merchants' houses; 

 and in such confined places there are what they call complete pleasure 

 gardens to be seen. We will describe only one of these, to serve as a 

 sample of their taste. 



In a back court belonging to Sinchong, the great china-ware manu- 

 facturer, we saw one of these gardens on a very small scale indeed. 

 It occupied one corner of a paved yard, and consisted of a little irregular 

 pool of water, in a nook of which grew a Leinfaa (Nelumbium specio- 

 sum), and in another a fine plant of the Tow-coio (Alpinia mitans). 

 The pool was surrounded by rugged stones, and an arch of the same 

 was carried over, to represent the mouth of a rocky cave. Between, 

 and in the cavities of the stones, plants of the black bamboo wei-e stuck 

 here and there, to hang over the water, and roots of asparagus, which, 

 with their slender and regularly branched stems of different heights, 

 represented groves of trees. Around, and on the shelves of the stones, 

 dwarfed trees, in pots covered with fragments of rock, were placed, and 

 partly covered with moss and lichen and pieces of algae brought from 

 the sea-shore, altogether forming a spectacle- of the most grotesque 

 character. Such things we saw in many other places; and we verily 

 believe that if a Chinese had a field of ten acres to beautify in his own 

 style, it would be covered with the same kind of little fanciful freaks, 

 repeated a thousand times over. — (tb.) 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 

 ENGLAND. 



Horticultural Outrage in the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh. — 

 A letter has lately been received by a gentleman in New York, from 

 Mr McNab, the curator, by which we learn that a large number of plants 

 were destroyed in this garden. The following is an extract from the 

 same, dated June, 1835: — " By some wicked and ill-disposed person, at 

 present unknown, we had our new heath-house broken mto a few nights 



