308 



HORTICULTURE. 



Flower 

 Garden. 



Dleeatef. 



on all sides, those plants which naturally grow in shady 

 woods in their own country being placed on the north 

 side of the house. It may here be mentioned, that a 

 book, in folio, on the Construction of Hot-houses, 

 Green-houses, &c. has been published by Mr George 

 Tod, including plans and elevations of some of the fine 

 stoves for exotics at Kew gardens, which were executed 

 by Mr Tod, under the direction ot" the late distinguish- 

 ed Mr Aiton. 



Many curious and beautiful plants might be mention- 

 ed as deserving a place in the bark stove, but only a 

 very few can here be named. Among the curious may 

 be noticed, the Date-palm tree (P//a?nz.r dactylifeni); the 

 Sago-palm (Cycas revoluta) ; the Cyperus Papyrus of 

 Egypt, which afforded the scrolls of bark on which the 

 ancients wrote with the stylum ; the Coccolobo pubes- 

 cens, remarkable for producing the largest round- shaped 

 leaves in the world ; Hernandia sonora, or the whist- 

 ling tree of the West Indies ; Musa paradisiaca, the 

 plantain tree, and M. sapientum, the banana ; several 

 of the larger species of Acacia, which yield gum arabic 

 with others which, in our Eastern or Western posses- 

 sions, afford well known commodities, such as the sugar. 

 Cane, the coffee-tree, the pimento and the clove-tree, 

 the indigo plants ; and the Ficus elasticus, from which 

 the substance called Indian rubber is procured. 



The Papaw-tree ( Cariea papaya) deserves a place in 

 every large hot-house, on account of its possessing a 

 remarkable property, which has been long known to 

 those who have resided in the West Indies, but which 

 has only of late been particularly described in this 

 country by Dr Holder, that of intenerating butchers- 

 meat or poultry. This singular property is not even 

 hinted at in the last edition of Miller's Dictionary. The 

 juice rubbed on beef or mutton has the effect of ren- 

 dering the meat as tender as veal or lamb, without in- 

 juring its other qualities. Indeed it is affirmed, that 

 if a fowl be hung against the trunk of a papaw-tree, it 

 becomes intenerated in a short space of time, by mere 

 proximity; and that the oldest poultry may thus be 

 rendered as tender as chickens. In stoves in England, 

 the papaw-tree has been known to attain the height of 

 twenty feet in three years, and to produce its flowers 

 and fruit : it is not however a durable plant. 



Among the more showy stove plants, may be men- 

 tioned, the different species of Strelitzia, Limodorum 

 Tankervilli, Plumbago rosea, Canarina campanula, and 

 Lantana odorata. Along the rafters may be trained 

 Passiflora quadrangularis, which in the West Indies af- 

 fords the fruit called Granadilla, but which in this coun- 

 try requires the utmost heat of our stoves to induce it 

 to shew its brilliant and fragrant flowers. P. alata is 

 also highly deserving of a place. 



Diseases of Plants. 



640. In treating of the different kinds of fruit-trees 

 and esculent plants, several of the maladies to which 

 they are subject have already been noticed, as well as 

 the usual means adopted either for prevention or cure. 

 The diseases of plants shall therefore be only very 

 slightly touched in this place. Any extensive discus- 

 sion of the subject, indeed, could not be attempted : 

 Our knowledge of it is yet in its infancy. Some au- 

 thors have no doubt given us lists of diseases of the ve- 

 getable race, drawn up in the formal style of nosolo- 

 gical nomenclature ; but they are in general destitute 

 of the requisite permanence and precision of type and 



character. We shall therefore continue to use the po* 

 pular terms, such as Canker, confessing at the same 

 time that they are sometimes much too indefinite. 



5*1. Canker is by far the most prevalent and the Canker, 

 most fatal disease incident to fruit-trees in this country. 

 It may be described as a sort of gangrene which usu- 

 ally begins at the extremities of the branches, and pro- 

 ceeds towards the trunk, killing the tree in two or three 

 years. It seems, in different situations, to arise from 

 different causes ; very often from bad subsoil, trees 

 planted over a ferruginous and retentive soil being ob- 

 served to be very liable to it. Sometimes it appears 

 to take its origin merely from some external injury, or 

 from injudicious pruning, and leaving ragged wounds 

 and snags. In other cases, it makes its first appear- 

 ance after exudations of gum ; and Mr Spence of Hull 

 has remarked, that the foundation of canker in full 

 grown trees is often laid by the attacks of insects, par- 

 ticularly the larvae of Tortrix Wetberana. It frequent- 

 ly happens that cions for grafting have been taken from 

 infected trees ; and the young trees produced in this 

 way, are, as might be expected, peculiarly obnoxious to 

 the disease. Among apple trees, those which come 

 soonest into a bearing state, such as the nonsuch and 

 Hawthorndean, are observed to be most subject to can- 

 ker. Trees trained as standards or against espalier rails 

 are more liable to it than wall-trees; the more tender 

 and finer sorts of fruits, than those that are halv, 

 the reasons of which seem to be, that the young wood 

 not being thoroughly ripened, is killed in the course of 

 the winter, or the buds and early shoots are incurably 

 injured from the same cause. 



In order to guard against canker, if the subsoil be 

 indifferent, the trees should be planted as much on the 

 surface as possible. (See 78. and 110.) If certain 

 varieties of fruit seem peculiarly liable to the disease 

 in any particular garden, other varieties should be in- 

 troduced by means of grafting. The greatest car 

 should be taken, in pruning, to make the cuts quite 

 clean, and to cover with a plaster any accidental wound. 

 Where the extremities of unripe shoots are nipped by 

 the frost, they should be carefully removed with a 

 sharp knife. Mr Forsyth, as is well known, was re- 

 markably successful inovercoming the ravages of canker, 

 in the Royal Gardens at Kensington, by means of head- 

 ing down the trees, and thus procuring new branches ; 

 an example which may in similar cases be followed. 

 Mr Knight seems to consider canker as principally af- 

 fecting those varieties of fruit-trees which are in an ad- 

 vanced stage of existence, or which have long been pro- 

 pagated by means of grafts or buds : and the observa- 

 tion is probably well founded. Mr Sang of Kirkcaldy 

 (Scottish Ilort. Mem. i. S3Q.) very justly insists on the 

 importance of grafting only on healthy slocks, and men- 

 tions a case which occurred in his own experience, 

 where many stocks became diseased with canker, ap- 

 parently from having been raised in an unpropitioui 

 soil. For further information regarding canker, the 

 reader may be referred to a paper on that subject by 

 Mr James Smith, gardener at Hopeton House, publish- 

 ed in the first volume of Scottish Horticultural Memoirs, 

 p. 221, el seq. 



542. Blight commonly means the effects of cold Blight, 

 winds or of hoar-frosts, on the foliage and blossom of 

 trees. In this country, easterly winds, accompanied 

 with fogs, often produce blight ; the buds are nipped, 

 and the tender vessels burst ; innumerable minute in- 

 sects soon appear, feeding on the extravasated juices, 

 ami these are often erroneously supposed to have been 



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