ITEMS OF INTEREST 



Bamboo Blinds. These are usually made of split bamboos, bound 

 together by kemoetic twine, and are exceedingly light as well as 

 strong, and may be easily rolled up. The bamboo blinds, which 

 are imported from Java, and made by coolies, are not very expensive. 

 In Holland they are superseding the olden wooden blinds. The best 

 means of shading plant houses and of giving temporary protection 

 from early frosts to outdoor crops are subjects upon which the last 

 word has by no means been spoken, and it is right that attention 

 should be drawn to these bamboo blinds. 



Blue Hydrangeas. It is well known that this noble shrub has 

 the peculiarity of changing its normal pink colouring, under certain 

 conditions of soil and situation, to a blue of varying quality and 

 intensity. The strange thing is that the blue colouring is not a matter 

 of soil alone. We have ourselves grown plants from cuttings from 

 bushes whose flowers were of a strong blue. In the hope of retaining 

 the blue colour we even had some of the actual soil in which they came 

 so blue sent to fill two tubs. This was from a place in Sussex, about 

 10 miles from the sea; the soil, a stiff loam, almost clay, containing a 

 good deal of iron; the place to which they were removed being 

 45 miles from the sea, nearly half-way between London and Ports- 

 mouth, but here the Hydrangeas flowered pink, without a trace of 

 blue. The commonly accepted recipes for inducing the blue colour 

 iron filings and alum we have also tried, the result being a change of 

 colour certainly, but only to a muddled mixture of bad pink and greyish 

 purple. This was tried on two tub plants, one of them being one 

 of the Sussex plants in the Sussex soil. The soil of the other tub was 

 a mixture of about two parts peat and one part loam, with some old 

 hot-bed manure. These plants recovered after a year or two and became 

 clear pink again. The muddled between-colours, such as anyone can 

 get by the recipes, are of no use whatever ; the good clear pink is lost, 

 and nothing but ugliness is gained. The blue must be a good blue, or 

 we would have none of it. 



Botanising Injudicious. Botany is outside the scope of this 

 book, but it is well never to miss an opportunity of deploring in- 

 judicious collecting of rare wild flowers. The true botanist is never 

 to be feared, but what indeed to be dreaded is the host of eager young 

 collectors, abounding in zeal but wanting in discretion and discrimi- 

 nation, that descend upon our precious wastes and woodlands like a 

 swarm of hungry locusts, devouring and destroying by tearing up 



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