a 
44—1846.] 
THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. 
727 
Yeason sow seeds in autumn in a bed of animal manure. 
The birds swallow and deposit them in this manner. 
But is it natural to set a tuber in the same way ? 
Nature does not proceed thus. Mr. Grey, of Dilston, 
indeed, recommends the manure to be placed below the 
sets, but has he, by careful experiment, tested this 
method with the mode of.manuring the whole ground 
equally ; The Potato contains, and therefore requires, 
little nitrogen, I believe the least of any European erop 
cultivated, either for seed, root, or the plant itself. Let 
the manure, then, be used unsparingly for a previous 
crop of Beans, or anything to which strong manure 
may be advantageously applied, and the next year let 
Potatoes be planted without additional manure. It is 
us that careful gardeners have always obtained palat- 
able Potatoes, and if is thus that, if we have the dis- 
ease again next August, we shall probably, with the 
indispensable addition of early planting, obtain a com- 
paratively sound produce.— Sigma. 
Foreign Correspondence. 
Moscow, August 20, 1846.—The number of things 
which necessarily divided our attention during a fort- 
night’s stay in St Petersburgh, and the rapidity with 
which one gets over the 500 miles between that capital 
and this one, have not admitted of much investigation 
into the agriculture of the country ; but from all I have 
been able to see or learn, there is, undoubtedly, very 
much to be done for its improvement ; great difficulties 
in the way of doing anything, but yet considerable 
efforts making on the part of the government, and of a 
few individuals, The cold, marshy, unproductive flats 
of the of St. P. burgh, are well: known ; 
and looking at the low stunted bushes, or miserable 
starved stag-headed trees of which many of the so-called 
forests are composed, the poor brown swamps whieh 
Serve as pasture, and the open bleak fields of arable, 
either lying fallow, or bearing short thin crops of Rye ; 
the soil and climate may be easily set down as bope- 
lessly unproductive. It must also be taken into con: 
sideration, that all agricultural operations must 
crowded into a short season of little more than four 
months, when the inhabitants of the country must 
either raise or earn food for the whole year, or find 
work for the remaining seven or eight months out of 
the fields, and that the uncertainty of seasons is so great 
that the same extent of cultivation, which in some years 
will not suffice to keep whole villages from starving, 
will in other years produce so great a superabundance 
that they cannot find a market for it. Yet, that all 
these difficulties may be overcome, and that the neigh- 
bourhood of St. Petersburgh may be made really pro- 
ductive, is proved by the success of a company of 
Quakers, to whom the Emperor Alexander conceded 
privileges of draining and improving some tracts of 
land, where, I am told, very fine crops of grain are 
produced, and whose hay (a most important article here, 
varying in price from about3/. toabout 10/. a ton,) always 
etches a much higher prie» than any other, and often 
nearly double. Usually, when a tract of land being 
found naturally to be a little drier, or a little less poor 
than the rest is brought into cultivation, no attention 
is paid either to draining it or to providing any sereen 
against the violent and bitter winds which cut every- 
thing up. In a wide unbroken plain you generally see 
one portion, often nearly a half lying fallow, whilst the 
rest is covered with contiguous patches of Rye or Oats, 
with here and there a very little Barley. But little 
manure can be spared for the fields. The plough is 
that simple instrument made after the old Roman pat- 
tern, so much in use in the south of Europe, which 
merely scratches the surface, and the whole culture is 
such that one is surprised to see the produce even so 
good as it is. The Government has, however, esta- 
blished schools of agriculture where peasants are ght 
the most essential principles and practice. Agricultural 
Societies, exhibitions, collectious of model instruments, 
&e., are formed or-encouraged so as to give a taste for 
it amongst proprietors, and here and there we see an 
estate apparently well drained, with a few hedge-rows 
to break the winds, aud rather less sameness in the 
cropping, where the standing erops look very much 
finer than elsewhere, yet the good example is very 
slowly followed, and if, as I am told, the country about 
Petersburgh is undergoing a very great agricultural 
change, it must be a long time yet before it is very per- 
ceptible. K 
Shortly after leavipg St. Peteysburgh the patches of 
arable land become very few and poor ; they assume a 
better aspect and greater extent as we approach the 
old fallen tower of Novgorod, after which they again 
give place to vast plains thinly covered with 
brushwood (chiefly stunted Birches) or poor forests 
of Pine, Fir, and Birches, Among the Valdoi hills 
there is, again, a good deal of cultivation, and many of 
the valleys, if they may be dignified with that name, 
look as if they might easily be made productive. 
About Vishni Volotchok, a prosperous looking town on 
the great canal, connecting the Caspian with the Baltic, 
I saw really fine looking crops of Rye, and much land 
under the plough ; though the villages between Valdoi 
and that place are the most ruinous on the whole road. 
The forests begin, also, to show a more vigorous growth. 
From Tver to Moscow, we still continue to see much 
arable land; and better forests; but the country, as we 
approach Moscow, is at present so much burnt up- b; 
the long continued heat and drought—that everything 
assumes the hue of the clouds of dust which rise in 
every direction from the sandy roads or fields. The 
a 
© 
grain crops this year suffered very much from the long- | 
continued cold, wet weather, which lasted far beyond 
the middle of our June, much of the autumn sown Rye 
rotted, and the spring corn came up very badly ; after- 
wards came on the very hot weather, which brought the 
weak plants and small ears rapidly to maturity ; and 
the Rye harvest, which is now considerably advanced 
on the greater part of the road, especially near Moscow, 
is in many places light. However, this is partly made 
up by the beautiful weather, which enables them to 
secure well what they have got, and is fast ripening the 
Oats, which not long ago they feared would be sur- 
prised by the frost before the grain was formed. It is 
now generally considered that the Rye and Oat erops of 
the north will be a fairaverage. In the government of 
Pskoff, they have had two or three very bad years ; 
the peasants have been in many places almost 
starved out, and it was feared that the same would 
happen again this year, but later accounts are much 
better, and it is said, that the accounts from the exten- 
sive grain countries in Litile Russia are very satisfactory. 
Barley appears to be very little grown between 
Petersburgh and Moscow, and I have not yet seen a 
Wheat field in Russia, scarcely any artificial Grasses, 
and no Buekwheat as yet, though that is so important 
an article of food among the Russian peasantry. Of 
Flax I have seen a good deal, especially after we passed 
the Valdoi hills, and as we approached Moscow. Near 
the towns and villages, where manure is more easily 
procured, particularly in rather richer soils near rivers, 
&c., an immense quantity of Cabbages are cultivated. 
This vegetable, Buckwheat, Rye, and the small Cucum- 
bers, are the principal food of the peasantry. The Cab- 
bages are either eaten fresh, as long as the climate will 
allow them to remain in the ground, or they can be 
preserved by hanging up; or more generally they are 
eut up and salted, and made into the kind of soup uni- 
versally known under the name of sAéshi (a word 
written in Russ with two letters only, one of which has 
no equivalent in western languages). The Buckwheat 
is made into a kind of pudding called greshni cashia, 
first boiled*and then baked over in an earthen pot with 
(when they can get it) some butter or oil stirred in 
when hot ; the Rye made into bread as black as one’s 
hat ; the Cucumbers preserved in salt (making a most 
excellent accompaniment to roast meat at any table). 
The cultivation of Potatoes is also getting more general 
amongst the peasantry, being very much encouraged by 
the Government. In this climate it is of the greater 
importance, as the summer vegetation is so rapid that 
there is still time to plant Potatoes when it is aseer- 
tained that the autumn sown corn has been killed by a 
prolonged winter. The Potato grounds this year look 
well, and the d sease is as yet unknown ; the Cabbages, 
especially about Moscow, have suffered a good deal from 
the drought. 
The peasantry along the line of road we are come 
are a much finer race of men than I had been led to 
expect. Their hairy faces and their dress give them, it 
is true, a wild look, heightened in general by small but 
fiery eyes, and if you see them on theevening of a holiday, 
sereaming and disputing under the influence of drink, 
or on a summer's night wrapped in their shoubs, sleep- 
ing in heaps outside their doors, their humanity does 
not look very exalted ; but observe them well, and you 
will generally find tail, strong, well-proportioned men, 
their persons by no means so dirty as their dress, and 
especially in almost every case remarkably fine, regular 
sets of teeth. This is said to be owing partly to their 
living almost entirely on vegetable food, partly to the 
little prevalence of the habit of smoking, which destroys 
the teeth of all ranks in Sweden and Germany. Away 
from the great roads or large rivers the peasantry are 
said to be of a very inferior race, and in many places 
to suffer much from poverty, and some winters from 
actual starvation, In the vicinity of the towns and 
along the rivers, having any outlet into or communica- 
tion with the Neva, they find winter occupation in cut- 
ting up-wood for the Petersburgh market; when that 
resource fails them, they have scarcely any means of 
earning money during that long and dreary season. 
The forests of the country are beginning to excite 
attention on the part of the Government. The price of 
fuel in Petersburgh and other large towns has been so 
low, the quantity required so enormous, and the supply 
from the forests i d as so inexhaustible, th 
the object has been the cutting them down in such a 
manner as to furnish the greatest quantity of wood for 
burning at the least cost. ‘The consequence has been 
a wanton destruction of the best forests,which are again 
cut down before they attain maturity. Now the price 
of fuel in St, Petersburgh is rising every year, and still 
more so in Moscow ; the timber or Pine logs with which 
the wooden houses are constructed is also acquiring 
more value, and if the present endeavours to regulate 
the cutting the forests are not well followed up, shelter 
from therigour of the elimate will soon become another 
of the necessaries of life, which the peasant may not 
always have:the means of procuring, and it will be long 
before any railroads will render the coal-miues of the 
south of Russia available for the inhabitants of the north, 
Iebicws, 
To the Rose Lis's previously noticed (p. 679) we have 
now to add those of Mr. Francis, of Hertford, and 
Messrs. Lane and Son, of Great Berkhampstead, They 
may each be advantageously consulted by the Rose 
buyer, and will bear comparison with any of their con- 
temporaries. 
E 
Part 1, is chiefly occupied by valuable critical remarks 
upon the species of the Scandinavian Flora ; the author 
promises hereafter an explanation of the morphological 
system of botany, and some general observations on the 
vegetation of the neighbouring countries. 
Ruprecht’s Flores Samoiedorum cisuralensium is a 
most interesting account of the vegetation of the little- 
visited country, inhabited by the Cisural Samoiedes, a 
people hardly known as Europeans. The author boldly 
and successfully examined all that dreary inhospitable 
region, and has determined its physical relation to 
Lapland on the one hand and Siberia on the other. 
The paper, which forms the second part of the Beitrige 
ur PA kunde des Russisch eichs is a very im- 
portant contribution to botanical geography. The only 
Coniferous trees to be found are the common Juniper, 
the Scotch Pine, the blunt-sealed Silver (Picea obovata), 
and the Siberian Larch. Ruprecht mentions a new 
Alder (Alnus fruticosa), a new creeping Willow (Salix 
reptans), and several herbaceous plants previously un- 
described. Oaks are not mentioned. The only Rose is 
R. acicularis. Raspberries with fruit not worth eating 
were seen near the town of Mesen, but no brambles, 
which are replaced by the Rubi saxatilis, arcticus, and 
chamemorus. Nevertheless pretty flowers are not 
wanting, for Mr. Ruprecht speaks of various Crowfoots, 
the White Alpine Atragene, Trollius, the fine tall Bee 
Larkspur (D. elatum), the yellow Aconite, and even a 
Peeony-(P. intermedia), to say nothing of Violets, Par- 
nassias, a Geranium, several Vetch-like plants, Poten- 
tils, the Mountain Ash, Bird Cherries, Saxifrages, &c. 
We have also before us second editions of Neumann’s 
art de construire et de gouverner les serres, noticed at 
p. 297, 1844 ; and the same author's Notions sur l'art de 
Jaire les boutures, formerly trarslated in these columns, 
We shall probably draw attention hereafter to some 
points in the former of these two works. 
Dr. Wight's Spicilegium Neilgherrense, Vcl. I., is a 
4to of 85 pages of popular and scientific descriptions of 
the more remarkable plants found on the range of the 
Neilgherry Mountains, illustrated with 102 coloured 
plates. It is like all the author's works, full of useful 
information and critical views, which no botanist can 
dispense with studying. Among other points new to us 
is a reference to an opinion entertained by the late 
Mr. Griffith that the flowers of stellate plants consist.in 
reality of nothing but a calyx limb. We fear that this 
speculation ean hardly be entertained, unless some 
means can be found of explaining away the so-called 
calyx of Sherardia. Among the finest things figured 
by Dr. Wight is the Neilgherry Loranth, a parasitieal 
plant with brilliant scarlet flowers. Is it not possible 
to import this charming species with the plant on which 
it grows? It would be a great acquisition, and might 
certainly be preserved if once obtained alive. Some of 
the Sunerilas, too, are nice ‘herbaceous plants, and 
might be obtained with less diffieulty. A few packets of 
seeds in a letter, by the overland mail, would secure 
them. a 
A new Botanical Periodical, in 8vo, has made its ap- 
pearance in Dutch, under the name of Nederlandseh 
Kruidkundig Archief, edited by De Vriese, Dozy, and 
Molkenboer. The first part, which is before us, con- 
tains some observations on the Flora of Sumatra, by 
De Vriese ; the South Coast of Borneo, by Korthals ; 
and some papers on the Flora of the Netherlands. 
N 
Miscellaneous. 
Cause of Potato Rot.—It appears that the mischief 
rests between the air and the leaves. When first 
attacked they have the appearance of being seared, as 
if the air was too corrosive for them; and the conse- 
quence is they cannot perform their function properly. 
The juices are therefore not matured, but deposited in 
the tuber in an impure state—the same state, or nearly 
so, as when taken from the earth. It is as if the blood 
of a man was conveyed to the various organs of his bod; 
without passing through the lungs—for the leaves are 
to a plant what the lungs are to a man; imperfect 
nutrition would follow, and the man die and putrify 
very soon. Does any correspondent know of Potato 
erops grown with guano, affected as much as those 
grown with farm-yard manure? A gentleman last 
year had a erop of Potatoes grown with guano, and with 
the exception of a few stitches, all were sound, To a 
solution of a diseased Potato which had a very offensive 
odour, a small quantity of carbonate of ammonia was 
added. The odour disappeared, and the ordinary 
smell of the Potato was substituted. Is it that on 
account of the seared state of the leaf sufficient nitrogen 
is not absorbed? And is it that the nauseous Potato 
liquor, to which the ammonia was added, received 
nitrogen from the ammonia, and so having received the 
required element, was restored to its proper condition 
and odour? And is it that the Potato crop grown with 
guano, received the sufficient amount of nitrogen by the 
root, and so compensated for not receiving it through its 
ordinary channel—the leaves. These cases bear upon 
the same point; and though they should not afford a 
solution of the matter, nevertheless may afford points 
to start from.— A Correspondent of the Whitehaven 
Herald—abridged. 
A Species of American Aloe in Flower.—There is 
now in flower in the Botanical Garden of this Uni- 
versity, a fine specimen of Furerca cubensis or Cuba 
Aloe, raised from ‘seed sent to the garden about 14 
years ago, sinee which time it has been constantly kept 
in the stove. The first indication it gave of flower: 
ing was early inthe month of August of the present 
Elie: Fries Summa: Vegetabilium Seandinavie.— year, and since that time the stem has made so rapid a 
