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1843.) 
THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. 35 
O LANGUAGE TEACHERS.—Wanted,fa Teacher, 
Teachers, of French and German, for two Youag Ladies, 
within 5 miles of Hyde Park-corner, ie who can; teach both 
Languages would be preferred. Address to S., at No. 5, Maiden- 
lane, Covent Garden, stating terms per lesson, twice a week. 
fhe Gardeners’ Chronicte, 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1848. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Tuesday, Jan. 24 Entomological . + . 8 p.mty 
+ 8h P 
als sare 
Wednesday, Jan, 25. . . Medico-Botatiical . | 9 p.at 
Saturday, Jan. 2. . . . Royal Botanic. . 1 39 Pon 
Wednesday, Feb.1 . . «+. Geological + ad pm 
Friday, Feb.3. . . . 6. Botanical 8p, ate 
Tuere are some points in forcing which are per- 
fectly consistent with theory, and undoubtedly advan- 
tageousin practice. There are others which the cus- 
tom of good gardeners sanctions, and which appear to 
lead to advantageous results, but of which theory 
offers a less satisfactory explanation. And there is 
not afew which are at variance with theory, the best 
practice, and common sense. We shall now proceed, 
week by week, to touch gently upon some of these. 
As we are bound to believe that all created things 
have been stationed by the Almighty in those places 
for which their habits render them best suited, the 
first object of a gardener, in_ his artificial processes, 
should be, to imitate as nearly as he can the natural 
conditions to which the plant to be forced is exposed 
in the countries where it thrives the best. If this 
were skilfully attended to, and we knew each circum- 
stance to which a given plant is naturally exposed, we 
have the power of exactly imitating all of them, ex- 
cept light. We can secure any amount of tempera- 
ture—we can apply moisture with the greatest exact- 
hess—and we may compose artificially every sort of 
soil. Thus, heat, food, and moisture, the more essen- 
tial of the conditions of vegetable life, are wholly 
under our control; and light, which is beyond our 
imitation, is naturally furnished in sufficient abun- 
dance to maintain the health of plants, if not to se- 
cure the greatest possible amount of those secretions 
which constitute flavour. 
But although we thus possess so large an amount 
of power, we fear that it is very often most unwisely 
applied ; and henceit is, that, while one’gardener never 
fails with his early Grapes and Strawberries, or with his 
Peaches, and Apricots, or Raspberries, others can 
hardly ensure a crop of the former, regard the latter 
as almost unattainable, and would be ruined outright 
if the condition of holding their places was the pro- 
duction of forced Apples, or Currants, or Gooseberries. 
Among the many causes of failure, the foremost, 
we apprehend, is a mi ry of temperature by 
maintaining forcing-houses as warm at night as by 
day, and an idea that, provided a certain number of 
degrees on the thermometer is not exceeded, any 
temperature below the standard will do. Mr. Knight 
long since pointed out this fatal error: “ Few garden- 
ers,” he says, (Horticultural Papers, p. 218), “ if any, 
have ever believed plants to be at all endued with 
powers of sensation and perception similar to those of 
animals, or to be in any degree susceptible of pleasure 
or pain ; and yet itis very questionable whether there 
has ever been a single gardener, who, in the manage- 
ment of Fruit-trees in a forcing-house, did not in some 
respects err by treating his trees as he would have 
done if he had supposed them to possess such powers. 
Being fully sensible of the comforts of a warm bed in 
a cold night, and of fresh air in a hot day, the gar- 
dener generally treats his plants ashe would wish to 
be treated himself; and, consequently, though the 
aggregate temperature of his house be nearly what it 
Ought to be, its temperature during the night, rela- 
tively to that of the day, is almost always much too 
high. ‘The consequences of this excess of heat during 
the night are, I have reason to believe, in all cases 
ighly injurious to the Fruit-trees of temperate clim- 
ates ; for the temperature of these is, in many in- 
Stances, low during the night. In Jamaica, and other 
Mountainous islands of the West Indies, the air upon 
the Mountains becomes, soon after sunset, chilled and 
Condensed ; and, in consequence of its superior gra- 
Vity, descends and displaces the warm air of the val- 
YS; yet the sugar-canes are so far from being 
injured by this sudden decrease of temperature, that 
© sugars of Jamaica take a higher price in the 
ave than those of the less elevated islands, of which 
© temperature of the day and night is subject to 
much less variation.” 
But it is not merely in the West Indies that this 
fee diminution of temperature at night takes place ; 
Pain ly the case in all climates whence our 
stay a ist have been derived. When we consider how 
sible ee v. is in the lands of the East, it is impos- 
tater is A here should not be a great amount of noc~ 
to Bete the effect of which will necessarily 
Biiccinth ¢ Qe the air to a very considerable extent, 
aan nee the spring ; and when we look at the Te- 
Was bet mperature kept in such places, that which 
crore a matter of inference becomes established 
by direct evidence. Take Malta as an example: in 
the month of January, according to Dr. Davy, the 
thermometer reaches 60° in the day, but falls to 42° 
at night; and even in July, the difference between 
the day and night amounts to 16°. In the Jonian 
Islands, Zante, Corfu, Cephalonia, fine Grape coun- 
tries, the difference is not less considerable. Now we 
hardly dare inquire how many gardeners, when they 
begin forcing" early Grapes, venture to maintainya 
low night temperature. We know that with someit | 
is a maxim to keep the thermometer above 60° at | 
night. But what does nature do where the Vine 
thrives best? In Zante, whence come the Currants, | 
or Corinth Grapes of the shops, the Vine pushes in 
March ; anél it is a common saying there, “ that after 
the 10th March (Old Style), not even a dog without 
a tail should be allowed to enter a Vineyard,” (Davy’s 
Jonian Islands, ii., 845) because of the risk of his 
breaking off the young and tender shoots. Now the 
average temperature of Corfu, at 8 a.s., in the month 
of March, we learn from the same authority, is only 
51°; and of course it must have been some degrees 
lower during the night ; in April it is not more than 
57°; and it does not reach 61° till May, when, since the 
Grapes are ripe in August, the berries must be set. 
There can be no doubt, then, that 48° is quite high 
enough at night for Grapesin the first month of their 
growth, and 54° in the second. a 
The reason why a low temperature at night is 
desirable, seems to be this: If much heat and moisture 
are applied to a plant in vegetation, it must of necessity 
grow in proportion to the amount of those agents; 
now it is in daylight only that plants can digest their 
food and harden their texture ; and the amount of 
digestion, and consequent hardening, will be in pro- 
portion to the intensity of the light they receive. If, 
then, they are compelled to grow in the dark, they are 
filled with undigested sap, and their wood becomes 
watery and soft. Even where they can be excited 
each day by very powerful light, it would seem that 
nature exposes them to no such risks—although one 
might suppose that beneath a southern sun the mis- 
chief caused at night might be repaired during the 
day. How much more, then, in these dull, northern 
regions, where we never behold the sun in all his 
brightness, and for weeks together in the spring only 
as he struggles through clouds, how much more ought 
we to avoid that nightly growth for which our day- 
light can bring no help ! 
We have now before us a letter, dated last October, 
from a Gardener, complaining that his early Grapes 
vould not colour, and that most of them shanked off; 
a circumstance that he thought very surprising, because 
the other half of his house, which was not forced, 
coloured well, and did not shank. ‘To be sure, he 
says, he could never get his house warmer at night 
than 60°, and he fancied that if he could have com- 
manded more heat he might have been more success- 
ful. Now it is perfectly clear that, in this case, it was 
to nothing but his unwise striving after a ternperature 
that his Vines could not bear at night, that he owed 
his failure, and his master the loss of his crop. By 
keeping his Vines growing fast all day and all night, 
there was no elaboration of sap ; nothing was stored up 
for a supply of the materials of colouring or filling 
the berries; but most of the organisable materials in- 
tended for those purposes were consumed in foliage 
and bad or useless wood. Then, when the time came 
for the Grapes to draw upon the stems for nourish- 
ment, there was none for them, and they necessaril 
withered, or, as they say, shanked off; and still later, 
when the few that escaped from this starvation 
required colouring matter, that too was absent, and 
entire failure was the result. 
We would, at ‘this season of the year, recommend 
Gardeners to consider these things well, and in 
addition to study carefully the chapter on tempera- 
ture in the Theory of Horticulture ; more especially 
the following paragraph :— 
“The effect of cold is, as has been seen, to diminish 
excitability ; of heat, to stimulate it: but, if the latter 
stimulus were constantly equal, it may be conceived 
that the excitability would soon become impaired or 
expended. Nature has, however, provided against 
this result, not only by the fluctuations of temperature 
that occur at different periods of the day, but more 
particularly by the periodical fall of temperature at 
night, and its rise during the day: an arrangement 
intimately connected with all the vital actions of vege- 
tation. In the day, when light is strongest, and its 
evaporating and decomposing powers most energetic, 
temperature rises, and stimulates the vitality of plants, 
so aS to meet the demand thus made upon them ; 
then, as light diminishes, and with it the necessity for 
excessive stimulus, temperature falls, and reaches its 
minimum at night, the time when there is the least 
demand upon the vital forces of vegetation ; so that 
plants, like animals, have their diurnal seasons of 
action and repose, During the day, the system of a 
plant is exhausted of fluid by the aqueous exhalations 
that take place under the influence of sun-light; at 
night, when little or no perspiration occurs, the waste 
of the day is made good by the attraction of the roots, 
and by morning the system is again filled with liquid 
matter, ready to meet the demand to be made upon it 
on the ensuing day. No plants will remain in @ 
healthy state unless these conditions be observed.” 
We hope our readers will not think that we have 
finished our observations on Drainage. Our remarks 
are only interrupted by other things, and will be con- 
tinued next week. In the meanwhile, we shall be 
thankful for information and suggestions upon a mat- 
ter which must occupy the attention: of Parliament 
very soon. We have already received many commu- 
nications on the subject, some of which, we regret to 
say, represent the obstinacy or selfishness of indivi- 
duals to be a greater bar to the carrying a good bill 
through Parliament than we could have anticipated. 
We trust to be able to show, that, if a judicious 
distribution of the waters to be obtained by drainage 
is effected, we shall secure, at least, an equivalent for 
the mills on rivers, and for the weirs and dams across 
streams, which now impede the natural drainage of 
low districts. The after-application of water is just 
a8 important in one way as the removal of water is im 
another. 
Suvcx the notice of Mr. Bickes’s alleged “ Discovery 
of the Art of Cultivating the Ground without the Aid 
of Manure” appeared in our Paper (p.8), a German 
friend, who has lately arrived in this country, informs 
us that he has inspected the crops raised by MrBickes 
at Kastel on the Rhine, where he resides, and has 
found them to possess all the luxuriance ascribed to 
them in the Pamphlet. We have also been favoured 
with the perusal of a MS. letter from Mr. B., in 
which he mentions, that last year, notwithstanding 
the great drought of the summer, his method was 
equally successful as in former years. If these state- 
ments are to be relied on (and the manifold testimony 
in their favour will not allow us to reject them has- 
tily), they would seem to afford stronger proofs than 
ever of the position of Liebig, viz., that a large pro- 
portion of the solid matter of plants is derived from 
the atmosphere. i 
We trust that some of our readers who are in com= 
munication with Frankfort will endeavour to gain 
some further information relating to Mr. Bickes's 
extraordinary statements. We presume that his pre- 
pared seeds may be procured, although the method of 
preparing them is kept a secret. 
ON MANURING WITH GR. ROPS.—No. VI. 
(By Proressorn CHARLES SPRENGEL. Translated from 
the German.) 
(Continued from page 20.) : 
8. Red Clover.—In some countries (for instance, In 
the Rhenish Palatinate) Red Clover is only used as a 
green manure, ploughed in before it has begun to blossom. 
1000 lbs. of Red Clover dried, contain— 
17 lbs. of nitrogen. 
0 
» potash. 
5 4 soda. 
28. lime. 
37. 4, _ magnesia. 
47. 4, sulphuric acid. 
67 5, phosphoric acid. 
37, chlorine. 
550 5, carbon. 
Silica, iron, alumine, manganese, oxygen, and hydrogen, 
make up the remainder. 
When Green, it contains 79 per cent. of water, 12 per 
cent. of carbon. It cannot be doubted that Red Clover is a 
very valuable plant for green manure, as its roots reacts ora 
the first year, two to two and a-half feet in the a oul, ane 
may weigh perhaps one-third as much a8 a ee an 
stems taken together. If, therefore, the Mag: ry igae acre 
will yield 9000 lbs. of the latter, the whole a ° Pe 
ing substance would be 12,000 lbs. The her! ae er on 
Clover is most commonly employed, and sheen to be 
8 inches high before it is ploughed on _ 4 eaaite 
luxuriant, the succeeding crop will, in eee eae y 
rich ; which may be perhaps explained 43 a and being 
then clean, and containing a great mass o) over roots, 
which amount at times to the half of the leaves and stems, 
possessing probably the same constituents as the herbage. 
9, White Clover.—This plant also is grown in some 
places (for instance, Westphalia) for green manure, 
it does not, however, yield more than one-third as much 
as Red Clover, to which it is otherwise inferior, in conse- 
quence of its roots not penetrating more than 12 or 15 
inches in the ground. It is mostly used as manure after 
having been pastured for two, three, or four years. 
1000 Ibs. of Green Clover contain— 
810-0 lbs. of water in the fluid state. 
35 4, nitrogen. 
6:0 4 potash, 
1:0 4, soda, 
45 5, lime. 
05 4, magnesia. 
0-7 ,, sulphuric acid. 
1:0 ,, phosphoric acid. 
04 4, chlorine. “3 
110-0. ,, carbon. 
62-4 hydrogen, oxygen, alumine, silica, 
cree oxide of iron, and of manganese. 
1000-0 ibs. é 
[ If, 4000 Ibs, of White Clover, with the roots, are ploughed. 
