" 
I 
| 
1843.] 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
787 
MYATT’S NEW SEEDLING STRAWBERRY. 2 
are now ready to send out their 
$4 NEW STRAWBERRY, the DEPTFORD PINE, the fruit 
of which has been exhibited at the London Horticultural 
Society, and_a Banksian Medal awarded. s also been 
submitted to Professor Linpiry, for whose opinion see Gardeners 
is a most prolific bearer, exhibiting 
atthe same time a profusion of fine fruit and bloom on the same 
: British Queen, 1/., and 
Gd. to Fellows of 
& Post-office order, price 5s. to Fellows of the Society, or 6s. 6d, 
to others,) 
TONDON: (Phird Edition.) Containing the Names, Synonyms, 
‘olour, Size, Form, Quality, Use, Time of Ripening, and many 
other particulars @oncerning all the most important varieties of 
hardy Fruit cultivated in this country. 
Sold at the House of the Society, 21, Regent-street, and also 
a ONGMAN and Co., Paternoster-row; J. HATCHARD, Picca- 
aly Rmeoway, Piceadi 
y the principal Booksellers in all parts of the Empire. 
ea ew Copies of the Second Edition of this Catalogue may be 
‘ad at the reduced price of 1s, 6d. each 
THe Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER ll, 1843. 
‘0 FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
MEETINGS FOR THE 
Wednesday, Noy. 154 Society of 
Frida: S°%" 15) Microscopical « Sebi ‘ 
Ys INGV ALT BOSH cAL yo OSes Me OE el) re 8 RM 
Tuesday, Nov, 21, Linnean Re eee r ae ter set Bese 
Turner is not a few good people in this world who 
cannot discover that they form part of a busy restless |. 
Sa, sometimes advancing, sometimes receding, but 
general rushing onwards with a force that actually 
ivan many old landmarks behind it and threatens, 
vi S age of discovery, to vanish altogether from the 
View of the ancient columns and monuments of learn- 
ing. Such 
ayeam of travellers—dreaming by the wayside, they 
entually fall into the rear, and, when they awaken 
r 4 ? 
om their slumbers, are surprised to find themselves 
alone, 
Tear nets possess no exemption from this general 
into n er esa How many of them do we see sinking 
Tevet ect, and ending their days in poverty ; com- 
fee of the preference shown to younger men, 
comes ak the good old times, and wondering how it 
rite te) en that they, who once were shining lights 
The r craft, are no longer thought of ‘or esteemed. 
EARS discover that they have been standing 
Aly while the crowd has been rolling on, and that 
hough their light is as bright as ever, objects are too 
Me for it to illuminate them. 
jome recent circumstances have brought these 
Take, for instance, the 
e was thought something of thirty 
years ago who could make his Queens average 2 Ibs., 
And all those men 
reflections painfully to mind. 
ine-grower. 
and a 24 Ib. fruit was a prodigy. 
who continue to follow the same routine of cultivation 
aa obtain the same result, still fondly believe that the 
continue at the head of this branch of their profession 
Pe when they see in the newspapers that heavier 
oe ie eae in this place and that, some of them 
ed : eir heads and doubt, others flatly contradict 
oe tatements, while some cry out at the injury they 
asion them. ‘* Where are these Gardens of Bicton,” 
age free, upon receipt of 
lly; Riviwerons, Waterloo-place; and 
persons are gradually jostled out of the 
growers are pleased to doubt. 
ing Thornfield and Bicton rest on the authority of 
our correspondents: we have not seen them. It is 
not, however, necessary to rake up old single instances 
of heavy Pines, or to go to France and appeal to the 
12lb. Cayennes of Versailles; we have evidence as 
great as can be desired. We will just beg “ Dunel- 
mensis” and all doubters to refer to. page 738, where 
he will find that on the 17th Oct., 1843, a Queen Pine 
weighing six pounds four ounces avoirdupois, was 
exhibited before the Horticultural Society of London, 
by Mr. Murray, gardener to the Marquess of Bath; 
and to the proceedings of that same Society of Tues- 
day last, where two Queen Pines were again supplied 
from Lord Bath’s Gardens, one of which weighed 
Jive pounds four ounces, and the latter five pounds nine 
ounces, And these were no long-stalked leafy things, 
with a forest of gills, and a crown like the leaves of an 
Artichoke, but clean, well-grown, beautifully swelled 
fruit, with only two or three withered leaves at the 
base, as much stalk as was just sufficient to hold them 
y, and as small a crown as such fruit well could have. 
The fact is that the old way of Pine-growing was 
wrong, as we have more than once asserted, and men 
are only now beginning to find out the art of culti- 
vating that fruit, as we hope one day to show. 
vA 
—— 
/ No subject in Vegetable Physiology is more inter- 
esting, both for theoretical and practical reasons, than 
the power which seeds undoubtedly possess, under 
certain circumstances, of preserving their vitality for 
an apparently indefinite period. It is doubtless true 
that many of the statements on this subject, to be 
found in’ books, are apocryphal; but certainly some 
are founded in fact, such as the famous case of the 
Raspberry-seed taken along with the coins of the 
Emperor Hadrian from an ancient barrow in Dorset- 
shire, the offspring of which is now to be seen in the 
Gardens of the Horticultural Society. None among 
the so-called instances of this excessive longevity 
have excited more doubt and discussion than what is 
called Mummy-Wheat ; that is to say, Corn taken 
which has grown when sown. Every year pro- 
duces cases of this sort about the harvest season, and 
even this season at least 20 specimens have been sent us 
of Wheat-ears, purporting to have had a mummial 
—pardon the word—a mummial origin ; and strange 
to say, they have all proved to belong to the Egyptian 
cum composilum. We have never, however, succeeded 
in satisfying ourselves that the Corn from which 
such Wheat is said to have been produced was really 
taken from mummy-cases. There is always some 
defect in the evidence; as was the case with the 
. | Tynningham Wheat, mentioned in the Mark Lane 
Express of Oct. 9, 1842, which had been raised from 
ceed said to have been produced in Egypt, from plants 
said to have grown from grains said to have been 
taken from a mummy-case. Now all such statements 
may be true, put there is no proof that they are so; 
’ 
sa A . i pits 
YS one, “in which Queens average above 54lbs ?” He | and when we are told that Onions taken from similar 
ie ae give himself the trouble to consult his map, 
aah would have told him that they are near Honiton, 
elong to Lady Rolle; but he demands to know 
* You must be aware,” says 
paste Bicton is, 
nother, with the high-sounding signature of “ Dunel 
aan Bis that statements of this kind are calculated 
oe Serious injury to gardeners, whose employers 
a reading them become dissatisfied with only seeing 
of between 2lbs. and Slbs. weight, the usual size in 
oe best-managed gardens here, and I believe in mos 
‘aces. ‘T'wo years ago I visited some of the bes' 
receptacles have also grown, which is impossible, we 
may be pardoned for requiring very decisive evidence 
before we accord our belief in those prodigies. Never- 
theless they may be true ; because we have before us 
- | aninstance, inthe evidence concerning which wefindno 
flaw whatever. Wehave had jiton our table for some 
months, and produce it now, inj order to ‘satisfy the 
many inquiries that are made about such things. 
The history of this Wheat was given by Mr. Martin 
¢ | Farquhar Tupper, a most exact and conscientious man, 
t|in the Zimes of September, 1840 ; and to that gentle. 
Pine-growers in the neighbourhood of London, and of | man we are indebted for the additional facts which 
a hundreds of Queens I then saw, found only one o' 
ae very few above 3lbs., and I should say the 
jority not exceeding 2lbs.” And then we are re- 
f | we are now able to communicate, 
Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, when in the Thebaid, opened 
an ancient tomb (which had probably remained 
toached for having allowed ourselves, as is alleged, to unvisited by man during the greater part of 3000 
be hoaxed by certain statements made in 1841 regard- 
ne huge Enville Pines at Thornfield, which « Dunel 
ensis” 
T 
Covent G: 
n a i 
ver such a production in any part of the world,” 
1 
Sek ie are the persons who lag behind, and are so 
t ae to view by the crowds who advance with 
enact €am of discovery. Instead of endeavouring to 
qual those who are more successful themselves, they 
was assured—by whom?—by the people at 
hornfield? not at all, but—by some fruiterer in 
arden, “was all moonshine, as there’ was 
years), and from some alabaster sepulchral vases therein 
- | took with his own hands a quantity of Wheat and 
Barley that had been there preserved. Portions of 
this grain Sir G. Wilkinson had given to Mr.'Petti- 
grew, who presented Mr. Tupper with 12 grains of the 
venerable harvest. In 1840 Mr. Tupper sowed these 
12 grains, and to show the care with which he pre- 
served their identity we shall quote his own account 
of his proceedings thereupon. “T ordered,” he says, 
«four gardenpots of well-sifted loam, and, not content 
re nee : : tee } 
proach us public journalists with not suppressing | with my gardever’s care in sifting, 1 emptied each pot 
the i . pp 
he instances of higher cultivation. They would have 
Us doin 
who isi 
ailsuch 
digies o 
it known t 
the word 
cases to run down to the places wheresuch pro 
of respectable men who give their names, 
°r are known to us, for the sake of obliging those 
justice to therising gardener for the sake of him 
in the wane. Or at least, they say, we oughtin 
f cultivation are said to exist, before we make 
0 the public; as if we were bound to doubt 
successively into an open newspaper and put the 
earth back again, morsel by morsel, with my own 
fingers. It is next to impossible that any other seed 
- | should have been there. 1 then (on'the 7th of March, 
1840), planted my grains, three in each pot, at the 
angles of an equilateral triangle, so as to be sure of 
, | the spots where the sprouts would probably come up, 
by way of additional security against any chance seed 
unseen lurking in the soil. 
from mummies, and therefore of the highest antiquity, | 
Wheat, or Blé de. Miracle, called by Botanists Zrit?- | 
Of the 12 one only ger- 
minated, the blade first becoming visible on April 22; 
the remaining 11, after long patience, I picked 
out again; and found in every instance that they 
were rotting in the earth, being eaten away by a num- 
ber of minute white worms. My interesting plant of 
Wheat remained in the atmosphere of my usual sitting- 
room until change of place and air seemed necessary 
for its health, when I had it carefully transplanted to 
the open flower-bed, where it has prospered ever since. 
The first ear began to be developed on the Sth of July ; 
a second ear made its appearance, and both assumed a 
character somewhat different from all our known 
varieties. Their small size and weakness may, 
in one light, be regarded as collateral evidence 
of so great an age, for assuredly the energies of life 
would be but sluggish after having slept so long; 
however, the season of the sowing—spring instead of 
autumn—will furnish another sufficient cause. The 
two ears on separate stalks were respectively 23 and 3 
inches long, the former being much blighted, and the 
stalk about 3 feet in height.” 
«If, and I see no reason to disbelieve it,” says Mr. 
Tupper, in conclusion, “if this plant of Wheat be 
indeed the product of a grain preserved since the time 
of the Pharaohs, we moderns may, within a little year, 
eat bread made of Corn which Joseph might have 
reasonably thought to store in his granaries, and 
almost literally snatch a meal from the kneading- 
troughs of departing Israel.” 
Here we have no link lost in the chain of evidence. 
Sir Gardiner Wilkinson himself opened the tomb, 
and with his own hands emptied the alabaster vase ; 
of its contents he gave a portion to Mr. Pettigrew, 
who gave it to Mr. Tupper, who himself sowed it, 
watched it, and reared it. What better proof can we 
require? Unless it be alleged that the grains, after 
all, may have been changed somewhere on the roa 
between the Thebaid and Mr. Tupper’s garden. But, 
upon this point, Mr. Tupper expressly says, in a pas- 
sage that we have not quoted, that the grains which 
he sowed were brown and shrunk; which is a just 
description of some that we too have seen from Sir 
Gardiner Wilkinson, but which would not apply to 
any modern Wheat. They looked, indeed, as if they 
had been scorched. 
But there are other proofs, less direct, but equally 
conclusive, as to the antiquity of the seed sown by 
Mr. Tupper. Out of twelve grains one only grew ; 
that one produced but two ears—small, blighted at the 
base, and yielding altogether only 27 grains. Mr. 
Tupper has favoured us with a draw- 
ing of one of them. But in 1841, 
the second year, when the Wheat 
was recovering its constitutional 
vigour, the ears were perfect, and 
averaged 44 inches each. In 1842, 
the renovation being complete, some 
of the ears measured 73 inches in 
length. This, as Mr. Tupper ob- 
serves, corroborates the idea of a re- 
awakening from so long a sleep, as 
if the Wheat had been gradually 
returning to its pristine vigour. One 
of these ears of 1842 is now before 
us, and is so like a good sample of 
Colonel Le Couteur’s Bellevue Tala- 
vera, that even the experienced eye 
of that gentleman is unable to detect 
a ‘difference. It proved a most 
abundant bearer: 18 grains in Mr. 
Mitchell’s Nursery Garden, Brighton, 
having produced 625 ears, | which 
Mr. Hallett of Brighton considers to 
have contained on an average 55 
grains, And this (685, multiplied 
by 55, divided by 18) gives @ pro- 
ductiveness equal to two thousand 
ourselves just now. 
ant question is, W 
circumstances which preserved the 
growing power of Sir Gardiner Wil- 
Rinson’s Wheat from the days of the 
Pharaohs down to our own time. 
For if that can be ascertained, alight 
will riecessarily be thrown upon the 
very important art of preserving 
seeds artificially. To us it appears yrammy-Wheat in 
that we must ascribe the result the first year of its 
entirely to the pRYNESS of the air Tevivification. 
where the Wheat was kept. And we believe that 
dryness will have been the true cause of similar results 
in‘all other instances. Such is the conclusion at which 
we long since arrived. (“ Theory of Horticulture,” pp. 
79 and 189). Daily experience confirms our opinion ; 
and reasoning, in the absenve of experience, would 
almost have Jed to it. Decomposition, which in seeds 
is the cause of death, can only occur in a damp atmo- 
sphere ; therefore to keep off a damp atmosphere is to 
