864 
THE GARDENERS 
CHRONICLE. 
[Dec. 9, 
terraced tains, having a r of about 85° or 
86°, which is exactly the summer temperature of the Ber- 
mudas. The Coffee-tree thus maintaining itself in a wild 
state in Bermuda is an interesting subject, andin a public 
address the Governor, Col. Reid, has recently directed 
attention to it. Some which has been sent us by his Excel- 
lency proves of the finest quality, and would doubtless 
take a very high rank in the European market, 
Substitute for Wood.—A singular substance has lately 
reached this country from Singapore, and promises to be- 
come of some importance as a material for the handles of 
knives, tools, and all instruments which require great 
strength. It isa pale greyish salmon-coloured material, 
rather stringy, softening at 150°, and then capable of being 
moulded into any form. It is hard, compact, and not very 
unlike horn in texture. We believe it has been found by 
Mr. Edward Solly to be analogous to India-rubber in its 
chemical constitution. 
Australian Wheat.—Some fine specimens of Australian 
Wheat have recently arrived in this country. They con- 
sist of white Wheat, equal, if not superior, to the finest 
English. The lot of which we have seen a sample cost 
35s, quarter at Hobart Town, where it was shipped; the 
freight and expense amounted to from 10s. to 12s. a qr., 
and the duty to 5s., so that it cost the importers from 
50s. to 52s. a qr. in England, As it is worth from 58s. 
to 60s. a qr. at London or Liverpool, it will leave a fair 
profit. This is, however, chiefly owing to the very low 
rates of freight, and the abundance of grain in the 
Hobart Town market.—Liverpool Paper. 
The African Guano Islands.—If it is true that between 
40 and 50 vessels have gone out to bring guano from 
the rocky islands on the west coast of Africa, there will 
be no want of that article next year, even if the West 
India planters, who have begun to use it freely for their 
sugar-canes, should require a larger supply than they have 
yet had. Immense beds of it are known to exist on two 
of the islands lying on that desert and uninhabited coast, 
which stretches from the southern point of the Portuguese 
possessions of Congo, almost to the Great Orange River,the 
northern boundary of the British possessions at the Cape ; 
and as rain rarely if ever falls along this coast, it is pro- 
bable that the guano will be found to have been collecting 
in the same manner, on the whole of the islands along it, 
for centuries. The first guano searchers who landed on 
those islands had to fight as fiercely with the birds for 
their cargoes as Eneas and his companions had to fight 
with the harpies of old in defence of their dinners.— 
Liverpool Times. 
Cider.—In the last Number of the ‘‘ Pharmaceutical 
Journal’ we find the following useful information on 
Cider making :—‘‘ The usual system is to filter, fine with 
isinglass, and rack frequently, leaving the bunghole open 
until fermentation has ceased. When living in a fruit 
country, I had placed in my cellar three pipes of cider 
which had been a day or two previously pressed from the 
fruit. I added to each cask four ounces of isinglass in 
solution, and one pound of coarsely-powdered charcoal. 
I then bunged it down, and introduced a tube through 
the bung of the shape of a siphon, the contrary end dip- 
ping into§water for the purpose of excluding the atmo- 
spheric air,-and at the same time ensuring the safety of 
the vessel. When it had dropt tolerably fine, I racked it 
as quickly as possible, adding another quantity of the 
solution of isinglass and charcoal, stopping it down as 
before. At® the expiration of three weeks fermentation 
had ceased. I withdrew the tube and stopped the hole in 
the bung, and found I had a bright, rich, and delicious 
beverage, which continued in the same state until it was 
runk.’ 
New Works ‘on Botany, &c.—Ledbeour’s “Flora 
Rossica,”’ Vol. ii., fasc. 4, containing the orders from 
Amygdalese to Saxifragacere. “ Elojo Historico de Don 
Mariano La Gasca,” by Dr. Agustin Yafiez y Girona, 
President of the Academy of Sciences of Barcelona. 
6*De Candolle’s Prodromus,”’ Vol. viii., completing the 
work as far as Asclepiadaces, which are from the hand of 
M. Decaisne. 
Extraordinary Produce.—On three acres and a quarter 
of land on Chatmoss, near Manchester, and only reclaimed 
some three or four years ago, there has been dug up this 
season 595 loads of Potatoes, of 252lbs. each, and equal 
to 674 tons, and worth fully 54s. per ton. The land is 
under the superintendence of the guardians of the Man- 
chester Union.— Country Paper. 
RMebiewos. 
The Rose Amateur’s Guide. By T. Rivers, Jun. 12mo, 
1843. Longman. 3rd Edition. 
Waar can we say of this, the third edition of Mr. Rivers’ 
‘* Rose Amateur’s Guide,” except that it excels its prede- 
cessors? No book which we possess gives so good an 
account of the origin and classification of varieties ; no 
book deals with their management, in a concise way, better ; 
no book has more claim to the approval of the gardening 
public. We have some remarks to make on its details, 
but those we shall treat of in another place. The cultiva- 
tion of Roses in pots for the greenhouse is a new topic, 
which is treated thus by the author :— 
«« For this purpose a selection should be made of some 
of the finer varieties of China and Tea-scented Roses on 
their own roots ; it may also include such Bourbons as 
the Queen, Acidalie, Crimson Globe, Grand Capitaine, 
Madame Nerard, Madame Margat, Proserpine and Phoe- 
nix, and Noisette’s Miss Glegg, Lelieur, Ne Plus Ultra, 
and Victorieuse. These are all of dwarfish and compact 
habit, and free bloomers. Presuming these Roses to be 
procured in the spring or summer, in the usual small pots 
they are generally grown in by the cultivators for sale, 
they should be immediately potted into pots called 32s, 
(these are generally 7 inches deep, by 6 over at the surface,) 
in a compost. of turfy sandy loam and well-rotted manure, 
equal quantities, or leaf-mould’; if the latter is used, two- 
thirds to one-third of loam will be as well; this compost 
must not be sifted, but merely chopped into pieces as 
large as a walnut: the fine mould, which will, as a matter 
of course, result from this chopping, must not be separated 
from the pieces of turf, but all must be well mixed with 
the manure or leaf-mould. The pots should then be filled 
about one-third with broken pieces of crockery or pot- 
sherds, the plants taken from the small pots, and the balls 
of earth gently pressed so as to loosen them ; place each 
plantiin the centre of the large pot, press the earth well 
round them, give a soaking of water, and plunge them in 
the sawdust or tan in some sunny exposed place, where 
they may have all the sun our fickle climate will give 
them. They may remain here till early in October, when 
they should be removed into the greenhouse ; but a fort- 
night before taking them into their winter quarters, lift 
every pot, and place it on the surface of the bed in which 
they have been plunged : their roots then become hardened, 
and bear the dry warm air of the greenhouse without 
injury: they should at this time also be pruned into any 
handsome desirable shape, (a compact bush is perhaps 
the prettiest,) or, if tall plants are required, the long 
shoots may be fastened to a neat painted stick. Roses 
thus treated will come into bloom in the greenhouse in 
April, and continue one of its brightest ornaments till the 
beginning of June; they should then be repotted into 
larger pots if large plants are wished for, and again 
plunged in the open air till the autumn: care must be 
taken to place the pots on slates, to prevent their roots 
getting through the bottoms of the pots. If compact and 
pretty little plants are required the same pots may be 
used, merely reducing the roots, so that the pot will hold 
a small quantity of compost for the plant to feed upon, 
A most excellent compost for potted Roses may be made 
as follows:—Pare some turf from a loamy pasture; the 
parings must not be more than one inch in thickness; 
bake them in an oven about twelve hours, when the tem- 
perature is equal to that just after it has been used for 
baking bread; they must not be burned: * this, chopped 
as before directed, with equal parts of rotten manure, 
forms one of the very finest of composts. The plants 
must be looked to carefully in spring, and whenever 
infested by the aphis, or green-fly, tobacco-smoke must 
be applied: extraordinary luxuriance of growth may be 
given by watering them once a week with guano-water,”” 
Erratum.—In the review of “ Liebig’s Agricultural Chemistry,” 
p. 846, we omitted to state that the quotation relating to 
ne was from his ‘“ Letters,’’ a little work noticed at 
p. 776. 
THE NATURALIST’S.CORNER. 
(Continued from page 847.) 
68. Sponges.—There are about fifty different species of 
this well-known marine production, which has been in use 
from very early times, and regarding which naturalists 
were long embarrassed whether to assign it a place in the 
animal or vegetable kingdom. Most authorities now agree 
in putting the sponges in the lowest scale of the former. 
The best are those which come from the Archipelago, 
where they abound near many of the islands, whose in- 
habitants may be said to subsist by the sponge-fishery, if 
it may so be called. At the Cyclades, sponge-diving 
forms the chief 1 of the populati the 
old physicians, sponge was regarded as a cure for a lon 
list of maladies: this list is now much abridged, though 
burnt sponge, in which form only it is used, still has a 
place in the Materia Medica. 
CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS for the ensuing week. 
Tue fact that earthenware pipes have been fitted together so 
as to hold water, is, indeed, of essential service. In 1834 Isaw a 
complete failure, on a large scale, in an attempt to heat a Pinery 
with these pipes, jointed with cement; but, from want of perse- 
yerance, I thought the experiment had not been fairly tested, and 
not wishing to prejudge the question when it was proposed to 
repeat the experiment at Chiswick, I was silent respecting it— 
besides, I had heard that something of the sort had succeeded in 
the neighbourhood of Newcastle two or three years since, When 
one man y fail, it shows 
building hothouses, pits, and other structures, the best modes of 
painting and glazing, i i i 
cheapest manner, And this know- 
ledge gives a confidence which is really necessary when we are 
called upon to conduct these affairs. When alterations or addi- 
tions are to be made in the heating hothouses, & 
whether for the purpose of building a better flue, or for adopting a 
hot-water apparatus with pipes or tanks, or for all three combined 
—there are many minor points as necessary to be attended to as 
first principles. There is a kind of fire-proof mortar which I have 
almost every season for the last 15 years, which I do not 
recollect to have seen noticed in any publication; this I would 
strongly recommend to be used instead of common mortar for all 
fire-places, flues, and for building pits—that are always more orles: 
moist with the linings—also for pointing or filling up joints along 
the tops of old garden walls, &c.; it is made with two thirds of 
the best limestone and one third of the gritty black dust from a 
blacksmith’s forge, both sifted very fine and well mixed, without 
ysand: it stands heat equally with fire-bricks, and sets nearly 
as hard as Roman cement; it requires more time to prepare than 
common mortar, and more labour to spread it with the trowel— 
but it may be made softer than common mortar, which removes 
the difficulty of applying it, and it will dry in half the time the 
usual mortar would take, I entertained the idea for some time 
of making a quantity of it with common oil, as we make putty, 
to try how it would answer for jointing earthenware pipes, first 
painting the joints as ‘J.M.’? mentions in a late Chronicle, 
Imay some day try this, but I think ‘¢ J. M.’s”” plan much better. 
We all know, in glazing, that front putty should not be put on 
* Thave used, with much success, turf roasted on a sheet c 
iron (placed in temporary brickwork) under which a moderate 
fire has been kept : about one hour’s roasting is sufficient, This 
chars the turfy side, and acts most beneficially. suai 
@ 
until the slip of glass under it is first painted and dry—putty thus 
put on never parts with the glass untilit perishes, which was the 
great fault in old-fashioned glazing. Even the simple article 
putty isseldom made as it ought to be for pits and hothouses 
liable to extremes of ti erature: whitening, boiled or lin- 
seed oil, with a little spirits of turpentine (or “ driers,’’ as it is 
called), are all that is thought necessary for garden purposes 5 
but this soon perishes i e situations, and if you add one 
tenth white lead it gets so hard that it is difficult to get off when 
repairs are necessar: The best glaziers now make it thus: 
10 lbs. whitening, 11b. white lead, with the necessary quantity of 
poiled oil and driers, and a wine-glassful of the best sweet oil— 
ii prevents the white lead from hardening, and also 
preserves the putty for a long time ;—all putty ought to be made 
some time before it is used. Since it ecome general to 
putty laps, or use long panes, it is necessary that the painting 
should be of a soft tint, to lessen \the effects of the reflected rays 
on the leaves of plants trained near the glass, I have known 
Vine. leaves to be much scorched by incautiously leaving the bers 
inside with no more paint than the first coat of red, or priming; 
and I think the cause of the reflected rays from the red bars 
scorching the leayes was explained to the British Association at 
Cork last August. 
I,—KITCHEN-GARDEN AND ORCHARD; 
In-door Department. 
Prvery.—I hasten to correct an error into which an Amateur 
has fallen in the thir is Pine-growing, in an attempt to 
kill the white-scale on them. “The stable-litter filled the pit with 
steam orfog, with the thermometer at 55°in the morning.”? This. 
was at least 10° too low: the plants are not under a course of 
culture, but undergoing a process for killing the scale, and ought 
for a few days to be at from 70° to 100°—for all experience proves 
the ammoniacal gas to be most destructive at a high tempera- 
ture. Some of the old gardeners used to finish the process in @ 
few hours; in 1824 I saw about 50 young Pines cleaned com- 
pletely in two hours and a half, thus:—a bed was made up of 
fresh dung, and as soonas the heat was atits highest the bed was 
covered with hurdles, the plants turned out of the pots, and 
inserted over the hurdles, the glass put on, and covered with a 
double mat; the suffocating heat was very high, and the plants 
were completely cleaned in that time, and did not seem to be in 
any way injired—but I recollect they were shaded from the sun 
for some weeks afterwards, ‘* You know,” says a friend, ‘* when 
I came here, the Pines were bad with the scale and mealy bug; 
I disrooted them all in August, gave them a good lining of dung, 
and kept them well excited until October, and by the next spring 
they were clean, and I have not seen any of these pests since.” 
This was a more rational mode than the former, and the summer 
months are preferable for the operation. 
inery.—Any Vinery that is to be forced on this side of 
January should be begun forthwith, if only to give more time to 
the plants to ripen the crop. Begin very gently at first, with nO 
more than 50° of fire-heat, and let the air be saturated with mois- 
ture—if from a few rrowfuls of hersedung or leaves all the 
better. Let the outside borders be well covered, and those inside 
stirred, and well watered with tepid water. 
Pracn-nousE.—The Peach-tree also requires a slow move- 
ment at first; and to have the fruit ripe by the middle of May 
the house should now be closed, with a temperature of 45°. 
this low temperature the house does not require so moist an 
atmosphere as the Vine; yet it is a good practice to syringe the 
trees night and morning with water at the same, or rather @ 
higher, temperature than that of the house. If insects have been 
seen on the trees last summer this isa good time to destroy either 
them or their eggs; indeed, it isa general rule to coat over the 
trees at this time with paint made of sulphur and soft soap, 
with a little soot to give a dark colour. 
cumpers.—{n Mr. Johnson’s very useful Almanac it is said 
the Cucumber ‘tis more sedulously cultivated in Suffolk than 
in any other county in England. am in correspondence wit 
some of the most success!ul growers, and I learn that the plants 
are stronger than usual this winter. ‘We shall have a trial 0! 
the most successful cultivation decided next February; not so 
much as to individual growers as to the systems of growing 
them with dung and with hot-water.” As the best growers in 
the country have patronised the “Ipswich Cucumber Society,” 
it will, indeed, be interesting to know how far the two systems 
will maintain the views of their advocates. Wor these prize 
Cucumbers a range of 10° is allowed for surface-heat, from 75° to 
85°, with a bottom-heat of about 90°, with air every day. 
Kipnry-Brans and i 
TRAWBERRIES.—Preparations for both 
should now be made, ‘The top shelves of the Peach-house is the 
est place to begin the Strawberries, except where pits are 
devoted to them. 
Out-door Department. 
Besides the regular work of manuring and digging the ground, 
there are many things which ought to be seen to in the dead of 
winter in and around the kitchen-garden; anything which can 
be done to forward spring work is useful. have been more 
than once asked last summer to say something about making 
borders for fruit-trees. There is hardly anything that can be 
added on the subject; nothing in the whole range of garden 
literature is better supplied than this subject. Many years since 
I broke up an old Vine-border which was well drained with round 
stones, brickbats, and the like, to the depth of 18 inches in some 
places, but many of the roots found their way through the 
drainage, and some of them were severely injured, being pressed 
between the stones by their own growth, showing that rabble 
there ought to be an impervious bottom, to keep back the roots; 
and the best thing I know for that purpose is chalk brokeD 
small, and well rammed when perfectly dry ; if it is put together 
in a wet state it will form a compact mass through which the 
drainage cannot enter. The bottom of a border made on a bed 
of chalk is always in a dry state, and well suited for the roots of 
all plants ; the chalk acts like a sponge against the soil, keeping 
it in a friable, porous state. 
Ii.—FLOWER-GARDEN AND SHRUBBERY. 
In-door Department. 
vE.—I haye heard that a new stove ‘climber has bee? 
beautifully in bloom for more than two months, and no one 
thought of sending it to a botanist to be described, Negligence 
s the sole cause in this case. Stoye climbers that have 
been gradually pruned for the last two months should now 
be finished off, both for their own sake and to let in more 
light. Few people think of pruning house-climbers alto- 
wood, like the Grape-vine, should be closely pruned. To these 
belong the Passion-flowers, the Ipomceas, Echites, &¢+ 
while those that bloom on last year’s wood, as most of the Big- 
nonias do, must be left in long shoots till after flowering times 
and then these shoots may be cut off altogether, to make way for 
and to use as little water as possible, 
NSERVATORY.—‘* This season has brought out some first- 
rate Chrysanthemums, new in colour, and so distinct that one 
