













00 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



SHE 3^S^ &5£l&££=e1 



I 





at distant and Train periodf than by neglect : hence 



pruning, by superficial obserters, has been unreasonably 

 condemned as injurious to the growth of trees. I will c«U 

 your attention more particularly to the plantations which 

 I made in the year 1814. They hate been pruned and 

 thinned annually since thst period, by taking off from 

 3 to S branches, as before deter ind Ihi result has 



been that the sap which the cut branches would hate 

 exhausted has git en ?ig«>ur and increased strength to the 

 trunk, as is evident from the healthy appearances of the 

 trees as well as their augmented size. I hate planted 

 those trees wh the soil most loves— Oak, Larch, Ash, 

 Sycamore, and I'.ln j and I often 1 invent that gentlemen 

 put into the ground plants without any discrimination of 

 kind or sise, consul ; the nurseryman, whose object is to 

 aell those plants wh i encumber his grounds. In a late 

 Number you state, M In SM years, Oaks, Larch, and Ash 

 are to be found 20 feet high «"»ld hate added— 



« up to the first branch." Further-- Dr. Thackeray is 

 represented to b» ial!y tn >g his trees up by 



removing the side-branches"— it should have been 

 ftuovin* M all large or luiurienl" side-branches— IV. M. 

 Thackeray, Chester. 



Colour of Car ns ojf'cthd by Con «/.— It has 



been said t t talti of mm tend to 1 «hteq the colour of 

 dowert ; Johnson's Almanack says, " in i the inten- 



■ity of rrd flnwcrn." U describing the Carnations «t 

 Messrs. Norman'*, bti season, the Chronicle obstrve 



that Hufton's Patiis is too thin, but that tiic eolonrs 



are '•intense i I found them. My compo con- 



listed of old nm ! from a vegetable garden, two parts — 

 old honed ting a pmt, and a little . -hsreoal. I had 

 grown two pairs of this flower the year before, but one 

 was sickly, and the other run— i. e., the red was lost. 

 However, I layered the run pair, and last season t'.ie 

 layers bloomed dean and were fine pi knts. The lowers 

 were evidently attractive >r ■ tlorist visited the garden 

 witho pausing before tern ; the white was remarkably 

 clear, and the colours brilliant. Towards the close of the 

 season, I chanced to visit a garden, the situation of which 

 surpasses mine ss m h as the owner excels me in every 

 quality that can ( until I a tlorist. Here I saw sevenl 

 plants of Patriarch planted in a border of rich reddish- 

 coloured soil (turned up about two years ago), but the 

 white was quite flushed, the colours looked d idled and 

 confused, and my f> ?md he wai greatly disappointed 



with the lower, and should not grow it any rooi<\ The 

 plants were much stronger than mine, which were in 12- 

 sixed j My compost hi I la 1 two wint-rs, and was 



well blended ; the i tgh stones wsd riddled out, and the 

 charco.d ilded at pottinf. I could not succeed In impreg- 

 nating 1' inch, although a thin tlower. The'style is 

 long, thin, and in three divisions. The Pink called Bar- 

 rett's Conqueror has a similar style. I never c mid get 

 seed from it, though I had plenty of pollen from different 

 Tarieties to cross it with, and took care to V p it dry. 

 Bees do not seem to impregnate these flowers. In a 

 garden where several hives were kept in the midst of a 

 large stock of Carnations there was frequently no seed- 

 flowers of Pinks, which were carefully impregnated and 

 marked, produced seed, but no others on the same 



plant.— -J. 



Planting.— I think your Paper has increased in inte- 

 rest since you have taken up t subject of planting and 

 pruning, and that p irties entertaining different views on 

 those subjects have placed them before the public through 

 the medium of your Paper, so as to excite inquiry. So 

 long as such discussions are carried on in the spirit which 

 has at present shown itst . good may be expected to re- 

 sult from them. I have mid the papers on the subject of 

 planting and pruning, particularly on the 23d Dec , and I 

 expect moch good may result from the various opinions 

 there given, and from the candour of the Editorial pas- 

 sages ; bnt in one of those letters, " Quercus," 1 think, 

 is advised to see what has occurred in the plantations at 

 Nerquis, near Chester. Now the distance from London 

 to Chester being nbt more than ten hours' travel, I had 

 hoped he would have availed himself of this suggestion. 

 and ascertained by his own inspt m the correctness of 

 the statements in regard to these woods, and whether the 

 system pursued there ought to be followed or rejected. I 

 consider the permanent adorning of mountains and valleys 

 with timber au object of such fast importance to the pub- 

 lic, that no individual should continue to write for the eye 

 of the public adverse to any system, the value of which he 

 has an opportunity of examining in person, until he has 

 done so. — Sub Arbore Felix, County Kerry. 



Excrescenses on Timber. — 1 observe that your corre- 

 spondent, \V. Billingtoi:, p. 900,) calls the attention of 

 the readers of the Gardeners' Chronicle to some Oak 

 trees in Porkington Park, near Oswestry, which he says 

 are infcs'ed with excrescences of great thickness, and he 

 then goes on to say that it appears that the timber in all 

 such trees is shaky and of little value, and that it is curled 

 at these excrescences by the young shoots apparently 

 growing on dead or decaying timber ; and he ends by 

 inquiring into the cause of this. Having paid some 

 attention to these excrescences for some years, I will 

 endeavour to reply to his observations as they arise : first, 

 as to the value; so far are these trees from being worth- 

 less that they are ten times as valuable as if they were 

 plain ; these excrescences when cut into veneers being 

 most beautifully mottled and figured ; and so highly are 



to give good advice upon it. The best plan appears to 

 be to let the tree lay in the log at least four or five years 

 before cutting it into planks, and these planks onght to 

 lay for two or three years before being cut into veneers ; 

 for if cut into veneers soon after the tree is felled, the 

 shrinking of the wood and the various contortions which 

 its mode of growth has a tendency to give it, pucker and 

 draw, and twist them in so many directions, that the 

 veneer is often shaken to fragments, not because the tree 

 was originally so, but because it has been seasoned Im- 

 properly. Th's peculiarity, and the very great difficulty 

 there is In laying the veneers, detract much from the value 



■O IHIllwunuiC a vvuuu, vm»* .% fe ~~— — w 



sum of money notwithstanding. All curled trees, of what- 

 ever kind of wood, are valuable for this reason, if sound, 

 and the rl has nothing to do with unsoundness, per se. 1 

 have myself some furniture made of the curled Elm, which 

 I consider even more beautiful than the curled Oak, and it 

 d not require half so long a time to get it into season. 

 Whatever may be the cause or cure, it has certainly nothing 

 to with unsoundness ; as 1 know many trees curled 



all round, whi< h are growing as vigorously as any of their 

 neigh irs, and on felling curled trees I find they have 

 the usual quantity of sap-w I upon them, but quite as 

 mu h curled as the heart. This is very evident in the 

 Elm, where the heart-w 1 is a fine brown, whilst the sap 

 is white ; and so far is it from being owing to the decay of 

 tl tree, that 1 have trees now growing not thicker than 

 my thumb, In which this peculiarity is very evident. It 

 appears to me that the cause is a tendency which the tree 

 ha-* to throw out roots from every part of its stem ; and 

 many kinds of Apples can, for this reason, be grown from 

 cuttings as easily as so many Willows. I think it has little 

 to do with soil, but is a constitutional peculiarity connected 

 with variety ; as in raising Crab-stocks for grating, 

 nurservmen will find individual plants showing this pecu- 

 liarity* whilst the generality of them, although raised from 

 the seed of the same tree, and 'growing in the same soil, 

 show no such tendency. Many kinds of English timber 

 trees are more or less affected in this way ; those showing 

 it most frequently are the Oak, Elm, Alder, Maple, Yew, 

 Beech, Apple, Cherry, and oc mally the Ash, but I 

 never saw a Pear-tree so affected. The celebrated Caya- 

 buco-wood (Amboyna wood) of the East, is a production 

 of the same kind. Recurring again to value, it is worth 

 while ascertaining whether the twisting! and contortions 

 which detract so much from the value and beauty of curled 

 Oak could not be remedied by injecting the tree with some 

 extraneous matter which would fill up the pores, and pre- 

 vent shrinking. According to the plan of M. Boucherie, 

 me oncd in" the Chronicle, at p. 911, if this could be 

 accomplished successfully, this curled wood would be 

 extremely valuable, as it far exceeds any other wood in 

 beauty, the curled Elms and Yews being probably in the 

 first class. But this If a matter of opinion, many preferring 

 the Oak, perhaps on account of the extravagant price at 

 which articles of furniture of this wood sell for when 

 well made. A person of my acquaintance contrived 

 to get some wood from one of the old Yews, near Foun- 

 tains Abbey, which are said to have sheltered the monks 

 before the abbey was built ; this tree had been blown 

 down by a strong wind, and proved to be most beautifully 

 curled, but from its great age was too far decayed to be 

 valuable, otherwise than as a relic of old times. In con- 

 firmation of what is said at p. 911 about the Injury of 



coal-tar to timber, allow me to add the following fact: — 

 A gentleman in Yorkshire had his trees much damaged by 

 the deer in his park, and to prevent them barking them any 

 more, he had the. stems painted with coal-tar — it is true, 

 the deer no longer attacked them, but most of them were 

 killed by the application.— T. C, Clitheroc 



Cucumbers.— In reply to " Veritas," 1 beg to say that 

 the Cncumbers exhibited by me at Regent-street, on the 

 5th of December last, were both spined, but one was 

 ribbed and the other was smooth. My plants, both last 

 season and also this, were propagated from cuttings ; they 

 were taken from one plant true to its kind, and the two 

 plants subjected to experiment were grown in the same 

 sort of soil and received the same treatment as respects 

 heat and moisture. If, therefore, the stimulants used did 

 not cause the difference, to what can it be attributed ? 

 "Veritas" says, M I conclude the real cause of the differ- 

 ence was a sporting of the variety." I am -ware that 

 Cucumbers have a tendency to sport, but this, in this 

 instance, certainly was not the case. Hydrangea cannot 

 be said to sport, although it is known that three different 

 shades of colour may be produced by cultivating one in 

 Norwood loam, another in a good Hazel loam, and a 

 third in black fen bog, destitute of sand, and watered with 

 a solution of alum and saltpetre. In a similar way are 

 Dahlias, in different localities, affected by different soils. 

 — James Stewart. * 



Canker in Auriculis. — I am sorry that Dr. Horner 

 should think I had not attended to his Treatise on the 

 Auricula. I have read it many times. Two things of 

 importance I found in it: one, the time of potting ; the 

 other, the insertion of half-decayed leaves. The latter 

 was not quite new to me. 1 had often seen Auriculas 

 potted with the decayed leaves, vegetable mould, &c. from 

 old fences; but the florists who used this compost often 

 had unsound plants, arising most likely from bad drainage, 

 or drip, or other causes. My own plants were very 



healthy, though not luxuriant. They were potted fa] 

 sandy peat with some cowdung. I have the same Ann- 

 culas now that 1 had nine years ago. Latterly I hare 

 made up a compost for them in the month of July ^ 

 August by stacking sods and weeds with layers of loo* 

 dung. This soon becomes very hot; and when in the 

 course of time it is sufficiently reduced and incorporated, 

 I take two parts of it, one part old cowdung, and half i 

 part sharp white sand. I have used half-decayed Ami- 

 cula-kaves, rags, and Fern, gathered green and laid ins 

 heap to ferment, and sometimes I have dropped in sea* 

 Lichens from the rocks and trees, with the black mould 

 adhering to them. Every plant seems to like Fern-leaves 

 and rags. The cankered plants which I had this yetr 

 were some that 1 bought in spring, ready potted. On 

 turning them out, I found a want of drainage; in some of 

 them merely a single crock over the hole. Then they 

 had been placed on the ground — worms had entered, taj 

 reduced the soil to a mud- paste. I never place my Auri- 

 culas on the ground, but I have seen it done by florists of 

 gome repute ; and they have told me that 1 starved my 

 plants by shelving them. It is true the soil in their 

 frames was hard-rammed or trodden. I never tried the 

 plan of sawing out the shelves to admit air to the roots, 

 but I once happened to have some pots that were netrly 

 cylindrical, and deep enough to allow of 4 or 5 inches of 

 crocks. However, the plants did not thrive in then. 

 They will grow well enough in square boxes, not too deep. 

 I turned out into a dry poor border an Auricula of the 

 white-edged class about 15 months ago. In winter it w* 

 partly covered during rain and frost with a pot; when I 

 took it up, the tap-root was 4 inches long, and quite 

 sound. I had top-dressed this plant on one side with 

 rich compost, and on the other with charcoal earth miied 

 with old manure ; and the fibres on this side were much 

 whiter and healthier-looking than on the other. Bat 

 charcoal-earth -used as topdressing soon becomes mosiT. 

 It has been used for many years by some florists in the 

 West Riding for an ingredient in layering, compost, 



piping, &c, and I believe with advantage.— R. F. 



Mr. Loudon. —Though I am exceedingly grateful to 

 the writers of the two letters relative to my affairs, which 

 appeared in the Chronicle of Dec. 30th, I do not think it 

 would be just to the memory of my late husband to permit 

 the assertion that he left his family in a destitute state, to 

 remain unexplained. He died possessed of the copyright! 

 of 13 works, the profits from which have been so con- 

 siderable that in little more than five years they hive 

 reduced a debt of 10,000/. to 2,400/. It is true that toil 

 latter sum, which is a very large one, is still owing, and 

 that we appear at present to have no means of paying k 

 but by the sacrifice of the copyrights ; but should the 

 same kindly feeling be extended to us that was shown to 

 Mr. Loudon during the fortnight before his death, the 

 debt will soon be paid, and the copyrights will remain for 

 the benefit of the family. The appeal addressed by Mr. 

 Loudon to the public appeared December 1st, and betvrea 

 that day and December 14th, the day of his lamented 

 death, books to the amount of upwards of 300/., were 

 most liberally purchased by a number of the nobility w 

 gentry, whose names would have appeared in the Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle ere this, had it not been for the melan- 

 choly event which has taken place. At present I do net 

 know what my friends will consider best to be done ; bit 

 I can only say that if any plan can be devised by which 

 the public patronage can be obtained so as to enable • 

 to preserve the copyrights alluded to, I shall be moS 

 truly thankful.— J. \V. Loudon, Bayswater, Jam. 3, 184t 



^octettes. 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF CALCUTTA. 



At the general meeting of the Agricultural Society, 

 18th October, amongst other proceedings, a memoranda* 

 from the overseer of the Society's garden mentioned thai 

 about 20,000 Canes, consisting of the Otaheite, Singapore, 

 Bourbon, and China varieties, were ready for cutting; 

 ;ind it was agreed that these Canes should be advertise* 

 for distribution at the same charge as that of former yetrj 

 viz., one anna for each Cane. The secretary mentioned 

 that he had submitted Mr. Sconce's sample of Tea, grow 

 and manufactured at Chittagong, from leaves of A**** 

 plants, to Mr. Charles Terry, and that gentleman m 

 made the following report thereon :— "I have examisei 

 the sample of Tea you sent me, the produce of Chittagong 

 It is a superior Tea in flavour, also in strength, and is * 

 the Pekoe class. Had it been well manufactured, it woo* 

 command a good price in the English market." A let 

 from Mr. Stikeman, secretary to the East I ndiaand J: d* 

 Association, stated that, by the intervention of Dr. Koywj 

 some nuts of the Cacao had been procured for the Soci j 

 from the West Indies ; and a letter from Capt. Marau«» 



communicated the transfer of the greater portion 



of ths 



Chocolate-trees in his garden at Chittagong to that ot 

 Society. On the 8th Nov., in consequence of the pa^ 

 of applications for Sugar-cane, the charge was reducea 

 one-half. — Indian Mail. 





COUNTRY SHOWS. 



Ipswich Cucumber Society, Jan. 3. -This was the annU *L „* 

 ing, and on this occasion a very handsome supply of ga™ ^ 

 sent for dinner by the President, the Right Hon. Lord n* 

 sham, M.P. After the usual loyal toasts, the f « 1 i° ,,v, "! ( , hf p, 

 some of the Horticultural : -"The health of Lord Rf^y^. 

 P. B. Long, Esq., and the Vice Piesidents," &c.&c. "S'ttgrd 

 ley, and success to the Gardeners' Chronicle and Agrtcm 

 Gazette." "To the memory of the late J. C. Loudon, 

 (whose zeal and talent as an author, on Gardening an» ^ 

 subjects connected with rural and domestic economy, n J ^ 

 won the golden opinions of scientific men, both at n ^ 

 abroad) \ and may the leaders of the gardening repuoiu- ^ 

 forth prove themselves as worthy of our esteem. ^ ^ 



Beaton, well known from his writings in the Galena " . ^ 

 Gardeners' Chronicle." Also, " Success to all Cucumber s>ov 



